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Fr. Blauvelt's Blurb

October 19th 2009

"Pumpkins and Yeast"







Hello everyone, and welcome to the newest edition of Fr. Blauvelt's Blurb!



This week: Pumpkin patch all week. During the next week we need about five shifts to be filled. We unloaded our second shipment yesterday, and the patch is once again full, and we're ready to sell many many pumpkins.



Monday: Junior High & JV football



Wednesday: Bible Study 6:00 PM at the Office

Vestry-7:00 PM at Reimann's



Thursday: Youth Group 6:00 Pm at the Office



Friday: Varsity football



Saturday: Contemporary Service 5:13 PM. This week will be a Eucharist and Potluck



Sunday: Contemplative Service 8:00 AM

Traditional Service: 10:50 AM



Last week we had our clergy conference and one of the things the leader did was slip us in his scriptural speaking. It was an accident, but it made me think. He was speaking about how Jesus said that a seed is planted and a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. My thought was, "Jesus didn't say that," and I could not follow the rest of his talk.



Paul speaks about a little yeast working through the whole batch of dough. When Paul speaks of planting a seed, it is about sowing the seeds of faith, and aludes back to the parable of the sower. It is about hope, it is about reaching out to those who are lost in their sin. When Paul speaks about yeast, it is about sin, and false teaching embeding and growing within the church. Paul says



6Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast-as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. (I Corinthians 5:6-8 NIV)





The Corinthians loved to talk about the freedom that they had in Jesus Christ. That through it all, God would forgive them, and so it didn't matter how they lived. This created an environment where sin became prevolent, even to a point that they felt they could do things even pagans didn't do! Paul is telling them to get rid of that yeast, because that idea is alive like yeast. As we get comfortable with sin, it becomes easier and easier to do it, until eventually some people will begin to think it might not be so bad. Paul is telling them not to get comfortable with the sin, but to do more:



9I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- 10not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.



12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you." (I Corinthians 5:9-13 NIV)



The argument is: How can we reach out to people if we won't accept them and their behavior. Paul says that it is not the behavior of the unbeliever that he is speaking about. Of course we welcome sinners into Church, and our hope is that they will see how God is working in our lives and may want to grab hold of that hope, but we are not to see what they are doing and want it for ourselves.



In this age of "tolerance" it has become increasingly difficult to encourage people to not associate with those who call themselves a Christian, but still live as a person of the world. We are not called to an easy thing, but that is how yeast works, it works its way into all of the dough. Paul says to get rid of it so that it won't cause trouble in the Church.



Jesus didn't say it, and it is not good. But it is happening in our church. Get rid of the yeast.