How can a parable take us farther into God?
The word parable comes from the Greek pará (alongside) and báll? (throw). When you pitch a comparison or analogy, you don’t end with two ideas simply landing side by side. Your understanding gets catapulted forward, propelled into new insight. Last week, we started exploring parables. Let’s see where just one verse for this week’s Gospel (Matthew 13:24-43) takes us.
He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened” (Matthew 13:33).
How can a parable take us farther?
First, take note of details. The main character in this parable is a woman. There are many times when God is presented as male in the Bible, but every now and then, Scripture gives us a glimpse of the female facet of the Divine. The Psalmist longs to experience the gentleness of God: “Like the eyes of a maid on the hand of her mistress, so our eyes are on the Lord our God” (Psalm 123:2). Jesus himself laments, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling” (Luke 13:34). And Isaiah in consecutive verses goes from masculine to feminine imagery:
The Lord goes forth like a warrior,
like a man of war he stirs up his fury;
He shouts out his battle cry,
against his enemies he shows his might:
For a long time I have kept silent,
I have said nothing, holding myself back;
Now I cry out like a woman in labor,
gasping and panting (v. 13-14).
The reminder is clear: God cannot be confined exclusively to our categories of maleness or femaleness.
Without scrolling up to the parable again, do you remember how much wheat flour the woman used? Again, details matter, and here, the amount is crucial to the message of the parable: Three measures. How much is three biblical measures of wheat flour? Today, this would be approximately 60 pounds of flour!
Sixty pounds of flour can make 60 loaves of bread. If the average loaf has 16 slices, then each loaf can make 8 sandwiches. Multiply 60 by 8 and you have 480 sandwiches. This woman is feeding the whole community!
What is this telling us? The Kingdom of God is not a private meal for your family or a snack for the neighbors on your block. It’s abundant, overflowing, and meant to nourish everyone—even those you don’t know, even those you don’t like.
This woman took yeast and worked it into a heaping mass of flour. Yeast, in Jesus’ time, didn’t come neatly packaged as granules in a packet. Yeast then was a living, fermented lump of dough saved from a previous baking. And that starter had to be kneaded patiently and thoroughly until it permeated the immense mound of dough.
How can a parable take us farther? We must use our imagination.
Now picture the scene: A woman is wrestling with a mountain of dough without the aid of an industrial mixer. Her arms strain; her muscles burn. She is strong, determined, and tireless. This is also our God—someone who isn’t just lounging idly on a cushy throne but laboring passionately in a sweltering kitchen to sustain us.
From breadmaking, let’s jump to sorbetes churning. My elders used to tease me about what makes “dirty ice cream” delicious: Ang pawis ng sorbetero. This warning never deterred me. If anything, it made the cool treat more special.
From ice cream, we make a leap to chicken pandan. I don’t know whether my palate is just not refined enough or whether I just never had it properly prepared, but I have often asked, “Does wrapping chicken in pandan leaves really change the flavor?” One dining companion had a brilliant answer: “You taste the effort.”
And so we return to the parable. God’s work is infused with sweat, effort, and love.
The philosopher Paul Ricoeur once wrote, “The symbol gives rise to thought.” This is another way a parable can take us farther: When we let one image trigger another and when we connect them all together, we are carried deeper into the mystery of God.
But wait… there’s more…
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”
What is translated as “mixed” is the Greek word enekrypsen, which more literally means “hid.” The vital ingredient God kneads into the dough is often hidden, imperceptible, tucked away where no one sees. But it is there, silently working, lifting and raising us even when we fail to notice or acknowledge it because we did not exert the effort.
Your prayer assignment this week: (Will you get an “F” for ef-fort or an “A” for ay-fort?)
Watch this science lesson on yeast:
Once we mix yeast with flour and water, the dough actually becomes “alive.” But once you bake the dough, the yeast dies. Is dying always part of the Kingdom of God?
Ancient civilizations used yeast without ever knowing how it worked. They thought it was sorcery. The Egyptians even attributed the magic to one of their many gods. And we, too, move through life unaware of what truly makes things rise and flourish. We credit our success to our own efforts alone or to luck, forgetting to praise the God hidden in the ordinary, quietly at work in the everyday.
Yeast doesn’t just make the dough rise, it also flavors it. But the subtle notes emerge best through slow fermentation. Similarly, the Kingdom of God needs time for its unique character to unfold and for its silent strength to be tasted.
And still, there’s more. What from the video invites you to think more deeply, to consider the Divine in a new way, and to desire to know God more intimately?
