bread
In the Strength of that Food
By Linda Rex
August 8, 2021, PROPER 14—I was looking on a neighborhood site this morning, seeing what Nashvillians have on their mind, when I came across a story about a cat. This cat would leave the house in the morning to go hunting, apparently, and come home at night to sleep in the owner’s house. She was a beloved pet who was well-cared for by her owner.
The owner noticed one day, though, that someone was replacing the collars on the cat. She began, over time, to realize that the cat must have another owner somewhere else who was also taking care of her. The cat was at home in both people’s houses, allowing them both to believe they were the sole owner and caregiver for her. I was amused by how the smart pet got her needs taken care of abundantly by having two homes instead of one.
This resonated a little with our readings for this Sunday, which talk about finding our provision in Christ. For example, 1 Kings 19:4–8 is about the time when the prophet Elijah, after facilitating a triumphant display of God’s power and a recommitment of the people to God, received a death threat from Queen Jezebel. Elijah fled into the wilderness, crawled under a tree and asked God to take his life. After the supreme heights of spiritual victory, the prophet hit bottom, and could not go any farther.
In this short clip, we read that God took seriously Elijah’s depression and exhaustion. An angel brought him food, and then the prophet slept. More food appeared, so Elijah ate and slept once more. Eating again, he then traveled, “in the strength of that food” for forty days and nights to Mount Horeb to meet with God. It was at Horeb that God showed himself to Elijah in “the still small voice” rather than in the big, boisterous natural events of a windstorm or earthquake.
There is much we can learn from this short glimpse into Elijah’s life and ministry. In our gospel passage for today, Jesus repeated the phrase, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus called himself the living bread. He revealed himself as the “I am” of the Old Testament, who was the One who met Elijah in the midst of his struggle, and took care of his needs. The people of Jesus’ day, however, could not get past the fact that Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph, someone who grew up in their village and that everyone knew. How could he possibly have descended from heaven?
Jesus was making some very serious claims. He was saying, in effect, that he was God, present in their midst. He was saying that he eternally existed and yet was born and raised among them as a human being. He told them that his flesh was to be their sustenance—he was to be the source of their life, and that he was going to give his flesh for the world. This was all really hard for his hearers to get their mind around. They simply could not accept the full implications of what he was teaching.
Drawing upon Elijah’s experience, though, let’s look at what Jesus was offering them—and offering us today. First, they were like Elijah, and like the rest of us, hiding in the wilderness of evil, sin and death—facing the consequences of all our decisions as human beings to do things our own way, under our own power. There is no freedom from our slavery to sin, self, and Satan apart from God’s intervention. What hope do we have? Only God himself can deliver us from our bondage to these things. And this is what Jesus came to do.
Secondly, we often as human beings often do our best to get right with God on our own. We can be incredibly religious in how we go about it too. Or we can simply say to ourselves, why bother? There is no way for us to make things right with God or ever be what we should be. So, we don’t even try. Thankfully, this is also why Jesus came. In fact, Jesus tells us to find our rest in him—to take on his yoke, for it is light and easy. Jesus lived our life, died our death and rose again so that these chains would be broken and we would have new life in him. What a precious gift! We have freedom in Jesus as we rest in him, trusting in his perfect finished work, not in ourselves or any of our own efforts.
Thirdly, we are reminded to feed on Christ. Yes, we do regularly take communion in remembrance of what Christ has done, but in this instance, what Jesus means is that we draw our life, our sustenance, our existence from him. We feed upon him by living life in an active, ongoing relationship with him, spending time in conversation with him, trusting in his love and grace, reading his word, fellowshipping with other believers, walking in love, and growing up in Christ.
And finally, it is in the strength of this nourishment, this divine food, that we meet with God. It is in and through Jesus that we are brought up into the inner fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit, in union and communion with the Triune God. Christ bears our glorified humanity in the Father’s presence now and forever, and shares this close, intimate relationship with each of us as we turn to him in faith. What could be more glorious than that? Always and ever, in Christ, we are held in the midst of the divine life and love, included in their loving fellowship.
Whatever struggles we may have in this life, and no matter how dark into the depths of despair we may go, we can have great peace as we rest in Christ and in his finished work. Our life is in him now. He is our hope, for he is our life. The Father draws us to his Son—inviting us to come, to believe, and to rest in him. Jesus promises, as we do so, that beyond living with him now day by day in the Spirit, when he returns in glory, he will raise us up to live with him forever and ever in the new heavens and new earth. Now that is a meal worth savoring!
Thank you, Father, for drawing us up into relationship with you through Jesus in the Spirit. Thank you, Jesus, for offering yourself to us and giving us real life—life in the Spirit—a life full of faith, hope and love in fellowship with you now and forever. Grant us the grace to rest in you, trusting in your finished work, your love and care. Amen.
“But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, ‘It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.’ He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, ‘Arise, eat.’ Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, ‘Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you.’ So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.” 1 Kings 19:4–8 NASB
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” John 6:(35, 41–51) 47–51 NASB
The Lord Is In It
By Linda Rex
July 25, 2021, PROPER 12—This is a wonderful day, because the Lord is in it. I can hear it now—all the stories of what is going wrong in the world—floods in Europe, droughts in the U.S., and a zillion other tragedies happening all around us. How in the world can I simply say that it is a wonderful day, because the Lord is in it?
I’m sensing more and more that this “information age” we are living in is starting to take its toll upon countless people who can no longer believe in or celebrate a living God who loves them and cares deeply about them and about everything that is going on in their lives. It is easy to find experts who will tell us all the reasons not to believe that Jesus Christ actually lived and was who he said he was—the Messiah, God in human flesh. Why should we bother when by all appearances the evidence tells us otherwise?
For some, it is easy to alter or bring into question the Scriptures the church uses to teach and form its theology. And it is easy to reformulate the creeds or bring into question their validity, challenging what has been held for centuries as orthodox doctrine. We can also quite easily find fault with the early apostolic succession following the resurrection, which ensured the validity of the canon and the creeds of the early church. We realize that humans are faulty and records can be altered or misused or eliminated. But what happens when we end up face to face with the resurrected Jesus Christ? What happens when you or I encounter the living Lord?
When the early Christian martyrs faced their executioners, they were often asked to renounce Jesus Christ in order to save themselves from a horrific painful death. But they would reply, in essence, that to deny Christ was to deny their Lord, the one who saved them, the one who loved them unconditionally and suffered and died on their behalf. Because they had personally encountered the resurrected Lord and received him by faith, they simply could not do it, just as they could not avoid praying for those who were causing them such suffering and death—for this was Jesus’ way. Living in union and communion with their Lord meant for them a sharing in his suffering and death and they thought it nothing to offer themselves in the same way that Jesus had offered himself so freely on behalf of all humanity.
We can get so immersed in the complexities of the theology and doctrine that we miss the simplicity of the gospel. In this moment today, wherever we are and whoever we are—we need to be honest and truthful with ourselves. Instead of critiquing Christians or the Christian faith, perhaps we need to gaze silently upon the One who is the foundation or cornerstone—Jesus Christ.
In gazing upon him, we see ourselves. He is that human we were created to be, who as God in human flesh, loved and obeyed our heavenly Father wholeheartedly and lived a life filled with and led by the Spirit, so he loved and served others as we were created to. The deepest hunger or yearning of our heart was meant to be filled by him—whether we realize it or not. What we stuff with so many other things will never find its fullness apart from his indwelling presence by the Holy Spirit. We were always meant to have God living in us as well as with us.
When Jesus saw a large crowd approaching, he asked Philip about buying enough food to feed them. Philip replied that it would cost about two hundred day’s wages to buy that much food. Andrew, trying to be helpful, offered a poor lad’s lunch—five barley loaves and two fish, but admitted it was nothing compared to what was needed (John 6:1–21). What was needed was enough food to feed five thousand men plus women and children. Jesus’ point was that there was no way they could feed that many people. It was just not humanly possible. But it was still a wonderful day, because he was in it.
Let’s accept that it is just not humanly possible for us to live the way we were meant to live, apart from Christ. We need to be freed from our enslavement to unhealthy ways of living and being. We need to be cured of our self-focused way of thinking and acting. We need to be freed from our enslavement to hedonism, and all the other isms we give ourselves over to in an effort to find some sort of life in this world (Psalm 14:1-4). We may not realize it, but that is why Jesus came, why he sat on that mountainside teaching the crowds, and why he fed the multitudes.
The multitudes of all humanity needed to be fed, to be given the good news that they were loved. “God so loved the world that he gave his one unique Son…” (John 3:16). So God in Christ came, lived our life, was crucified in our place, was buried in a tomb, and rose again, seen by many witnesses who verified his resurrection. Then he sent the Spirit—God come into human flesh in a new and permanent way. The Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, is now received as we place our faith in him. Just as the crowds that day took into their hands the fish and bread and ate them, so we receive with gratitude the new life Christ forged for us in his finished work.
What happens when the Spirit changes someone is truly a miracle—the greatest miracle of all, even greater in many ways than the feeding of thousands of people from five barley loaves and two fish. When Jesus brings us to faith, we are never the same again. This is a genuine relationship with a living Person. This is not a fantasy or a made-up experience. It is real. We continue to be broken, faulty people when we come to faith in Christ, but there is a transformation which occurs—a regeneration—one which becomes more and more evident as time goes by as we yield to the work of the Holy Spirit.
This miracle begins with seeing ourselves in the face of Jesus, looking into his eyes and seeing the reflection of his Father’s love for us. In spite of seeing our failures and sins, we rest on God’s amazing grace—his forgiveness and acceptance. We awaken to the reality that our real food is the love of God expressed fully to us in the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ. We have God’s love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and are invited to be led by this Spirit of Christ who dwells in us (Ephesians 3:14–21). We follow Jesus’ lead, learning more and more as time goes on what it means to live and walk as he did, allowing him to bring about the changes in us that are needed to bring us into the fullness of the image of Christ we were meant to bear.
How do we get to the place where we are willing to simply say, “I believe”? It certainly is a divine mystery to me. And it often begins with a simple prayer. But I’ve seen the miracle happen again and again. And it’s only the beginning of a lifelong journey with Jesus in the Spirit for the one who takes that first step of faith and moves on into commitment to Christ. This is why I believe that in spite of all that’s happening around us that seems so terrible, it is still a wonderful day, because the Lord is in it.
Loving Lord, we admit our failures to love, our sinful words and actions, and our broken ways of living life. We believe Jesus, that you are our true sustenance, our life and breath, the living bread we need to truly live. We receive all you offer us in your life, death, resurrection and ascension, and in the gift of your Spirit. We commit ourselves to following wherever you lead, now and forever. Amen.
“Then Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat down with His disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near. Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’ This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do. Philip answered Him, ‘Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.’ One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, ‘There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?’” John 6:3–9 (1–21) NASB
A Heart of Compassion
By Linda Rex
August 2, 2020, PROPER 13—So many news reports today focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, the related economic and unemployment troubles, as well as the ongoing racial tensions around this country. We have experienced powerful emotional responses to the news and social media coverage of these situations—fear, anger, frustration, sadness. It seems that we are being bombarded on all sides with every reason to lose hope and give ourselves over to fear and anxiety.
I have no doubt that this is encouraged and inspired by the father of lies who seeks only to kill, steal, and destroy. And whether we want to admit it or not, we are responsible for our choices to walk apart from the One who would gladly intervene to heal, restore, and help. Whether we like to hear it or not, blaming God for all this isn’t truthful, nor is it helpful. If anything, we need to believe that underneath all of our messy lives still lies the everlasting arms of a loving Savior.
It would be healing, I believe, to take the time to contemplate the manner of Savior we do have. If we had a God who understood what it means to suffer and grieve, and who cares about us, that would provide some comfort and encouragement when life gets tough. We read the testimony of witnesses in the Bible who say that the Word of God was sent to us, to live in our humanity and experience life as we do. This God/man Jesus Christ walked the dusty roads of Palestine, ate and drank with people from all walks of life, and bore the rejection and ridicule of those who should have welcomed him.
He had a relative named John, who was called by God to prepare the way for his coming. John preached in the wilderness, and baptized those who responded to his call to repent and be baptized. Jesus himself came to him to be baptized for the sake of all humanity, and John, under protest, did as Jesus asked. Later, John had the courage to speak the truth about the king’s immoral behavior, and ended up in prison.
Both men were obedient to the call of God on their lives. When Jesus heard that John had been beheaded by the king, he was profoundly impacted by the news. His heart was filled with compassion and grief for John, possibly some concern about his own path towards a tragic death, and he knew the only way he could deal with any of this was by taking it to his heavenly Father. He went to find a secluded place to spend time with his Abba.
But the people followed him. They were looking for a savior, a deliverer—someone to help them and heal them. When Jesus saw them, his heart went out to them. He was filled with compassion, and healed the sick people who came to him. Even though what he needed as a human was time alone with God to heal and prepare for his future, he took time to help those who sought him out. He ministered to others even though he desired to be ministered to by his Father.
In Jesus we see a deep compassion—an other-centered love which placed the needs of those around him above his own needs. Jesus knew the Source of his strength, wisdom, and power, and was wanting to be renewed and refreshed in his Father’s presence. But he also understood the cry of those about him who needed love, healing, and forgiveness. He knew this was the Father’s heart that he was expressing toward them. Every act of healing and love came straight from his Father’s hands by the Spirit to those who were in need.
As the day drew to a close, the disciples came to Jesus and suggested that he send the people away so they could get food before the shops in the distant towns were closed for the day. Jesus challenged his disciples by telling them, “You give them something to eat.” No doubt their jaws dropped in surprise. “You can’t be serious, Jesus!” Right away they began explaining their limitations—there was no way they could feed over five thousand people!
So often this is my own response to that twinge in my heart which calls me to help someone! Here the disciples couldn’t see any way to do what was needed in the situation—they only had five loaves of bread and two fish. How far could that go? It wouldn’t even feed the disciples themselves. Why would Jesus ask them to do something they could not realistically do? What was he thinking?
What Jesus did next is instructive to us as his followers. He took the little that was available and lifted it up to his Father in prayer. Jesus knew from personal experience that what little he had, when given to the Father, would be more than what was needed in the situation. Hadn’t he experienced this that very day, when he had sought time alone with the Father to regain his spiritual strength and peace, and found himself doing ministry instead? And hadn’t his Father been faithful to carry him through as he needed the presence and power of the Spirit to do ministry?
So Jesus lifted up the fish and bread to his Father and blessed them. Then he gave them to the disciples, who then gave them to the crowd of people. Jesus was not directly involved in this miracle—he left the grunt work to the disciples. It was as they distributed the bread and fish that it was multiplied to the point that everyone ate and was satisfied. Remarkably, there was so much food left over, that each of the twelve disciples picked up a basketful of the remnants of the meal when everyone was done eating.
What happened when Jesus offered the little that the disciples had to his Father? It was multiplied to meet the present need. This was a lesson that they needed to learn—to trust God for all that they needed in order to serve those they were sent to.
Maybe today would be a good time to pause and consider, what have we been anxious and concerned about lately? Is there anything we feel totally inadequate to deal with or to take care of? What are we lacking that we know we cannot provide for ourselves? Is there some ministry task Jesus has given us that we believe we cannot do because we think we don’t have what is needed to do it?
The reality is that so often we depend upon ourselves, or others, or money or our government for what we need. This life is filled with experiences and circumstances where we cannot do for ourselves or for others what is needed. This means life so often can be fearful, frustrating, infuriating, and full of anxiety, sorrow and grief.
What we need to remember is the compassion and understanding of the God who made us, who is willing to do for us what we cannot do. He is the God who can stretch things way beyond the limits we think they have. He can also help us to see things in a new way and discover that what we thought we needed isn’t what is really important—he may have something much better in mind.
Our Abba is the compassionate One who is Healer, Restorer, and Provider. Relying upon ourselves places us in the middle of the wilderness with only a bit of fish and bread to take care of our needs. What God wants us to do is to offer all that we do have up to him, and then to take it and do those things he would have us do with what we are given. Then as we trust, as we walk in obedience, he will ensure we have everything we need and maybe even more than we can ask or imagine.
Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness, love, and grace. We offer ourselves again, all we are and all we have up to you. Please stretch it, replenish it, renew it—make it abundantly sufficient for all you give us to do. Grant us the grace to trust you, to walk in obedience to your Spirit, and to express your heart of compassion to each and every person you bring before us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
“Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; |And you who have no money come, buy and eat. | Come, buy wine and milk | Without money and without cost. | Why do you spend money for what is not bread, | And your wages for what does not satisfy? | Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, | And delight yourself in abundance.” Isaiah 55:1-2 NASB
See also Matthew 14:13–21.
But That Was Then
By Linda Rex
Lent: Awhile back it seemed that everywhere I went, someone was talking about the upcoming lottery. There was quite a bit of money at stake and a lot of people were hoping they might be the lucky one to win it all.
Some of the people who had aspirations of winning the jackpot had some great ideas of how they would spend the millions which would come their way. They would take care of family needs and give some of their new funds away to charity. They might put their children through college and they would probably buy a new car or two.
All of these are good things to do. The change in their financial position would no doubt alter their lifestyle in some way. But altering their circumstances and changing the financial condition of their lives would alter all of their relationships, and it would make demands of them which would require strong character and wisdom. Sadly, not everyone is able to handle this type of dramatic change.
This is because, even with the positive changes that come with being financially solvent and wealthy, there are some things that would not change. They would still be the same people they were before they won the lottery. Their character and nature would not change for the better just because they were well off. Indeed, they may even change for the worse. We hear too often of those whose family and personal life disintegrated after winning the lottery.
Believe me, I’m not criticizing or making fun of those who play the lottery. I’m merely using it to illustrate a point.
I’ve been preaching about temptation during this Lenten season. The reading for last Sunday was 1 Cor. 10:1-13. This passage talks about all the ways Israelites fell prey to temptation while they traveled in the wilderness under the guidance and provision of the Lord.
They had been rescued from slavery, and walked through the Red Sea while the Egyptians who were chasing them drowned. They were brought into relationship with the Lord of the universe who made a covenant with them to be their God while they would be his people. It seemed that Israel had won the jackpot. They had everything they could possibly want at their disposal.
With one caveat: Now they no longer called the shots. From now on they were not slaves of another nation, but neither were they their own masters. Instead, they were the children of Israel, sons of the Most High God. And being children of God meant that they were to live in accordance with the truth of who they were. They were made in the image of God to reflect him, both in their love for one another, and in their love for and devotion to God. God had redeemed them and adopted them as his children. And God wanted them to live like it.
And this was what they wrestled with throughout their history. Many of them wanted to choose to live their own way, as humanity has done since the dawn of creation. And even when they did try to keep the law, they did it in such a way that they developed their own list of rules and methods of interpreting the law. These Jesus eventually criticized because they actually kept people from obeying God’s will in the way God intended.
Even though Israel’s circumstances changed dramatically when they were rescued from Egypt, they themselves did not change. It seems that the external differences in their lives did not alter their character. They were more comfortable with who they thought they were—defined by the onions, and leeks and pleasures of their old life in Egypt. Changes in their circumstances and lifestyles did not suddenly create an understanding of who God was and who they were in relationship to him. And it didn’t immediately instill a faith in God or a devotion to him.
This was something that God worked to grow in them during their travels in the wilderness. He took care of their need for food by providing bread from heaven. He took care of their thirst by giving them water from a rock. He guided them with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He worked constantly to teach them what it meant to live in relationship with one another and their heavenly Father. He strove constantly to show his faithful love and compassion even when they rejected him and disobeyed him.
Ultimately, it was in the gift of his Son Jesus that Israel was given what they had needed all along—a new heart and mind. The Word of God took on our humanity and lived the life we all fail to live, died the death we deserve to die, and then rose from the grave. After ascending to the Father, Jesus sent the Spirit to dwell in human hearts—offering us the transition from our old ways of living and being into that of the Triune life.
First Jesus was human in the same way you and I are. He knew what it was like to take a deep breath of springtime air, and he knew the smell of smoke from a campfire. He knew what it was like to be cold, and what it was like to be so hot he could hardly stand it. He was as fully flesh as you and I are.
But then he died and was resurrected. His resurrected body didn’t cease to be human—it just was glorified. He now holds in himself the glorified humanity of each of us. He is what we were meant to become as glorified human beings. The apostle Paul wrote that that just as Jesus is no longer what he used to be, so we are made new as well. In Christ we are new creatures.
This means, like Israel, we are in a totally different situation than we expected. We have all of the beauties and wonders of heaven before us because the God of the universe has called you and me and everyone else his very own. He has adopted us into his family—we are children of God. The old ways of being and living are gone—God calls the shots now.
This means we are not our own masters. We are not captains of our own fate. God has declared our destiny in Christ. But we are fully free to choose to love God and follow Christ, or to reject or ignore him. Our decision does not alter the reality of God’s decision to love us and include us in his family. But it does affect how we experience that reality both now and in the world to come.
God has brought us through Jesus’ baptism just as he brought Israel through the Red Sea. He has delivered us from our old ways of living and being, and freed us from those things that held us captive, just as he freed Israel from slavery in Egypt. God brought us into a covenant love relationship with himself just as he did with Israel, and he nourishes us with bread from heaven in Jesus Christ and water from the Rock in the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have been given all we need to become all that God has declared we are.
As we respond to this gift of Jesus Christ and open our hearts and minds to the work of the Spirit, we will find ourselves changing. This will not be an external change, but rather a change of heart and mind. Our circumstances may not change—they may even grow more difficult—but we will be transformed. God will take us on wilderness journeys and will grow us up in Christ. Over time, we will find ourselves in agreement with God in ways we never thought possible before. When God goes to work, we change.
And the change God brings about in our being enables us to begin to live in accordance with the truth of who we are as children of God, made in his image and redeemed by Jesus Christ through the Spirit. We begin to live now as residents of the kingdom of heaven—loving God and one another in the same way that the Father, Son and Spirit have lived for all eternity. This is what we were created for—and God is working in us by the Spirit to form Christ in us so we can fully share in his Triune life and love forever. And that, to me, makes each of us the real lottery winners, no matter who we are.
Thank you, Father, for the gift of your Son and your Spirit by whom you are working to transform us and grow us up into your image. Grant us the grace to respond fully and obediently to the Spirit’s work so that we may grow up into Christ as you wish. In your Name we pray. Amen.
“Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5:16–17 NASB
The Kingdom, the Baker and Breadmaking
by Linda Rex
Jesus had this way of taking the most everyday tasks and events and turning them into a deeply spiritual concept, especially when he started talking about the kingdom of God. One of those unique parables of Jesus was brought to my attention in a new way this week as I prepared for Sunday’s sermon.
Previously, I hadn’t given much focused thought on the idea that Jesus described God as a baker. And not just a baker, but a woman who baked bread. And she wasn’t a wimpy woman at that—she was able to handle a large amount of dough at once. Three pecks of flour is the equivalent of 16 five-pound bags—enough with about 42 cups of water to make about 101 pounds of dough. That’s a lot of dough!(1)
So, here I see pictured a woman who is doing an everyday task—making bread, and she is physically strong and capable. I like that. How often we women are called on to be physically strong and capable!
I think sometimes that we assume that the Bible and Jesus portray God as being male since most of the language used in relation to him is masculine. But there is a significant difference between human gender and the gender of human language. We have to keep that in mind when we begin to think seriously about the nature of God.
I know that many men are good bakers. In fact, I remember my dad being fond of making unleavened bread. It was something he took up doing late in life that I never expected to find him doing. I tasted some of his products and they were pretty good. But perhaps the culture in Jesus’ day expected a baker to be female—so here God is pictured as a woman.
Breadmaking is something I enjoy doing. In fact, at one point in my life, I started making all our bread by hand because the motion of kneading the dough helped me to heal from an injury to my wrist. It became a therapy that prevented me from having to have surgery. And it worked. And it’s a creative process. I love being creative—I take after the Creator in that way.
But, back to the Breadmaker. The woman with all that flour hides leaven in the flour and it all becomes leavened. One of the simplest recipes I’ve used is for making pizza dough, and it probably resembles pretty closely how bread was made centuries ago. And it got me to thinking about how hiding leaven in flour is related to the kingdom of God.
Most all of the recipes that I can think of for bread start with yeast and water (or milk), a touch of salt and oil. All of that comes first. It is possible that what is meant by leaven in this parable was sourdough starter, which is a small batch of dough that is full of active yeast cultures. Either way, the ingredients that we start bread with—oil, salt, water—along with the yeast, are often used in the Word to describe God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This is worth giving meditative thought to.
In fact, I go back to the beginning of the world and find there hovering over the deep waters, the Spirit of God, who when the Word spoke the will of the Father, brought about our existence. God breathed the Breath of life into all that lives and breathes. All the animals and humans breathe oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. It is carbon dioxide that is created when the yeast in bread begins the fermentation process. And this is what causes the dough to rise. Thought-provoking.
Once these leavening ingredients are blended with the flour, there is no separating of them. The leavening process begins to fill the whole wad of dough, especially when the strong, capable baker begins to knead the dough. I’m not even sure she could stop the process once she started. The leaven is an intimate part of the dough, and this becomes evident as the dough begins to rise, and when it is baked into bread.
The kingdom of God is not something that just appeared when Jesus came to earth. For he was in the person of the Word, present in the beginning with the Father and the Spirit when all was made. The purposes and plans of God have not been derailed, but are gradually being kneaded into the dough. In time the heat of the fire will reveal an awesome loaf of bread.
In the meantime though, we find that the dough isn’t always compliant and responsive to the baker. As she pushes the dough down with her hands, the dough pushes back. The working of the dough and its response both positive and negative are a part of the bread-making process.
We tend to think God’s goal right now is to get rid of everything bad in the world. Just slay all these dragons, Lord! But the thing is that God is allowing the evil here for the moment—though he hates what it does to his children—so that he can accomplish the kingdom work he’s trying to do. He’s allowing us to resist him—though it’s foolish to do so—because he knows that it is a part of the free will and growing up process. He’s big enough, clever enough, perfect enough to deal with evil summarily and completely in his own time and way. But he doesn’t always do it right this minute when we think he should.
The baker decides what the end loaf is going to look like. Dough can be used for many things. In fact it can be divided up and used as individual little loafs we call dinner rolls. It can be used as a base for pizza. It can be broiled, boiled and baked as bagels. It can be fried as fritters or sweetened and spiced as cinnamon rolls. Or it can just be made into a plain, old loaf of bread. That’s the baker’s call.
We don’t know what the kingdom of God is going to look like in the end. We’re not really sure what the divine Baker is doing right now or why he is doing it. But one thing is sure—the leaven is filling the whole loaf. And all that God has created shares his Breath of life and participates in his kingdom life. And God’s not going to quit until he has a perfect loaf of bread. I can’t wait to see how it turns out and what it tastes like. I have a feeling it might taste a lot like the bread on Sunday morning’s communion plate.
Holy God, our Heavenly Baker, we are so thankful that you know what you are doing. We’re grateful that we can trust you to do everything necessary to complete the breadmaking process and to bring to pass the fullness of your kingdom. We trust you to finish what you have begun, and we look forward to sharing the bread of heaven with you in eternal communion. In the name of the Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.
”He spoke another parable to them, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.’” Matt 13:33 NASB
(1) Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002. Pg. 100.
Our Life in the Trinity 