Let Go of Big Things and Embrace Little Things
Galatians 5.9 Matthew 13.33
Fourth Sunday in Lent - The Unobvious Series
Rev. Matthew M. Fry

As we continue to experience The Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Lord, Open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that, as the Scriptures are read and Your Word Proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you have to say to us today. Prepare our heats, O God, to accept your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own, that, hearing, we may also obey your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Listen for God’s Word for you today. Galatias 5.9. A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.  The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

And Hear also The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in the Gospel of Matthew. Listen. Matthew 13.33. He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” The Grass Withers, The Flower Falls, but The Word of The Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

When I was in college, one of my roommates was named Neal. At the time, I was 6’1”, and went about a buck fifty. Now I’m 6’1” and go, well, I’m working on it. At the time, Neal was 6’5”, and went about a buck fifty five. We were nicknamed the “No-Butt Twins” by our friends. By the way, and I’m not bitter about this, Neal is still 6’5”, and is now up to 160. No, I’m not bitter one little bit.

Anyway, I can’t help but think of Neal when I read passages about yeast. One year, we were going to our Religion Professor’s house for a service of prayer and communion during Lent. She is an ordained Presbyterian minister, and had asked permission from the session of the church where she attended and everything. And she had many of us students take care of the details. Neal was in charge of the bread. That was his only instruction. He could have bought it, maybe should have, but instead considered it a spiritual practice to make the bread for this communion. So we, his housemates, were going to help him. And by help him, it meant that we were to test the bread to make sure it was going to acceptable.

The first loaf was as flat and as hard as a Frisbee, about four times as heavy, and just about as tasteful. So Neal decided to use more yeast than his mother’s recipe called for. Second loaf, Frisbee. Maybe we have some bad yeast. Off to the store to buy some fresh yeast. Third loaf, Frisbee. Fourth loaf, Frisbee. I started to see how well they would fly outside. They didn’t go as far as a Frisbee, and were harder to catch, but it was still fun to throw them. Neal did not find the humor in that exercise. That’s what you get for still being 160 pounds. NOT BITTER! By the time the 10^th loaf came out, a few trips to the store later, a few calls to home later, even a couple of days later, we were out of time, and since there was no way the 10^th Frisbee could be used as communion bread, we stopped by the store and bought some bread. I tried to convince him that this was unleveaned bread, and more like the real deal, more in line with the first communion.

The problem was the yeast, and what he was doing to it. The package of yeast clearly states on it to mix with hot water. Neal figured that if hot tap water was good, boiling water from the tea kettle on the stove was better. The problem is that water that hot killed the yeast, making it useless.

The yeast is such a little thing. The flour and the finished product is the big thing. But without the little yeast, the flour could not be turned into good bread. Sure it was bread, but it was more Frisbee than good bread. Maybe the little things are what make the big things really worth while.

We so often look past the little things, and focus solely on the big things. The big things always seem to cause me big worry. Granted, the big things also seem to bring big joy. Being a parent is a big thing. It creates in me a constant state of worry, and a regular stream of joy. I worry that one of them will trip and fall and have a freak accident with a stray pine cone on the ground. I didn’t say my worries were well founded or rational. How many worries are? So, my daughters come with a sense of worry. They also knock me over with a great sense of joy. Murphy usually comes to sleep in our bed in the middle of the night. When Melissa was with the youth in Montreat last weekend, Murphy slept closer to me than usual, which is already pretty close and is not made better by the fact that she is a kicker. So, as she is this close to me, I turned over and hit her on the top of her head a little. I looked at her, and said, “I’m sorry sweetie, you okay?” And she said this, “It’s okay daddy. I love you.” Those are the moments that make life wonderful. While the big things create big anxiety, they also create big joy.

Putting dinner on the table each night is not a big thing. Well, it is, but compared to other things, like renegade pinecones, it is relatively a little thing. Having the family gather around the table each night, compared with the other things of life, takes a lot less energy than a session meeting, or preparing a sermon, or planning a family vacation. Perhaps if dinner were an extravagant affair it might be different. But chicken fingers, mac n cheese, hamburgers, or something from the short list of what the Fry daughters will eat and for the adults baked chicken or a simple casserole, or spaghetti and a couple of vegetables (green beans is a family regular, since it is Fry Gal edible), well, none of those are that difficult. Weekends are different, we go to greater lengths to make more complicated dinners. But dinner is usually pretty simple. And is regularly met with a reminder of the rules. No TV during dinner. No singing at the table, especially opera singing. If you get up repeatedly during dinner, or don’t eat your food, then no desert. And if you are a complete pill during dinner, then straight to bed after. So, don’t believe that dinner is just easy and heaven on earth, where all troubles or any sense of give and take is laid aside. But when we hold hands and one of us gives thanks to God for food and family, now that is worth some serious embracing. It’s a little thing, but there are so many big things that I’d trade away in an instant for it.

I’ve heard an African Proverb that goes something like this, “If you think something is too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito.”

Intellectually, I know that the little things usually go unnoticed, but make some of the biggest differences in the world. The big things take so much work, and often have enough of their own momentum as to work themselves. I don’t want to ignore the big things. The big things are important. It’s just that I don’t want to lose the little things. I want to see the beauty in a simple sunset. Enjoy the inherent goodness of deep conversation with good friends. Appreciate the pain that is found in your sides after some serious belly laughter. Gladly close my eyes for the good rest that comes after a hard day’s work. And be thankful for the smell of sweat, gasoline and a fresh cut lawn.

Or maybe, the big things, once accomplished, become part of the little things. Once I’ve accomplished a big thing, it then becomes something that is done, and fades into the back ground. We got Kayla a Wii video game system for her birthday. Granted, it is also for my birthday. Cause video games are fun. I don’t know if you know anything about the Wii, but they are very hard to track down. It took me 3 weeks of calling around, searching the internets, going to stores, talking to people who had been so lucky to have the stores grant upon them the opportunity to shell out their hard earned dollars to buy a Wii, and all sorts of other things. Turns out, they make less than they can sell, in order to keep interest up. That’s my opinion. I’m sure Nintendo would say different, that people buy them so fast that Nintendo can’t produce them quick enough.

Anyway, for about 3 weeks, much of my life consisted of calling, and re-calling stores that sold the Wii. “Do you have any Wii?” The response was almost always this, “No, and we don’t know when we are getting any.” Apparently I was not the only one calling about them. Finally, a week before her birthday I was told that Toys R Us was getting a shipment, and they would be on sale on a Sunday morning. “You’d better be prepared to spend some of the night here if you want one.” I have a standing Sunday morning appointment and have somewhere else to be than at Toys R Us. But Melissa said she would go over that morning, and she got in line at 9:30, half an hour before they opened, and was able to get the 23rd of the 30 they sold that morning. And the person on the phone was right; by 10:00, they had pre-sold every last one.

It was a huge deal. Now it has become a little thing. The Wii does not require me to make about 10 calls a day to get it any longer. Kayla loves playing it still, as does Melissa, as do I. It’s good family fun. But the energy I expend on it is considerably less. It has moved from big thing to little thing. But for all that energy to count, I’ve got to enjoy it. That was the point.

Only a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. If you don’t boil it first. Jesus says the Kingdom of heaven is like the yeast which leavens three measures of flour. The Kingdom is not the massive amounts of bread that you can make with 3 measures of flour. It is the little thing, the yeast, which makes the flour into good bread, delicious, light and airy. Without good yeast, 3 measures of flour is only good for making Frisbees.

So too, the little things don’t make life, they just make it good. So embrace the little things. You might just find the Kingdom of God there.

Amen.