Good morning.
There was a pastor who was preaching on going to heaven. He said to his congregation, ‘How many of you would like to go to heaven tonight?’ Everybody raised their hands, except a little boy up in the balcony. The pastor tried again, ‘How many of you would like to go to heaven?’ Everybody but the little boy in the balcony raised their hands. So he finally said to the boy, ‘Son, don’t you want to go to heaven?’ The little boy said, ‘’Yeah, someday…but I thought you were getting’ up a load right now.’
This morning, we’re going to be talking about the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ or as it is sometimes referred to, the ‘Kingdom of God’.
It was interesting to me that during my preparation for this sermon, I was reminded that Matthew was the ‘most Jewish’ of the all the Gospel writers. And because that was so, he refers to the Kingdom of Heaven thirty-two times and he refers to the Kingdom of God only four times. The reason for this practice, I found, is that the Jewish writers at that time tried to avoid using any verbal references to God for fear of breaking the third commandment, which says, ‘You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.’
So you can see why Matthew used the phrase Kingdom of Heaven more often in his writings. He definitely had a healthy fear of the Lord. And so, understanding this, we now know that the terms Kingdom of Heaven and the phrase Kingdom of God are really interchangeable in regards to their meaning throughout the New Testament.
As we look more critically at what the Bible says about the Kingdom of Heaven, we find that Jesus revealed to us that the Kingdom of Heaven is a gift from God that comes to people only…and I say only, when they are willing to accept it. You will find that the Kingdom is primarily the inward reign of God in an individual that then manifests itself externally in and through a Christian’s life.
As we accept Christ into our lives, we then acknowledge the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then directs our Sanctification…leading us, teaching us, interpreting our prayers, comforting and assuring us and revealing to us God’s will for our lives. As we mature in our faith, and we learn how to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus, we begin to externalize this gift of Heaven by professing our faith in Christ Jesus to others…doing for others and calling to them to enter into the Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ our Savior.
When Jesus was with us here on earth, He viewed His Father’s Kingdom in three ways…past, present and future.
Present…
Jesus speaks of the Kingdom as being present….that it is present in the lives of individuals. Our Bible speaks about the Kingdom as being ‘preached’ (Matt. 4:23, 9:35), as being ‘received’ (Mark 10:15, Luke 18:17). The Kingdom can be ‘entered’ (Matt. 5:20, 18:3). One may not be ‘far from the kingdom’ (Mark 12:34). And so you can see now, that the Kingdom of Heaven was considered a present reality by Jesus.
Past…
But even though the Kingdom is a present reality that is within each one of us, it is also a reality of the past. The Bible identifies the prophets, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and other Old Testament prophets as coming before in the Kingdom. And in essence, saying the Kingdom has existed prior to our present time.
Future…
And the Bible also indicates that the Kingdom exists in the future. For Joseph of Arimathea, he had waited for the Kingdom. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, they all state that the Kingdom would come in the lifetime of some who listened to Jesus, in other words, in their future. Jesus himself looked forward to the coming of the Kingdom.
And regarding the second coming of Jesus…one of the most mentioned topics in the New Testament, by-the-way... we know in our present age that ‘in the future’, the Son of Man will usher in the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.
And so, from the words of Jesus himself, we begin to understand that the existence of the Kingdom of Heaven is all of this…it is a reality in the past, in the present and in the future.
The Disciples asked Jesus, ‘Why do you tell stories to the people?’
In order for Jesus to teach and explain the glories of Heaven to the people of his time, he used stories to which they could relate…stories of sheep and animals, stories of farming and daily life. Jesus turned to everyday life in Galilee in order to illustrate the Kingdom of God.
With regards to our scripture this morning about the leaven being mixed with the dough, the smaller towns and villages had no bakeries; women made bread in their own homes. Jesus had, no doubt, often seen his mother use leaven…dough leaven was mixed into the new batch of dough, it changed the characteristics of the dough…that is, the dough rose and made full loaves when mixed with the leaven.
And just like the leaven affecting the dough, God’s kingdom likewise changes everything when it is received into our lives.
And so, by telling these simple stories, Jesus was able to help the people understand more fully the wonders of God’s Kingdom.
Our scripture this morning is one of six parables Jesus told during a day of teaching explaining what Heaven was like. This morning, I’d like to talk more about just one of those parables. It’s the parable of the yeast.
Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.’
I picked this parable this morning because it speaks to me about my Father. My Dad was a music teacher. He taught band in the Salina Public Schools for some thirty years. He and my mother then moved to Florida. My Dad accepted a job with the First United Methodist Church in Fort Myers, Florida as the Music Director there. The church there had five choirs, ranging from a kid’s choir to youth and adult choirs.
When he began his duties there, he found that the choirs had dwindled severely in numbers over the years and were struggling to remain as a vital part of the worship service.
Well, that’s when Dad went to work in his kitchen. He had a great Sourdough Bread recipe. He would prepare enough dough for a batch of 15 loaves at a time. I believe my brother has a picture of Dad standing in his kitchen in his apron, with a big smile evident under his large handlebar moustache with 15 loaves sitting on the counter in front of him.
Each time a batch of hot bread came out of the oven, he would quickly wrap each loaf in shiny aluminum foil and wrap a big red bow around it, put them in the car and take them to prospective choir members…still warm from the oven. By the end of that first year, he had the biggest and most active choirs in Fort Myers.
Slide six…scripture
Bread has a wonderful affect on us…it smells so good when it’s baking…it tastes so good smeared with butter and our favorite jelly or jam. And it all comes from the mixing of flour, water and leaven.
This scripture of the leavening of the dough, believe it or not, is a very controversial parable. The Bible many times reflects leaven in a bad light. Often leaven symbolized for the Jewish people an evil influence. In fact, elsewhere in the New Testament this is true. Jesus advised his disciple to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod (Mark 8:15). Paul twice used the phrase, ‘A little leaven leavens the whole lot,’ as he exhorted Christian people to separate themselves from all things that can in any way influence for evil (1 Cor. 5:6, Gal. 5:9). And if a Jewish proselyte relapsed into pagan ways, the rabbis spoke of it as a ‘return to his leaven’.
But on the other hand, it is not fair to say that the Jews always used leaven as a synonym for wickedness or bad influence. One rabbi said, ‘Great is peace when that peace is to the earth as the leaven is to the dough.’
Anyway…the point of this parable is not whether leaven is good or bad; rather, it is used to illustrate that the most silent of forces may, in some cases, be the strongest of influences.
There was a man named Lord Kelvin. Lord Kelvin is still known for his creation of a scale that measures extreme temperatures. It’s known as the Kelvin scale.
Lord Kelvin liked to experiment. Once he suspended a large and heavy piece of metal from the ceiling of his laboratory. He then began throwing small paper wads at it in order to try to measure their impact…nothing happened at first…but as he continued to hit it with these small paper wads, that heavy piece of metal began to swing ever so slightly. The small finally impacted the large…and made a difference.
The impact of small things seem to have a small effect, and this is true to a degree, but there are many things that are small that have a great impact. Take for instance, western music. Every piece of music ever composed is written from the combinations of just 12 simple notes, Our English literature is composed of combinations of 26 letters. Small and simple, but the impact is great indeed.
The Impact of the Church, it started with a mere 12 men. They worked in this world for the impact of Christ, and they have changed the world with the power of God.
Regarding our scripture this morning; it speaks of the power of yeast and how its characteristics makes dough rise to over twice its size.
When the woman in our scripture mixed the leaven into the dough…even though the leaven was small, it changed the large amount of dough. This leaven is made up of millions of individual living cells that work to inflate the dough with carbon dioxide, providing growth and added flavor to the finished loaf of bread.
Our scripture this morning speaks to us as a church. We, too, might think of ourselves as small and insignificant…too small to affect any real change. But that isn’t true. If Jesus went to the extreme sacrifice to save each one of us individually…if he thinks that we are worthy of being saved for eternal life with him…then we are not insignificant.
Jesus started with 12 men…we sit here in the strength of more than that. I’ll say it again…Christianity isn’t easy. We come to worship each Sunday to garner God’s wisdom and strength for our lives…but more than that we come to learn how to affect a larger community of people. Those that have not found a church home…those that are unaware to the blessing God offers his children…those who are lonely, lost and the least.
Yes, we are the ‘Yeast’ for the larger ‘Dough’…the dough of this community…the dough that affects the direction of this state and nation…the dough that can help save lives on this planet and in this world.
But where do we start? How do we do that? You might say, what can I do?
Well, like the little wads of paper being thrown against that large piece of metal, we can throw out our invitations…invitations to our friends, our relatives, our acquaintances…even our neighbors.
It’s a simple thing to do. Just invite someone to come to church with you. And it if doesn’t work the first time…throw out another invitation and another and another.
Yes, it can start here…it must start here. Let’s begin to create some ‘Sourdough Spirituality’ here at Oxford United Methodist Church. Let’s begin to invite, invite, invite. You never know what kind of effect you might have on someone’s life, until you extend that first invitation.
Jesus said, ‘Heaven is like the woman who mixed a little yeast into a large amount of dough…’ There’s never a better time than this coming week…to do a little mixing and bring a little bit of heaven to someone else by kindly inviting them to church. That is my challenge to you this morning…to extend an invitation to someone this week…that one solitary someone. I hope you’ll take up the challenge. You never know what might come of it.
Let us pray…
Our Father, each week we pray ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’. Help us this morning, to garner your wisdom and strength to go out this week and extend our invitations…mixing our Christian ‘yeast’ in the cough of someone’s life…so that they may come to know You and Your son, Jesus Christ…in whose name we pray. Amen.
