Sermon: The Care and Feeding of Herman
Texts: Ecclesiastes 11:1; Luke 13:20-21; Galatians 5:9
Date: November 22, 2009
Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church
Dawn Haslanger introduced a few of us to Herman on Tuesday night. I really like Herman. Actually I’ve met him before—he shows up here at church about once a month. But I hadn’t really gotten up close and personal until Tuesday night. He’s this beautiful light brown color, and he smells great. He looks kind of inert, but he’s very active after he gets warmed up. Would you like to meet him?
Herman is a sourdough starter. Dawn shared a bit of Herman with those of us who came to her “bread and grace” workshop this past week. [I’m going to pass my share of Herman around so you can take a whiff.] If you’ve ever had Communion here, Herman is most likely already a part of you since Dawn bakes probably 90% of our Communion bread using this starter. She received some starter when she was living in Austin, Texas thirty years ago, and she’s been nurturing and using it ever since. But Herman is older than that. The friend that shared it with her had been using it for several years, and before that Herman is believed to have lived among South Dakota Lutherans. There was a society of Lutherans who lived and worked together in close community and one of the many things they shared was Herman. While there is no formal pedigree to prove it, Herman may be as much as 100 years old.
Dawn’s generous with Herman; he came into her life as a gift and she has gifted many people with a little share out of her pot. As long as she keeps taking care of the starter and feeding it, it will live on and on, and Herman will keep multiplying, given the right ingredients and the right conditions.
I think that’s awesome.
Dawn and Bob say they have eaten so much Herman bread in the last 30 years that their bodies may have become Herman. They are embodying Herman. I wonder how many other people Herman has nourished over the years, particularly as people share the starter around the country? It boggles the imagination.
What shall I compare Herman the sourdough starter to? It’s like….the kingdom of God! OK, I admit I plagiarized that idea. I took a page right out of Jesus’ book. “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” Those of you who were here last week might be a little surprised to hear Jesus using yeast as a metaphor for the kingdom of God. When last we heard Jesus speak on the topic of yeast, it was “Beware!” Do you remember? “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” [Mark 8:15]. He was using yeast then as a metaphor for an idea or attitude that corrupts, because in Hebrew culture yeast was thought to work through corruption and decay.
So last week “Yeast= Bad,” this week “Yeast= Good?” What’s up with that? Shouldn’t Jesus, the Master Teacher, learn not to mix his metaphors? We who are trying to follow him are rather simple, and we would prefer not to be befuddled by the very One we are hoping will save us and show us the way. Amen? Is leaven unclean and corrupting, or not? And if it is, why compare it to the kingdom of God?
Biblical scholars point out that Jesus liked to take his listeners by surprise—it was part of his technique of shaking up the way people viewed ordinary life so he could show them a new way of seeing and living. Further, if the metaphor is a little bit offensive, so be it. Right before Jesus tells this yeast parable, he has compared the kingdom to a mustard seed, a weed no reasonable person would plant in their carefully cultivated garden, because it would completely take over. The Kingdom of God is a little on the wild side, not tame, not controllable, sometimes even offensive. For instance, here’s one of Jesus’ offensive notions: that the prostitute and the derelict are as welcome in the Kingdom as the mayor and the philanthropist. We need to remember that a lot of what Jesus taught had a little edge to it.
If the Kingdom of God is like the yeast, and God is like the woman doing the mixing (and by the way, you can bet lots of listeners would be offended by God being compared to a woman baking), what is the dough? We’re talking about something big—if a woman had followed this parable like a recipe she would have made enough bread to feed at least one hundred people. “Three measures” is a bushel of flour—128 cups, or 16 five pound bags. After you put in the 42 or so cups of water you need to make it come together, you’ve got a little over 101 pounds of dough on your hands. Biblical scholar Robert Farrar Capon, who did those calculations so someone like me wouldn’t have to, says the lump of dough stands for the whole world. Such a large lump of dough should leave one who imagines it a little agog. You know how much work it is to knead even a small lump of dough. This big lump is “certain to wear out anybody, God included, who tries to deal with it.”
Capon enthuses about the poetic genius of Jesus using this yeast metaphor. He points out that yeast completely dissolves into the dough and disappears. And it has been there from the beginning of the creation of the dough. Not one lump of this large ball of dough is unleavened, nor has it ever been. This parable is a way of saying that the kingdom entered the world at the moment of creation, and there is not, and never has been, any “unkingdomed” humanity anywhere in the world. Every second of the time the dough is dough, the yeast is inseparable from it. Capon writes, “Therefore, for every second of the time the world has been a world, it has also been the kingdom [of God]. Its progress through history is not a transition from nonkingdom to kingdom; rather, it is a progress from kingdom-in-a-mystery to kingdom-made-manifest.” [1] Our role in this process, Capon suggests, is not to despair of the lump of dough before its time comes. To be patient. To trust that the leaven of the kingdom of grace is entirely mixed into the lump of our existence and it will infallibly lighten every last one of us.
I appreciate Capon’s exposition on the parable. But it seems a little too passive. Although I don’t believe the Kingdom of God unfolding on earth is dependent on us human beings, I don’t believe it’s entirely independent from us, either. It seems to me that we have a role to play in addition to being patient while God works.
So what if we put Herman in place of the yeast in the parable? I’ve been studying Dawn’s recipes and musing on Dawn herself as a parable for the church. Say the sourdough starter is still standing for the kingdom, and her share of it is contained in a church, a little white church on a corner which we hope is in some imperfect way a manifestation of the kingdom. Dawn was given Herman as a gift, just as we were given this church as a gift. But she didn’t just put Herman on a shelf and leave it there. She has been actively involved with keeping Herman thriving all these years.
Yes, Herman needs attention. In fact, after I took my portion home and took a look at the page headlined “Care and Feeding of Herman” I wondered if I should have taken Herman on. It’s not just an ingredient, it’s a responsibility. According to Dawn’s instructions, Herman likes to be stirred every day (but will forgive you if you don’t). Herman likes to be fed at least once every five days. You need to add some flour, some water, and some honey when you are using the starter and even when you are not using it enough to deplete it. Although there are no dire warnings on Dawn’s instruction sheet, I assume that Herman will eventually expire if I don’t attend to him. It will be good for nothing, unable to do its leavening work, unless it is cared for.
This is true of a church as well. Those who are caretaking a church have to get involved with it. Add stuff to it.
Herman needs flour. What shall I compare the flour to? How about the money? Churches need money. It’s as basic as flour is to bread. Though we might wish it were otherwise, we have to keep stirring it in to keep the mission alive. We measure it out and convert the money into people hours, heat and light, music, curriculum, communication—all the things that undergird our ministry and the expansive ministry of the worldwide church.
Herman needs water. What shall I compare the water to? How about time? We pour ourselves into church activities, spending our time here in either drips and drops or great gallons at a time when a need arises. Some pour their time into governance, and others wash dishes, and others support our technology, and others visit the sick, and others teach the children, and others welcome all comers. Some pour their time into learning music, and some cook the soup, and some pull the weeds, and some balance the books, and some pray for those in need, and some gather and deliver our gifts of food and socks and the like, and some give away the free hugs. We pour our time into the church—that’s indispensable to taking care of what we’ve been given.
Herman needs honey. What shall I compare the honey to? How about love, sweet love? We share love among and between us. I saw a lot of that Wednesday night as the youth and seniors reconstituted their mutual admiration society over their annual dinner together. I see love being passed from hand to hand and eye to eye every time we get together to worship, learn, or have fellowship together. As Christians, we try to act loving even when we don’t feel particularly loving. We try to be slow to anger and quick to forgive, which is a manifestation of love. Even when we find it necessary to correct one another, we do it out of a spirit of love, not meanness. Dawn’s instruction sheet asserts in italics, “Herman loves honey.” Herman thrives on honey. Churches thrive on love expressed in word and deed.
Herman likes to be stirred daily. I think churches need to be stirred up regularly as well. Not necessarily by conflict, although conflict can be productive so we shouldn’t try to avoid it like the plague. Churches need to be stirred up with plenty of activity, with innovative ideas, with experimental programs, with new people, with fresh liturgy and music. Churches need to have their hearts stirred with compassion, and their minds stirred with contemporary theology, and their souls stirred with ancient truths. A stagnant church is not a good steward of the kingdom. That said, we don’t absolutely have to be in constant motion and flux. As Dawn’s recipe notes, “Herman likes to be stirred daily, but will forgive you if you don’t.”
As Dawn takes care of Herman, she is able to add to it and share it around. That’s what happens with a church when we have been good stewards. We have been propagating our share of the leaven of the kingdom of God. We do not have a gigantic church campus with a thousand members and a million dollar budget to show for our stewardship of this church’s ministry. We remain small, we struggle to maintain what we have, and some days we may wonder if we’re doing any good at all. But feeling a bit wobbly doesn’t mean we haven’t been faithful stewards of what we’ve been given. We may never know how many people have been nurtured by Eagle Harbor Church’s ministry over the years, or how people have been saved and transformed.
I found a little story from preacher Fred Craddock that spoke to me about the value of a small church. He wrote, “When I read that story in which the woman hid the yeast in the dough, I think of the little church in Jeff, Illinois. You don’t know about Jeff, Illinois. It’s just practically no community at all, no village at all, and one little church, the Jeff Christian Church. They didn’t have enough members to get a good minister. The ministers would come who were just starting out, and sometimes they would get an old minister who should’ve retired a long time ago, but that was sort of it. Usually they had Sunday school, had the Lord’s supper, sang a hymn, and left. Sometimes had a sermon. Little church. The coal stove hardly heated the little building out there in the corn field. It didn’t amount to anything. It’s gone now, couldn’t make it. But out of the church in Jeff, Illinois, came young people as missionaries, missionary doctors, ministers, and professors in Christian universities. The total service to Jesus Christ by young people going out of Jeff Church is over 225 years. And you drive by there, and you say, ‘I wonder if they’re having service? I don’t see anyone.’ Hidden.” [2]
Most of the churches I have been involved with during my life have been your average, workaday churches whose lay people and clergy have labored mightily over in order to stay viable. I’ve never been part of a spectacular or famous church. Most of them don’t stand out in the landscape except to those who love them. As I mull over my memories of those churches, I can hardly count the blessings they have given me. At my first church I learned awe and wonder. My elementary school church taught me some terrific songs and got me thinking about theological issues. My junior high church brought me closer to my family. My high school church loved me; provided the indispensable support of youth group and confirmation, and also sent me to camp, where I could be myself without fear of rejection. My college church was the campus ministry (supported by the wider church), where I got my first taste of helping lead a spiritual community. My seminary churches helped shape my call and gave me plenty of affirmation. The churches I have served have been sources of precious friends and wonderful places to nurture further spiritual growth. I’m just one person who has been richly blessed by all these faithful folk stewarding ordinary churches. We would be bowled over if we could possibly learn of the multiple blessings smallish, more-or-less anonymous churches impart.
Churches aren’t perfect and I am aware that sometimes people are hurt and rejected by churches. But by and large, I believe they have an enormously positive effect on individuals and on the communities in which they are located. The effect they have is often hidden—buried deep in the hearts of those they touch. I believe deeply that the world would be a flatter and meaner place without the leaven of love churches foster.
Eagle Harbor Church, we may never make a big splash in the world. But we are a manifestation of the kingdom of God. We have received the grace of God, and the gospel as a treasure. People have been looking after this gift here for over one hundred years, keeping it alive, keeping it going, sharing it with neighbors, nourishing souls. We may look like a small, rather insignificant operation, but hidden within this community is the leaven of the kingdom.
And now it comes to us: our time to take care of it, our turn to take care of it. Our time, our turn to give ol’ Herman the leavening agent the flour, the water, the honey. Our time, our turn to stir it up, to offer our little share to the greater good.
What a gift. What a responsibility. What a blessing to have a partnership with God feeding her beloved the Bread of Life.
[1] Capon, Robert Farrar Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, p. 102
[2] Craddock, Fred B. Craddock Stories edited by Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001, p. 107