God Has Promised: Like Yeast...

‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.
~ Luke 13:18-19

Today, I was listening to some music from my iPod. It was set on shuffle and so I had an interesting mix of stuff playing as I drove my son to school. About halfway there, the song Agnus Dei came on. I love this song, so I pumped it up and sang along. (Gabriel of course was mortified but he's a tween and everything I do mortifies him, so I must be doing something right.) In fact, I think I played it twice. And then I played it again after I dropped him off.

After it went off, some other song played. Secular. Probably by Janet or Michael Buble, I don't remember, but those two seem most likely because I have a lot of both their songs on my iTunes. Then I got home and kept humming it. It was stuck in my head but not in a bad way. I actually wanted to sing it and did until an actual human called me and I talked with her for a while. What struck me after that conversation was that, while the secular music came and went, this one stayed with me all day. I just kept thinking about the words (a very simple chorus) and praying all day, even when something else came up.

And that is when the verse above came to mind.

Yeast bubbles in bread dough

Most people know that yeast must be worked through the dough to make it rise. What many people don't know is that the yeast actually strengthens the dough so that it can rise. As the dough is kneaded, the flour and water molecules mix to create more and more gluten. As the yeast releases carbon dioxide into the rising dough, the protein and water molecules move around making more to connections and forming more gluten. In a sense, the yeast is almost a molecule-by-molecule kneading of the dough. More gluten means a stronger, more springy bread dough.

Taking the comparison a step farther, if the Kingdom of God is like yeast, what happens when the yeast of God works through our life? Not supplanting it, but becoming an inseparable and indissoluble part of it?

Well, Christ warned the Twelve about the leaven (yeast) of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:5-12) and they understood that leavening to be the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:12). I think that, by the same token, we can see that the yeast, the leaven, that represents the Kingdom would be the teaching of the Kingdom. And the teaching of the Kingdom is the Life of Christ. This is what Orthodoxy teaches.

It is within Christ that the Kingdom is to be experienced. For this reason, we cannot think of the Kingdom as something we are either “in” or “out” of. Through baptism and a life of repentance, we participate in the Life of Christ, and thus we participate in the Kingdom. The Kingdom is a dynamic state, wherein we grow in perfection through God’s grace. Our journey is not to the Kingdom, our journey is in the Kingdom. As long as we are struggling to be Christlike, we are assuredly tasting of the Fountain of Immortality. When the struggle ends and the growth ceases, the Kingdom disappears. It is nowhere to be found. The moment we think we have achieved something, that we have earned our place, then we have lost the Kingdom. Our struggles are meaningless without Christ, and vice versa: without struggles, we are meaningless, because we will lose Christ. Our Lord is only with those who need Him. When we lose our daily need for Him, then our souls become satisfied with the world. A man who does not hunger does not eat, and so one who does not hunger for God cannot partake of His goodness.
~ His Grace JOSEPH Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the West (all emphasis mine)

So "every day I'm shufflin'" (to quote LMFAO) not to get somewhere, but to remain somewhere. To remain in Christ and allow the leaven, the yeast, of His life and teaching permeate my own. It is the inevitable dissonance between who I strive to be in Christ by following His teachings, having God as my Father and the Church as my mother, that will lead to the strengthening of my spirit, but not because of anything I have done. Because of the way the Yeast of the Kingdom stretches me by requiring that I take up my cross and lose my life.

So here is that song that reminded me that I am simply dough to be worked into something warm, fragrant, and fresh to be offered to God as a splendid sacrifice, holy and without spot or blemish.

All because of a little bit of Yeast.