...is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until it was leavened through. Matthew 13:33
The children in the atrium spend quite a bit of time pondering this parable. Almost every session, a child will set up a work space, get the material from the shelf and ask Sarah to read the scripture before carefully measuring out three measures of flour into two glass bowls. One bowl will have a small measure of yeast added before mixing a bit of water into each bowl. They think about the yeast - could we take it back out? Can we still see it? What did Jesus mean by these words? How is the Kingdom like the leaven? They'll take the containers to the counter, cover them with a towel and mostly ignore them until the end of the session. When we gather for prayer, the child who's chosen the work will retrieve the bowls. We marvel at the overflowing bowl of the leavened dough and compare it to the unchanged dough in the other bowl. Again, we wonder what secret that reveals about the Kingdom of God - the Kingdom of Heaven.
Today, one of the children discovered that the leavened dough was stretchy and another discovered its stickiness. Their words caused me to contemplate God's tenacious love for us. Later I was reminded of the pervasiveness of yeast. This microscopic fungus happily migrates to affect its neighbors. Even wild yeast can be collected relatively easily. The Kingdom is here and all around us, affecting the world even when we don't see it. We know how this story ends and I am so very grateful.
