I was reading through some resources for World Communion Sunday at the General Board of Discipleship (UMC), and came across this reflection that I want to share with you.
by Mike Hodge
Yeast makes bread rise because of the bubbles of gas that it produces. When the yeast is mixed throughout the dough, the bread rises and has the proper rough and airy texture. But if all of the yeast is lumped together in one small part of the dough, the bread won't rise evenly and will have big, empty holes in it. Even so, the church — the people of the Kingdom — must be intimately involved in life, in the world, in the flour of humanity. When we have clustered ourselves together, fearfully barricaded behind sanctuary walls, we have created great, empty holes in God's world that are filled with nothing but hot air. But if we who call ourselves yeast are willing to become so involved in the pain, the despair, and the laughter of life that our main concern becomes enabling people to grow into all that they can be — then God's bread will become perfect in quality, with yeast permeating every part of the dough. Being involved with life — intimately mixed through and through it — sounds dangerous. Yeast dies in the oven, having lost itself to the creation of something new. May we also be willing to lose ourselves.
This reading is from Alive Now!, September-October 1976, copyright © 1976 by The Upper Room. Attempts in contacting the author have been unsuccessful and we solicit any information on their whereabouts. At the time of publication these writers were students at Scarritt-Bennett College in Nashville, Tennessee.
