Luke 13:18-21
18 He said therefore, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to
what should I compare it? 19 It
is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and
became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches." 20 And again he said, "To
what should I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
She could tell you more about the
cracks in her floor than the contents of her shelves. The pavement of the roads
she walked each day she knew like the back of her hand. When someone called her
name or shouted for her attention, the pain that racked her body was so intense
she could only lift her head and wave in the general direction of the voice she
heard. She was used to it though. For nearly two decades she lived with the
crippling spirit in her body. For eighteen years she suffered from a pain so
intense she could not stand to straighten herself. One would think after living
with such an ailment, such pain for so long that she would have grown used to
it, that she would have grown accustomed to a life lived with a bent back
caused by what those in her day clearly would have determined to be a bad
spirit. Perhaps, after eighteen long years, she had grown used to it.
To us, this woman is a bit of an
enigma. Luke simply introduces her in the thirteenth chapter of his gospel as a
woman who just appeared. She didn’t have a memorable name. She didn’t have a
prolonged conversation with Jesus like the “woman at the well” in the fourth
gospel. She wasn’t a woman who made a grand gesture like that woman with the
alabaster jar. No, it seems Luke can’t recall much about this crippled woman,
and the other gospels don’t seem to remember her at all. Luke gives us so
little information about her, yet when Jesus saw her (it says in verse 12), “he called her over and said,
‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’” This woman, this crippled
woman, who appears out of nowhere, hears Jesus call to her, and perhaps for the
first time in ages she hears a voice that calls to her without shouting words of
complaint and precaution for the woman who likely had difficulty navigating the
course of her walk while stooped over. She heard a voice calling her to come
nearer, a voice that proclaimed freedom from that the crippling spirit that had
haunted her for nearly twenty years. The only other thing Luke tells us about
this woman is that, “When [Jesus] laid his hands on her,
immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.” She was
healed; she could stand up straight and view the world from a new perspective,
without pain. Her immediate response was praise, recognizing the source of her
newfound freedom from pain.
Praise,
however, wasn’t the response from everyone who witnessed what Jesus had done
for this woman. Luke tells us in verse 14: “But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on
the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought
to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.’"
You see, while to you and me it seems Jesus had done something wonderful in
healing this woman’s back, setting her free from the pain of her ailment, but
to the leader of the synagogue (and any well-meaning, conservative Jew of the
day) Jesus had broken one of the commandments—one of the TEN commandments: Jesus, by healing this woman, worked on the
Sabbath. This was a particularly awful commandment to break as there were all
sorts of rules and regulations concerning the Sabbath and what kinds of things
constituted work. Healing and curing ailments just happened to be on the list
of prohibited practices considered work.
Of
course, Jesus (as he always did) had a reasonable response for those who were
less than thrilled with his work on that Sabbath day in the synagogue in verses
15 and 16: “But the Lord answered
him and said, ‘You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox
or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not
this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be
set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’” In other words, Jesus
was asking why they felt like it was good and proper to care for their
livestock on the Sabbath, but not this suffering woman (a Jewish woman no
less!). Now, it would be easy to let this little story about Jesus healing this
unnamed woman stand on its own. After all, it is a powerful story about how
Jesus had the power to heal a woman who had been afflicted for so long, and
it’s a great story about one recognizing the source of her healing, and it’s a
great lesson in understanding the heart of the law and the divine call to love
one’s neighbor. Those are indeed all good things to take away from this story,
yet today our focus isn’t directly on the actions in this story. I want to draw
our attention today to the two little parables Jesus tells immediately
following this story, because I believe there is a very good reason Luke is the
only one of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to include this
story and follow it with these parables.
To introduce these two short parables, Jesus
asks in verses 18 and 20, "What is the kingdom of God like? And
to what should I compare it?...To what should I compare the kingdom of God?” He
follows this controversial, Sabbath day healing with two parables describing
the kingdom of God, two parables about mustard seeds and yeast. Jesus says in verse 19, “[the kingdom] is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in
the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in
its branches." Now, any of you who’ve spent any amount of
time around the Bible or maybe even meandered into a Christian bookstore have
likely heard of the mustard seed. It is the smallest of all seeds, yet it has
the potential to grow as high as ten feet![1] If
the wonder a tiny mustard seed growing into a tree doesn’t wow you, then
consider Jesus’ second parable in verse
21: “[the kingdom] is like yeast that a
woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was
leavened." Yeast is a single-celled organism (living things
can’t get any smaller!), yet it only takes a small amount to leaven fifty
pounds of flour![2]
Now, perhaps it may be obvious that
these are two parables about incredibly small, seemingly insignificant things
that have a way of transforming into something large and dynamic, but think
back to the story Luke tells us just before Jesus gives us these two parables.
We cannot deny they are related somehow, because Luke’s language suggests that
Jesus tells these two parables in connection with the Sabbath day healing of
this woman (in verse 18 Luke tells
us that Jesus “said therefore” implying a connection to what has just taken
place—the healing of the crippled woman). Mustard seeds are incredibly small;
they could be mistaken for bits of dust and debris and swept out the door with
the rest of the day’s refuse. Yeast is so small one could easily mistake it for
dust. This woman who Luke tells us just appeared at the synagogue that day was
perhaps overlooked all those eighteen years she lived with the pain of her
ailment; perhaps her presence in her community was small, easily mistaken for
the refuse of those branded unclean and cursed.
Perhaps Jesus’ action of healing
this woman in that synagogue that Sabbath day could have been seen as otherwise
small, an ordinary breaking of the Sabbath law by an unusual prophet. Perhaps
there were many who claimed to heal, many who broke the command forbidding work
on the Sabbath. But in that singular instance, in that solitary moment when
Jesus freed an unknown woman from her pain, we witness the planting of the
mustard seed. In an event of such seemingly small proportions that most of the
cast goes unnamed and the other gospel witnesses seem to have forgotten, we see
the yeast mixed in the flour. For all throughout Jesus’ ministry we see events
like these. All throughout the history of Christ’s Church we witness these
small miracles.
It is in these otherwise small events that we see the kingdom of God grow
and blossom in our midst. So often we look for God’s kingdom in the big, the
loud, the bright, and the glorious. So often we tend to overlook the small ways
Christ calls us to come and follow him, Like the leader of the synagogue, we
look for God in what we have judged to be big enough for him, in the things we
feel are worthy of God’s kingdom work. Like the woman with the crippling
spirit, there are opportunities to see God’s kingdom grow that we may otherwise
overlook because we think it’s not the right time or place. We deem them to be
like the mustard seed, like the yeast, too small to be of any real use now. Yet
Jesus’ words in these parables about mustard seeds and yeast show us that God’s
kingdom is indeed found in those things we may deem too small. God’s kingdom is
indeed found in the unnamed and the easily passed over. God’s kingdom is right
before us, like a mustard seed ready to burst forth in unexpected growth, like
yeast mixed in with flour spreading and growing beyond anything we can imagine.
God’s kingdom is moving, and he calls each of us to join in the movement,
but will you recognize those opportunities for the kingdom’s work? Will you
pass over what God may be calling you to because you see it as too small or not
worth your time? Will you ignore the small ways God invites you into the work
of his kingdom? Will you choose this day to be a part of the ever-growing and
ever-expanding kingdom of God, or do you find it too small, too insignificant
for your time and your life?
Let us pray…
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