1. Jesus chooses the figure of a woman to represent God – who knew that God is not exclusively a bloke? Both feminine and masculine energies are represented within divinity and within the subsequent image of God in humanity.
2. Heaven is portrayed through an everyday image of provision, comfort, and safety within the home. What is more comforting and sustaining than coming home to the smell of freshly baking bread, lovingly made by a person of nurture. Heaven is like this, Jesus says.  
3. The yeast works its way through the whole. Immediately following this one-liner, Matthew says: ‘without a parable Jesus told them (the crowds) nothing’. Reflect on this – there is nothing to say about God, heaven, the mystery of life and spirit that is not deeply and intrinsically connected to everyday, ordinary moments of life. Which is another way of saying that we live within an enchanted universe and that at any moment, an ordinary shrub can become a burning bush. Certainly, life cannot be separated from spirituality and spirituality cannot be separated from life.

The takeaway from this pithy saying of Jesus is that heaven is always close to us and we to it and that the nature of heavens movement is to reassure us that we are at home in this life, this world, this unique personality and set of circumstances which we occupy. So, let us lean into our existence and to the proximity of such love, trusting in Jesus as our companion in suffering and the hope of our soon and future glory, in this life and the next.

Amen.