Do this!

 

A Sermon preached on Maundy Thursday 2 April at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 58:1-9a, 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, Matthew 5:13-20

One of the big arguments of the Reformation era was about the Eucharist, that mystic feast whose institution by Jesus we celebrate tonight. This was not just an argument between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, but also a disagreement within the Reformation movement. And not far from here, in the city of Marburg, German reformer Martin Luther and Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli and others met to try and resolve the dispute at the Marburg Colloquy from 1 – 4 October 1529. The central disagreement revolved around the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper. Luther maintained that Jesus’s words, as for example recounted by Paul in the 1^st Letter to the Corinthians, “This is My body” (1 Cor 11:24), should be taken quite literally in affirming a real presence of Christ in the bread and wine, even writing the words hoc est corpus meum on the meeting table! Zwingli, on the other hand, taught a symbolic or memorial view, emphasizing the memorial aspect of the sacrament, focusing on 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 and especially on the call “Do this in remembrance of Me” and the charge “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” Emphasizing the word “remembrance,” Zwingli held that the bread and cup served to remind believers of Christ’s once-for-all atoning work, his death, without implying a literal, physical presence in the elements.

I think both Luther and Zwingli showed an astonishing lack of imagination and an unfortunate unwillingness to accept the kind of both/and paradox that is at the heart of much of Christian belief. We believe that Jesus is God and Man, that life comes through death, we trust in the already and not yet of God’s kingdom, that our king comes as a servant, that true freedom is experienced through service and – returning to our passage – that we receive both bread and Christ’s body, both wine and his blood at the Eucharist and that we do this to remember and relive Christ’s sacrifice. To be clear, I’m on the “real presence side” of the argument. I believe that Christ is truly and physically present in the elements. I don’t know how that happens and I don’t really care. There is a lovely poem attributed to Queen Elizabeth I in which she declares her belief in that presence without the need for any complicated explanation:

“Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and brake it:
And what that Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.”

And Richard Hooker, the first great Anglican theologian, once wrote: “I should wish that men would spend more time meditating with silence on what we have by the sacrament, and less on disputing about how.”[1]

But we should not neglect the call to remember – it is after all what Jesus asked us to do - and what that means. All the Maundy Thursday readings are about remembering. In the Exodus passage about the Passover (12: 1 – 4, 11 – 14) the Lord tells Moses: “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” And our Jewish siblings celebrate this with the ritual meal known as Passover every year – also the setting for the Last Supper. As already mentioned, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he recalls and remembers what he had received from Jesus, to share bread and wine in remembrance of Him. And while the word “remember” as such is not used explicitly in the foot washing scene from John’s Gospel, it is implicit in the phrase “I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:15)

Remembering is important! That’s why dictators and autocrats try and control, suppress or change memories. In George Orwell’s 1984, the totalitarian regime maintains complete dominance over its population through the control of history and memory, specifically by erasing the past and forging historical facts, as expressed in the doctrine: "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." Orwell’s novel was not just fiction; it was based on what the Communist and Fascist regimes of his day were doing. And it is sadly not fiction today. Remembering can be an act of resistance!

The word remember, from the Latin rememorari, means on the one hand “call to mind.” To remember is also not to forget to do something, so to act in accordance with the event that is being remembered. To remember the Exodus event is therefore not just to recall the experience of being a stranger in a strange land, to acknowledge the pain of slavery, and to celebrate God’s act of liberation. To celebrate the Passover means supporting the stranger actively working against any form of slavery and oppression and fulfilling God’s mission to liberate all peoples. To remember the Last Supper is therefore not just to share in the bread and wine made holy in remembrance of Jesus, to rejoice in the forgiveness of sin, and to proclaim the Lord's sacrificial and saving death on the cross. To celebrate the Eucharist is to let ourselves be transformed into the likeness of Christ by sharing in Him, to forgive as we have been forgiven, and to love and serve as Christ loved and served and gave himself for us: “I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” To quote theologian Richard Hooker again: “We receive Christ Jesus in baptism once as the first beginner of our life, and in the Eucharist repeatedly to bring our life by degrees to its completion.”[2]

That is also why we as Anglicans put the Eucharist at the centre of our weekly worship: We need that regular reminder of Christ’s supreme act of love; we need to be refilled and recharged and recommissioned each week. Remembering is not an option: “Do this!” Jesus says. This charge is amplified in the “mandatum” of Maundy Thursday, in Jesus’ command to the disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34) In the Eucharist we receive and share his love within our community and through it we are empowered and equipped to share his love with the whole world.

Amen.

---

[1] Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V

[2] ibid

Pouring the Spirit

 

A Sermon preached on Lent III 8 March at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 58:1-9a, 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, Matthew 5:13-20

Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. Here at St. Augustine’s, we have four women qualified to preach: Vania, Dorothee, Linda and Audrey. And so who gets to preach today? I can assure you that was simply a mattering a matter of scheduling and other preferences. At St. Augustine’s, in the Episcopal Church and in most of the Anglican Communion women have access to all offices, functions and roles! It was a long fight, and sadly there are still areas both in our Church and Communion where women are discriminated against, both visibly and – which is potentially more damaging – invisibly.

Jesus shows no such discrimination today in this passage, although there would be plenty of good reasons for him, a faithful, Jewish male and rabbi, to discriminate against the Samaritan woman. Firstly, because she is a Samaritan, a descendant of intermarriage between those Israelites of the Northern Kingdom (the lost 10 tribes) who had not been deported by the Assyrians and the pagan colonists that Assyria settled in the land as part of their strategy of control. There are still Samaritans today, but only about 900 in Israel and Palestine. The Samaritan religion accepted only the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, and their Temple was based on Mount Gerizim and not Mount Zion. There was much hostility between them and the Jews and while the main and shortest route from Judea to Galilee led through Samaria, many would walk round it – Jesus did not.

Secondly, she is a woman, and at least some of the Temple and rabbinic texts of that time warn against speaking with women – as is reflected in the disciples’ reaction: “They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman.” (John 4:27) And finally, as we learn, she was living in sin: “Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” (4:18) Some commentators think that the reason she came to the well at noon, the hottest time of the day, was because of her morally compromised position in her own community. And yet Jesus had a lively and engaged conversation with her!

Seven women get to speak in John’s Gospel, more than in the other gospels, and this is the longest recorded dialogue anyone – female or male - had with Jesus! He treats her as a fully human being, which really should be nothing special. And yet as the dialogue indicates everyone – the woman, the disciples, presumably the first readers – is surprised!

But that’s enough about women, let’s talk about a man instead …..

No seriously, I do want to look back briefly to last week’s encounter with Nicodemus (John 3:1-17) – that was last week’s Gospel reading, even if we didn’t hear it at the Old Catholic Church. Nicodemus, a pharisee, visits Jesus by night and also has a conversation with him. I think we have to see these two encounters as a contrasting pair.

First Jesus meets a complete insider: male, Jew, Pharisee, so learned, a respected member of the community and as a member of the Sanhedrin, the legislative council, part of the elite. Today we heard about Jesus meeting a complete outsider: female, Samaritan, not classically educated (though certainly clever) and definitely neither a respected member of her community, nor part of the elite of her people. Jesus treats them the same. They both have a deep personal encounter, both are the subject of some gentle mocking, both receive profound teaching about the Holy Spirit, both don’t immediately get the point, and yet both become followers of Jesus.

Nicodemus later openly defends Jesus in the Council (John 7:50-51) and later helps bury him (John 19:39) and I think we can safely assume he was part of the nascent post-resurrection Christian community. The transformation of the (sadly unnamed) Samaritan woman is much more open and spectacular! Smart, outspoken, with a good sense of humour she was transformed by the living water to become the first evangelist: “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (John 4:39) and even the ones who believed because of his word (4:41) would not have heard that word if she had not introduced them to Him: And that is actually the job description of an evangelist!

Even if they do not actually meet personally, Jesus brings these two disparate figures into dialogue with one another.

In his meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus compares the Spirit to the wind, that goes and “blows wherever it pleases.” (3:8) You can’t stop the wind! In his conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus uses the image of water, of living water which is flowing water. You also should not stand in the way of water. It has great power and just like the wind it always finds its own way, even if that takes centuries or millennia. These images and these stories tell us that God’s Spirit transcends boundaries, both physical and cultural. The Spirit stands for change and transformation, for new life, for great and yet – mostly - gentle power.

The German rock band the Scorpions once famously sang of the “Wind of change”:

“On a glory night

Where the children of tomorrow dream away

In the wind of change”

Right now, with all the changes going on the world around us I suspect we all wish that wind of change would stop blowing: AI is changing how we work, how access information, the creative process (or loss of it), and even more dangerously how wars are fought. The rule of law is not certain anymore, wars are apparently being fought on a whim …… We live in dangerous and frightening times. For many the answer to this fear is isolation and separation, to put up new walls and boundaries, both physical and metaphorical, to exclude the other. That is not a Christian reaction. Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman is inclusive, expansive and generous! Because that is who God is. In his letter to the Romans (5:1-11), Paul reminds us eloquently of God’s generosity: peace, hope and reconciliation are the unearned and undeserved fruits of just trusting and believing in him.

The story of the woman at the well reminds us of our shared humanity and that we all share in God’s love.  In Jesus there are no outcasts, no foreigners, no others. In and through him the conservative, staid, respectable Jew and the possibly scandalous Samaritan woman are united as a model for the unity we are called to enact and embody.

Jesus promises: “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14) Anyone and everyone can share in that water and, as Paul writes, in “God's love (that) has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5) And once we have received that love, we must share it, just as the Samaritan woman did 2000 years ago..

Amen.

Being Blessing

 

A Sermon preached on 1.3.2026 Lent II at the Old Catholic Friedenskirche

Genesis 12:1-4a, Romans 4:1-5; 13-17, Matthew 17:1-9

English summary: 

Today, on the 2nd Sunday of Lent, the lectionaries of our churches differ. We heard the Gospel about the so-called Transfiguration two weeks ago, it is always the focus on the last Sunday before Lent. And in my church today we would have read John 3:1-17 – the story of the Nicodemus' nocturnal visit!

But I wanted to look at the other two readings – Genesis and Romans – with you anyway, and in particular to explore the question of what it means to be a blessing! This, as we have heard, was God's command to Abram right after three promises: " I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen. 2-3)

Let’s take a closer look at those three promises: " I will make of you a great nation." For us as Christians, the "great nation" includes, but is not restricted to Israel. Abraham, as he was later called, is considered to be the forefather of three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Sadly, the concept of nation or people, originally meant universally, was later restricted by the idea of the promised land, and misinterpreted as a territorial claim, one that radical settlers are still trying to enforce today with violence and attacks on Palestinian villages in the occupied territories. But it was always about more than just the Jewish people, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed!” There was no Jewish nation when Abram migrated from Ur in present-day Iraq via Haran in present-day Turkey to the area that later became Israel and Judea. And spiritually, as Paul says in the letter to the Romans, Abram is the father of all who believe in God: " For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us).” (Romans 4:16)

"I will bless you," God promises next. What does it mean to bless? The Middle High German meaning of the original word segen was to make the sign of the cross, something we still do when we pronounce a blessing.  The English blessing, on the other hand, comes from the Old English blēdsian, i.e. literally sprinkled with blood!  Blood was often used to mark a thing or a place for sacred purposes. The sacrifice offered to a god was sacred, and therefore its blood could be used to make something holy! And then we have the term benediction from Latin – i.e. to speak good things, or simply to praise. When we bless someone we impart divine grace, we wish for happiness and prosperity, and we offer divine protection. In Abram’s case, many of these meanings come together: He was praised for his faithfulness and trust, received protection for his journey, and God gave him grace and happiness in the late birth of a son, Isaac.

With "I will make your name great," God concludes His list. The name Abram/Abraham became great or significant as the name of the forefather of all three religions represented in the Holy Land! The name became great, in the sense of honorable and praiseworthy, through Abram's faithful actions, not only did he willingly leave his ancestral home, but was also even willing to sacrifice his own son. Paul takes up this faithfulness in his letter to the Romans. " For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." (Rom 4:3) But we should also not forget the meaning of the word Abram: either "the Father is exalted" or "exalted Father." On the one hand, God is sublime, beyond our imagination, but at the same time very close, like an ideal father or mother, a parent who loves us all. In this sense, the name Abram deserves to be great, because it points to the intimate relationship of Abram to his God and in general to the fact that our God is a God of relationship.

But how do we become a blessing? Certainly not by sprinkling people with blood everywhere (see original English meaning)! The word benediction is more promising: to say good. This means that we are a blessing if we pay attention to our language and do not insult or demonize other people. On the contrary, it should be our goal in dealing with others to build them up. This does not mean that we are not allowed to criticize others and certainly not that we are not allowed to clearly name what is bad or evil. But, in contrast to those who try to dehumanize their opponents through language, we never stop recognizing the human being and thus also the image of God in the other.

The other two promises – to be a great nation and a great name – are also sources of blessing in their own right. We are a blessing when we constantly recall that all human beings are created in God's image, that God loved the whole world, with all peoples, and also the whole of creation, in fact so much that he gave his only Son. (John 3:16) No nation, no matter how "great" it may be, has a special claim on God's grace and love. As Paul writes to the Galatians, precisely because they were in the process of restricting God, " There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28)

And we are a blessing when we testify in word and deed that God is relationship and wants relationship, is love and wants love, that God is at the same time wholly other and yet very close. By his obedience and trust in God, Abram made his name great. And so we are also a blessing if we - like Abram - trust and believe in God and live as God intends for us: shaped by the commandment of love, in our dealings with each other, in language, and in concrete charitable acts. We are a blessing when we pass on the blessing we receive. One of the best-known blessings of the Bible, from the Book of Numbers, is the so-called Aaronite blessing, the one used in most German Protestant services. When we ask God to keep us, remember our task to protect and care for others and for our world. When we ask God to be gracious, remember the mercy and compassion that should also shape our lives. And when we ask God for peace, remember – especially in these days – our role as peacemakers! And so we pray:

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)

Amen.

German Original: 

 

Alle Jahre wieder! Heute, am 2. Fastensonntag, weichen ausnahmsweise die Leseordnungen unserer Kirchen voneinander ab. Das Evangelium über die so genannte Verklärung haben wir Anglikaner nämlich vor zwei Wochen gehört, da die Verklärung immer am letzten Sonntag vor der Fastenzeit im Fokus steht. Wir hätten heute Johannes 3:1-17 – die Geschichte des nächtlichen Besuches vom Pharisäer Nikodemus!

Aber ich wollte ohnehin die anderen beiden Lesungen – Genesis und Römerbrief –mit Ihnen/Euch gemeinsam anschauen, und insbesondere der Frage nachgehen, was es bedeutet Segen zu sein! Das war, wie wir gehört haben, gleich nach den drei Verheißungen der Auftrag Gottes an Abram: „Ich werde dich zu einem großen Volk machen, dich segnen und deinen Namen groß machen. Ein Segen sollst du sein. Ich werde segnen, die dich segnen; wer dich verwünscht, den werde ich verfluchen. Durch dich sollen alle Sippen der Erde Segen erlangen.“ (Gen. 2-3)

Schauen wir aber zuerst die drei Versprechen Gottes an. „Ich werde dich zu einem großen Volk machen.“ Mit dem „großen Volk“ ist für uns als Christen auch, aber nicht nur Israel gemeint. Abraham, wie er später genannt wird, gilt als Urvater von drei Religionen: das Judentum, das Christentum und der Islam. Leider wurde dieser bereits am Anfang der Bibel universell gedachter Anspruch später durch die Idee des Gelobten, d.h. des versprochenen Landes wieder eingeengt und zu einem völlig falsch verstandenen Territorialanspruch umgedeutet. Einen Anspruch, den heute noch radikale Siedler mit Gewalt und Angriffen auf die Dörfer der Palästinenser in den besetzten Gebieten versuchen durchzusetzen. Es ging aber immer um mehr als nur das jüdische Volk, durch Abram sollen alle Sippen der Erde Segen erlangen! Schließlich gab es zum gedachten Zeitpunkt dieser Geschichte noch kein jüdisches Volk. Abram wandert aus Ur im heutigen Irak über Haran in der heutigen Türkei in das Gebiet, das später Israel und Judäa wurde. Auch spirituell, so Paulus im Römerbrief, ist Abram Vater aller, die an Gott glauben: „Nur so bleibt die Verheißung für die ganze Nachkommenschaft gültig, nicht nur für die, welche aus dem Gesetz, sondern auch für die, welche aus dem Glauben Abrahams leben. Er ist unser aller Vater.“ (Römer 4:16)

„Ich werde dich segnen“ verspricht Gott als Zweites. Was bedeutet segnen? Die mittelhochdeutsche Bedeutung des Ursprungswortes segen, war das Zeichen des Kreuzes, etwas das wir immer noch machen, wenn wir einen Segen aussprechen.  Das englische Blessing dagegen kommt vom Altenglischen blēdsian, d.h. wortwörtlich mit Blut besprenkeln!  Damit wurde ja oft eine Sache oder einen Ort für heilige Zwecke markiert. Das Opfer, das einem Gott dargebracht wurde, war heilig, und dessen Blut wurde daher verwendet, um etwas heilig zu machen! Aus dem Lateinischen kennen wir schließlich den Begriff Benediktion – d.h. gutes sagen, oder auch einfach loben. Inhaltlich bedeutet jemanden segnen ihm oder ihr die göttliche Gnade zu geben, Glück und Gedeihen zu wünschen, oder auch göttlichen Schutz anzubieten. Im Falle Abrams kommen viele dieser Bedeutungen zusammen: Er wurde für seine Treue und sein Vertrauen gelobt, bekam Schutz für seine Reise, und Gott schenkte ihm Gnade und Glück in der späten Geburt eines Sohnes Isaak.

Mit „Ich werde deinen Namen groß machen,“ schließt Gott seine Liste ab. Wie wir schon gehört haben, wurde der Name Abram/Abraham groß, d.h. bedeutend als der Name des Urvaters aller drei im Heiligen Land vertretenen Religionen! Groß, im Sinne von ehren- und lobenswert wurde der Name auch durch Abrams treues Handeln, nicht nur verließ er im hohen Alter bereitwillig seine angestammte Heimat, sondern war auch – wenn auch für uns schwer nachvollziehbar – sogar bereit seinen eigenen Sohn zu opfern. Diese Treue greift Paulus im Römerbrief auf. „Denn was sagt die Schrift? Abraham glaubte Gott und das wurde ihm als Gerechtigkeit angerechnet.“ (Röm 4:3) Wir sollten dabei aber nicht die Bedeutung des Namens Abram vergessen: entweder „der Vater ist erhaben“ oder „erhabener Vater.“ Gott ist einerseits erhaben, weil jenseits unserer Vorstellungskraft, aber gleichzeitig sehr nah, wie ein idealer Vater oder ideale Mutter, ein uns allen liebender Elternteil. In dem Sinne verdient der Name Abram groß zu sein, weil er auf die innige Beziehung von Abram zu seinem Gott hinweist und überhaupt darauf, dass unser Gott ein Beziehungsgott ist.

Aber wie werden wir Segen? Die Ursprungsbedeutung des englischen Wortes Blessing hilft uns auf jeden Fall nicht weiter. Da werden wir sicher etwas schräg angeschaut, wenn wir anfangen, überall Menschen mit Blut besprenkeln! Das lateinische Lehnwort Benediktion ist erfolgversprechender: gutes sagen. D.h. wir sind ein Segen, wenn wir auf unsere Sprache achten und andere Menschen nicht beleidigen oder verteufeln. Im Gegenteil, es sollte unser Ziel im Umgang mit anderen sein, ihnen aufzubauen. D.h. nicht, dass wir anderen nicht kritisieren dürfen und schon gar nicht, dass es uns nicht erlaubt ist, das Schlechte und Böse klar zu benennen. Aber, im Gegensatz zu denjenigen, die versuchen ihre Gegner auch sprachlich zu entmenschlichen, hören wir nicht damit auf, den Menschen und damit auch das Bild Gottes im anderen zu erkennen.

Die anderen beiden Verheißungen – großes Volk und großer Name - sind übrigens auch jeweils für sich Segensquellen. Wir sind Segen, wenn wir immer wieder daran erinnern, dass alle Menschen nach Gottes Ebenbild geschaffen sind, dass Gott die ganze Welt, mit allen Völkern, und auch die ganze Schöpfung so sehr geliebt hat, dass er seinen einzigen Sohn hingab. (Joh. 3,16) Keine Nation, möge sie noch so „great“ sein hat einen besonderen Anspruch auf Gottes Gnade und Liebe. Wie Paulus an die Galater schreibt, gerade weil sie dabei waren Gott wieder einzuengen, „Es gibt nicht mehr Juden und Griechen, nicht Sklaven und Freie, nicht männlich und weiblich; denn ihr alle seid einer in Christus Jesus.“ (Gal 3,28)

Und wir sind Segen, wenn wir mit Wort und Tat bezeugen, dass Gott Beziehung ist und Beziehung will, Liebe ist und Liebe will, gleichzeitig ganz anders und ganz nah. Mit seinem gehorsamen Handeln, im Vertrauen auf Gott, machte Abram seinen Namen groß. Wir sind auch Segen, wenn wir - wie Abram - Gott vertrauen und glauben und so leben wie Gott es für uns vorsieht: geprägt von dem Gebot der Liebe, im Umgang miteinander, in der Sprache, und im konkreten karitativen (von Caritas, Liebe) Handeln. Wir sind Segen, wenn wir den Segen, den wir bekommen, weitergeben. Einer der bekanntesten Segen der Bibel, aus dem Buch Numeri, ist der sogenannter Aaronitischer Segen, der in evangelischen Gottesdiensten fast immer genutzt wird. Wenn wir Gott bitten, uns zu behüten, denken wir auch an unsere Aufgabe, des Schutzes und der Fürsorge für andere und unsere Welt. Wenn wir Gott bitten uns gnädig zu sein, denken wir an die Barmherzigkeit, die auch unser Leben prägen sollte. Und wenn wir Gott um Frieden bitten, denken wir – gerade in diesen Tagen – um unsere Rolle als Friedensbringer! In diesem Sinne:  

Der HERR segne dich und behüte dich;

der HERR lasse sein Angesicht leuchten über dir und sei dir gnädig;

der HERR hebe sein Angesicht über dich und gebe dir Frieden.

Amen.