Psalm 42 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually say to me, “Where is your God?� 4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. 5 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance. 6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore, I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, And from the heights of Hermon,
From the Hill Mizar. 7 Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. 8 The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me— A prayer to the God of my life. 9 I will say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10 As with a breaking of my bones, My enemies reproach me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.
Gracious God, our sustainer, we hang on to you like an unborn onto the umbilical cord, and all our breaths, all our thinking and wanting and feeling, all our hope and faith, all our fear and all our questions are yours. In Your presence we receive more, than we dare to ask, Silence in the chaos of the news, Living in abundance, mental strengthening, Fire in the heart, Overcoming of our fear of death. And yet our hearts are often restless. As the deer cries out for fresh water,
so our soul, God, cries out to you. Our soul thirsts for you, God, For you, the living God. When will we get there, that we look at God's face? Our tears are our food day and night, because they say to us every day, "Where is your God?" So, we are afraid, because we feel separate from you and ask: Why do death and pain and farewells disprove your presence again and again? Why are we so often alienated from ourselves? Why do some people's hunger for life changes into excessiveness and others pay the price? Why are we humans lost in selfishness? Why do we love so tentatively? Why does the fabric of our faith, Tear again and again and in the cracks, we see death, see the faces of tortured people,
the hopeless torment of the dying, see pictures of us missing, painfully missing loved ones, which we had to let go, and look into the abysses of guilt? Why is everything we do and are so fragmented? Gracious God, With all our questions, we are yours. We receive Your presence and Your Spirit again and again. We are not separated from you, but we live into your hiding place. Separated from you, we trust you, that you overcome everything that separates us, and we learn that the truth of our lives is grounded in your unceasing love. Amen.
The Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 2: 1-5 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. 5 Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
The Gospel Reading/Sermon Text: Matthew 5: 13-16 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Sermon 8-02-2020 Matthew 5:13-16 Jesus Christ says: You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. My friends, sisters and brothers, I remain focused on the first two words of Jesus. "You are," he says. Yes, who are we? Who are you? Who am I? There are so many different people here! Young and old, happy and sad, wealthy and financially struggling, service providers and persons who feel already overwhelmed with small tasks, successful and those seemingly failing. Who are we? Do you know who you are? This question is even being asked by a very famous person, one whom I personally particularly appreciate: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He asks in the cell of the Berlin-Tegel prison, into which the Gestapo put him: Who am I? They often tell me, I come out of my cell Calmly, cheerfully, resolutely, Like a lord from his palace. Who am I? They often tell me, I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly, As though it were mine to command. Who am I? They also tell me, I carried the days of misfortune Equably, smilingly, proudly, like one who is used to winning. Am I really then what others say of me? Or am I only what I know of myself? Restless, melancholic, and ill, like a caged bird, Struggling for breath, as if hands clasped my throat, Hungry for colors, for flowers, for the songs of birds, Thirsty for friendly words and human kindness, Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today and another tomorrow? Am I both at once? In front of others, a hypocrite, And to myself a contemptible, fretting weakling? And now Jesus says this incomprehensible: "You are the light..." What kind of people might have been sitting in front of him! Shining figures? light figures? These must be people other than you and me, right? But they are not different from us. They are the same people to whom Jesus said shortly before in his sermon on the Mountain: "Blessed are those who are spiritually poor." "Spiritually poor": means those who have nothing to show before God, those who appear empty-handed before God, who are in need in the depths of their souls, and who long for God to fill their empty hands. And these are the same people to whom Jesus said before, "Blessed are those who suffer..." And: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness." Jesus does not say: Blessed are those who ARE righteous, but those who yearn deeply for righteousness.
He does not mean those who seem to be righteous, but those who suffer from the injustice of this world and perhaps even more from their own injustice. So, no light figures, but quite needy, tax collectors and sinners, fishermen and adulterers, doubters and deniers, outwardly self-confident and in reality, deeply unsettled persons. They were sitting in front of Jesus at the time. These are his disciples; this is his Church. And what Jesus said to these, he also says to us today, to his disciples today, to his present Church. Or I say it more precisely: He says it to all of us who are spiritually poor. To us who often feel spiritually poor as we go through this difficult time of the Pandemic. Us, as spiritually poor people who are deeply in need of his love, because we ourselves often find ourselves to have so little love. Us, as spiritually poor people who need his faithfulness, because we often have so little faith and trust ourselves. Jesus says his words to all of us who despair of their own righteousness and the righteousness of this world, and who come back to Him today and say, "Please give us from Your righteousness, heal our strife, heal our deepest inner distress, our anxious, tense turning around ourselves, which ultimately springs from our fear of not being safe, of not having enough and not being loved." To such people, just like us, Jesus says these words: "You are the light of the world." The light! Not just any little light, one of millions. But: “The light�. "You are the light of the world! You are the salt of the earth!" How can Jesus say that? Was this statement ill-considered of him? Did he make a mistake in his disciples, in his Church? Did he dream of the kingdom of God and later bitterly found out that only the Church was born?
No, dear friends, there is something else behind His words: the luminosity of the Church does not have its reason in the attributes or piety of its members. We do not generate the light ourselves. This is the fatal error that we keep making. We often make our value dependent on the number of our activities. As if our shining, our efforts, our speeches and actions, our inner renovation of our Church were what gives light to the world. It would be a complete misunderstanding if we understood the words of Jesus as a mere appeal to engage more, to talk more, to call, to act more publicly. This is perhaps what Western Christianity must first learn, what we must learn again. It is not through our work that we are light, but through our receiving. And receiving means to live in the attitude of silence and prayer. The theologian Sรถren Kierkegaard invites us to an attitude of receiving by saying: "Praying does not mean hearing oneself speak; Praying means to be silent and to be still and wait until we as the praying hear God." Can we wait? Can we see ourselves as the ones waiting for the light to enlighten us? And what does Jesus mean when he says: "You are the salt of the earth!"? What quality of salt does Jesus think of here? Salt had an important function in the temple. It had the task of purifying and sanctifying the burnt offering. It protects against decay and rot. And just as the salt in the temple has this purifying, conserving, and sanctifying function, so we are necessary for this world to be cleansed, sanctified, and saved from rot. As we move Jesus' words in our hearts and carry them out into the world, in our own words and in our actions, we become the salt of the earth. Jesus wants to make us his instrument by which he in turn cleanses and renews this world.
Jesus also does not say, "You (individual) are...", but, "You (collectively) are the light of the world!" We do not shine as individuals, but as communities, as churches. In modern times, we are often trapped in our individualistic thinking. But Jesus understood us in the community to be the light, and not as individuals. And so also our community. Our light shines through each one of us. One prepares the children's minute and another chooses the songs for the service. Others make several videos with readings and prayers and again others set aside time on their Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday afternoon for a zoom meeting in the community. One donates a large sum to the work of the Church and another makes phone calls to stay connected with members who are shut in. The teenagers meet to plan a Church You Tube channel and the new confirmands wonder how the confirmation class will be online. And again, others take time to listen, and worship, sing and pray along. Not one of us makes the church. We as a community of Christ are light through prayer, singing, by faith, by hope, by love. "You are the light of the world!" This relieves the individual burden: “I don't have to be the light alone!” "When the salt stops salting!" This is actually an impossibility. But that Christians no longer have a purifying, sanctifying effect on this world, that is possible. That the Church loses its salt power, loses itself in the “Zeitgeist”, no longer dares to name things that are unjust or do things that provoke controversial reactions, that the church denies Jesus, who is anything but compatible with this world: yes, that is possible. "If the salt is no longer salty," says Jesus, "what is the salt? It's useless to be thrown away and let people trample it.” A church that no longer salts
has lost its strength, its blessing, its foundation. Yes, it happens that the Church loses its grounding. Bonhoeffer said it during the time of the Hitler Regime: "If the Church does not cry for Jews now... And the Church did not scream for Jews at that time. Similarly, we can say today: "If the Church does not cry out against racism and against the undermining of human rights... Are we crying out today for the rights of all people? At that time, the Church had allowed a racial ideology to be more important than the love of Christ. Whenever the Church is being determined more by Zeitgeists and ideologies than by the love and the word of Christ, then all may be baptized in it, but the Church itself has left her foundation. Then she no longer lives based on receiving or hearing. "When the salt stops salting." And a church that no longer shines? "You do not light a light and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; so, it shines to all who are in the house." Lights belong on the candlestick and not under a bucket, there they are of no use. But we don't start shining until we do a lot and act in public. We do shine when we are connected and in the presence of Jesus, who says, "I am the light of the world; He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." As Christians, we are not like the sun, but we are like the moon. We ARE not the light; we only reflect the light that shines on us. Yet when we no longer live in Jesus' light, this means when we cease to be receiving, listening, waiting, but whenever we want to draw from our own strength instead, then we work as everything else, but no more as his light! The salt and light of the world – those we can only be as recipients. "Blessed are those who are spiritually poor..."
And so, the words of Jesus end: "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and praise your Father in heaven." "Let your light shine..." that means first of all: Live in his fellowship. Live out of the love that doesn't abandon any of you. The good works of which Jesus speaks here are not the special, distinguished deeds. But they are the works of everyday life that spring from the received love of Christ. When we really embrace the gift of the love of Jesus, we no longer have to make an effort to do good works, but our actions grow out of us in listening, in silence, in receiving gratitude and in receiving love. And when this happens, we are not being praised, because we are not the ones who work these works, but God is praised who works through us. "Who am I?" asks Dietrich Bonhoeffer uneasily in his prison cell. And he ends in his poem: "These lonely questions mock me. Whoever I am, You know me, I am yours, O God.� Yes, we do not need to worry, if we shine enough light and still have salt power. If we live from the loving hand and from the words of Jesus that are promised to us, then we may let go of all doubts, and say with Bonhoeffer, "You know me, I am yours, O God." Amen
Come, you Spirit of Truth, come. We long for the truth At a time when the lies are taking over. Come, you Spirit of consolation, come. Comfort all those who have lost a loved one. We bring to you the over 150,000 families in America And the more than 665,000,000 families who mourn all over the world and who often do not know how to say goodbye. We long for Your consolation. You fill the grieving hearts. Come, Healing Spirit, come. We are waiting for you. Come, you Spirit of Truth and cover all the lies. Strengthen the weak, the people who have lost their jobs the people who are at home alone with a high fever and the people who are fighting for their lives in the hospitals. Come, you Spirit of Truth, come. We ask you for all those who are overwhelmed these days, show a way out; for all who are afraid, give them new courage and hope;
for all who are exhausted and who feel alone and abandoned in the fight against the virus. Come, you Spirit of Truth, come. Come, so that the weak will breathe a sigh of relief. Come, you Spirit of Truth and shake up the strong. We ask you for all who have power over others, be their conscience; for all who decide for others, be their guiding principle; for all those who set the course with their actions and inactions, show them the scope of their decisions, be their conscience. Come, you Spirit of Truth, come. Come and speak, so that love prevails in this world. We ask you for all those who are lonely, and for all single people, all children, young people and older people who suffer particularly from social isolation. We think of all children and young people who will soon start school again. Especially among those who don't have computers to learn online and with the teachers and students who have to return to the classes, even though they are afraid and many don't want to. Come, You Healing Spirit and help us in our time of need.. Come, you Spirit of Truth and connect your worldwide Church. We ask you for all large and small congregations,
who suffer and are threatened from within and from the outside. Ground us deeper and deeper in your love. Let us recognize you and let us not stop asking for you. Come, you Spirit of Truth, come. We entrust ourselves to you, God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, today and every day. Amen. We pray together with the words Jesus taught us: Our Father in Heaven Hallowed be Your name Your kingdom come Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our sin, just as we forgive those who sin against us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil, For yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory Forever and ever, Amen
May the Lord bless you and protect you. May he give you wisdom and protection in all fears. May he give you the courage to leave old habits behind and the strength, to break new ground. May he give you certainty to come home. May the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious onto you. May God be light in your way. May he be with you when you take detours and dead ends. May be take you by the hand and give you many signs of his closeness. May he lift his face upon you and give you his peace. Wholeness of soul and body. The awareness of safety in Him and a trust that is growing and that will not be deterred. Amen