(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
At Passover time, in Jewish households, deep cleaning takes place to remove every trace of yeast or leaven from the home. Yeast was symbol of corruption because it sneakingly takes over the whole dough. Yeast also has another side to it, in that it makes the bread easier to use.
Christ had given the Corinthians freedom, freedom from sin and freedom from the law. Christ, however, had not given them the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do. Christ had expected them to live among others and be examples of true Christian living, but neither Jewish law nor Roman law allowed for a man to marry his stepmother (the wife of his father).
Paul saw the rest of the community as approving this behavior. Paul saw this as a yeast, infecting the bread of the body of Christ. He saw Christ as the Pascal Lamb. He used this image either because he wrote the letter during the Jewish Passover feast or he had taught this concept of Jesus as Lamb to the Corinthians.
We are Passover people. We must therefore, deeply cleanse ourselves of every pollution. We must rid ourselves of the leaven of malice and wickedness. We must feast on the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Were Paul to write to us, of what malice and wickedness would he accuse each one of us? Of what leaven must we get rid? How can we clothe ourselves in sincerity and truth?
An easy way to avert the question is to answer by naming the sins and failings of others or of society. I would find it easy to preach against the failings of someone else, but I shall not be judged by another’s faults, but by my own failings.
More and more in people I see more shades of gray or other colors between black and white. I see more people struggling against sin and seeming to fail. I see very few blatant sinners, such as Paul saw in Corinth. I see people struggling against the old yeast. I see them as really desiring and trying to be the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
I have heard that it takes about ten days for new yeast to form in a dough. After Passover, the Jewish household will welcome fresh leaven. It may also be that after about a year, yeast loses its vitality.
As a symbol of renewal, we welcome the growth of fresh yeast and the hopes of a good year. As a symbol of evil, we throw out the old yeast. To live according to the old yeast is to conform to the designs of the world. To live according to the new yeast is to live in the sincerity of the truth of Christ, our Paschal Lamb.