Sermon: Three Measures of Wheat Flour

Sermon: Three Measures of Wheat Flour

Text: Matthew 13:31-33

As we start our 2015 stewardship campaign, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you to Bev, for the ministry you’ve so energetically and wonderfully led with the other leaders and helpers in our gardening group. I am also very thankful to learn how we can not only count our blessings – a 294 lb harvest – but how we can make our blessings count. We, as a church, could easily choose to be quite insular; the world outside our walls is rapidly changing. Society is becoming secularized at a speed that’s hard to comprehend. If you have visited Vancouver or another West Coast city, you might have noticed that it’s much more secular than here in the heartland; it’s like living in a non-religious future. 

For many young people, even here, church is just a very odd place to be. They simply have no idea, concepts, or language that can help them understand what we do here or what we believe. The way in which people form relationships is changing: social media, the internet, handheld devices are now a major channel of how and where people get information – including the information that informs their own spiritual development. It seems like people are on the other side of a window, and we see them through the glass. We know we are visible to those on the outside, and we think that we need to be better at how we keep things looking on the inside and improve how we make our home here. As far as I know, most churches share the same anxiety: we need to establish some security for ourselves, so we focus on planning and sustainability. We try to make sure all our ministries are on the right track, even growing, with increased attendance, better financial statements, well-maintained buildings, a deeper pool of human and other resources. I can’t exaggerate the importance of all your efforts to ensure our sustainability and growth - they are deeply necessary. I would like to encourage us all to express our deepest thanks to all those who invest a great amount of time and energy in making sure that we are stable, self-sustaining and successful. 

I feel like I should mention the first positive impression I received about this congregation, when I applied for a full-time ministry position offered at Meadowood, last year. At the time I had sent my application to 30 different congregations across Canada. That’s a lot of congregations, but I wanted to cast a wide net. For about half of those churches, I read all the documents from their Annual Reports to the reports of all the committees and each church’s financial statements. To be really honest here, among those thirty congregations, the United Church in Meadowood stood out most decisively. This congregation really was outstanding; very organized, solid in its financial status, with a clear demonstration of who they are. I was amazed by the organization, effectiveness, passion about envisioning their future goals, especially their desire to become a truly affirming congregation. My heart was pounding for this congregation even before I had an interview. I really wanted to be part of the confidence that the ministry here expressed so clearly. Sometimes you become so familiar with yourself that you don’t know how great you are until somebody says to you what potential you have and tells you that you really can be confident about who you are and what you have achieved. This church has every reason to be confident. 

Over the past year, I’ve enjoyed many opportunities to learn and get to know more about our congregation. Even for a person who has been given the privilege to be in the center of ministry here, it takes at least a year to really know where I am. I am so thankful that I am in a congregation where I can confidently say that I trust the leadership here – how faith is expressed here in leadership – lay and pastoral – in a way that incorporates hard work, sincerity and true humility. When you see your leader bursting with really great, healthy, delightful laughter for the love of his church, for any small success we share at a Council meeting, the feeling is so infectious - it really helps you be confident about this community. knowing that you are in a good place. Confidence is such a critical factor; it helps us to move forward, and it helps us to take even more steps to amplify the positive impact we can have in our lives and in the lives of others.

I would like to suggest two things for us to ponder:

First, as for our visioning about our church, I hope to encourage you to let go of any sort of insular self-image. Remember my analogy of the window? Windows are transparent. You can see outside, and know what is going on, and you can still be indoors. (But windows also open!)

I don’t think it is an accident that most of Jesus’ parables describing the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven take place outside. Jesus likes to use natural symbols to explain the kingdom of Heaven and how the kingdom of God becomes real; how the kingdom of God is a place that begins now yet whose ultimate coming-into-being is yet to be realized: the tension between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’.  Stories set indoors can’t really be effective in demonstrating the stark contrast between the beginning and the end; between the mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds, and the greatest of shrubs, then a tree, which is, in reality, an exaggeration. However big a mustard shrub is, shrubs can’t be classified as a proper tree. What this hyperbole tells us is this famous parable is not about the gradual growth of a mustard seed to become a bigger something, but about a miracle, because the end is just unbelievable. It is not so much about the organic and biological development of a seed, or a church, but about how God works – germinating imperceptibly in the beginning, growing to an unknowable end. My son loves numbers, and his favourite number is infinity, because no one can count it. He likes that. I believe that the gift that our gardening group offers this morning is not really the harvest, but the parable. That’s what gives our ministry refreshing water and makes us alive – the connection that is open to the other side of the walls, and through the garden and harvest and the potential to feed people. 

I said most of Jesus’ parables develop their stories outdoors. The only exceptions happen in the kitchen. I am so looking forward to hearing Loraine’s presentation on behalf of UCW. Jesus’ parables never take place without an impact, hyperbole, stark contrast, the scale and the size being extremely exaggerated - it’s never just dinner, it’s a banquet or feast. The second parable about the Kingdom of God in today’s reading says “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.” When you hear this well-known parable, we often focus on the function of the leaven. Yet, the secret or the keyword may be ‘the three measures of wheat flour.’ Can anyone guess how much wheat flour Jesus is talking about? Maybe we think it’s about three cups of flour, enough to make one decent loaf of bread, but experts in ancient cooking practices calculate ‘three measures’ to be approximately fifty pounds of flour - 22 kg. Enough bread would come from that woman’s oven to feed more than one hundred people. Isn’t that amazing? I get goosebumps, thinking about it. Imagine this gospel story with me. On an ordinary evening, no one really pays attention to what this woman does in her kitchen. They might think that she’s preparing a meal for her family, like any other regular evening. Yet, she’s preparing a feast to feed over one hundred people in her community. Who do you think this woman is? She could be God.She could be Jesus. Or she could be a disciple, like us. Now, please welcome the UCW to share their story on food that has been feeding many kinds of hunger. (Loraine P: Food that feeds Many Kinds of Hunger)