Sometimes, the smallest seemingly insignificant acts implant the most enormous transformations in the least expected places.
According to Andrew McGowan, Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, parables are not what they seem, and words changed to fit the modern ear may not evoke the spiritual power that Jesus desired. The word “yeast” used in the story of the woman who baked bread is better translated as it would have been in the ancient times, as leaven. Leaven is a sourdough starter. McGowan suggests that we read this parable when we’re actually hungry. Even as I write this my mouth waters and I check the clock to see if it’s dinner time yet? And too, I feel my heart pumping with eager hope.
Take the story of the woman who leavens her bread with a pinch, and it suddenly swells, enough to feed not only the body but the family, and the soul. Well, I bet if you read these little stories of Jesus when you’re really hungry, any reference to good food, not gourmet or fancy but basic, makes your mouth water, and your heart leap with hope.
Think of this tiny rising as a prayer, and remember that the outsized God we often envision comes most often in very small pinches of joy and truth—leaven for the soul.
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I just listened to the the Smith College 2023 commencement speech by Rashma Saujani, younger than my youngest child, attorney, author, politician. She leavens the huge gathering of female grads and guests. She says that there is no such thing as “imposter syndrome” because women are not imposters.
And furthermore, the strong ongoing resistance to our equality is “not because there’s something wrong with us, it’s because there’s NOT.”
Now that’s good leaven!
Here’s a tiny story about leaven that happened in my own kitchen over 50 years ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It still leavens my heart. When my youngest son was about three, he and his cousin decided to create a “wedding” in front of our house. For authenticity, they bit off all the newly risen tulips and strewed the petals all over the lawn. Such a wedding!!
I knew that we parents had labored hard to plant and nurture these tulip bulbs to adorn our barren hillside. When they came up we were thrilled.“Daddy” would be furious when he came home that evening and found the tulip disaster. I’d reprimanded our son already and, like any good mother would, put extra wads of night diapers on him as we awaited the father’s homecoming.
When Dad came in the door, already fuming, his tiny youngest son ran (waddle-toddled) to meet him. He stood, hesitated, and looked up at his father with the sweetest look I’ve ever seen, and said. “I love my daddy.”
Even the weeniest leavening softens the heart, and signals the presence of God.
