Sermon: Baked with Love

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Baked with Love

By Ellen Witko

February 2, 2003

Matthew 13: 33

hat

I’m about to tell you may make you itch.

My father’s uncle was famous for having fleas. No, he wasn’t infested with fleas, but he was invested in fleas. As Professor LeRoy Heckler, my dad’s Uncle Roy made quite a nice living from his flea circus which performed several shows a day in Times Square from about 1925 until 1957. Uncle Roy inherited the flea circus from his father, Professor William Heckler, a long-time carnival guy and former strong man. My uncle’s fleas were quite acrobatic. They walked a tightrope, played football, had chariot races and even pulled a carousel.

In his book, Wild Tigers and Tame Fleas, author Bill Ballentine devotes a chapter to Uncle Roy and his talented fleas. Fleas are world-class athletes. Uncle Roy says in the book that “flea legs, of only 1/20 of an inch long, can propel the insect into a high jump of almost eight inches, a broad jump of thirteen inches, more than one hundred times its body length…If a human’s legs were this strong, a person…could leap groundwise 700 feet or straight up 450 feet, soaring over the torch of the Statue of Liberty with 145 feet to spare” (Ballentine 242). No wonder fleas were such sought-after circus performers.

Uncle Roy had an interesting life. He traveled throughout North and South America and the Caribbean islands. He made appearances on the show “What’s My Line” and other radio and tv shows of his era. Uncle Roy retired in the late 1950s to Bradenton, Florida, home to many other circus and carnival retirees. He passed away a decade after that.

Uncle Roy’s career is part of my family history, our family lore, something which we always talk about at family get-togethers. My father and his family told the stories to my sisters and I, and we in turn have passed the stories on to our own children. With every generation the circle grows wider. And, many times when I’ve shared the story of my uncle and his flea circus with people outside the family, I’ve come across someone who knew of him and saw his flea circus years ago. The circle grows wider still.

Yes, every family has significant stories which bind the members together. One of ours is fleas.

So tiny, yet so significant.

Throughout history, people have used stories to define who they are and whose they are. Christians are certainly no different. Most of what we know about Jesus’ teaching about God comes from the parables Jesus told, which we read in the Gospels. We teach these stories to our children, who teach these stories to their children and so on. Another ever-widening circle.

The reading from Matthew this morning likens the kingdom of God to the yeast which a woman adds to three measures of flour. The amount of yeast the woman uses is very small in comparison to three measures of flour. Yet Jesus says the small amount of yeast leavened the entire loaf.

I’m not a bread baker, so I didn’t know much about yeast and breadbaking until I did a little reading about it this week. I found out that until the past century’s development of commercial yeast, baking bread involved great mystery. There are many many different ways to develop yeast, some of which work more dependably than others. Today we simply open a packet of yeast and add it to our other ingredients. The fact remains, however, that without the yeast, the bread won’t rise. And that in comparison with the flour, only a small amount of yeast is needed for a loaf of bread. We don’t need to have a lot of yeast to begin with because as the yeast ferments it produces carbon dioxide and alcohol, expanding the dough. Punching down the dough, kneading and shaping it, removes the alcohol. This is necessary because otherwise the alcohol would eventually kill off the yeast. The remaining pockets of carbon dioxide multiply and cause the bread to rise up again. The fermenting process also releases nutrients like phosphorus, zinc, and calcium. The bread would not taste as good, feed as many, or be as nourishing, without the good work done by the hands of the baker in conjunction with the action of the yeast.

Jesus likens the work of the bakerwoman and the action of the yeast to the kingdom of God. In the book of Matthew, this parable is the last of a series of parables alluding to the meaning of the kingdom of God.

I used to think of the Kingdom of God as a distinct geographical location. I used to think that the Kingdom of God was Heaven and that heaven was a place we went up to after we died. If we were lucky. Some think of the Kingdom of God as a form of government, run by God and Jesus, which will sometime in the future descend upon the earth from heaven, annihilating evil upon or just before its arrival.

Interestingly, Jesus uses small things and people of inferior social status in his kingdom of God parables. He speaks about tiny mustard seeds or servants or widows giving pennies or women who bake bread. What a radical way of speaking about something as grand as the kingdom of God. Jesus is not speaking about armies of Christian soldiers ridding the world of evil or scores of angels escorting departed souls to a heavenly castle in the sky. Neither of those ideas seem to be what Jesus is saying in his parable.

What Jesus is saying is that the kingdom is here. Right here. Right now. The kingdom of God is within us. God is at work within us. God is in relationship with us and desires that we be in relationship with God. When we are, the kingdom is evident. Suddenly, we can’t miss it. God’s kingdom rises up in our lives like the action of the yeast in dough. We realize that the bakerwoman God has molded us, kneaded us carefully, nurtured us, nourished us with Love.

God has always used small and, by worldly standards, unimportant or flawed people to do God’s work. This point is well illustrated in this morning’s reading from Hebrew Scripture.

During a time of terrible drought, the prophet Elijah is sent by God to the house of a woman. God tells Elijah that the woman would shelter and feed him. The only problem, as the woman sees it, is that she has just a small amount of meal and a tiny amount of oil. She was ready to bake one last small cake, share it with her son, and wait for death by starvation. The woman does as Elijah tells her, however. She feeds him and shelters him and—amazingly—the oil and meal never run out.

God chooses a poor and starving woman to shelter and nourish the prophet Elijah. Because the woman follows the instructions given to her by Elijah, they both—actually the three of them, because she has a son—survive because the meager amount of meal and oil she has is divinely replenished as needed.

These stories tell us important things. First, we need to pay attention to the details of the stories in the scriptures. Look closely at who is in the story. Of course we remember Jesus and Elijah, but we must also remember the many unnamed women in the stories. That they are unnamed tells us who is deemed important by the scripture authors, but that they are there, that they have a place in the stories, tells us they are important to God.

Next, notice and remember that Jesus shows us that God’s kingdom is built on love. When Jesus says, “The kingdom of God of like”….he is saying that “living in God’s love is like”… God’s realm is Love. God is Love and Love never ends. God’s love grows in us and nourishes us, causing us to rise up where we are into the kingdom.

One of my ministers once asked me to imagine what the world would be like if we all lived as if the kingdom of God were right here, right now. Imagine that.

As the world is now, we concentrate on worrying, striving, keeping up, getting ahead, competing. Imagine setting aside all that anxiety because you trust that you are already valuable, already loved completely without qualification. Living into God’s kingdom brings us to the awareness that love is everpresent in our lives. This love is a transformative power. The world never looks the same again when we view everything through a lens of Love.

How do we become aware of the kingdom? Ask God, pray to God, to open your eyes and your heart and your mind to the kingdom. Do this together with a friend or two or three or more and see what insights are revealed over time. Share your experiences with your friend or your group.

And finally, tell others. Share your stories. My family’s story of Uncle Roy’s life creates between us a feeling of warmth, belonging and trust, or in other words, Love. That story is part of our identity. Whenever we share the story with a new relative we are welcoming the new one into our family circle. When we repeat the story among ourselves, we are proclaiming and renewing our love for each other. We are saying, Yes, this story is part of who I am, and you are, too.

So share your journey of discovering the kingdom of God in your midst. One by one, share your journey and invite others to journey along with you. This morning in your bulletin you’ll find a recipe (below) for Amish Friendship Bread. The recipe begins with a “starter” that you can make with yeast, flour, sugar and water. As you care for the starter, stirring, adding to it, or letting it sit and do its work quietly and peacefully, it will rise up until there is enough starter to make bread for you and to give away to friends, which your friends can then tend and share as well, in an ever widening circle of friendship. Whether you make the starter or not, the recipe is a reminder that Love is meant to be given away. When we give love away, we are never then lacking in love. Love constantly renews itself.

It is through the transformative power involved in sharing the stories that God’s Love arises. Tell your children, tell your friends, tell each other gathered here in this place. We gather as a congregational community to share these stories, our stories, and to live together in the kingdom of God.

Amen.

AMISH FRIENDSHIP STARTER & BREAD RECIPE

Friendship bread grows so that you can make more and share it with friends.

You'll Need:
Glass Bowl and wooden spoons. Do Not Use Metal Utensils!
1 Package active dry yeast
2-1/2 cups warm water
2 cups sifted flour
1 tablespoon sugar

Dissolve yeast in 1 cup of the warm water. Stir in remaining warm water, flour and sugar, beat until smooth. Place in a glass bowl on the countertop, do not put in refrigerator. Cover with clean dishcloth. The starter will ferment for 10 days before it is ready to give away or use for bread.

10 Day Instructions:

DAY 1 Begin or receive starter
Day 2 Stir
Day 3 Stir
Day 4 Stir
Day 5 Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk
Day 6 Stir
Day 7 Stir
Day 8 Do Nothing
Day 9 Do Nothing
Day 10...

Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk. Put 1 cup of starter in each of three containers: Give to friends and keep one for yourself to start again. This will begin their DAY 1. You can give them away in ziplock bags, but make sure you tell your friends to "burp" the bag about twice daily.

To the remaining batter add:
1 cup oil
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
3 large eggs
1 large box or 2 small boxes vanilla pudding mix
2 tsp cinnamon

Beat with a fork until well blended. If desired, add one cup raisins or nuts or chocolate chips. Grease 2 loaf pans with butter & sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.