“So, what do you want to be
when you grow up?” Graduates, did you ever hear that question when you were
children? What did you answer? Did you always know that you wanted to be a
nurse or a mechanical engineer? Maybe you were more like me. I didn’t end up
doing at all what I wanted to do at first.
When I was a kid, all the way
back in elementary school, I wanted to be a paleontologist – a scientist that
digs up dinosaur bones! I don’t even remember why I wanted to do that, except
that dinosaurs have always fascinated me (which, by the way, they still do).
But when I got to high school, I decided that I would rather be a research
biologist. And that’s what I did end up doing for quite a few years. I went to
college and got a degree in biology; and then I went to graduate school and
pursued cell biology; and I ended up running a rather large cancer research lab
in Philadelphia. But, of course, I’m not doing that now. My life changed, as it
may for you, as well. After marriage and a family, I finally discerned a call
to ministry, and… well, here I am.
So the answer to the
question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” may not be as
straightforward as it appears to be at first glance. Your life has changed
already from the time when you were a little tyke; and it will continue to
change as you grow older and gain more experiences. But you already know that. And
you already know that what you are pursuing as a career right now might well
change during your life – not once, but maybe even several times. Careers
aren’t as stable as they once were; and you can look forward to a longer life
span than ever before. But whatever career you decide to pursue throughout your
life, and no matter how long you live, I hope that there is one constant
whatever you do and wherever you go. I hope that you continue to be yeast your
whole life long!
“Yeast? What is that woman
talking about?” you’re probably thinking right now. “Why in the world would I
want to be yeast?” Let me introduce you to yeast. Maybe that will give you a
clue. Yeast is actually a single-celled microorganism. In other words, it’s a
little bitty cell that you can’t see without a microscope. But, oh, my, we can
certainly see what it does! If you want to have beer – or a risen loaf of bread
– you have to have yeast. When yeast is added to certain food mixtures –
specifically, mixtures that contain specific kinds of sugars – all the little
yeast cells start to nibble on that sugar, and they eventually turn it into
carbon dioxide and ethanol. The ethanol is the alcohol in your beer; and the carbon
dioxide is what makes the bread rise. All the little holes in the middle of
your bread are there because of the action of yeast. Without yeast, both your
beer and your bread will be flat. If you want a little action in your cooking,
you need to add some yeast. And you don’t need much of it! Just a tiny bit of
yeast affects the whole batch.
Some Bible texts compare
yeast to pretty nasty stuff. In both Matthew and Luke, Jesus warns his
disciples to beware of the “yeast of the Pharisees.” Just like a little bit of
yeast can cause the entire loaf of bread to rise, just a little bit of their
teaching can spoil your faith – at least, according to Jesus. And Paul compares
inappropriate behavior to yeast. In I Corinthians, for example, he warns that
the immoral behavior of just one person can infect the whole Christian
congregation! Better to throw out those immoral people, he advises, than to
spoil the entire community!
Well, if yeast is such bad
stuff, why in the world am I encouraging you to behave like it? It’s because,
even though Jesus compared yeast to the teaching of the Pharisees that can
spoil faith, he said that the Kingdom of God works the very same way. “What is
the Kingdom of God like?” Jesus asked his disciples. Then he answered his own
question. “The Kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a
large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” The New Testament
Greek actually says that the woman “hid” that yeast in “three measures” of
flour. That amount of flour is a huge
amount of flour – almost half a bushel. And that tiny little bit of yeast got
completely mixed up in all that flour. And once the yeast is in the flour, you
can’t very well get it back out, can you? That’s the way the Kingdom of God
works, Jesus says. It gets all mixed in with other things until you don’t even
notice it any more. But don’t worry! You don’t need very much of it to change
things, just like the bread rises with just a little bit of yeast.
Are you beginning to see why
I hope you behave like yeast? You are
a part of the Kingdom of God – in fact, everybody in this congregation is a
part of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is in us, working to transform us into
the image of Jesus Christ, just like yeast works in bread flour. And if you’re
a part of the Kingdom of God, then wherever you go, you have the chance to
start to change the world into the kind of place that God wants it to be! Just
like a little bit of yeast leavens the whole batch, one person working on
behalf of Jesus Christ can change everything around them! Oh, it doesn’t happen
right away. It takes bread quite a while to rise, after all. And the results
aren’t always very dramatic. But a little bit of yeast in the middle of the
flour always changes the bread that
comes out in the end.
Let me give you an example. When
Denise graduated from college, she was hired by a large corporation. She worked
in her own little cubicle doing… whatever it was that she did. The atmosphere
in her office wasn’t terribly inviting. People didn’t socialize very much. They
kept to themselves, and only interacted at the weekly progress meetings of
their group. After a few weeks, Denise felt that she didn’t really know any of
them, even though she knew their names and worked shoulder to shoulder – or
cubicle to cubicle – with them. One morning Denise marched in with a big box of
fresh doughnuts from her local Tim Horton’s coffee shop. (Denise had good taste
in coffee!) She sent out an email to all the folks in nearby cubicles. “Are you
hungry? Come on down to Denise’s cubicle for breakfast. It’s on me!” Curious
heads began to peer in. “You brought doughnuts? Really? Did you bring chocolate
ones? Can I have one?” No one had ever done that before. Of course, none of
them lingered too long – they were in
the middle of their morning’s work, after all. But Denise found out that Florence
was worrying about a sick child at home; and that Mark loved fishing; and that Kathy
was going through a very messy divorce. Things began to mysteriously appear in
those cubicles – a frozen casserole for Florence, a small bouquet of flowers
for Kathy, and a card with a rainbow trout on its cover that wished Mark a
great vacation. Slowly the atmosphere in that office began to change. People
got to know one another. People started caring about one another. People
started helping one another. “The Kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman hid
in three measures of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
Now, you can’t always see
change that quickly. Sometimes, in fact, you can’t see any change at all, even
though you are acting like yeast with all your might. You might even get kind
of discouraged after a while. But don’t worry. The yeast of the Kingdom of God
is working even if we can’t see it doing its thing. The littlest things send up
little bubbles of the Kingdom. If you are honest in the midst of a culture
that’s fixated on lies… look, there goes a bubble up from your yeast. When you
behave unselfishly when everyone else is looking out for himself… oops, there
goes another bubble of the Kingdom! And when you send up a quick, silent prayer
for help on behalf of someone who needs it… why, it’s more action from your
Kingdom yeast! All of these things sends a little bubble of God’s Kingdom out
into the world. And with enough little bubbles… why, pretty soon, people start
to notice that something is different. They may not know what it is… but we do.
It’s God’s Kingdom breaking through into the world, bit by bit. It’s all
because of those little bits of yeast, all quietly doing their thing in the big
flour barrel of the world.
So, brand new graduates of
the class of 2013 – accept our congratulations on your accomplishment! Look
forward to the new challenges that you will face, and the new obstacles that
you will overcome! And then, go out there and be yeast for the Kingdom of God. Believe
me, it will be the most important work that you will ever do!
