Worship Bulletin

Worship April 18. 2021 German Church of Atlanta

Predigttext Hesekiel 34, 1 - 2.(3 - 9).10-16.31 Dear Congregation, Sermon - Daniel 9: 4-5/16-19 She stands in front of her parents' house. She holds a heavy shopping bag in her hand. Yesterday, her old mother had placed an order with her. Pretty direct, even reproachful. At least that's what it sounded like in the daughter's ears. She had gone shopping with her eight-year-old sons in the morning. At the checkout, she was once again annoyed. Her boys had been fussing over the candy shelf. Several candies were positioned close to the cashier. She reacted angrily, screaming and threatening. The atmosphere was miserable. The following lunch fell victim to loud shouting.

Now the daughter places the shopping bag on her old mother's doorstep. She rings the doorbell. As she hears the steps coming on the squeaky planks, memories of childhood days are awakened: the summer sun shines on her smeared children's face. She chews the waffle with the last remaining lemon ice cream and rings at the front door. Still in the cool hallway she is immediately sent to the bathroom. She should wash her mouth and hands as soon as possible.

Not only because of the cold ice she froze even in midsummer in her parents' house. She hasn't known why for a long time. She imagines: Once you are a mother yourself, you radiate warmth of heart, come what may. But her life story is different. It can only

implement her intention with much effort. Too often she does not succeed like in the morning at the checkout and at lunch.

Her mother now opens the door, her daughter enters the house. It still looks like it did forty years ago. And as then: Even today, no warming look. The old mother takes her tote bag from her daughter without a word. Immediately the daughter has a bad conscience, she remembers her promise to herself and decides: Embrace your kids immediately after you are back home. Be merciful, forgive them their annoyance.

For a long time, the daughter thinks that the coolness of the parents' house lies primarily in the building: the dark rooms, the bare walls, the lack of insulation. Until a work colleague expresses the same feeling: "Whenever I visit my parents in their apartment, I am cold." They sit down and say: The emotional temperature is probably not right. Perhaps also because their parents' homes have remained a home for war children. After all, their old mothers experienced war as children, hatred of Jews, countless deaths, national socialism, material loss, unemployment, hunger. War children had to bear the guilt of the perpetrators as well as suffer from hatred and persecution, accusations of guilt and personal hostility. How the elderly parents behave toward their children and grandchildren certainly has to do with what they experienced in their childhood II. The end of the Second World War in Europe was sealed 76 years ago yesterday. Some parents and children of war have been unable to talk about their feelings since then. Their mouths remain mute, even though their wounded souls are screaming. Their children and children’s children suffer from this silent cry in hidden places. At family celebrations or work anniversaries, even at

jubilant confirmations, people have become accustomed to dealing with this silence even in close relationships. Any distraction is welcome. But those who remain attentive feel: feelings of guilt have an insulating, divisive effect and make them lonely.

A pastor who talks to women and men of the war generation at the hospital and deathbed tells of his experiences: I listen, he says, but I do not judge. Women and men tell me about atrocities they have experienced or even committed in the war. They have serious feelings of guilt within them, even as victims. Extreme situations are difficult to overcome in such a way that you are at the edge of yourself. Once a former Wehrmacht officer asked me: “Why did God not punish me?” He reported that after the war many saw him as a respectable man, but he knew he was not. To live with it, he felt was a punishment.

A woman once told the pastor about what was happening at the front, and when he invited her to church, she asked if she could really come. Because of the blessing at the end. Where he knew now what she had done. Of course, the woman had noticed the chaplain's anguish listening, but he had not criticized her. The harshest judgment is usually one's own.

The war has terrible after-effects in the souls. Those who have had to experience war have a different life after that. War is ever present, it remains the wall angst and guilt of what one has done and experienced. We suffer with people who die with these unspoken memories. They did not have the opportunity to experience forgiveness.

Iii. The prophet Daniel listened like a good pastor. Brothers in faith who suffer from the destruction of war and their descendants have told him their life stories. They break his heart. He knows that the

ancestors were guilty, and that the descendants continue to suffer from the destruction is clearly in his sight. He, too, feels this rift of guilt and suffering. Daniel lives, as the book of Daniel tells us, like thousands of his people in exile, in the capital of the victorious power of Babylonia. He lives far from home, far from the familiar religious services, far away from traditional values and religious orientations. Even if he distances himself from the faith of the new rulers, he, as their high official, comes into close contact with this faith. In this crisis situation, he has no choice but to distinguish between his piety and his professional career. Anyway, as long as he is not asked about his faith. He cannot publicly confess his God without endangering his life. Situationally, he adapts his values and basic beliefs. The guilt of his ancestors, who endured war and exile, has now to some extent become his own fault.

Daniel thinks visionary. He falls in love with the end of the world brought about by God to save his own people. He is denied to publicly call to his God for help in the present. Like his brothers and sisters, he must retreat into the private sphere. In this solitude, his thoughts revolve around two focal points: the redemption of his people at the end of the world and the responsibility of his people and his own in the existing situation.

Praying helps him to reorient himself in this confusion. In silent prayer he approaches God. Daniel can set aside the visions of the End Days. In light of the crisis and the loss of security, he also remembers the promises: God's covenant with his people. Thinking of this gives him hope. Future perspectives open up and he is able to accept the present despite the entanglements of guilt.

Daniel trusts God's promises. He believes a God who hears silent cries and heals wounded souls. As Daniel prays, he senses that God's heart is changing: an imagined angry God becomes an openhearted God. So encouraged, Daniel names that which depresses

him. He confesses what he has become entangled in. And he professes the guilt of the generations before him on behalf of his people. Through the safe and protected space of prayer, Daniel steps out of his loneliness and leaves his struggles of conscience behind.

Iv. It is often easier for us to point to the mistakes of our ancestors than to admit our own entanglements. We tend to minimize our guilt. Daniel does not fall for these temptations. He finds a good way not to trivialize his own guilt and also not to accuse his ancestors. And this way is through prayer. Prayer opens up the opportunity for people who are burdened with guilt to speak honest words and trust that they are being heard.

This is a first step towards dealing with guilt. At the same time we are dependent on the promise that God forgives us. Jesus Christ prayed in the Lord's Prayer: And forgive us our sin; for we also forgive all who sin against us. (Lk 11.4) Daniel wrote a few centuries earlier: “We lie before you with our prayer and do not trust in our righteousness, but on your great mercy.” (Dan 9.18b) In the end, forgiveness and a new beginning are not decided by our pure conscience, but only by Grace and the words of forgiveness by God. V. When the daughter and her old mother clean up the house, moments of closeness arise. Old things invite you to tell stories.

The mother finds photos with traces of the last weeks of war and the time there. She remembers. She realizes that she has to be very brave in order to be able to continue cleaning up. The daughter, meanwhile, talks to her mother about childhood and wartime. In this way of remembering and listening, both discover

the chance to speak out. In the beginning, they find it difficult to admit mistakes. But step by step they feel a previously unspecified burden being lifted off their shoulders.

The daughter finally lovingly says to her mother: Thank you for allowing us to talk to each other. I can understand you better now!

At they give each other a good-bye kiss, the hallway feels warmer.

Amen.