Himmel und Erde werden vergehen; meine Worte aber werden nicht vergehen
22. Februar 2015
Sonntag Invokavit, Predigt zu Markus 13, 31 auf Englisch. Anlass war der von Landesbischof Gerhard Ulrich geleitete siebentägige Besuch einer Delegation der Nordkirche in Israel und den palästinensischen Gebieten.
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all!
It is a great pleasure for me to join you in this worship on the Sunday Invokavit, the first Sunday during the weeks of the annual remembrance of the passion of Jesus: Christians all over the world remember the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, remembering his footsteps on his way to Golgatha. Seven weeks, full of signs of passion – both, passion in the meaning of suffering; and passion in the meaning of love. For me and for all members of our delegation from the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Northern Germany it is an extraordinary gift and a deep experience to share a part of this way of passion together with you – our brothers and sisters in our partner-church in the Holy Land! Thank you very much for the invitation, thank you very much for your great hospitality!
After the new Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Northern Germany was founded on Pentecost 2012 we are unified with different partner-churches all over the world. As the presiding Bishop of this large Church in the North of Germany – from the North Sea in the West up to the border to Poland in the East, along the border to Denmark and the coast of the Baltic Sea – I am responsible for our ecumenical affairs: for me a great privilege and a source of joy. So I feel deeply connected with our partners in the mission we all together have from our Lord and Savour Jesus Christ. We are disciples of Him – full of confidence, that His words are true and vivid as it is written in the Gospel according to Marc in chapter 13, verse 31: “Heaven and earth will pass away; my words will never pass away.”
Being together with you in these days in Palestine I feel deeply the presence of the cross of our Lord! The world is in a disastrous situation: Hate and violence in many parts of the world. And here, in your country the people are longing for freedom, that justice and human rights to be respected! When we meet with our brothers and sisters in faith all over the world we feel the challenge to be disciples of Christ: Not to stop talking about his words of freedom and love.
II
We have heard the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 4: How Jesus was led away be the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil. And we have heard the answers Jesus gave: quoting the Scriptures, the Torah, the Old Testament. His answers culminate in the quotation of the first commandment, the centre of his Jewish faith. So Jesus stresses the unique importance of the first commandment for both – the Jewish and the Christian faith. There is an everlasting covenant between God and his people – the Jews at first, and then also between God and all the people of the gentiles. In this perspective, I think, that the first commandment is a bridge of understanding and peace between Jews and Christians – and between Jews and Christians and Muslim also.
In the last days, when we talked with bishop Younan, with others pastors and church-officials who are responsible for schools, with volunteers – we understood, that the Christian congregations here in Palestine have to be bridge-builders between cultures and religions, between groups and single persons. To live in faith, to belief that only our father in heaven has the power of life, does not mean that life is easy. No, the world is speaking a different language: There is in fact violence in the language.
The gospel tells us, that the way into faith, the way into the world, as God wants us to life is hard. After having been baptised Jesus was led into the desert, confronted with the evil. Being with God does not mean, everything is going to be easy. Being with God, following his word, confronts us with the reality of the world. Faith is not the way out of the world, but a specific way into it: to the poor, to the sick, to the strangers – to the spaces, where the death is vivid. God is not a navigator which guides us besides the evil. He is the one, who guides us through the evil, to fight against it, to preach against the gap between the rich and the poor; against hate and violence. Against weapons made out of steel, bringing death and passion. We have to preach his word of hope and love and peace and freedom!
You all, dear brothers and sisters know, how difficult it is, to find and to go little steps on the way of understanding and peace in your country – in parts divided by a 8-metre high wall. As a visitor, as a friend and companion of the Holy Spirit I would like to ask: “Does the Holy Land need a wall?”
I am just asking – you, all the people in your country must find an answer.
And I can remember you and me and my own people, that we in Germany made the wonderful experience, that the wall in our country, the wall in Berlin, witch separated East- from West-Berlin, and Eastern from Western Germany from 1961 to 1989 was broken down by a non-violent revolution now 25 years ago. I think, not only nations but even the Christian people all over the world need such symbols of hope! Such symbols encourage us on our difficult way, yearning for understanding and peace and justice. And the break-down of the wall in Germany took place with the power of faith and hope: candles and chorals and prayers raised against weapons – and finally succeeded!
III
In this perspective I would like to rise up a picture of hope, used by the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 2: This bible-text is a sort of headline for me during our journey to the Holy Land, to our sisters and brothers in Christ. St. Paul writes:
“Christ himself is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us…
So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God; built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole construction is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
Dear brothers and sisters! In these days here in Israel and Palestine we experience how the Christians are led by the word of God, sending the church into the future. You all have given us an impression of a church on her way in contact with God and the people the church has been sent to – to proclaim the good news to all people in the present and in the future. A church following the face of God like God’s people Israel did.
For us Christians God’s face is visible in Jesus Christ: “Christ himself is our peace”, St. Paul says. And he describes the way in which Jesus himself is building his church. He starts by tearing down the fences between different people. Breaking down walls, overcoming borders between cultures and languages. So that we all have a free sight to one another and to the one world we live in. This is the foundation of the peace, which we find in Jesus.
Jesus helps us to overcome the borders in ourselves, our limitation in thinking and faith. Jesus collected many different people on his way from Galilee to Golgatha: he called sinners to be his disciples, he called the outcasts and the sick; he shared his life with homeless people and strangers. Together with them he wants to build God’s kingdom. They are his “living stones”.
Following Jesus in this direction, the church herself gives an imagination to the people in our days, how the face of God looks like! So don’t be afraid to follow him and tear down the fences, which are between people!
As one of your brothers, coming from Germany, I know what kind of a chance it is, when borders open up and the wall, which had divided Germany into two parts for 40 years, broke down! We felt the grace of coming together. We were strangers to one another even though we were one people with a common language. And we had a lot of fantasies and prejudices about one another. But suddenly we were one nation. And we experience since more than 25 years: somehow we are still strangers. So we are not allowed to stop telling our stories. In this way we still have to discover the foundation for a new Germany. You as well as Christians here are needed to tell the stories, to bring together the different people and their different stories.
For us as Christians we have discovered in a new way that it is true: Jesus is the cornerstone for our common house of life! We all know: a house, which is not founded on the cornerstone, will be destroyed. Jesus bears the whole structure of this vivid house. “Jesus bonds together the different stones”. He uses us as living stones for God’s kingdom.
When I was a little boy, I used to play with small stones made out of plastic, called ”Lego”. Perhaps you know this wonderful toys from Denmark. Using these stones, I tried to build a large house. I failed, because I only put the stones one above the other. My grandmother told me: you have to bond those stones together!
Then your house will be stable.
The living stones in the house of Jesus agree to be bonded together as different but equal partners. Each stone is responsible not only for himself, but also for all the others and the whole building.
“We are citizens…members of the household of God” – this I discovered again as to be true during the visit here. God himself wants that we share life with him – not only as guests or tourists who are coming and leaving again, but as members of his household!
This house has space enough for all the different people with their different traditions, cultures, languages, faith and life-styles; there is space enough for the strong and the weak, for the rich and the poor, for the people full of faith and for those full of doubt. For nations and continents! Living in this house means unity in reconciled diversity. We are together on our way of witness! We must not life in fear; we know the truth, we know the bread of life!
IV
Dear brothers and sisters!
I thank you very much, that you shared life with us during these days; I thank you so much, that we could discover in a new way that Jesus is our peace – that’s true.
Our common house of life is still in progress. We will share goods and faith and love which we bring into this house so that it will have a good future as God has promised us. We are not yet at an end. We are still on the way. We have to be full of passion telling the story of Jesu´s passion again and again. He is our peace. He will break down the walls. He has the power. And he wants, that we take our part in his work.
Together we are on a good way. Sometimes we are going with different speed. Sometimes one of us is in front, sometimes the other. We have our own traditions and our own heritage – but in Christ we are one!
Amen.
