May 27, 2001
Seventh Day of Easter
CHRISTIAN GOSPEL: Healing with Unexpected Results ~ Acts 16:16-34
Preparation for Worship (A time for silence and meditation)
Who Am I?When we read about a miraculous event in the Scriptures, I think it's easy for many of us to hold it at a safe- distance. After all, it's a story in the Bible and it happened back then. When we come face to face with a personal story like the one that Lois just shared with you this morning, I suspect that many of you are, like me, much more uncomfortable. We don't know what to do with them visions and healing our rational mind or with our everyday experience. When Lois shares it here, with her eyes full of tears, it's difficult for us to keep it at bay. Somehow we need to make peace with it. When I think about peoples testimonies about healings, I confess to a certain amount of skepticism. At the same I also believe that there are things about this world that I don1 fully understand. I expect that there are powers that can be described as natural, that we cannot yet define. Lois, in her testimony to you, did not say that this was a magic healing. Instead she called it the work of the Spirit. She believes God was working through her to heal the man who was in need. I believe that the power of God working through individuals is the thing that we need to focus on, rather than the disconnect between the scientific world and an instance of healing.Who am I? They often tell me,
I step out from my cell
composed, contented and sure,
like a lord from his manor.Who am I? They often tell me,
I speak with my jailers,
frankly, familiar and firm,
as though I was in command.Who am I? They also tell me,
I bear the days of hardship,
unconcerned, amused and proud,
like one who usually wins.Am I really what others tell me?
Or am I only what I myself know of me?
Troubled, homesick, ill, like a bird in a cage,
gasping for breath, as though one strangled me,
hungering for colors, for flowers, for songs of birds,
thirsting for kind words, for human company,
quivering with anger at despotism and petty insults
anxiously waiting for great events,
helplessly worrying about friends far away,
empty and tired of praying, of thinking, of working,
exhausted and ready to bid farewell to it all.Who am I? This or the other?
Am I then, this today and the other tomorrow?
Am I both at the same time? In public, a hypocrite,
And by myself, a contemptible, whining weakling?
Or am I to myself, like a beaten army,
Flying in disorder from a victory already won?Who am I? Lonely questions mock me.
Who I really am, you know me, I am thine, O God!Dietrich Bonhoeffer from his prison cell
Translated by Edwin Robertson
Paul's story, not just the first story about the healing of the slave girl, but the second part of the story about the prison experience points to what it means for God to be active in someone's life. I'm not talking about a distant God sitting on a throne, watching the world play out the script that has been set before it. I'm talking about the divine, the transcendent that is beyond our individual boundaries. The power that we acknowledge with the words of the church. What does it mean for us to be called to do something? To live our lives in a particular way? What does it mean for us to call ourselves Christians? That we gather together here on Sunday mornings and drop our money into the offering plate? Or does it mean something about the choices we make? How we determine what is right and what is wrong? How we live our lives? What we believe in? What we stand up and testify to? When Paul, Silas, and others were in jail and the earthquake took place, what would be the natural thing to do? Escape! Hit the road! Take it as an opportunity. An act of God opening up the prison doors. If we would have asked the young group of financial experts that were gathered here in the front of the sanctuary what they would have done in that situation they would have said, "Take off for the woods!" What did Paul do? Paul said, "This didn't happen for us to escape. This happened to give us an opportunity to testify to what we believe is most important in our lives. So they stayed put. They sang hymns. They said to the jailer, "You don't have to kill yourself because you lost the prisoners. We're still here!" The guard was amazed. It was their testimony that opened his eyes. He said, "Baptize me, please!"
It is important for us to know what we are called to do. How we are called to live our lives. What we believe and what comes first. When I read the story about Paul and Silas, that prison word just clicked off for me a name from a long time ago. I remembered the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a German pastor. A German pastor at the time of Hitler's rise to power. He was part of what is known as the Confessing Church. The Confessing Church stood against the Third Reich.
Stood against what the majority of the church in Germany decided to do. That was to go along with Hitler's plan. It's amazing sometimes, when you have the scriptures and sermons rolling around in your head, to find unexpected connections during the week. Our son, Joshua, is in the musical Camelot this weekend at Inglemoor High School. It was moving, Friday evening, for us to sit and watch the performance and see him pour himself into the character of young Tom, who wanted to become a knight of the Round Table. King Arthur's idea of bringing the knights together was a response to his observation that in the world in which he lived, what made something right was enough power to enforce your position. If you had the knights, the armor, the swords, and the arrows, then you were right. But Arthur said that there has to be something different, something better. It has to be right that makes might, not the other way around. He found out that dealing with humans doesn't make the whole process very easy. Human failing can bring about war and destruction. Even when there are the best of intentions and the highest of virtues. But for a brief shining moment there was Camelot. Camelot, were right did make might. At the end of the play he says, "Remember. Remember Camelot."
Bonhoeffer faced that same issue. What makes right? Do tanks make right? Do rulers make right? Do marching armies make right? There is a story about Bonhoeffer in the late 1930's before war broke out. He was at Union Seminary in New York City, with students from different places in the world. At one time, the story goes, he was being teased about the Germans consistent desire to see the purposes of the church and the purposes of country as one. In fact, Bonhoeffer himself grew up during very impressionable times during WWI. His brother was killed fighting for Germany. He, himself, wanted to be a soldier. After his brother was killed, he decided that he was going to be a minister. Like all the Germans, he believed that Germany and God were headed that same direction. He was teased by fellow students and they said, "Well, what would you do if you were forced to choose between being a German and being a Christian?" He said, "That's a foolish question. There will never be a time when I will be forced to choose between being a Christian and a German." They all said, "We will see. We will see." Another story that sets the ground work for his later response was an occasion where Bonhoeffer and a black classmate were going for a cup of coffee. They stopped at a restaurant on the edge of Harlem. Dietrich said, "Let's go here." His friend said, "No, I don't think so." "Sure, come on in." His friend said, "They don't want my kind in there. They are not going to serve me." Dietrich said, "Sure they will. Come on." They went inside. No sooner were they in the door than the owner yelled, "What are You doing in here?" An argument ensued and they were tossed out of the restaurant. Bonhoeffer dusted himself and said, "Well, we'll take our business somewhere else." The owner joked, "That's what I wanted all along." Bonhoeffer pondered, "How can Americans treat some of their citizens in such a way?"
It was not long after he returned to Germany that he found his own government treating some of its citizens in an unacceptable way. When the Germans began to stomp down on the Jews, Bonhoeffer and his family were very much against the government. In fact, Dietrich had a twin sister married to a Jewish man. Dietrich knew first hand the problems that were caused by that kind of bigotry. This action was coupled with the manipulation of an election when Adolph Hitler was able to put his own man in as Bishop of the church in Germany. Dietrich and his friends decided that they were going to split off and organize their own church. When their name was challenged because it sounded too much like the official church, they said, "Then we will call ourselves The Confessing Church." Even among those who were confessing and standing up against Hitler, there was a debate. Many were afraid to speak of the Jewish Issue. Afraid that it was too volatile. That it would get them into too much trouble. Dietrich was convinced to go off to London for awhile to serve some churches in England, so that he would not stir up troubles.
On Easter Sunday this year, 24 military personnel came back from China. Their story was in the newspapers everywhere. Radio and television, I know that you watched those stories and listened and prayed for their safe return. There were some people here who were critical of me that particular Sunday, because when they arrived here in worship the American flag was not displayed. Critical that we were not supporting the return of our military personnel. Many of you were here in November when we celebrated Veteran's Day. We honored those who fought to preserve our way of life, our freedom, our freedom to worship as we choose. So you know that I am not anti-military. I also understand there are times when you have to fight, so I am not a pacifist. Some of you also know that our oldest son is now in the U.S. Marine Corps. So like many of you, one of our children is in potential risk if called to defend this country.
There is still a difference, a question to be asked. Where is our allegiance? Where are our priorities? What comes first? The question for Bonhoeffer was, "If you are forced to choose, are you a German or are you a Christian?" If we are forced to choose, the question for us is, "Are we an American, or are we a Christian?" What is most important? What comes first? There are those of us who would claim exactly as Bonhoeffer did, that there is no contradiction. To be an American is to believe in freedom to worship, freedom to speak. There is no time when there will be a conflict between being an American and being a Christian. But, we have only to look to our own history to see the ways good Americans, good Christians, tried to kill off the great herds of bison on the Great Plains, so that the Native American people would starve to death without their major source of nutrition. We have other stories that you know from history about times where good Christians and good Americans did very un-loving things to people in the name of God and Country.
Bonhoeffer went back to Germany eventually. He went back when the Confessing Church wrote the Barman Declaration, taking a clear stand against Hitler and Hitler's church. If you want to see the relationship between God and Country go astray, look at books and see pictures of Christian alters draped in a Nazi swastika. See pictures of a German baptism with the flag behind the innocent infant. When I argue against an American flag in the sanctuary, it is not because I am not proud to be an American. Not because I don't think that we should fight to defend our freedom. It is because I think that we are called to be Christians first and then Americans. If there is ever a time where there is a conflict between being a Christian and being an American, I pray that each one of you will answer the call to be a Christian first. To do the loving thing. To do what God calls you to do. Some would argue that we can put God first and still have the flag here in the Sanctuary. We are so familiar with it that we don't always see what it is that we have here. Try to put yourself in the place of the Korean Congregations that worship here. They come here to worship the same God. Come here as followers of the same Christ. But if they come here when the Red, White and Blue stands here, what is the message for them? We have Canadians within our own congregation. What does it mean for them to come and worship the same Christ in a Sanctuary adorned by the American flag?
Bonhoeffer returned to Germany to fight for right. To resist Hitler. Eventually, his desire to do battle against the Third Reich led him into a plot to assassinate Hitler. When the plot was uncovered, Bonhoeffer and his friends were jailed for treason. While he waited in his cell, Bonhoeffer wrote poetry and theology which he smuggled to the outside world. His poem "Who Am I?" that served as our call to worship this morning, points to Bonhoeffer's behavior in prison. Though frightened on the inside, he carried himself with purpose and dignity. Even in prison, he testified to the strength of his faith. On April 9th, 1945, his captors lead him to the gallows. Within earshot of American guns, the lever was pulled, the trap door dropped, and Bonhoeffer died.
Dietrich. Dietrich.May God be with us all. Amen.
Are you a German or
a Christian?