Originally Posted by
Scruffy Kid
Dear 9Markfan,
Hi!
IMHO what I understand to have been the majority view in your bible study -- that Jesus is comparing the leaven itself to the Kingdom of God, and thus making the action of leaven in meal an analogy to how the KoG works -- is entirely correct.
There are several reasons for this, and several reasons why I find the argument that "leaven" here represents corruption unconvincing. First, as you rightly state, Jesus says "the kingdom of God ... is like leaven, which a woman took." Thus, without some strong counter-indication, the natural reading is that Jesus is analogizing the KoG to leaven, and that the leaven is a good thing. Second, both in Luke and in the parallel passage in Matthew (13:33), this parable is -- as you again rightly point out -- twinned with a parable in which Jesus compares the KoG with a mustard seed which, though tiny, becomes the greatest of shrubs, offering a place to build nests. Third, this latter comparison, incidentally, evokes Jesus' use of the term mustard seed (at Matt 17:20) to speak of how faith -- even the tinyest amount -- can have earthshaking results. Fourth, in Matthew, these parables are presented together with the parable "the Sower" which again emphasizes seed as something that brings forth abundant growth for God's kingdom.
The interpretation you give, of gradual and at first imperceptible increase, in our hearts in the world, again seems to me to be a natural reading, and probably the primary emphasis, of the text. However, I think there might be some other elements there as well. The KoG in this saying is, both in Luke and Matthew, like leaven which a woman "took and hid" in meal. The element of hiddenness, here, seems to me to be an overtone of the parable, picked up in Matthew both in the later parable of the treasure in the field and in the hiddenness implied in the secret of the kingdom (vv. 11-17) in Jesus' discussion, quoting Isaiah 6, of the parable of the Sower, preceding.
In general, I think that the words of Scripture (with the events and images which those words present to us) are deep, alive and active (like leaven!): meant to keep working in our hearts as we ponder them. Thus, I think many sayings of Jesus are multi-layered. There are many important things he's saying in his parables, and part of the point of teaching in parables is to get us to keep pondering and applying the parables. (This argument I just presented must not be confused with the false idea, which I would emphatically reject, that the Scriptures are unclear, up for grabs, or to be interpreted any old way one chooses. They are clear, but also lively, and keep challenging and teaching us in new ways.)
Such an understanding is related to a broad understanding of the way Scripture flexibly and powerfully uses symbolic language to maximum effect, to evoke, form the patterns of our thinking, represent, compare, and so on.
While it is the case that there are some tendencies for a book, passage, or larger contexts of scripture to use particular images in consistent ways, the Scriptures are not a coded message, IMO, which is to be "decoded" mechanically with some key or codebook. The idea that leaven (yeast) always represents something evil relies upon something like that kind of codebook approach, IMO. Stars are always this, brass is always that, trees are always such and such, birds are always thus and so. I see no basis in Scripture for assuming that kind of approach.
The idea that "leaven" or yeast in Scripture is always bad also seems to me to be an artifact of today's grocery-store living. For bread-eating cultures -- all of them up until recently -- which were not as rich and technological and removed from agricultural life as ours now is, leaven, yeast, was an obvious, natural part of life and of bread-making. People generally made their own bread rather than buying it at stores, and everyone understood that leaven and the rising of dough, and so on, was a part of life. One might as well have said that "the sun" or "the earth" or "vines" represented evil. It would have been a silly and inflexible way of using life experience that had many connotations and meanings as a kind of code.
FWIW
Blessings,
Scruff
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I agree with the preacher dude and Roger (don't be scared Roger! Has to happen now and again! 
).
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