Jesus Versus Disney
Matthew 13: 31-33,
Jesus told his followers another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
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 Kingdom of heaven is like this. A man happens to find a treasure hidden in a field. He covers it up again, and is so happy that he goes and sells everything he has, and then goes back and buys that field.
45 “Also, the Kingdom of heaven is like this. A man is looking for fine pearls, 46 and when he finds one that is unusually fine, he goes and sells everything he has, and buys that pearl.”
When I was little, there was not a lot to watch on TV. Growing up in northern Alberta we had two stations, CTV and CBC. It was a big deal when one of the stations had a special, and one of my favourites was the Little Mermaid which was shown about once a year.
This was NOT the Disney version, that didn't come out til the 90s and I was a child in the '70s. What we watched was a retelling of the original tale by Hans Christian Anderson. I don't know how many of you know that story, but the ending was very different from the Disney version.
In the original story, the Little Mermaid's beloved prince does not marry her, he marries another princess. On the night of their wedding, the Little Mermaid is given the choice of killing the prince and becoming mermaid again, or turning into foam on beach.
The Little Mermaid cannot bear to kill her beloved prince, so she chooses to cast herself into the sea. Instead of dissolving into foam as she has been told will happen, she rises into the air and becomes a spirit, a daughter of the air, who does good deeds like cooling the faces of feverish children and eventually she gains a soul.
When I saw the Disney version I was horrified by the ending! The prince falls in love with her and they get married?! I won't even get into the feminist implications of the fact that she can only regain her voice if he kisses her. I felt that the Disney ending took away the power of the story, but when I told my friends the original ending they were horrified.
How could I prefer that ending? No wedding, just helping others as a spirit? Of course Disney had to change it, who would watch a movie with that kind of lame, unsatisfactory ending?
Now you may be wondering, what does the Little Mermaid have to do with Jesus and his parables? Well, I think they have a lot in common, actually. The parables for today are like the original version of the Little Mermaid, they aren't nice, neat stories that tie up with nice, neat endings.
All four parables have aspects to them that are odd, uncomfortable. That's one reason they aren't nearly as popular as parables like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. It's much harder to get a happy ending out of these stories.
I'm just going to focus on the first two, starting with the parable of the yeast. “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.” That's it, one sentence.
Like most parables, we have to do a bit of unpacking in order to understand what's going on. Firstly, “the Kingdom of Heaven” – Matthew uses that term where Luke and Mark use “the kingdom of God,” and it's essentially the same thing. Jews have always avoided using God's name. Given that Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience, it makes sense he substitutes “Heaven” for “God.”
This ended up creating great confusion though, as for centuries Christians believed the Kingdom of Heaven referred to the afterlife, the place where we go when we die, while Jesus was actually referring to life on earth. “The Kingdom of Heaven is among you.”
It was only in the past 100 years that more and more scholars came to understand that Jesus' references to the kingdom of God or Heaven meant a present rather than a future reality. It's about creating a world where people live in God's way of justice and compassion on earth now, not after we die.
Next it says the Kingdom of Heaven is “like yeast.” For us this is not a big deal or shocking in any way, yeast is yeast, we use it for making bread. For Jesus' audience? It was a big deal. For Jewish people of that era, yeast was considered unclean, it was a symbol of corruption and even evil. That's why they used unleavened bread (flat bread) for Passover. The lack of leaven/yeast was what made it holy.
We need to understand, they didn't have yeast as we know it, their leaven was more like sourdough, a small amount of dough was kept aside when making bread and allowed to ferment (to get rotten), and used as leaven for the next batch. If left too long, it could actually poison people. So it kind of makes sense that leaven was seen as a bad thing.
Which means it would have made no sense to Jesus' audience that he is comparing the kingdom of God to leaven/yeast, a symbol of corruption and even of evil.
Jesus goes further with his uncomfortable analogy saying the woman “hid” the yeast in three measures of flour. The translation used today said “mixed” but the original word is krypto, as in cryptic, which definitely means hid. And the three measures of flour? That's a lot, as in close to 50 lbs.
Finally there is the woman who does the mixing (or hiding), which is also surprising. It was very unusual at that time to have a woman as the “hero”, the main character, the one who brings the kingdom about. This was a society where women were oppressed, with no power or role in politics or religion.
Put it all together and you have to wonder, is Jesus really saying that the kingdom of God is like corruption concealed by a woman (a person of no power) in a large measure of flour and carefully worked through until the whole huge mass of dough is thoroughly corrupted??
Bernard Scott, a scholar who specializes in parables, says that in order to understand what is going on, the question to ask is, for whom would this parable be good news? For whom would it be bad news?
He says one immediate answer was that it was good news for women in that society. The parable gave them “a major role in empire of God, just the way they are, doing their normal, everyday activities like baking bread, even leavened bread.”
Scott goes further and says, “For those who are leaven in their society, this parable assures them that the empire of God is like them. In Jesus' society this was a large majority of people. All those who were unable for one reason or another to observe the purity code would be leaven and that would be most folks.”
Looked at that way, all of a sudden this odd, uncomfortable parable becomes a story of hope, doesn't it. Who is God's kingdom for? People who are treated like yeast, like leaven. How does it come about? Secretly, not always obvious, not through people of power, but through everyday people.
We see a similar theme in the parable of the mustard seed. Sometimes we get sidetracked by the idea that the mustard seed grows into a large tree. Well, we need to remember we're not talking about a cedar here, even if Matthew is trying to evoke the cedars of Lebanon. We are talking about a weed, an unwanted, not particularly attractive plant. A weed that grows up when what you really want is wheat or vegetables or anything more useful than mustard. So no matter how big it might get and no matter how many birds might be able to roost in its branches, it's still just a big weed.
Once again, Jesus goes for gritty, every day imagery. The Kingdom of God is not Ariel's shining castle from Disney's Little Mermaid, it's a weed, growing out of control. Jesus doesn't seem to want handsome princes and pretty princesses in God's kingdom, he's not looking for well read scholars and teachers of the law who do everything right, or at least look like they do. Jesus wants weeds and yeast, real people living real lives.
No wonder Bernard Scott says, “The parable of the Leaven reminds us that naming the situation, truly describing it, often produces more hope than the false expectation that by some magic wand it can all be set aright.”
We sure like our magic wands though, don't we? As a society we're rather obsessed with happiness and happy endings, which is why Disney does so well, but how helpful is that attitude, really? How many of us will end up in the beautiful castle with a gorgeous, adoring spouse? How much time, energy and money is wasted aiming for such unrealistic goals? How many needs of others are overlooked in our drive for Disney endings in our lives?
We want happy endings, but Jesus doesn't offer them because that's not reality, that's not where hope comes from. Hope comes from honesty.
In Jesus' parables unholy yeast doesn't turn into unleavened, holy bread, it stays unholy yeast and somehow brings about the Kingdom anyway. And weeds don't turn into cedars, they just get extra big and do some good by still being weeds.
Theologian Talitha Arnold puts it so beautifully, “If God can use an unwanted weed and corrupt leaven to grow the kingdom, imagine what God can do with you.”
We are called to embrace our own “weediness” and our yeast like imperfections and to trust God to work through us to bring about a kingdom of love and justice not in spite of our flaws, but because of them.
We are also called to embrace those who it is easy for us to label as weeds and yeast, who it is easy for us to push aside as not being worthy or not being helpful in God's work. Who are we to judge?
Clearly Jesus sees a place for all of us in God's kingdom. True hope comes from admitting that all of us are weeds and yeast and that's exactly why and how God works in us to bring the kingdom about.