BREAD FOR THOUGHT

I love working with dough. Oh, the fragrance of bread or rolls while baking! When bread machines were popular, my husband bought me one, and the loaves of bread it produced were quickly consumed by my peanut-butter-and-jam crowd.

Usually around Christmas I would make a Swedish apple ring, spreading chopped apples, sugar, and cinnamon over a buttered dough circle, rolling it into a sausage shape, forming a ring, and then cutting slits on top. Every time I pulled one out of the oven, I remembered my late mother, who excelled in “rings.”

These days, I bake little, but appreciate the “dough” cycle on my machine as arthritis makes kneading dough painful. The other day, I rolled out the dough circle for crescent rolls to take to a meal with my grandboys' other grandparents, visiting from across the state. Fresh out of the oven, the rolls wafted a tempting smell even from the covered bun basket. Those little tigers ate several before we even sat down together for Sunday lunch!

Working with yeast after several months' hiatus got me thinking about yeast in ancient times. Bible women didn't have the convenience of granulated yeast from the grocery store. They kept a “live” lump from each baking. It was a valuable cooking product! I wrestled with the passages that weren't complimentary about yeast. In Matthew 16, Jesus warned His followers, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Because this teaching followed the miracle of feeding 4,000, the disciples had a “duh” reaction and thought Jesus was referring to their failure to bring enough food for the gathered crowd.

Then the lightbulb moment: Jesus was referring to the legalistic teaching of the traditional religious leaders.  His point was that you can't mix Jewish legalism in with freedom-in-Christ. Luke 12:1 called out the Pharisees' hypocrisy as “leaven.” They paraded their adherence to spiritual “rules” they made up to the tiniest details, like counting out seeds of spices for a precise tithe. But deep inside they were evil and corrupt. In Galatians 5:9, a passage about falling back into legalism, Paul remarked, “A little yeast works through the whole patch of dough.” Yeast “works” because of fermentation, a “dying” process.

Not to take away the romance of enjoying homemade bread and rolls, but could there be a rebuke for our times? Christ replaced thousands of pharisaic rules with the rule of love: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

Actually, that's quite a “yeasty” life philosophy. Doing so permeates life in a positive way. Especially in this season, tainted by the fears and ills of the coronavirus, we need the positive “leavening” of practical love. Oh, and some homemade bread or rolls would be a nice gift, too!