Friday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 15, 2021

Luke 12:1-7

At that time, so many people were crowding together that they were trampling one another underfoot. Jesus began to speak, first to his disciples, “Beware of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees. There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one. Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.”

According to St. Luke’s careful chronology, Jesus spoke these words to the crowd on his final journey to Jerusalem.  The Greek text tells us that “thousands” of people were crowding together to hear Jesus.  It is as though an army was gathering around him.  “Beware of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees.”  Many if not most of the folks drawn to Jesus as he was clearly headed for the Holy City heard and approved his condemnation of the Pharisees, and saw this as a sign of how he, as the Messiah they expected, would purify Jewish worship.  This purifying was a regular feature of the preaching of the Prophets.  It was also a subject in the Jewish apocryphal books of the time.  The Lord’s remarks were welcomed by those who resented the haughty Pharisee and who looked forward to a renewed worship of God, not controlled by the wealthy Sadducees.  The Lord spoke more than once of the “leaven” of the Pharisees, and Matthew and Mark quote him as using this expression as Luke does here.  Like leaven itself, it is mysterious: small, but packed with meaning.  At first glance, its meaning might seem obscure, and the Apostles found it so when they first heard it (cf. Matthew 16, 6).  The next sentence the Lord speaks helps us to gather what he means: “There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.”  The two sentences taken together speak of how yeast may be worked into a mass of dough and no one other than the kneader would know it was there.  Yet, given some time, the yeast would act on the dough and cause it to rise, to inflate, to enlarge.  A person watching the dough over even a short period of time could see it expand and would know that yeast caused this.  Later, after baking, anyone in the house eating it or purchasing it in the marketplace knew right away that the dough of the bread had been leavened.  In the same way, Jesus is saying, the Pharisees might whisper to one another and make plots and scheme for wealth, but their wickedness would be exposed in time: “There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.”  The Lord issues this teaching as a warning to the Pharisees and also as a consolation to the people.  Coming shortly after 11, 53-54: “They [the Pharisees and lawyers] began be angry with him terribly, lying in wait for him, seeking to trap something from his mouth”, we can also see that Jesus has a more personal warning in mind as well, for he knows that the Pharisees seek his death.

“Whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.”  The Lord elaborates on the teaching of the leaven of the Pharisees, but he is also offering encouragement to the crowd, composed as it was of thousands of men, women, and children who lived out their lives in obscurity, whose good deeds went unacknowledged, and whose piety seemed to go with them into the ground after they died.  To these, the Lord promises that they and their prayers and piety were known to Almighty God and that they would be made known to all the world.  Love and holiness are also like leaven.  They may not seem evident at first, but the cumulative effect of a life lived out in faith and virtue and love becomes fully clear over time.  Grace works in this way too.  We pray for a person’s conversion and in answer to our prayers, God sprinkles yeast onto the mass of dough for whose conversion they have prayed.  The Lord kneads, and if the dough is receptive, the yeast enters into it and begins to act.  The action may take time, and all the while nothing seems to be happening, but the grace is active and making progress.  And then finally we can see it, the sinner repents from sin and lives the life of the redeemed.

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more.”  It may seem as though the Lord is speaking on a different subject here, but we can also see that he is continuing to encourage the crowd, and us.  The wicked threaten with death in order to control others.  They cannot hope to control anyone through reason and so they resort to this.  It is a sign that they themselves are convinced of their weakness.  They do their utmost to stamp out religion and beauty in order to convince other people that the worst thing that can happen is to die.  That is, they instill despair.  Their worst enemy is God and heaven.  “Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one.”  That is, fear him if you are wicked.  But for the just, there is no need to fear: “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.”

“Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.”  The Greek says something more like: “Your worth surpasses that of many sparrows.”  For the wicked, the individual is nothing, a statistic.  But Almighty God sent his Son to die for each of us so that we might live in bliss with him forever.  So let us grow in his grace that he may be glorified in us, the Baker glorified by the full loaves he has produced.