peter krey\’s web site

I was thinking. I usually arrive at new theological insights when I write my sermons. I always pray for God to help me discover a little more truth. Last year preaching for Resurrection Lutheran in Oakland, I realized that because of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, if we all received a new birth because of the love of God, then we become children of God in a continuous incarnation even while God is at work in the continuous creation. You can check out this sermon here. In the many flowers of the beautiful Christmas plant, the poinsettia, I used to see the Nativity of Jesus Christ, giving each one of us believers a Christmas birth of our own represented by each blossom.

It then follows that theology does become anthropology in the marvelous exchange, where we receive God’s attributes as heirs, who receive the last will and testament of Christ. Although Jesus died on the cross sharing the fate of humanity, God the Father raised him from the dead, and thus the love of God overcome death.

In saying that theology becomes anthropology, I am not following Feuerbach, who called theology illusion and projection. I say it as an increase in faith, meaning that God is not finished with us yet, but is still about the great transformation that entails our salvation.

Saying that theology becomes transformed into anthropology from our human point of view, however, makes me realize how far conceptuality can surpass reality, because we humans still tear each other up, the way wolves won’t even do.

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Resurrection Lutheran Church, Oakland, CA – May 20, 2012

Acts 1: 15-17, 21-26 – Psalm 1 – 1 John 5: 9-13 – John 17: 6-19

God’s Lamb is the Great I Am

     I thank Pastor Lucy Kolin for asking me to serve you with God’s Word this morning. She is at the Synod assembly and we pray God be with her and the decisions that our Sierra Pacific Synod makes there in San Jose. I’ve been unemployed for about three years, but when God is the one who calls us, when God gives us our vocation, we always have divine employment, and God sees to it that our needs are met, because God provides. We also stand in good stead, because our great high priest, Jesus Christ prays for us as we read in our Gospel lesson for today.

Jesus prays thanking God that he is glorified in us, that we may be one as the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit are one, and that we become sanctified by the truth. I choose only those three petitions among Jesus’ many others.

During this week I asked myself, what does it mean for Jesus to be glorified in us? This is what I figure: When we die to our old selves, to the old Adam and Eve in us, Christ raises us up into new selves to embark on the new way of life that Jesus taught us. Now it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. When Christ speaks of being glorified in the Gospel of John, then he is speaking about being lifted up on a cross, dying upon the cross for us, so that he becomes raised up by God to sit at the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty there in the glory of God.

So our glory, joined to that of Christ is suffering and dying to ourselves, so that the life of Christ envelopes all our relationships, everyone whom the Christ in us meets, touches, and heals in body and soul, feels and begins to know that they are in the real presence of God.

Yes indeed, their minds open up to God’s Word, their hearts open up to the good faith, the very good faith Jesus has given us.  This gift of faith that we receive becomes active in love and the love that seeks justice. We receive not only the real wonderful Christ in our hearts, but also his Beloved Community, the Church, the Church that overcomes the world.

The word “glory” became intriguing to me while reading Luther’s Bondage of the Will.  Luther writes of the light of nature, the light of grace, and the light of glory. They are three levels that we live our lives on and levels of thinking and understanding God’s way with us. What can’t be understood on one level becomes clear on the next.[1] Our Lutheran faith is rather wonderful because it relies so much on grace and we preach and live in the light of grace. As unacceptable as we are, God accepts us unconditionally, and God’s acceptance changes us in the twinkling of an eye, into God’s lovable children. We are not loved by God because we are loveable but we are loveable because God loves us. Now imagine that we can live in a light even beyond that of grace, in the light of God’s glory, the glory of God’s only begotten Son, full of grace and truth. That is glory!

Wow! It is the Seventh Sunday of Easter and this whole sermon could unfold around the incredible glory of God and the way the glory of Christ can become ever brighter in us like the increasing glory of the stars. That’s how St. Paul refers to the magnitude of stars. We can become ever brighter like stars. Forget those whom our society calls stars. The glorified Christ is in you. Christ is your true self. Are you almost invisible to the naked eye or are you going from glory to glory? Is your true self coming out and beginning to shine in the glory of Christ?

Let me go to the next part, however, because in the glory of Christ, he also makes us one. Christ prayed that we become one even as the Blessed Three Persons of the most Holy Trinity are one, in the love that sent the only Son of the Father to save us lost sinners, to save this sorry world. Because of that divine love we also become born of God and we have the promise that we will not perish but receive everlasting life; we have the promise of abundant life and eternal life.

Christ is God’s very Lamb and as the Great I Am, he now lives, moves, and has his divine Being in us and we are one in him. Now stop and think how hard it is to believe this. Like Alice said in Wonderland,

“There’s no use trying. One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say,” said the queen, “you haven’t had much practice… Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”[2] Dear Lord, increase our faith!

In this oneness, we can all be within each other as new selves in the body of Christ, God’s Beloved Community. Inside us we do not need to have a “Heart-Break Hotel.” Nor does our heart have to be shut down, without any room in our inn, but we can have a full church, a whole congregation in our hearts, like an old usher in our church in Coney Island, New York used to shout: “S.R.O., S.R.O.!” meaning “Standing room only, standing room only!” Meanwhile he came from an S.R.O., which meant “Single Room Occupancy” where those who without a real home could live cheaply. His name was Thomas Worthington Kirkpatrick and he had such a speech defect that it took strenuous attention and listening to understand him. We can have all the people from a congregation in our hearts. How wonderful when our heart becomes a church!

What is really important about the oneness that we receive in Christ is that it is an internal bond, because the Kingdom of God, the Beloved Community is within you. Our bodies are like shells and our true selves are mostly within them. So the bond, the tie that binds us, our relationships with each other, are internal. A saying of a French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has always guided me. He said, “True unity differentiates, it does not confound.”[3] True unity does not homogenize us. When we have it we can be as different from each other as we can be. We can be our unique and individual true selves and still cherish each other and the Beloved Community in our hearts.

There is a difference between uniformity and true unity. Soldiers and police wear uniforms, and in these cases, they give them the right to kill. Unity gives us the gift of life. Uniformity makes everyone have to have the same outer shell. It does not penetrate to the heart. So our society dictates the model of a woman’s body and then batters all women to diet and make their bodies fit into that same slender hour-glass shape, killing many women, who do not have a body anything like that, in the process. I remember the girdles my sisters used to have to struggle into to try to have that hour-glass-figure. Maybe men envision their tummies so small, so they couldn’t imagine a baby would form in it! Believe it or not, the girdle is coming back. It is being called the faja. Wednesday it was written up in the New York Times in an article entitled: “A Clasp from the Past!”[4] Women beware!

The inner bond of unity we have in Christ is held together by trust. A newly married man and woman went everywhere together. People noticed that they were never apart. People said, “Look how they love each other!” No way. He was just always watching her because he didn’t trust her. It is called a couple-front, because they did not have the internal bond made out of freedom, love, and trust.

We are not only speaking about women’s bodies, freedom and trust in relationships, but also the freedom to be different and to think differently. In New England where I grew up, some teachers wanted to be non-conformists and back in the 1950’s conformity was important. In those days every school day began with morning exercises. These exercises consisted in a Bible reading, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead of reading from the Bible, one teacher read sections from Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species to the class. After she read from the book all about evolution, I don’t remember whether she prayed with us or not. I don’t think so. But in her dissent she was being a non-conformist. She championed the individual and rejected conformity with the group. She did not want to be locked inside that shell. But remember Teilhard’s insight, “True unity does not confound; it differentiates.” He also argues that it is a false habit of mind to keep playing the individual off against the group.[5] The non-conformist can still be caught in the same outer shell of the conformist. Christ teaches us to penetrate to the heart, he prays for us to receive the true unity, which is also in the Blessed and Holy Trinity, where the many can be loved in the one and the one can be loved in the many and in that love we can lay down our lives for each other.

These words from Pierre Teilhard have always helped me. True unity is internal; it is an internal bond that makes our hearts one, so that the loving and compassionate heart of Christ beats in us. Why not also use the Catholic expression: so that the “sacred heart” of Christ beats in us. And because this bond is internal, the group and the individual can also be one in a relationship like that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose oneness is beyond number. The internal individual and the group are beyond number.

Teilhard’s word always helped me, because like here in Resurrection Lutheran Church, back in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Coney Island, we were so different from each other. We were African-American, Caucasian, and many different kinds of Latinos – we used to say Hispanics there. We had Guatemalans, Panamanians, Colombians, etc. My wife Nora Zapata is Colombian. I was born in Germany. We were all so different. But because our hearts were one, we could say, “Viva la différence!” Like men say about women: “Viva la différence!”

We were sanctified in the truth, because to have one heart and to be of one heart together when we were so different represented a continuous challenge. If you are familiar with the geography of New York, you would know that Coney Island and Long Island are really attached. Many people in Long Island live there because of white flight; they fled Coney Island. In that way Long Island is not at all attached to Coney Island. We had big Vacation Church School and Vacation Day Camp programs and we visited one generous church in Long Island that helped us fund our programs. In the choir we noticed that every woman was a blond, different shades perhaps, but they were all blond nonetheless. They didn’t even seem to accept any woman who had black hair. Perhaps many had died their hair that color, I don’t know. There we were Puerto Rican, African-American, and Caucasian and they were all into having the same outer shell.

This sermon might become too long to delve into the way Christ prays that we become sanctified by the truth. But briefly, in his prayer, Christ makes true unity go together with truth. The truth should not come at the expense of unity, nor unity be maintained at the expense of truth. [Lutherans have had the weakness of sacrificing unity for the sake of truth. It leaves us with a little picture, a more and more provincial perspective on the world. A relationship is strengthened when it is sanctified by the truth.] Both unity and truth have to come together. The glorified Christ in us is the truth and gives us the gift of unity. Let’s praise God for the oneness we receive because of the glorified Christ in us and for the oneness that God continues to share with us. It is such a marvelous gift! And Christ keeps sanctifying us with the truth. God’s Word is the truth. I am sure that God can’t help answering the prayer of Christ. So it’s a promise:  we are sanctified by the truth until we leave these outer shells, these bodies of ours behind us, and in our true selves, we receive the body and blood of Christ in the fullness of God’s joy. Amen.

Pastor Peter D.S. Krey, Ph.D.

A Lenten Devotion for Christ Lutheran 18. of March, 2012

When we are young, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we think we can change the world; we can tear out trees by their roots, in short, there is nothing we think we cannot do. Then life and the world catches up with us, slaps us in the face, and shows us our limits.

In a particularly difficult period in my life, when I was ministering in Berlin, Germany, when my troubles just wouldn’t go away, one night I felt like I was dying. I was lying in bed and I thought I was getting a heart attack. I had come to the end of my rope. I was at my end. “O Lord,” I said, now the fire in my oven has gone out!” I had no strength to go on.

Then I remembered how my counselor said, “The resurrection is our business!” I suddenly realized that I could only live out of the strength of another life!

I got up and said, “O Lord, now I have to live out of your strength, because I have no more of my own.” As I got up out of bed, I realized that I no longer lived, but Christ lived in me. Christ, of course, does wonders and one step after another resolved my problems.

Later I was reading Luther’s Theology of the Cross in his Heidelberg Disputation. Thesis No. 18 states, “It is certain that we must utterly despair of our own ability, before we are prepared to receive the grace of Christ.”

In our day as well as in Luther’s we believe that if we do what is in us, then God will come and do the rest. That is only true for someone who knows about what we do with our hands, but not the troubles we encounter in our hearts. We foolishly believe that what we do is partly by our own strength and effort and partly by God’s grace. That did not jive with Luther’s experience nor after that experience, with mine. And what a difference between doing what we can do and Christ doing God’s work through us! It is true that we do nothing, now knowing, that we have died in Christ and the risen Lord is doing everything through us and we can continue living out of God’s gracious strength, which is really gracious, because there is truly nothing God cannot do. So when our lives really come to an end here on earth, Christ will raise us up in that life in heaven where we’ll be home. Amen.

Pastor Peter Krey

Shepherd of the Sea Episcopal/Lutheran Mission

Second Sunday after Epiphany – January 15, 2012

1 Samuel 3:1-20 Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 John1:43-51

Ascending and Descending Angels

The lessons today are mostly about being called and being sent out on the great mission of Christ. (At the end this sermon will take the call in a different direction.) We are all called by Christ by dint of our baptism and thus we should not give ourselves short shrift no matter our vocation. We often narrow down the call only to clergy, which violates the recognition that we are the royal priesthood of all believers and just because we are not clergy, does not get us off the hook. On NPR’s Forum Friday, they were extending the call for farmers, because in California 20% are over 70 years old and a far greater percentage are over 60. What an opportunity to make a moral witness to Christ. In the pastors’ Bible Study this week we heard the story of a little girl, who saw an injured bird in a puddle, took it home, mended its broken wing, and right there felt the call to be a doctor.

The Old Testament figure, Samuel, is also called as a young boy and he is called in a time when “the word of the Lord was rare and visions were not widespread.” (Call the name: “Samuel, Samuel!”) The boy slept in the nave of the church, where God called him even though he “did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” On top of that, it is a very hard message that the Lord reveals to him. But by his call Samuel overcomes the corruption of Eli’s sons, who while ruling were fleecing their flocks, that is, taking for themselves the first-fruits of the offerings of the people, and Samuel becomes trustworthy and “none of his words fall to the ground.” His words, carried by the Spirit of God, lift the people up in a very difficult time. Was there any judge of Israel greater than God’s gift, Samuel, her firstborn son, to Hannah, who had been barren and infertile so many years?

The One who stood before Samuel is the very same one we call Jesus, now calling his disciples and also calling us. Jesus does not sleep near the Arc of the Covenant, like Samuel, but he himself is the Christ Candle burning for God’s rule of Israel. On the dusty roads between Bethany, east of the River Jordan and Bethsaida, beside the Sea of Galilee, [in a bodily, outdoor temple] he is worshiping God in Spirit and in truth.

According to Huston Smith, a scholar of the religions of the world, Jesus had the spirit world at his beck and call. “What made [Jesus] outlive his time and place was the way he used the Spirit that coursed through him, not just to heal individuals – this was his aspiration: to heal humanity, beginning with his own people.”[1] (That’s why Jesus reaches you people in Gualala even today.) Now Smith is looking at Jesus from a human point of view. But Jesus still baptizes his followers today with fire and spirit, because he is burning with love, healing, and fresh life and ushering in the new order of things caught up and sustained by the Holy Spirit. When he calls Philip, Philip feels sent to call Nathaniel. The healing spirit is contagious and whether we are Lutheran or Episcopal or other, we have to catch it like Philip did. He tells Nathaniel, “We’ve found him about whom Moses in the law and all the prophets wrote: Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathaniel asks. It was a town in the boondocks that was too insignificant to have even a rabbi.

Philip says, “Come and See!”

Upon their meeting, Jesus encounters Nathaniel with the truth about himself. He saw him under a fig tree, which might have been a place of meditation. Of course, Nathaniel has come to check out this fellow, who he thinks is a false Messiah. But he hears Christ referring to him as an Israelite in whom there is no deceit and it happens that Nathaniel wanted to be as authentic as our Psalm 139 for today requires. He also struggles with the fact that Israel was Jacob, the liar and deceiver, who cheated his brother out of his birthright and deceived his father. As much as Samuel was overcoming corruption, Nathaniel wanted to overcome how we deceive each other.

My father used to say, “We all like to deceive each other, but most of all we love to deceive ourselves.”

Nathaniel encounters Jesus who is into the truth and the love that truth brings into the world, the new life that truth brings out. Truth gives birth to love. Lies and deceit parent hate, conflict, killing, and war. A person who is truthful, genuine, and authentic to his or her inner core is a healing presence and refreshing life. So don’t listen to the debates; I mean really do listen, but with a critical ear, because they tear each other up and in some kind of a misguided way, they tear everybody down. Is that genuine democracy? I wonder.

What Nathaniel also heard from Jesus was his allusion to Jacob’s ladder, where the heavens open with “the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

We often obliterate the spirit world because we are blinded by scientific materialism and naturalism. More and more we understand that now it is not a “God of the gaps,” but a science filled with gaps, where 90% of the universe is made out of dark matter and dark energy that we cannot understand. Jesus was very much in touch with the spiritual dimension of reality, which we have often learned to filter out completely. Huston Smiths writes that Jesus saw the heavens open, when he was baptized and the Spirit diving down on him like a dove and driving him into the wilderness forty days and nights of prayer and fasting and tempting by the devil.[2] That was quite a spiritual boot-camp!

My brother Philip and I have published a book called Luther’s Spirituality, in the series called the “Classics in Western Spirituality,” where Luther has a whole piece on the angels ascending and descending upon Jesus. Luther’s writing, “Freedom of a Christian,” which I’ll be referring to, is also in our book.[3]

Luther understands the angels ascending and descending [in and out of space and time] at the wonder of the incarnation. That heavenly God had come into the world in this Jesus and was spreading a new creation and an overflowing redemption among the people of the world.

The angels flutter up and down from the spirit world into ours with utter amazement, not knowing what to make of the Creator of the whole universe, which cannot even contain God, who has suddenly become a human being, plagued by the devil down here in the depths, just like all of us sinners. The angels go up and down, first gazing at God on high and then descending in utter astonishment at the sight of Jesus, who became one of us, God among and with us in human flesh. (I really don’t do justice to Luther’s words. You may want to read them yourselves.)[4]

The angels ascended and descended especially at Jesus’ birth over the shepherds in Bethlehem’s hills, because the One who created the whole universe was a little babe lying in a manger. This is the Creator, who is high beyond what even the angels can grasp, and he is now held in the arms of a woman and being nurtured at her breasts, fitting into a tiny crib. The angels look up at God and then down at this little baby and they cannot marvel enough that God has become a human being and this lowly infant is God in the flesh.

Luther sees the mystery of the incarnation as the union between God and a human being in Jesus Christ in the open heavens, that is, the spirit world, from which the angels descend and ascend in wonder.

One handsome and illustrious angel was offended, Luther tells, citing St. Bernard, because he thought God should have become an angel and not a lowly human being. He was angry and envious that God bypassed him to become flesh. (For the Hebrew language, the term “flesh” means human beings.) Thereupon, the angelic revolt was cast out of heaven and these fallen angels have become the devil and the demons that ravage the people of the earth.

Luther notes that Jesus does not mention the ladder in his allusion to Jacob’s dream and, of course, the angels don’t need one. But it is interesting to consider the significance of the rungs running up and down the ladder. (Perhaps my hymn for the day should have been: “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder, Every rung goes higher higher, Soldiers of the cross!”)

When I studied and translated Luther’s “Freedom of a Christian,” I noticed that Luther presents a tension of opposites, which propels human growth and maturity. We know about his opposition of faith and love, law and gospel, and the tension he depicts in the great opposition between being human and divine. He also claims that we are sinners and saints at one and the same time. If that is not enough, he claims that Christian persons are free sovereigns over all things and subject to no one, through faith, let me I add; and they are complete slaves under all things, subject to everyone, because of love. The opposition between faith and love is crucial here.

This tension propels those who are called and sent up the rungs of the ladder with higher and higher angel power, as I like to say. A person called by Christ becomes a firstborn, no matter their actual birth order in a family. I am the eleventh child and my wife is a firstborn and I like this promise a lot, while she cannot understand it. But whatever your earthly birth order, first, last, or middle, you become a firstborn child of God. Imagine having a place at the table of the family of God!

On the next rung of the ladder, you receive the nobility of the spirit. You become a king or queen, a sovereign before God. You can not only take care of yourself, but of your spouse, your children, your church, your community. You could become a dynamite mayor, governor, and president and actually make good times come here again,

“Happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again, so let’s sing a song of cheer again, Happy days are here again!”

You will govern the whole country in the powerful spirit and light of God. Like Max Weber says, politics is a vocation. It’s a wonderful calling to set policies in place to lift up people.

The next rung lifts you into God’s royal priesthood, where you intercede for others before God and none of your words fall to the ground, but rise up to heaven and God listens to you and carries out the prayers on your lips that help and save God’s people.

Then in faith the angels lift you up to the next rung, where you become a Christ to your neighbors. Because of your love and your hunger and thirst for justice, you become persecuted and tortured and you suffer and die for your love and concern for others. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we celebrate tomorrow, was on this rung. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down your life for your friends and as we know, we are asked to love even our enemies. From that rung, the angels lift you up into the life of God, the source of all life and continuous creation. In God you experience what eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, nor anything a heart can imagine, so wonderful are the things that God prepares for those who love him.

But that whole ascent in faith goes down the same rungs, when you are in the free fall of love. Down from God to being a Christ, a priest, a sovereign, a firstborn, like when “The Price is Right” used to say, “Come on down!” And we go down, down, down, even under the lowliest sinner. Christ even descended into hell, died like a criminal on the cross, saving sinners that even suffer from the worst addictions and are driven by many a devil. Christ even died for the murderer, Barabbas, by being executed in his place.

And the great mystery, that astonishes all the angels, for which we really don’t need a ladder either, is that the ascent in faith provides us with the strength for the descent in love. And in the great mystery, the heights and the depths are one and we are never outside of God and the love of God, to quote Luther from the “Freedom of a Christian” again.[5]

Will you answer your call, when Jesus calls you? Growing up is painful. But there is no gain without pain. Will you follow the better angels of your nature and become the person that Christ sends out to save all the sorry people that God loves so much? Will you get carried away in the Holy Spirit and continue the mission of Christ? It is a cop-out to say, “I don’t have a call, because I am not a pastor!” If you are baptized, you have the call of Christ. You too are called to be an “I am!” and a healing presence to your neighbor like Jesus and be a Christ to others no matter what your vocation. Imagine the self-esteem, better yet Christ-esteem that is yours when you straighten out, stand upright, and realize all the strength that God’s angels offer you from on high! You often want a car with more horse power, but have you considered being a person with more angel power?  So knowing our high calling, we stoop down out of that strength to help the lowliest, the very most wretched human beings, indeed, all of God’s creatures that have a claim on our love. Let us answer the call of Christ, whatever our God-given vocation and fill it with Jesus’ loving, gracious, angel power from on high. Amen.

First Sunday of Christmas at Resurrection Lutheran Church Oakland, California January 1, 2012

Believing is Seeing

Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Psalm 148 Gal 4:4-7 Luke 2:22-40

We’re celebrating the first Sunday of Christmas here on the secular New Year’s Day, 2012. The year 2011 was quite a rough one. We wonder what the New Year 2012 will bring. When we wonder it is with good hope in our hearts because of Christmas and our celebration of God coming to be with us in Christ. Therefore, whatever the New Year brings, God in Christ with all the gospel promises will remain, stay, abide, accompany, and carry us right on through it – I want to be redundant as possible to increase our faith. For with faith we will attain more than victory.

For the secular order seeing is believing, but for people of faith believing is seeing. Believing is a new sense of sight and this sight is representative for all our senses and indeed, for the renewal of our whole being, which is the only thing that will make our new Year become really fresh and new.

For Christians Advent begins the New Year. Without the birth of Christ and the new quality of existence that becomes ours through the new birth that we receive through Christ, one year will just follow another, like Shakespeare says, ”until the last syllable of recorded time.” We “fret our lives on a stage” and “it all signifies nothing.” (I know I am conflating a few of Shakespeare’s quotes.)[1]

The secular gets all its life and meaning from the Incarnation, as our Galatians texts says, “In the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of a woman – meaning that Christ was human, and born under the law, meaning that he was a Jew, to redeem those who are under the law – that we also might achieve the adoption as [God’s] children.”

My father would compare the secular order to a freight train that was still moving after the locomotive, the engine had become detached. The wagons would still roll for a while, but disconnected from the source of their movement, they would have to come to a stop.

When we stay connected with God by remaining people of faith, our believing becomes transformed into seeing, that is experience. Through faith God is at work in us and brings about our seeing “the salvation that God has prepared in the presence of all people” and “the redemption of Jerusalem” – to use the prophetic words of Simeon and Anna in the temple.

Remember how the people in Bethlehem’s nativity were amazed at what the shepherd’s told them? They told them how the angel of the Lord revealed to them that this little one, born in a stall and laid in a food trough, was Christ our Savior. Here in the temple, poor Mary and Joseph are amazed at what Simeon and Anna tell them about their child. We know that they were poor because they could not afford to offer a lamb, but could only offer two turtle doves or young pigeons for their first born offering. But through the eyes of faith and the leading of the Holy Spirit, Simeon and Anna could see that Mary and Joseph without realizing it were bringing with them – the Lamb of God!

We miss the boat when these amazing revelations are not believed by us and what’s more, when we do not believe that they are about us. After we hear the narrative of Joseph and Mary following the law and going to the temple, it is about them in the third person. But we also have to believe the story so that we see that it is about us – in the first and second persons, about me and you. Then it becomes the story that we are living here and now.

Thus St. Paul tells us in Galatians: in the fullness of time, God sent his Son so that we might receive adoption as [God’s] children. And because we are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son, Jesus Christ, into our hearts, crying Abba, dear Father. Thus we are no longer slaves, but children and if children then heirs of God through Christ.”

Can you possibly imagine what it means to be an heir of God? God is much richer that Rockefeller and we have been adopted in God’s family and we receive places around the Table of the Lord.

These matters are hard to believe, because what we see is so adversely opposed and contradictory. The world is very much with us – our suffering, our pain, our disappointment, our realization that our days are numbered. But the good news is that Christ has come to marvelously exchange his divine and immortal nature for our human mortal one. Christ will exchange our sinful human birth for his divine and righteous birth. In our song, “Let All Together Praise Our God,”[2] we will sing that Christ will become the slave and I a lord[3] or if you like, Christ a slave and I a lady, in the sense of nobility, the nobility of the spirit; in the sense of graduating in stature to a first born status, whatever your actual birth order. I am the eleventh child, but Christ makes me and you become first born. In this marvelous exchange with Christ, we become promoted beyond nobility, because what family can match having one drop of the blood of Christ? In faith we ascend into the royal priesthood and become Christs one to another until we ascend by faith into the divine things of God. This wonderful ascent comes from the marvelous exchange brought about through faith. Believe it and you will receive it. Believe it not and you won’t.[4]

To anticipate our sermon hymn again, when we sang the song it always gave me such a thrill when I heard that the angel no longer blocks the gate to paradise.[5] In German it goes: Heut schleusst er wieder auf die Tür zum schönen Paradeis. Der Cherub steht nicht mehr dafür. Gott sei Lob, Ehr, und Preis!  Today God has reopened the gate to Paradise. The angel with the fiery sword no longer bars our way; to God let our praises rise!

So through the open gates of Paradise we can go back to the beginning of time, when creation is fresh and new and become the new Adams and Eves in the very garden of delights, which is what the Garden of Eden means, that, however, by becoming christs one to another, which means lovingly giving up our lives for one another. Thus we have a new garden, but also a new city of Jerusalem – a new garden in a city and a new city in a garden, in which the children of God inherit all God’s divine possessions together.

It’s not crazy to believe these things, which it certainly seems to be for a hard-nosed realist. But it is not crazy when in faith we receive this kind of time out of God’s hand and we later reflect on the wonderful time that God has given us and realize that it is not at all a story, but the amazing story of what God has done in our own very lives.

Now I have to admit that all these wonderful experiences that God gives us were not without much suffering. But that suffering only gave to our lives a deeper and richer quality of love and the story then all adds to the music of our witness.

After Simeon’s great prophesy, “Now I can depart in Peace,” the Nunc demittis, he tells Mary that this Christ-child will be a sign opposed for the rising and falling of many and make it so that the inner thoughts of many become revealed. I know that this really means that the first will be last and the last first in terms of Christ’s divine dominion as opposed to earthly ones. But when we have received Christ into our hearts, when God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts and like Christ we too call our dear Father God, Abba, then the rising we do in faith is again through being first born to royalty to priesthood and Christhood up into God and the falling proceeds through love all the way back down these levels until we are below and ready to serve the least of these. The ascent in faith merely provides the strength for any descent in love. Perhaps that is why we speak of “falling in love.”[6]

When we have received Christ, when we have been born by the water and the Spirit, then our inner thoughts that are revealed will be wonderful, will be beautiful. And not only our thoughts, but our Christhood will be revealed, because as St. Paul says in Romans chapter eight, the whole creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (Rom 8:19).

We all first oppose Christ. But when our new birth in Christ takes place, then we will unfold, develop, and grow, as the Scriptures say about the Christ child: we too will become strong, filled by wisdom, because of the favor of God upon us (Luke 2:40).

That the story of Christ should become our story, because the love of God makes Christ exchange places with us – should fill us with amazement. Eye has not seen or ear heard, nor could a heart possibly imagine the marvelous things that the Lord has prepared for those who love him and are called to God’s purposes (cf. 1 Cor 2:9).

We are somewhat like Mary and Joseph coming in their poverty to offer two turtle dove or young pigeons, not realizing that with them they have the very Lamb of God. And Simeon and Anna’s eyes of faith could see that they held the Lamb of God who would take way the sin of the world – and they did not even realize it.

When we start seeing with our eyes of faith then the prophesy of Isaiah will also open up to us: we too will greatly rejoice in God and our whole being will exult in our God, for like a bride and groom we will realize that we are dressed by God for a wedding feast in garments of grace, a suit of salvation, and covered in a robes of righteousness. The gifts of the Holy Spirit will sparkle like diamonds and our souls will shine like gems and jewels. Justice will overflow and spread over the earth like growing vegetation: trees, grass, flowers and fruit for all the nations of the earth; because Christ is the vindication of Zion. Christ is the burning torch lifted up to light the new city of Jerusalem.

The nations will see the King of Glory and we shall all be given a new name, which will be the surname, Christ. This name will come to us from the mouth of God and we will all be the children of God. Because of Jesus Christ we will be crowns of beauty in the hand of God, because Christ the Lord is the royal diadem and the right hand of God.[7] Believing becomes seeing as God makes all things new for a truly blessed and Happy New Year. Amen.

Words that Move us Heavenward

German Advent Christmas Eve Service in Manteca, California

November 27, 2011

Luke 2: 1-20: We need to imagine ourselves in the time of Jesus. It was a difficult time, when the decree went out from Caesar Augustus, while Quirinius was the governor of Syria that all of the world should be registered and taxed. Now we usually take care of our taxes in mid-April, and as difficult as that is, at that time it was far more difficult. Everyone had to register and pay a tax in their ancestral city. If we imagine a gigantic empire today, where North America and Europe would be one, then I would have to return to Lübeck in Schleswig-Holstein, the city my father came from to register and pay it, or perhaps back to Erfurt in Thuringia, but there we were only refugees.

Can you imagine? What city or the capital of what province would you have to return, to register and pay your taxes? [I ask the congregation.] This registration and tax payment that the Roman Empire required disrupted everyone’s life and of course, they did not make an exception for a pregnant young woman, like Mary. Great with child, she had to leave home and travel with Joseph her husband all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Now the text does not mention a donkey. Because we feel sorry for Mary, I think we give her a donkey to ride. But one is not in the text. She probably had to walk the seven day journey.

Thus right after coming into Bethlehem, she went into labor. They went to the inn but it had no vacancy; this registration had everyone on the road. So all poor Joseph could find was a stall meant for animals, not at all suitable for human habitation. In this kind of a shelter most likely all alone, Mary had to give birth to her firstborn and can you imagine, she had to lay the baby into a food trough for the animals. We now call a cradle a crib, but in Greek the word Phatné means a manger, a food trough for animals. In her need Mary had to be resourceful and she had to use a food trough for a cradle. The birth of our Savior Jesus Christ was that poor and desperate. Can you imagine that?

There is also nothing in the text about cows and sheep around the manger. But the Prophet Isaiah wrote, “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand” (1:3). That is why we have the dear animals around the crib of Jesus, because the animals recognized our Savior before we human beings did.

No one in all Bethlehem was aware of the great event taking place that night. Everyone lived selfishly and watched out for themselves. “We all sat in darkness and in the shadow of death” until in “tender mercy and compassion” (Luke 1:78-79), God opened the heavens, first of all, naturally, to bring the Christ-child to us and then to send the Angel of the Lord to proclaim the Good News to us.

Now the “Dawn from on High,” who came down to us, did not come to be born in a royal palace, nor to rich nobility, nor to other respected and worthy people to proclaim the Good News, but to lowly shepherds in the fields, who watched over their flocks by night. Now Bethlehem is a city that sits on a hill and the hills where the shepherds watched over their flocks roll down from the city. It is probably the city set on a hill that Jesus compares with a lamp on a lampstand in his Sermon on the Mount (Mat 5:14).

In those days shepherds were not respected. They had the lowest work, had to overnight in the fields, they probably smelled, because there was no way that they could wash and shower out in the fields. On top of that they sinned a lot, because they had to survive and somehow muddle through. It is precisely over these shepherds that God opens up the heavens. It is above these humble, despised, and rejected folk that our loving God opens up the heavens and then commissions them to proclaim the Good News to all the world! What an honor! What tender mercies! God chooses precisely the most needy among us, the people we don’t even see, people the world considers completely unworthy, in order to demonstrate God’s almighty love.

And the glory of the Lord shone round about the Shepherds as the Angel of the Lord strode before them and the night began to shine with a heavenly glow, like the glow at Christmas. The glory of heaven shone round about the shepherds and they were terrified. “Now what have we done wrong? Now we’ve had it!” They ran around looking for a place to hide. Ba-ba-ba! The sheep also ran frantically in every direction, running into each other, also trying to find a hiding place.

But the Angel said to them, so that they would not hide themselves and not hear the Good News that he now proclaimed: “Do not be afraid; for see, I am bringing good news of great joy for all people. (The angel was saying that all people would experience this joy, not only those of God’s favor, but all sinners, like the shepherds, and we ourselves, who say in our liturgy in Manteca, “Unto us a child is born and now we are all shepherds.”)

The angel said, “Do not be afraid; for see, I am bringing good news of great joy for all people; for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: [up there in the city] you will find the child rapped in bands of cloth and lying in a food trough.”

With open mouths the shepherds looked up into heaven and the awe-struck sheep also calmed down and became strangely peaceful. The shepherds saw the angels ascending and descending, like on the ladder in Jacob’s dream, and with uplifted hearts, they saw the multitude of the heavenly hosts, singing the Gloria, which we now still sing every Sunday in our worship services:

Glory to God in the highest,

On earth peace, good will to all.

And as the angels flew under the shepherds, around the shepherds, and over the shepherds, celebrating the birth of God’s Son, the whole world began to glow with a new light, like the shining face of God. That’s because, by the tender mercies of God, God’s-self came to dwell with us in this little child, in Jesus.  The “Dawn from on High, as Luke seems to call Jesus, came “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet onto the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). Jesus is our Prince of Peace!

And the shepherds ran up the road to Bethlehem and there they saw the glory of the countenance of God shining on the face of the Christ-child, lying in the manger and all wound up with bands of cloth. Mary his mother was also there, as well as the faithful Joseph. And the shepherds proclaimed the Word to them that the Angel of the Lord had proclaimed to them. And Mary treasured these words and pondered them in her heart. In the German it says, “Mary kept all these words and moved them in her heart.” She let these words move in her heart the way the baby had moved inside her womb before he was born.

Now we ourselves need to listen to the angels and the shepherds and make room in our hearts for the birth of the Christ-child. As we sing, “Come into our hearts, Lord Jesus. There is room in our hearts for you!” In the glow of Christmas we also want to bow down and adore the child and we also want to let the words of the pastor enter and move our hearts, because as you know, “pastor” is just the Latin word for “shepherd.” Thus let us hold and move the Good News, just like Mother Mary kept, moved, and pondered them in her heart. When the Christ-child moves into our hearts, then we will not only have a stall for him, but a spacious and grand, wonderful hotel. Then our hearts will start to glow, just like the glistening and sparkling room we decorate for Christmas.

And when we listen to the shepherds and to this pastor and hear and take in the Good News of the birth of Jesus Christ, then our hearts will be strangely moved heavenwards and our feet will find the pathway of peace. Then we will celebrate Christmas like the shepherds, who were the first people to proclaim the Good News among us.

How will our Christmas room glow and glisten? (This is the line from a Christmas song.) When we adore the Christ-child like the shepherds, then it will glisten and glow like our hearts! How will our eyes sparkle and glisten, when we believe the Good News? Just like the eyes of children as they see all their Christmas presents under the Christmas tree! How will our souls glisten, glow, and shine? Just like the shimmering angel hair hanging on the decorated Christmas tree with candles in the branches burning brightly.

When the Christ-child moves in our hearts, the way God’s Word moved in the heart of Mother Mary, then we move heavenward and we don’t only find the pathway of peace. (Yes, when the tender and loving Word of God moves our hearts, then we always move a little more heavenwards.) But we are also transported into the love, hope, and faith in our heavenly Father, so that we also sing:  “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will to all.”

Through the Good News of the Birth of Jesus Christ there in Bethlehem with Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the dear animals, we become moved and transported into the heavenly glow of the light of the face of God, who did us a real favor, who here and now, gives us a present, and the wonderful favor of the gracious gift of coming to us in this divine and human birth, a birth that God gives us always, now, and forever and that is why we wish each other, a “Merry Christmas!” Amen.

Pastor Peter Krey

Advent Heiligabend-Weinachtsgottesdienst zu Manteca, California

27.  November, 2011 – Text: Lukas 2: 1-20

Worte die Uns Himmelwärts Bewegen

Wir müssen uns in die Zeit Jesus versetzen. Es war eine schwierige Zeit, wo dieser Gebot von Kaiser Augustus ausging, als Cyrenius Landfleger in Syrien war. Gewöhnlich mitten im April bezahlen wir unsere Steuern, und schwierig wie das ist, war hier eine viel mehr störende Sache. Jeder musste sich dafür in seiner väterlich-herkünftigen Stadt begeben, um sie zu bezahlen. Wenn wir ein riesiges Reich, wie dessen von Rom, uns vorstellen könnten, wo Nord Amerika und Europa eins wären, dann würde ich zurück nach Lübeck, meines Vaters Stadt gehen müssen, das ist in Schleswig-Holstein oder vielleicht zurück nach Erfurt in Thüringen, wo ich geboren bin, wo wir aber nur Flüchtlinge waren.

Können Sie sich vorstellen? Zu welcher Stadt oder welche Hauptstadt einer Provinz müssten sie zurück nur um so Steuern zu bezahlen? [Ich stelle die Frage an der Gemeinde.] Diese Schätzung und Steuerzahlung wie von der römischen Regierung verlangt, war höchst lebensstörend und natürlich hat man keine Ausnahme für eine schwangere junge Frau wie Maria gemacht. Hoch schwanger musste Maria aufbrechen und mit Joseph ihr Man die Reise zu Fuss von Nazareth nach Bethlehem machen. Der Text spricht von keinem Esel. Unser Mitleid mit Maria gibt ihr einen Esel, aber im Text ist von einem Esel keine Rede. Und sie mussten wahrscheinlich die ganze siebentagige Reise zu Fuss gemacht haben.

Nach dieser Reise kam auch gleich das Kind und als Maria und Joseph eben in die Stadt hereinkamen, gab es keinen Raum in der Herberge, denn für die Schätzung scheint es einen grossen Umzug gegeben zu haben. So, alles was der armselige Joseph finden konnte war ein Stall für das liebe Vieh, aber garnicht für Menschen gedacht. In dieser Unterkunft ganz verlegen, musste Maria das Christkind alleine gebären, und können Sie sich vorstellen, das Baby in einen Futtertroch legen! Wir nennen jetzt eine Wiege eine Krippe. Aber das griechische Wort Phatné bedeutet ein Futtertroch und wir denken kaum an der Not der Maria wie sie sich selbst zu helfen, einen Futtertroch für die Krippe nehmen musste. Das ist aber die armselige Verlegenheit in der unser Heiland Jesus Christus geboren ist. Können Sie das denken?

Im Texte steht auch nichts von Tieren wie Kühe und Schafe um der Krippe herum. Aber der Prophet Jesja spricht,

„Ein Ochse kennt seinen Herrn und ein Esel die Krippe seines Herrn; aber Israel kennt’s nicht und meine Volk vernimmt’s nicht” (1:3).

Deswegen haben wir das liebe Vieh um der Krippe Jesus herum und die Tiere haben getrost unseren Heiland erkannt bevor wir Menschen.

Ja, in Bethlehem hat keiner die grosse Sache Gottes in dieser Nacht vernommen. Jeder hat vor sich – für sich selbst dahin gelebt. Wir und sie sassen in der Finsternis und im Schatten des Todes bis die herzliche Barmherzigkeit Gottes den Himmel öffnete, erst natürlich um das Christkind zu uns zu bringen und dann um des Herrn Engel uns zu schicken um diese frohe Botschaft an uns zu verkündigen.

Jetzt der der aus der Höhe zu uns gekommen ist, ist nicht zu einem königlichen Palast, zu Adlichen oder anderen beachtenswerten Leuten gekommen, um diese frohe Botschaft zu verkündigen, sondern zu niedrigen Hirten in den Feldern, die des Nachts ihrer Herden hüteten. Bethlehem sitzt auf einem Berg und die Felder, wo die Hirten ihre Herden hüteten fallen herab vor der Stadt. Die Stadt Bethlehem liegt hoch auf einem Berg und kann die Stadt sein, von der Jesus sprach in der Berg Predigt (Mat 5:14).

Damals waren die Hirten vom Volk verachtet. Sie hatten die niedrigste Arbeit, mussten in den Feldern übernachten, müssen stark gerochen haben, weil sie sich nicht da drausen waschen konnten. Und dazu haben sie bestimmt viel gesündigt, weil sie irgendwie Leben und sich durchwuscheln mussten. Ausgerechnet über sie, hat der liebe Gott den Himmel geöffnet! Über die von andern verachteten Hirten hat der liebe Gott den Himmel geöffnet, um die frohe Botschaft aller Welt zu verkündigen.  Was für eine Ehre! Was für herzliche Barmherzigkeit! Unser liebe Herre-Gott wählt ausgerechnet die aller bedürfstigen unter uns, diejenigen die wir nicht sehen, die die Welt für unwert hält, um seine grosse Liebe zu erweisen.

Die Klarheit des Herrn leuchtete um die Hirten als der Engel des Herrn zu ihnen trat und die Nacht fing an weihnachtlich, himmlisch zu glänzen. Die leuchtende Klarheit des Herrn schien rund herum und die Hirten haben echt Angst gehabt. „Was haben wir jetzt wieder verkehrt getan? Jetzt ist es bei uns aus!“ Sie liefen umher sich zu verstecken. Ba-aah, ba-aah! Die Schafe leifen durcheinander, aber da war kein Versteck!

Aber der Engel sprach zu ihnen, damit sie sich nicht versteckten und gar die Botschaft nicht hören würden, „Fürchtet euch nicht! Siehe ich verkündige euch grosse Freude die allem Volk wiederfahren wird, (d.h. nicht nur „Menschen des wohlgefallens“, sondern alle Sünder, wie diese Hirten, und auch wir, die wir in unserer Liturgie immer sagen: „Uns ist ein Kind geboren, Hirten sind wir alle.)

„Fürchtet euch nicht! Siehe ich verkündige euch grosse Freude die allem Volk wiederfahren wird – denn euch ist heute der Heiland geboren, Christus der Herr, in der Stadt Davids, [d.h. Bethlehem]. Und das habt zum Zeichen. [Da oben in der Stadt] werdet ihr das Kind in einem Futtertroch finden und ganz und gar in Windeln verwickelt.“

Mit offenen Mündern haben die Hirten die himmlische Höhe beschaut, als die Schafe sich auch mit staunen beruhigten. Sie sahen wie die Engel herauf und herunter stiegen, wie im Jakobs Traum die Himmelsleiter, und dabei mit Herzen erhoben, haben sie die Menge des himmlischen Heerscharen das Gloria singen hören, wie auch wir nun danach es jeden Sonntag singen:

„Ehr sei Gott in der Höhe,

Frieden auf Erden, den Menschen ein Wohlgefallen.“

Und da die Engel unter den Hirten, um die Hirten herum und über die Hirten flogen, um die Geburt Gottes Sohn zu feiern, da hat die ganze Erde einen neuen Glanz gewonnen, ein leuchtender Glanz des Angesichts Gottes, denn in der herzlichen Barmherzigkeit Gottes, hat Gott uns selbst besucht in diesem Kindlein, in Jesus der „Aufgang aus der Höhe“, wie geschrieben, „auf dass er erscheine denen, die da in Finsternis sitzen und [dazu] im Schatten des Todes, um unsere Füsse auf den Weg des Friedens zu setzen (Lukas 1:78-79): Jesus unser Friedensfürst!

Und die Hirten liefen eilend den Weg hoch nach Bethlehem und da sahen sie den Glanz Gottes wieder im Angesicht des Christkindes, in der Krippe liegend und in Windeln gewickelt. Maria seiner Mutter und auch der treue Joseph waren getrost dabei. Und die Hirten haben ihnen das Wort des Herrn Engel verkündigt, wie auch der Engel es ihnen verkündigt hat. Und Maria behielt die Worte der Hirten und bewegte sie in ihrem Herzen, wie auch das Christkind sich in ihrem Leib bewegte bevor es geboren war.

Nun wollen wir auf dem Engel und auf den Hirten hören, und anders als damals in Bethlehem, Raum in der Herberge unsers Herzen für die Geburt unsers Heiland, Jesus Christus haben. Im weihnachtlichen Glanz wollen wir auch das Christkindlein anbeten und auch die Worte des Pastors in unseren Herzen behalten und bewegen, denn, wie Sie wissen, auf Latein heissen die Hirten „Pastoren.“  So wollen wir diese frohe Botschaft in unseren Herzen behalten und bewegen, wie Maria sie behielt und bewegt hat in ihrem Herzen. Wenn das Christkind sich in unserer Herzen bewegt, dann geben wir es keinen Stall, sondern eine geräumige Herberge sondergleichen, und dann „wie werden unsere Herzen glänzen“? Antwort: genau so wie unsere Stube zu Weihnachten.

Und wenn wir auf diesen Hirten, auf diesen Pastor hören und die frohe Botschaft der Geburt Jesus Christus hören und übernehmen, dann bewegen sich unsere Herzen himmelwärts und unsere Füsse werden auch den Weg des Friedens finden. Dann feiern wir Weihnachten wie die Hirten, die die frohe Botschaft zuerst unter uns verkündigten.

Wie wird dann die Stube glänzen? Wenn wir wie die Hirten das Christkind anbeten, dann genau wie unsere Herzen. Wie werden dann unsere Augen glänzen? wenn wir die frohe Botschaft glauben, dann genau wie die Augen der Kinder über all die schönen Geschenken im Weihnachtszimmer. Wie wird dann unsere Seele glänzen? Genau wie der Weihnachtsbaum mit Lametta, Schmuck, und hell leuchtenden, glühenden Kerzen.

Wenn das Christkind sich in unseren Herzen bewegt, wie Gottes Worte im Herzen der Mutter Maria, dann geht’s himmelwärts und wir finden nicht nur den Weg des Friedens. Ja, wenn die liebe Worte sich in unserem Herzen bewegen, dann bewegen sie uns immer mehr himmelwärts. Wir werden in die Liebe, Hoffnung, und Glaube an unseren himmlischen Vater versetzt, damit wir auch singen können,

„Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe,

Friede auf Erden, und den Menschen ein Wohlgefallen.“

Durch die frohe Botschat der Geburt Jesus Christus dort im Bethlehem, mit Maria, Joseph, die Hirten, und das liebe Vieh, werden wir bewegt und versetzt in den himmlischen Glanz des Gesicht Gottes, der uns jetzt einen Gefallen sondergleichen tut, uns ein Geschenk hier und jetzt gibt, ja, welch ein Gefallen, Gott wohl an uns getan hat, dass er zu uns gekommen ist in dieser göttlichen und menschlichen Geburt, jetzt auch immer und ewig für uns gegeben und darum sagen wir „Fröhliche Weihnachten!“   Pastor Peter krey

Algemeines Kirchengebet für Heiligabend in Manteca Nov. 28, 2010

Lieber Herre Gott, wir bitten Dich für all die hier sich

heute in deinem Wort versammelt haben,

dass Du sie segnest zu dieser Weihnachtszeit,

dass Du ihnen himmlische Geschenke geben wirst –

ein starker Glaube, frohe Hoffnung, und inbrünstige Liebe. Wir gedenken besonders George und Martha Nelson, Hildegard Anderson, Esther Paul und Heidi Petschauch. Lass sie und uns in deiner Liebe ruhen.

Sei Du uns Sünder gnädig:

Herr, erhöre unser Gebet!

Lieber Herre Gott, wir bitten Dich für Frieden in unserer

Zeit. Komme Du zu uns Du Friedens-Furst, damit Blut-

vergiessen, Krieg, Hader, und Streit zu Ende kommen –

besonders in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syrien, Egypten, zwischen Israel und den Palistinenser, und auch in Somalien, und im Congo. Lasse die Sonne deines Angesichts über uns aufgehen, damit wir wieder in Frieden leben können und auf Lebens erfüllung wieder hoffen können.

Sei Du uns Sünder gnädig:

Herr, erhöre unser Gebet!

Lieber Herre Gott, wir bitten Dich für alle die, die wegen Armut leiden. Hilf, dass sie reich in Deiner Gnade ihre Armut überwinden. Wir bitten auch für die Obdachlosen unter uns, auch für die Arbeitslosen, für die vielen die ihre Häuser verlieren. Hilf lieber Herre-Gott, dass die niedergeschlagene Welt-Wirtschaft sich wieder erholt, besonders auch in Europa, damit die Wirtschaft der Völker sich wieder erholen kann.

Sei Du uns Sünder gnädig:

Herr, erhöre unser Gebet!

Lieber Herre Gott, wir bitten Dich für die Kranken unter

uns, auch alle Flüchtlinge unserer Krieg-zerissene

Welt, für die Gefangenen im Gefängnis, so wohl als

alle die seelisch leiden, die die heilsame Salbe von

Deinem Hl. Geist brauchen.

Sei Du uns Sünder gnädig:

Herr, erhöre unser Gebet!

Lieber Herre Gott, wir danken Dir dass Du zu uns in Jesus Christus gekommen bist und in dieser bösen Zeit uns für unsagbare Güte gerettet hast. Ja, bewege unsere Herzen himmelwärts. Komm Herr Jesus, Du neu geborener König, und richte unsere Füsse auf dem Wege des Friedens!

Wir beten das Gebet unseres Herren: Vater unser….

United Lutheran Church, First Advent, November 27^th 2011

Isaiah 64:1-9 Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:24-37

An Apocalyptic Catastrophic Catalogue

Today we have the first Sunday of Advent, which we Christians commemorate as our New Year or our New Church Year. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin and means “coming” and on these four Advent Sundays we get ready for the coming of Christ – that means the first coming of Christ in Bethlehem, but also the second coming of Christ in an end-of-the-world apocalyptic time, when Christ comes again.

Our Gospel reading this morning comes from the 13^th chapter of Mark, which is known as the little Apocalypse. The word “apocalypse” means “uncovering what is hidden” or in other words, “revelation.” But there is an end-of-the-world kind of feeling in the word. Thus signs and portents experienced in nature are felt to be God’s wrath, like the sun being darkened, the stars falling from the sky, the moon not shining any light, and finding that the foundations of the heavens start shaking.

So Christ will be returning and we are the servants, whom he has left here to take care of the household of faith and we do not know if Christ will return in the evening, at midnight, at cock-crow, or at dawn – these are the old ways of telling time. You don’t need an alarm clock when the roosters start crowing in the morning just before daylight.

Here we are in a little local congregation and Christ has bid us watch and to be alert. Christ has shaken us soundly to awaken us from sleep and wants our everyday world to drop down from around us, so that our earthly existence becomes transparent and the reign of Christ is revealed to us, and we are to be living our everyday lives in obedient service to God.

The signs of our times seem to be more apocalyptic, not only because today is the first Advent, but also the incidents and events we are experiencing seem apocalyptic, that is, they make us think of the end of the world as we pray in Advent:

“O Lord, stir up your power and come! Tear open the sky and come down.” The Psalm for today keeps repeating the verse:

“Restore us, O God of Hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved!” (Psalm 80: 3, 7, and 19.)

Isaiah cries, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” so that our faith might become sight and you, O Lord, took the affairs of this world into your divine hand, your Right Hand, Jesus Christ, and championed the cause of the poor, the unemployed, the homeless, the oppressed, the victims of racism, the war-torn, and brought peace to the world and brought those conditions into the world the way you intended for it to be in your creation!

We have fallen so very low. In a conference this week, the torn open sky was called the “wounded sky” and these words imply that we are living lives that are so violent and disruptive here on earth that we have wounded the heavens and caused them to rip open and our once friendly earth is beginning to turn against us.

It is easy to make a list of the many dreadful things that have been happening. We always fear that we will have the Big One here, where we are right over the Hayward Fault and many others. Such a mighty earthquake will surely make our human foundations start shaking. But an earthquake hit the East Coast and now the Washington Monument has cracks and needs repair along with broken gargoyles of the cathedral in Washington, D.C. Then they had a Halloween snow storm! Even with a cold, my sister in Massachusetts had to sit in a cold house for three days, because all the electricity was out. We need to think about the tender leaves of that fig tree and figure that we are in the end-of-the-world kind of time.

Who could list all the earthquakes that have shaken the earth? There was one in Haiti, in Chile, in Turkey, in New Zealand, and in China. We have to consider the one in Japan, which also produced a Tsunami almost as deadly as the Christmas Tsunami of 2004. Japan was hit by a triple catastrophe. The off-shore earthquake launched the Tsunami and it made the Fukushima Daiishi Nuclear Power plants melt down. There is a radius of 20 miles around the plants, where no one will be able to live anytime in the foreseeable future. Only the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 was worse. The reactor there is still spewing some radiation and the wild animals have become deformed and people will not be able to live there again for centuries.

Wow! Restore us, O God of Hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

There have been floods that have inundated whole countries like Thailand and Pakistan and even cities. We can look at Katrina and the end of the city of New Orleans. It was making a come-back, when the BP Oil spill took place. Those kinds of events are apocalyptic. Will the Gulf of Mexico ever recover from all that oil spilled into it and all the chemical oil dispersants dumped into its waters?

Let’s pray it together: Restore us, O God of Hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

Think of all the tornadoes and the way they are wreaking havoc. They have been tearing up our cities. I heard that after one tornado, a whole section of the city of Chattanooga lay destroyed and people were hanging in the trees. Earthquakes, floods, Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, and oil spills. All these apocalyptic events mean that we have to pray that God come down and help us, that God might come and save us from our sins.

Say it with me: Restore us, O God of Hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

The natural disasters are not as bad as our economic ones and they are not as bad as our military ones. Just think of 9/11. Do you see what I mean? That day was apocalyptic. Look at our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Look at the wars in the Congo that have taken more than a million lives. Then there is the starvation in Somalia, where the fighting prevents the food from getting to the dying children.

Restore us, O God of Hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

Economically we have also had this catastrophic recession, where millions have become unemployed with little prospects of being reemployed. Millions of middle-class folk are losing their homes to foreclosures and now many have to join the food lines, because they cannot put bread and butter on their tables. We had the Tea Party movement and now the Occupy Wall Street movement, which seems to be like the Arab Spring. When I visited the Oakland Occupy Wall Street campsite, heard the speeches, and watched thousands march off to occupy and shut down the port, the lines from “Hotel California,” came to mind: “We have not had that spirit here since 1969.”

Together: Restore us, O God of Hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

We have to repent. We have to be shaken awake from our sleep. We have to stand watch at the post Christ has charged us with, because God wants us to care for this world, care for our environment, care for our neighbors, and hunger and thirst for righteousness. To put it into today’s language, Christ wants us to hunger and thirst for justice, to be peace makers, mourn the unfair and unjust conditions so visible around us today. We should not tear each other down, but build each other up and find new ways of being human to one another.

I’m passing out a song that is all about the verse we have been repeating. I call it the “Phoebe Bird Song,” because I got the notes from that bird, when I was in Massachusetts. You know the Aaron’s Blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace.” God’s shining face restores us, just like we said, “Let your face shine, that we may be saved!”

“I am calling – Jesus Savior. Won’t you hear me, O Savior and send your favor, today!”

When the sun comes out then the plants and blossoms grow and unfold in the energy of its light. So when God’s face shines over us we flourish, but when God’s face turns away, we perish:

“We languish – without you – and flourish – about you, please be gracious, O Jesus, we pray!”

“What you’ve done – amazes, – your love – just dazes, O my soul, – sing praises, all day!”

If we wake up, if get shaken awake from our sleep, if we repent and start living the lives Christ has called us to live – lives of faith service, lives of witness, lives filled with compassion, lives that are mindful and filled with forgiveness, then Christ’s return will be a wonderful sunrise! That means that the face of God will shine upon us. And in the sunshine of God’s grace, the apocalypse will be God’s new creation, making everything new. But if we live against God’s will, then Christ’s return will be a day of darkness, where our teeth will shatter because of those catastrophic, apocalyptic disasters. The sun will refuse to shine, the stars will fall, the moon will lose its light, and the foundations of the heavens and the earth will be shaken. So let’s be shaken awake.

Together: Restore us, O God of Hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

But don’t you know, if you repent, if you stand watch and witness to Christ with his forgiveness, love, and compassion, keep the faith, spread God’s hope, keep on keeping on with obedient loving service: then God’s friends become, just like the sun, rising in all God’s splendor! Amen.

Pastor Peter Krey

Resurrection Lutheran Church, September 4, 2011, Oakland, CA

Ezekiel 33:7-11 Psalm 119:33-40 Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20

Discipline is Done!

The lessons this Sunday revolve around discipline, a difficult subject indeed. I found reading Brian Stoffregen’s commentary in CrossMarks very helpful. Church discipline takes place for the sake of forgiveness and reconciliation, not for destroying and executing people in the misguided way of the state. “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.” as we heard in Prophet Ezekiel (33:11)

The Church discipline, conceived in Matthew 18, provides the chance for the repentance of those who have missed the mark and their restoration back into the beloved community; because sinners need forgiveness and reintegration into the relationships of the beloved community. But what about evil?

Brian Stoffregen quotes Scott Peck from his book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil:

It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people, rather it is the subtlety and persistence and consistency of their sins. This is because the central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it. [p. 69]

As David says, “Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and done evil in thy sight” (Psalm 51:4). Returning to Scott Peck:

“Evil then, is most often committed in order to scapegoat, and the people I label as evil are chronic scapegoaters …. In other words, the evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one’s need to grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgment, we have no option except to attempt to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection. [p. 74]

“According to Peck, [Stoffregen notes] committing sins is not the same thing as being evil. We all commit sins. However, the sinners who won’t listen to the one, or the two or three, or to the church, need to be removed not because they are sinners, but because they are evil — unwilling to listen to the truth about their sins — attacking others instead of facing their own failures.

[and]

“Unfortunately, forgiveness and reconciliation are not always our primary motives in dealing with others. Sometimes anger and revenge take over.” (From CrossMarks on the Internet)[1]

In this way Stoffregen reminds us that we practice discipline as a form of love and if we don’t love children or teenagers, for example, we have no right to discipline them. So often what people call discipline is prejudice and rejection.

Stoffregen’s statements are very wise. We always have to be mindful of Jesus’ words: “How can you take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye, when you have a log in your own?” (Mat 7:3) And sometimes the procedure of church discipline in Matthew 18 is hijacked for the purpose of scapegoating someone.

Luther was of course excommunicated. One of the statements for which he was condemned goes: “that to burn heretics [at the stake] was against the Spirit.” (The Bull Exsurge domine, number 33) I’m so proud that Luther took a stand against that monstrous and outrageous practice of the church’s burning a person at the stake. Luther considered the lightning bolts of the pope to be just so many blessings. But not many people have Luther’s strong character and clear understanding of the Gospel and their freedom in it, so they become victims of church discipline, when the church has a log in its eye.

Galileo trained his telescope at the sky and noticed that the planet Jupiter had four moons going around it. He realized that Copernicus was right. The earth was a planet going around the sun and the sun was not going around the earth. The church disciplined him, placed him in house arrest, and made him recant what he saw with his own eyes. Even Luther when he heard about Copernicus exclaimed, “The sun goes around the earth. Joshua said, “Sun stand still! He would have had to say, “Earth stand still, if Copernicus was right.”

Now we realize that the church and even Luther had a log in their eye, but at the time Copernicus did not dare to publish his book until after he died, so frightened was he of the authorities of the church.

I use these old examples to make us wary of church discipline even today to consider if it could be involved in ignorance, prejudice, or scapegoating. Our Lord Jesus Christ was executed because of a miscarriage of justice. He was brought by religious leaders to the Roman authorities, who executed him by crucifixion. That should also make us wary of capital punishment, because our own Lord died because of it.

Thus in the seminary we were taught that we had to make the Gospel large and the law small. One professor used the metaphor of an old fashioned bicycle. The Gospel had to be the big wheel in front and the law or discipline had to be the little wheel in back. In teacher training, we learned that the best discipline is a good lesson plan. Without one, teachers are bankrupt. Some scream at the children. My son had one who was called the “Queen of Scream.” She stood on her desk screaming at the children. You do need discipline. Without it the best of lessons fail. But without a good lesson plan, the discipline gets more and more severe. Meanwhile some teachers have stopped learning themselves and think they can teach children something.

It is the same in our churches. Often we have stopped growing and maturing in Christ. A church sometimes loses its vision and its sense of mission. Stuck in the doldrums, members act out, treasurers embezzle money, and pastors violate boundary issues, sexually for example, violating the trust of their congregations. Genuine authority then has to carry out discipline, but what about the vision and the mission missing from that church, much like a teacher without a lesson plan. The world with its love of money and sensuality gets into the church and many a church has lost its mission and sense of direction.

We have come this far by faith, but we have to be aware of how far we still have to go. Otherwise those we cast out and consider gentiles and tax-collectors, Jesus tells us, will enter into heaven before we do. How do we get to our growing edge and mature in Christ? I ask myself, how do I respond when someone sins against me or offends me? How do you respond? Do I, do you have the courage to bring it up to that person and not start to gossip with others about it? Do I tell five others without daring to go to that person? Do I bad-mouth the person behind his or her back? Or do I have the courage to talk it through and mend our broken relationship? That’s the idea of Matthew 18.

Of course, it could mean seeing something we do not like seeing about ourselves. But that gives us a chance to grow. Self-righteousness, according to Luther, you know, is a monster that provokes all manner of sins. So let’s confess our sins to one another. We all fall short of the mark and it’s helpful to know in what way. That only becomes possible with a humble and forgiving nature. In the words of the Prophet Micah, “[The Lord] has told you, O mortal, what is good and – what does the Lord requires of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (6:8)

In the Romans lesson St. Paul shoots Cupid’s arrow at us – just not the arrow of eros, but the arrow of agape. “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not wrong a neighbor; love fulfills the law.” You know what time it is, he continues. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. (St. Paul didn’t put in the part about the coffee.) Salvation is nearer to you now than when you first became believers. You tried to put away the works of darkness, but you had so little self-knowledge, you were not yet very mature in Christ. You did not realize what you were up against. You were up against yourself and you didn’t have a clue about your growing edge, and Christ had to keep on saying, “I forgive you. You don’t really know what you are doing.”

My father used to say, “The battle that you fight with yourself is the toughest battle you will ever fight and the sweetest victory you will ever win!” Christ is our victory. St. Paul says that we have to put on Christ. What does he mean? He means that we were baptized into Christ, as he says in Galatians: the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. That means by faith, the righteousness, integrity, the love, wisdom, and glory of God transform us. For in Christ Jesus, St. Paul continues, we are all children of God through faith. And when we have been baptized in Christ then we have clothed ourselves in Christ. That’s Galatians.

Thus discipline by our own effort and strength gets swallowed up in faith, the power from on high that makes us come alive in righteousness, integrity, love, wisdom, and the glory of God. At that point discipline falls away. We are law-free. As God’s children we take our places around the table of the Lord. Jesus our heavenly host will listen to us and understand us, give us the self-knowledge and maturity we need to follow him. True it will still mean the cross, because it is painful growing up into the full stature of Christ, denying ourselves and following after. Taking the cross on our shoulders means carrying the cross they are going to nail you on. Cornell West recently said, “We have to have our cemetery clothes on and be coffin ready.” It costs us our lives. But then we no longer live but Christ lives in us. Standing in the reality of God we then live in the wonderful beloved community now so near at hand; yes, now much nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is gone; the Day of the Gospel is here! Discipline can only point to it, leaving us with Christ. Discipline is done. Christ will be all in all and we will be free at last. Amen.

Eine Andacht für die Sanct Matthäus Gemeinde

in San Francisco, CA

28. Juli, 2011

Der Herr erlöst seine Gefangenen: Psalm 126: ein mir vertrauter Psalm. Ich hab schon ein Lied darüber componiert.

Wenn der Herr die Gefangenen Zions erlösen wird,

So werden wir sein wie die Träumenden.

Dann wird unser Mund voll lachens

Und unsere Zunge voll Rühmens sein.

Dann wird man sagen unter den Heiden:

Der Herr hat Grosses an ihnen getan!

Der Herr hat Grosses an uns getan;

Des sind wir fröhlich.

Herr, bringe zurück unsere Gefangenen,

Wie Du die Bäche wiederbringts im Südland.

Die mit Tränen sähen, werden mit Freuden ernten.

Sie gehen hin und weinen und streuen ihren Samen

Und kommen mit Freuden und bringen ihre Garben.

Ein Psalm kann für viele verschiede Verhältnisse verwendet werden. Einmal ist er für die Babylonische Gefangenschaft verwendet worden und dadurch waren die Worte verändert: auf Englisch heisst es: “Restore our fortunes, Oh Lord!” zuerst lauteten die Worte: Wenn der Herr unser Schicksal ins Glück verändert hat, unser Armseligkeit umgekehrt hat, dann werden wir sein wie die Träumenden. Auf Hebräisch lauten die Worte: Herr, wende die zurück, die sich von uns wenden. Dann wird unsere Niedrigkeit aufgehoben und dann genesen wir wieder.

Die Rede kann über ein Volk, eine Gemeinde, oder über eine Person sein, die tief in Unglück geraten ist. So wir können z. B. über eine Gemeinde sprechen, wie unsere. Wenn Mitglieder sich wenden und wieder zurück zur Kirche kommen, dann genesen wir und werden halt reicher. Wenn alle Leute, wenn unsere Mitglieder sich von uns wenden, dann nehmen wir ab und werden immer ärmer, nicht wahr? Auch bei der Gesellschaft, wenn Kunden sich umdrehen und heraus gehen ist es schlecht für das Geschäft.

Daher sagt’s in Hebräisch, Herr, wende zurück die die sich von uns gewendet haben, dann haben wir wieder Glück, dann wächst unsere Gemeinde wieder. Dann bringen die Mitglieder wieder Dank-Opfer, und zwar reichlich.

Damit werden wir sein wie die Träumenden, denn Gott wird die Träume unserer Gemeinde erfüllen. “Was kein Auge gesehen hat und kein Ohr gehört und in keines Menschen Herz gekommen ist, was Gott betreitet hat denen, die ihn lieben” (1 Kor 2:9) Wenn Gott unsere Träume erfüllt, dann werden wir Glücklich sein und lachen, tanzen, und Froh sein. Wir werden Gott loben und preisen.

Dann werden die andere Kirchen, die andere Gemeinden um uns herum sagen: der Herr hat Grosses für die Sanct Matthäus Gemeinde getan. Wenn von einer Person gesprochen wird, die sich verloren hat und sich in Jesus Christus wieder findet, d.h., Jesus sie wieder findet, und dessen Leben sich mit Segen verändert, dann merken es andere zuerst und nur danach der Mensch selbst. Man fragt, “Herr, wo bleiben alle Deine Verheissungen? Bin ich nicht auch dein Kind? Warum müssen meine Tränen immer fliesen?” Dann augen-blicklich merken es andere zuerst, das Gott eingesetzt hat, und Grossartiges an uns getan hat. Nur danach merckt es die Person oder die Gemeinde selbst. Daher sagt der Psalm: Der Herr hat Grosses an uns getan, Ja, der Herr hat Grosses für sie, für ihn für mich getan, daher kann ich froh sein, daher kann ich lachen, daher bin ich fröhlich.

Nun diese Erfüllung ist vorausgenommen, vorweg-genommen, denn der Psalm ist ein erhörtes Gebet, und wir können getrost auf Gott harren, weil wir jetzt wissen dass Gott uns erhört hat. Aber wir stehen noch davor. Daher packt der Psalmist die traurige Sache wieder an: Herr, bringe zurück die die sich von uns gewendet haben, wie die Bäche im Süden des Heiligen Landes, in der Wüste vom Negev, wo es kein Wasser gibt und alles dürre und trocken sterbend da liegt. Ein Wadi, ein Bach vollkommen ausgetrocknet. Plötzlich kommt Gottes Segen wie ein Platzregen, und all Bäche fliesen, und die Pflanzen wachsen wieder und die Wüste wird in einen grünen Garten verwandelt. So kann und wird Gott unser Glück von einer Wüste zu einem Garten verändern.

Doch manchmal gibt es Mangel, Hungersnot, wie jetzt im Somalien, Wasser mangel, kein Regen. Der Psalmist spricht bestimmt aus Erfahrung. Und doch muss man Samen bei Seite legen, obwohl es Hunger mit vielen sterbenden bedeutet. Und Alles ist so trocken, das nur unsere Tränen die Samen die wir pflanzen bewässern. Kein Regen, nur unsere Tränen die Samen die wir pflanzen bewässern! Aber “wenn der Same, das heist, das Weizenkorn nicht in die Erde fällt und erstirbt, so bleibt es allein. Wenn es aber erstirbt, bringt es viel Frucht” (Joh 12:24).

Daher ist Christus zu uns gekommen und ist für uns gestorben und demnächst wieder auferstanden, und bringt uns die grosse Ernte, wo wir uns freuen, tanzen, und frohlocken. Wir waren verloren und siehe, jetzt leben wir, und in eine grosse Umkehrung, kommen wieder Viele zu uns. Gott wird unsere Träume erfüllen und wir werden sagen mit den anderen Kirchen. Jawohl-ja, Gott hat Grossartiges an uns getan, dessen wollen wir uns freuen. Lasst uns fröhlich sein! Amen.

Lieber Herre Gott, wir danken Dir für diese Gemeinde, diese deutsch/americanische Gemeinde, die true ein Zeugniss hier in San Francisco für Dich, Jesus Chriistus, ablegen will. Wir beten dass wir viel Segen in SF in CA und in dieser Welt verbreiten können. Stärke unseren Glauben damit wir tüchtig wachsen, und eine grosse Ernte für deinen Reich einholen können. Ja, aller Augen warten auf Dich, Herr, und Du gibst ihnen ihre Speise zu seiner Zeit. Du tust Deine milde Hand auf und sättigst alles das da lebt mit wohlgefallen. Dafür wollen wir Dir danken. Amen.

A Devotion on Psalm 126

For St. Matthews Lutheran Church, in San Francisco, CA

July 28, 2011

This is a favorite Psalm of mine that has long accompanied me along the way. I even wrote a song for it.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter

and our tongue with shouts of joy.

then it was said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them.”

The Lord has done great things for us,

and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

like the watercourse of the Negeb.

May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves.

A Psalm is used in many different situations and this one was used and reworded for the time of the Babylonian Captivity. But it was first a prosperity psalm, celebrating when a nation or a person comes around, but it means much more than that. Yes, when the Lord brings me around, it will be like I’m dreaming. In Hebrew there is a play on words: turn those around who are turning away, O Lord!

The Psalm can refer to a nation, a congregation, or a person, one who has become troubled and lost. We could therefore speak about a congregation, for example, this one. When members turn around and start coming back to church, then we recover and prosper. When people and members turn away from us, then we diminish and become poor. When in our store, if we had a shop, if customers turn around and go out the door, it’s bad for business.

Thus the Hebrew says, “Turn around those who are turning away.” Then our congregation starts growing and prospering again as people come laden, bringing rich thank-offerings.

Then we will think we are dreaming. God will make our dreams come true. “Eyes have not seen nor ears heard nor any heart imagined, the wonderful things that God can do for those who love him, who are called to God’s purpose!” (cf. 1 Cor. 2:9) When God makes our dreams come true, our lives become filled with laughter. We dance and sing with happiness. We praise and glorify God.

Then the other churches, the other congregations about and around us say, “The Lord has done great things for St. Matthews.” When this is about a person lost and found by Christ, a person whose life, let us say, has been changed into a blessing, then others are the first to observe it. The person him or herself is still praying: “Lord, where are all your promises? Am I not also your child? Why do I have to cry an ocean of tears?” Then in the twinkling of an eye, which others first notice, God moves into action, and they witness the great things that God has done for such a one. The person him or herself only notices it afterward. That’s why the Psalm follows with the verse: “The Lord has done great things for me,” not only for others, but also for me! And then a heart is filled with laughter, smiles, dancing and rejoicing.

Now the trouble is that the fulfillment of our dreams is still anticipated. But the Psalmist knows that God has heard his prayer and the answer is only a matter of God’s good time. We have to wait patiently and fasten our hope on God. That’s why the Psalmist prays again: “O Lord turn back those who have turned away from us.” Bring about the great reversal, your marvelous conversion.

The Psalmist uses the metaphor of the dried river beds in the desert to the south of the Holy land. Over there they call them “Wadis.” Suddenly God sends a rain shower and rushing water fills them and suddenly plants grow out of nowhere and the desert changes into a lush green garden. God can change our lives that way. God can reverse our fortunes.

But sometimes there are famines and I’m sure the Psalmist knows about them from experience. There is hunger and thirst death and dying throughout the land. Rain refuses to come and bless the earth. But seeds have to be set aside. They can’t be eaten, even though the hunger bites the gut and spells death. Everything is so dry and parched that only our tears water the seeds as we plant them: no rain, only our tears! But “unless a seed falls and is buried in the ground and dies, it stays alone. But when it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

That’s why Christ came down to us and died for us and thereafter was resurrected, so he could bring us a great harvest, so we can rejoice, dance, and sing. We were lost and behold we are found, we died and behold we live. And in the great conversion, many again return to us. God will make our dreams come true and we will say with the other churches: “Yes, indeed! God has done great things for us!” Let us rejoice! Amen.