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Good morning.

During this week I’m turning my attention to the parables of Jesus.

When he taught with parables, I don’t think Jesus was setting his disciples a test with a single answer. Perhaps his intention was to raise questions to help us see our own situation afresh, helping us to trust our own instincts and insights.

One of his simplest and shortest parables goes like this: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’ If you’re a baker, you’ll know how powerfully one of those little packets of quick-acting yeast works on quite a large quantity of flour and water. And that I think is the basic picture of what’s going on in this apparently simple, even banal sentence. We all know what yeast does, but what do these words do to us when we hear them?

Might they be encouraging you to think of the potential you have to affect the world around you, even if you think you can’t possibly exert any influence?  Might they give you hope to see some small but hopeful sign of life in an otherwise bleak situation? Might they paint for you a picture of liveliness, vitality or growth like the swelling of a ball of leavened dough? Or the image may take you to the finished product – a freshly baked loaf to satisfy a great hunger.

May this simple image be for you a source of hope throughout the coming day.

God of life, your Kingdom of peace and love grows in us in ways we cannot see when we open our hearts and minds to you. Nourish us with the teaching of your Son and meet our deepest hungers with your word of hope. Amen.