Yeast

 April 16, 2020

Yeast

1 Corinthians 5:6b-8
5:6b Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?

5:7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.

5:8 Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

 

 

Just the other day I was reading an article on-line about the significant increase in people baking for themselves. With the extra hours of time on our hands in the fight against Corona, people are making cookies, and cakes, and the trading of bread recipes has exploded!

 

And as we have all found, supermarkets are having issues keeping certain items on their shelves. Flour is one of those things and so the same with yeast. So this article which I was reading had a recipe to make your own yeast, sourdough to be exact.

 

Every 5-10 years I seem to be a part of an email or regular mail round-robin of sharing a yeast recipe for as is often called- “friendship bread”. Yes, one person starts it and then the suggestion is to break up the batch into smaller parts and pass it along to several friends, telling them to increase the batch by the recipe and then to pass it along to even more friends. It’s a fun thing to do, and it reminds us of older ways and earlier days when communities depended upon one another more for the things that make a home, warm and cozy, and dear.

 

The letter to the Corinthians above is a friendship bread of spirit and truth. Reminding us how just a small amount of yeast can affect a whole lot of flour, each of us has been called to clean out the old ways we may have focused on in our lives- removing any malice or evil which has collected in the nooks and crannies of our spirit, and to remember the spirit in which Jesus lived his last moments- like a new yeast, fresh and pure, leavening those around him with sincerity and truth.

 

“Lord I want to be a Christian, in my heart, in my heart. Lord I want to be a Christian, in my heart,” goes the hymn. And, another hymn says, “And they’ll know we are Christian by our love, by our love. Yes they’ll know we are Christian by our love.” These two hymns express something near and dear to our hearts. Today’s scripture advises us then how to live them out- to be a new batch, to pass along the hope of sincerity and truth.

 

Hugs and hope.

 

Rev. Ken