God's Hidden Creative Power

One of the most fundamental characteristics of the parables is that they are set in a specifically non religious context.  Another characteristic is that the content of the parables seem ordinary and mundane (e.g. a sower sowing seed, a women in search of a lost coin, and a women baking bread). 

This weeks' gospel lesson contains a recitation of a number of very short parables.  Most of them consist of only one verse of text.  One of the parables describes the Kingdom of God as analogous to a women baking bread.  It is hard to imagine a context that is less obviously religious and more mundane.  Women in ancient Israel were, literally and figuratively invisible.  They were prohibited from appearing in public in most contexts and were excluded from virtually all positions of power and authority.  They literally had no voice.  The women baking the bread would have been hidden and unseen.

Despite the fact that no one would have actually seen the women baking the bread and would not have given her a second thought, the women is creating enough food to feed an entire village (i.e. three measures of flour).  Additionally, the very act of leavening is something that takes place through a hidden agent.  A small amount of leavening dough was added to the flour to make it rise and the leavening dough was literally hidden in the flour.  To the casual observer, the agent that created the bread that fed the village would have been invisible.

God is the creator of all things.  And God is hidden from our eyes.  God is the creative power behind all things, even the creative power behind the things that cannot say God's name, and the creative power behind the creative endeavors of human beings who either refuse to acknowledge God or who do not know God.  God slowly and imperceptibly brings life to the world.