The mustard seed and the yeast Mt 13:31-33 WBC 24/3/2 pm
2 parables of GROWTH.
- imperceptible start -> massive endings
- “mighty oaks from little acorns grow”
- massive, fruitful, tasty, sheltering, helpful endings
It’s about the power of this stuff. The KOG. It’s transforming power. It’s pervasive power. The invasiveness, humungousnes, growingness of the work of God in
- our lives… ours service.. our community… our world
It’s about it starting off in
- just going to a quiz evening!
- Sitting on our mother’s knee listening to stories about Jesus
- Talking with your neighbour… or a hitchhiker… about God
- Finding yourself in church… alpha… Emmaus
… and before you know it it is everything to you
- you live for it
- are waiting to die for/with/in it
- can’t get enough of it
- can’t stop reading the Bible. Can’t stop loving Jesus
- can’t get enough of Him… of the rule of God in your life
- “Lord, reign on me!!”
As I look at the parable of the dough & yeast, I guess this is the first thing the dough could be
1) YOUR LIFE
How the message about Jesus… the rule of God… just keeps taking more and more territory in your life
- because you want it
- because he’s so winsome… desirable. He beckons ‘et me in’
Successively you open doors to Him:
-. The throne room -> the heart (your affections) -> the mind (your thoughts) -> the rooms (with dirt, dust and hurts in) -> the will
Oh, the bitter shame and sorrow
that a time could ever be,
when I let the Saviour’s pity
plead in vain, and proudly answered:
All of self, and none of thee!
Yet he found me: I beheld him
bleeding on the accursèd tree,
heard him pray: Forgive them, Father;
and my wistful heart said faintly:
Some of self and some of thee!
Day by day his tender mercy,
healing, helping, full and free:
sweet and strong, and ah! so patient,
brought me lower, while I whispered:
Less of self and more of thee!
Higher than the highest heaven,
deeper than the deepest sea;
Lord, thy love at last hath conquered;
grant me now my supplication:
None of self and all of thee!
Words: Theodore Monod, 1874
Before you know it… and as the years go by and you grow in discipleship- the yeast works its way through the whole of your life… and has grown beyond all expectancy
The Key thing is the GROWTH, here. But what else could the dough be? What else could the KOG be growing in?
2) THE COMMUNITY
This could be talking about the impact of the KOG in the community around you
– or, if you like, YOUR impact on the community around you.
– YOU could well be the yeast, here
And here’s the effect as you get: ‘tucked in’… ‘mixed in’…
- where you work. Where you serve. With your neighbours. In your charity project. In your community project… jubilee celebration… ante-natal class… students union… lift sharing scheme… kids club
- something, seemingly, so small – but somehow (eternity will tell) it ends up making a big difference
- note- it does so imperceptibly!
- Can’t find the mustard seed, or the yeast if you go looking for them! Hard to say “there was the starting point.. or person!”
- Particularly with the yeast. Even before it’s lost in the dough it’s dissolved in water.
- How imperceptible you/the deeds can seem. But how powerful
This answers ‘but I can’t see the difference I’m making!”
- = often so true! And hard to see! But after time you see you ARE making a difference
- people come and sit in your shade (Mk), or rest on your branches... enjoy the loaf.
- But “do not despise the day of small beginnings” (Zech 4:10)
- W Clement Stone in THE SUCCESS SYSTEM THAT NEVER FAILS (Englewood Cliff, NJ, Prentice Hall, Inc., 1962) told about a young businessman in Atlanta named Jack Stephens who got a call from a friend who was director of a local Boy’s Club asking him to pick up a young boy and his mother and take them to a hospital. The boy has leukaemia Jack was told, and probably had only a few days to live. Since the boy’s home was only a few blocks away from his own. Jack Stephens agreed to this request. At eight that morning, the mother of the boy was sitting in the front seat of Jack’s car. The child was so weak that he was lying down, his head in his mother’s lap, his little feet resting on Jack’s right leg. After starting the motor, Jack glanced down at the youngster, who was staring at him. Their eyes met. "Are you God?" the boy asked. Jack hesitated, then answered softly, "No, son. Why do you ask?" "Mother said God would come soon and take me away with him." said the young fellow. His plaintive words nearly broke Jack’s heart. Six days later that young fellow did go to be with God. But a radical changed took place in Jack Stephens’ life. The picture of that young boy lying with his head in his mother’s lap--the eyes of that helpless child and the question, "Are you God?" burned themselves forever into his heart and mind. He knew he had to do more than he had been doing. Soon Jack Stephens himself was director of the Joseph B. Whitehead Memorial Boy’s Club in Atlanta.
But as I though about this more, something hit me so strongly about what the dough may be… and it becomes even more clear that we should be mixed in.. tucked in.. to our community
3) THE WORLD
Maybe the dough is the world
Now, you may like this picture because “yes, there’s this flour… bareness.. and we’re the yeast… and we change the flour to dough…and WE make the difference… take God out there. We make the world sacred”
But I got challenged on that one, too!
- if the dough is the world, then
- the Baker is God (i.e. female!)
- point at which it becomes dough (ie flour -> dough… the yeast gets mixed in)… is creation.
… And it tells us
- yeast has been active in the world right from the moment it was formed (not just when we arrive on the scene)
- yeast is universally in the dough. Ie
- Catholicity
- Universality
- I don’t mean in the sense of universal salvation etc- it’s clear not all accept the salvation offer to them.
- Rather Catholicity and Universality in God’s ACTION in the world. Involvement in the world. Bringing of KOG
- makes sense, to! He’s
- intimately involved in His world. Right from start
- His Ruach/breath brought order from the chaos
- (Ruach = CO2, makes bread rise!)
- involved before Jesus’ day
- OT
- God/Jesus has always been ‘walking in the garden’ of this world
- Involved before we arrive on the scene, too
- (temporally & geographically)
- loves everyone
- working I everyone
- in ONE sense: IN everyone. All made in His image (+ His Breath/Rucah/Pneuma/CO2 in us)
It’s an absolute revelation!
And HERE’S the reason we should be OUT there- in the world, serving, spreading the yeast.. making the dough rise… seeing God IN others and SHOWING them Jesus:
- HE’S out there already! At work already. More than we could ever imagine
- Darn! We thought it was here (in these walls) that He was
- Cf like in the temple. But we learn:
- Is 61:1"Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?
- He’s on the streets. And that’s where the blessing and the meat is
- Illustr: above our doors: "enter to worship, leave to serve"
- "Come to worship, go to serve"
- A man dashed into the church very late. And as the usher greeted him at the door he asked, "Is the service over?" And the usher smiled as he said, "Worship is over, but the service is just now beginning."
- But even this fails in its use of language. Even worship doesn’t happen (only) in here! It’s your life in the world that God loves Rom 12!
- We learn:
- That there is no sacred/secular divide!
- We’ve tried to make one:
- Retreat into our churches. Their safety
- Made it ‘spiritual’ to be in full time Xian work
- But we’re all in ‘full time Xian work!’
- There is nothing more spiritual in being a pastor than working in Loch Fein
- We’re ALL in ‘full time Xian work’
- We’re all being mixed into the dough
- THAT attitude negates/demotivates who we spend over HALF of our waking hours!
FILL THOU MY LIFE, O Lord my God, In every part with praise,
That my whole being may proclaim Thy being and Thy ways.
Not for the lip of praise alone, Nor e’en the praising heart
I ask, but for a life made up Of praise in every part:
So shall no part of day or night From sacredness be free;
But all my life, in every step, Be fellowship with Thee.
US evangelicals have made some form of concession to this- calling it ‘prevenial grace’
- ie, God’s there, beforehand, for the purpose of saving them
- but, to me, can be a bit of ‘a recreation of God and His activities in OUR image’
- like We nip out of our ivory towers to just save someone
- (and then drag them back into our enclosure & insularity so that within 7 years have no REAL ‘unchurched’ contact)
But THIS is much greater than prevenial grace!
- God doesn’t nip out there just to save people. For ‘conversions’ sake. He’s out there for CREATION’S sake. He IS out there. He loves it out there. He is working out there. He is out there because it’s His creation & ever since creation He’s been trying to mix the yeast (us, the message of the KOG, Himself) into the dough still further
- But we resist it (don’t wanna get mixed in) (
- (AND frankly the world can see through it!)
See why we should be ‘out there’ even more?
- see why you ARE out there? In work. Workplace. Families
- see why you gotta fight the sacred/secular divide?
- See why you’ve gotta believe God is WITH YOU out there?
- Otherwise you’ll miss ITS value… YOUR value
- The sacredness of everyday… normal… life
- Otherwise you’ll miss all the opportunities He’s giving you
- (you’ll only be looking for them in church)
- “TEST ME IN THIS! Test me and see if I’m out there!
Open your eyes and LOOK!
- otherwise you’ll miss- God in others
- (I’m not saying they’re all ‘saved’, at all. But surely we should leave that to God and be keen to
- love. No manipulative. Non evangelism-fodder love
- see God In people. Be inclusive
- (= best way of drawing people in. Cf Nathan in car lift on Wed pm. “DO you believe in God??!” “see you in heaven”
- learn from people
AS we close:
- “TEST ME IN THIS!
- Look for me!
- Follow me!”
? Come and share how you feel about this… some testimonies.?
TTT- This Time Tomorrow. Activities
- Sarah Dearing: “Empowerment for life for disabled people”
- Janet Sparkes: how many people will you have contact with?
- Your work in itself
- Come up and tell us how you’re gonna be in the dough, this week
