Print Post Approved PP536155/00031 VOL 47 NO 2
How can people have faith in the Lord ‌ if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear, unless someone tells them? [ Romans 10:14 ]
EDITOR/ADVERTISING phone 0427 827 441 email rosie.schefe@lca.org.au SUBSCRIPTIONS phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au
YURT NEVER FIND A BETTER READ!
www.thelutheran.com.au We Love The Lutheran! As the magazine of the Lutheran Church of Australia (incorporating the Lutheran Church of New Zealand), The Lutheran informs the members of the LCA about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia. The Lutheran is a member of the Australasian Religious Press Association and as such subscribes to its journalistic and editorial codes of conduct.
Rhoda Schiller (Strait Gate, Light Pass SA) had her Lutheran to keep her company on her Mongolian adventure last year. Photo: Dieter Gerschwitz Send us a photograph featuring a recent copy of The Lutheran and you might see it here on page 2 We Love The Lutheran!
CONTACTS Acting Editor Rosie Schefe 197 Archer Street, North Adelaide SA 5006 phone 0427 827 441 email rosie.schefe@lca.org.au
People like you are salt in your world [ Matt 5:13 ]
Executive Editor Linda Macqueen 3 Orvieto Street, Bridgewater SA 5155 phone 08 8339 5178 email linda.macqueen@lca.org.au National Magazine Committee Wayne Gehling (chair), Greg Hassold, Sarah Hoff-Zweck, Pastor Richard Schwedes, Heidi Smith Design and layout Comissa Fischer Printer Openbook Howden
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SUBSCRIPTIONS and CHANGES of ADDRESS
Ellen Paech
Dee Simons
Luke Wiencke
St Paul’s, Summerfield SA Retired Enjoys golf, playing the organ, retirement Fav text: 1 Cor 13:13
Trinity, Warrayure Vic Secretary, Good Shepherd College, Hamilton Enjoys writing, reading her Bible, gardening, walking Fav text: Isa 1:18
Trinity, Tailem Bend SA Student Enjoys table tennis, computer games Fav text: Ps 119:105
LCA Subscriptions PO Box 731, North Adelaide SA 5006 phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au www.thelutheran.com.au 11 issues per year— Australia $40 New Zealand $42 Asia/Pacific $51 Rest of the World $60 Issued every month except in January
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FEATURES
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05 Talking with my hands 09 Watch and learn 21 Miracle on fireground 23 We will roll up our sleeves
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COLUMNS 04 From the President 08 Rhythms of Grace
It’s a picture guaranteed to make people go, ‘Awww! Isn’t that cute!’, and rush to buy the greeting card—a little girl trying on her mummy’s high-heeled shoes. It evokes all kinds of emotions, but for me, that image describes how I‘m feeling as I take on the role of acting editor of this magazine. You see, Linda wears stilettos. (And I have the picture to prove it!) For 14 years she has edited The Lutheran with style and grace, building on the work of editors before her. She began with raw talent, minimal knowledge and a healthy reliance on God to lead her. And look where he’s led! The Lutheran might be small, but in Christian publishing terms it is a heavyweight, respected both here and overseas (and Linda has the awards to prove that!) Me, I’m a paddock-boots kind of woman. When I moved into rural journalism in 2005, senior rural colleagues advised me to get a good pair of workboots to wear on assignment. Without them I’d never earn the respect of the people I was writing about, they said … and I’d spend a fortune replacing wrecked shoes. So I do feel apprehensive about stepping into Linda’s stilettos. I know I’ll get the wobbles and stumble occasionally. But, like Linda, I know God won’t let me fall. As the psalmist promises, ‘The Lord makes firm the steps of those who delight in him; though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord upholds them with his hand’ (Ps 37:23,24). What a relief! I can step out confidently, even when things get muddy. Linda’s hands are still very much on this edition as she guides me through, while the rest of the team are skilled and confident in their roles. With a big helping of God’s grace, Linda’s stilettos (and The Lutheran) will still be in good shape when I give them back in 2014!
Rosie Vol 47 No2 P43
11 Reel Life 12 Little Church
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13 Inside Story 16 Directory 17 Letters 18 Stepping Stones 20 Notices
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26 Heart and Home 28 World in Brief 30 Coffee Break
The cross does not go away for us anymore than it did for Pilate. But the more we wash our hands of it … the more the opportunity we have to be at peace with God diminishes. We’ve updated and improved the LCA eNews system. To subscribe to the LCA President's Page (or any other eNews
His name is mentioned every day all around the world. But it is only ever in bad press. And he has been dead for some 2000 years. ‘… suffered under Pontius Pilate.’ We don’t like Pontius Pilate, but seldom do we think that we may be acting as he did. He was, at least in this instance, a person of indecision. Calling for the blood of Jesus called Christ was an angry crowd of influential people among whom Pilate was supposed to maintain peace and order, if he were to have a chance at promotion in his vocation as governor in the public service of Rome. They wanted this Jesus crucified for his claim to be Israel’s Messiah, their Lord and Saviour.
Pilate was unconvinced this man deserved death, and Pilate’s wife was officer. Now it’s much simpler: go to www. enews.lca.org.au, enter your email address sure of his innocence. So, on one side the might and power of a great empire and select the list(s) to which you wish demanded his attention, and on the to subscribe. All eNews emails have an unsubscribe link as well as a link that allows other, a rabble threatened to make promotion for him difficult if he could you to manage your eNews lists. LCA not appease them. pastors and lay workers are automatically list), you no longer send an email to the IT
subscribed to the LCA President’s Page.
Rev Dr Mike Semmler President Lutheran Church of Australia
He didn’t know what to do. Like a spiritual obsessive-compulsive, he washed his hands of the problem and told the angry crowd to please themselves. Sometimes we too don’t know what to do when, on the one side, we are surrounded by the chance for popularity and prosperity, and by the might of society and culture, and on the other side, by what we really sense we should choose, even if it means jeopardising the security we think we have. We can become indifferent and wash our hands of it all.
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The Lutheran March 2013
The pointy end of our journey is like that of Pilate’s. It is at the cross of Christ. Often we just do not want to know about it. Even our Christianity we want to promote as a successful philosophy to avoid, and we wash our hands of a cross. Christ himself on that cross has no indifference. He has to judge us and he bleeds for our return. The cross does not go away for us anymore than it did for Pilate. But the more we wash our hands of it, become indifferent, hope it will go away or put off getting too involved in worshipping the one who comes as our Saviour, the more the opportunity we have to be at peace with God diminishes. Not only does Christ give himself for us on an ugly cross, exchanging his innocence for our guilt, our indifference and failure to choose him, he even gives himself to us in baptism and holy communion. Through these means the heavenly Father reaches to touch us and to take hold of us in our pathetic handwashing indecision and indifference. Pilate is not alone, but his decision need not be ours. We have been granted faith, weak though we may be within that faith, so let us in this Lenten season pray with the hymn-writer (LHS 109 verse 3):
Draw us to you
that we stay true
and walk the road to heaven.
Direct our way
lest we should stray
and from your paths be driven.
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Photo Rosie Schefe
Talking with my hands As pastor of Adelaide’s Deaf Community Church, John Hoopmann preaches the best
sermons you’ll never hear. But now, approaching retirement, he’s looking for a successor.
My parents lived at Brigalow, Queensland, a tiny town in what was then known as Brigalow Scrub— Dad’s first parish. He was attending a church meeting in Toowoomba when Mum started getting labour pains, seven weeks early. A parishioner drove Mum and her mother to the nearest hospital at Chinchilla, 20 kilometres west of Brigalow. There, the doctor, fresh out of the army (WWII was still raging) and with no experience delivering babies, attempted to help Mum give birth. Finally, he admitted defeat and decided to send Mum to the Toowoomba hospital. The ‘ambulance’ was a beat-up old truck with a mattress thrown in and tarp for a roof. Two nurses accompanied Mum for the Vol 47 No2 P45
by John Hoopmann 166-kilometre, stinking hot, slow trip on the Warrego ‘Highway’, in those days a rough dirt road. I was born at the Toowoomba hospital. The doctor could not hear any foetal heartbeats. I was placed on the ‘reject’ tray. The doctor went to see Dad and said, ‘I’m very sorry, but your baby boy is stillborn’. As he walked away, a theatre nurse went back to clean up. Imagine her shock when she saw a movement of the baby’s hand and fingers! She raced out to get the doctor back, yelling that the baby is alive! Dad wondered what on earth was going on. The doctor said, ‘Yes, the baby is alive; he may live another 24 hours. If you want your son baptised, do it now.’ So I was baptised into the Lord’s family
on the day of my birth. After that, God kept me alive. When I was nearly three years old, my parents began to worry that I might be deaf, as I wasn’t talking. Finally, Mum saw a small article in the Women’s Weekly about the John Tracy Clinic in Los Angeles which offered lessons on how to teach a deaf child to talk, to lip-read and communicate. John Tracy was the deaf son of Spencer Tracy, the film star. After hours of daily practising, two years later I was able to say five words: ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’, ‘water’, ‘milk’ and ‘hole’. My speech comprehension greatly improved at the Gilberton Oral Kindergarten (now the Cora Barclay Centre) in Adelaide. After two years in a Victorian State School I went back to a The Lutheran March 2013
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Photo Rosie Schefe
How can the Deaf call on the One of whom they have not heard? And how can the Deaf hear without someone preaching to them? … The Deaf need to see, believe, and know the Word of God in their own church and language.
Pastor John Hoopmann of Adelaide Deaf Community Church leads worship in Auslan, the language of the Deaf community. When worshipping together with a hearing congregation an Auslan interpreter helps both sides understand what is happening. Deaf* school again, the Woodville Hard of Hearing Centre, for three years of intensive speech therapy. At Tailem Bend Primary, I was suddenly aware I was in Grade 7. In the Deaf school all children were graded according to ability, not age. After high school at Murray Bridge, I began my 28-year employment with Lutheran Publishing House (later to become Openbook). There I worked in printing, eventually becoming supervisor of the Finishing Department. About 23 years worth of The Lutheran passed under my eyes! During this time I began several hobbies, including learning the arts and crafts of theatre. At that time I had no 6
The Lutheran March 2013
idea that this training would prove to be a valuable asset to my delivering and acting out sermons. God was guiding me, even then. For years I tried to fit in with Lutheran worship but became very dissatisfied. I attended different denominations, only to realise it wasn’t just Lutheran worship that was stuffy. Eventually it dawned that my being deaf was the problem; it was preventing my participation. After an LCA Synod resolution, St James Church of the Deaf began at Christmas 1974. But I was still not satisfied. Services were interpreted by finger-spelling everything the pastors said—spelling out each letter of each
word, rather than signing whole words and sentences—so painstaking! Not all Deaf can follow this. There is a wide range of born-deaf people, mildly-deaf or hard-of-hearing deaf who depend on hearing aids to hear, lip-reading deaf who depend on this plus aids, severely deaf who depend on this plus Auslan, and the fully deaf who hear almost nothing, are unable to lip-read or talk, and use finger-spelling and Auslan exclusively. People who become deaf in old age are another whole separate category again. What was needed was a fulltime pastor for born-deaf and signing people, so he could communicate with all Deaf. Vol 47 No2 P46
Photos Rosie Schefe
Romans 10:14 explains: ‘How then can the Deaf call on the One they have not believed in? And how can the Deaf call on the One of whom they have not heard? And how can the Deaf hear without someone preaching to them?’ The Deaf need to see, believe, and know the word of God in their own church and language.
In 1977 I began a six-month trip to see something of the world. For the last month, I made it my business to see as much as I could of the Lutheran Deaf churches in USA. Boy, was that wonderful! All the Deaf churches were well attended and had pastors (hearing) and choirs who signed beautifully. I saw the answer for Australia! I wrote a long letter to then Lutheran SA District President, Pastor Clem Koch, outlining my experiences and what was needed. Months later, I bumped into him in an Adelaide street and said, ‘Hey, didn’t you ever get my letter?’ He said, ‘Yes, I did, and I don’t know how to answer it. But why don’t you be a pastor?’ In 1981 I married Sandra and we thought of beginning a family. Five years later Pastor Koch asked me to think again. So I said, ‘Pastor Koch, are you nuts? There’s no way I can go to Luther Seminary as a deaf student, lip-reading and speaking Greek and Hebrew and what else! ‘How do you really think I’m gonna cope with six years of full-time study? I’ve seen enough of my Dad’s theological books to know this is not for me!’ I thought that this time I had finally shut up Pastor Koch. But God doesn’t give up easily. Another five years went by—ten years since Pastor’s Koch’s suggestion. Sandra and I organised a weekend seminar for the Deaf community to meet Dr George Kraus, a professor from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. Dr Kraus was a very experienced pastor to the Deaf for over 25 years and had led the Deaf Ministry Department at the seminary. Vol 47 No2 P47
Towards the end of the weekend Pastor Koch again approached me. Then Pastor Peter Kriewaldt asked me too, and I thought, ‘What’s going on?’ Then Dr Kraus came to me with the same request. Koch, Kriewaldt, Kraus! Again I told Dr Kraus, ‘You know, I’m DDDDeaf, and how do you think I’d cope with Luther Seminary? You’ve been teaching there as a guest lecturer. What do they know about Deafies?’ Dr Kraus said, ‘Yes, you’re right, John. You have to come to USA, to Fort Wayne, and I will teach you myself, one-on-one, no classes. Think about it again, and let me know in twelve months time.’ It finally dawned on me that it was possible for me to do this, and before the year was up—with the Lord giving me a bit of a shove—I knew that I was supposed to be a pastor to the Deaf community. Twenty-two years down the track, I have really enjoyed my work as a pastor. It is a real privilege to be a shepherd, to prepare sermons and Bible studies, to teach, preach, baptise, counsel, marry and conduct funerals, all in Auslan. The position is very much as a community leader as well as pastor. In addition to my pastoral duties, I spend time helping a lonely deaf man fix his bicycle, going to Centrelink with a woman who gets confused by the system, attending Deaf community events and generally ‘being there’ for whoever needs me. A pastor to the Deaf people can either be deaf or hearing. Of course, it is imperative that he knows or learns Auslan, the beautiful sign language of the Deaf community.
I plan to retire in 2015, when I turn 70. We are praying and looking for a young person who wishes to serve the Deaf community as a pastor. This could be a Special Ministry Pastor position. He would work with the district president and Australian Lutheran College to develop a specialised course of study. Ideally he would already have some Auslan skills or contact with Deaf people, or be willing to take on a three-year course in Auslan at TAFE. During this time, if possible, I will mentor him and teach all I know about this vital mission so that he will be ready when the time comes. Further study could lead to a professional interpreter qualification, resulting in extra work in hospitals, with doctors, at law courts, with police, universities and other educational institutions—wherever Deaf people need interpreters. This means that the man could be doubly-qualified: as a Special Ministry Pastor and as an Auslan interpreter. It would be an advantage if he worshipped regularly at the Adelaide Deaf Community Church, so that the Deaf congregation can know him and his family. This will give him the opportunity to see if Deaf ministry is his true calling. Whoever is called into this specialised ministry, God has promised his enabling. It is my prayer, and that of the Adelaide Deaf Community Church, that the Lord will move hearts to consider this unique ministry for themselves or for someone they know. John Hoopmann is pastor of the Deaf Community Church in Adelaide. * The Deaf community uses ‘Deaf’ (with a capital ‘D’) to describe the collective of people who are deaf. When used as an adjective, ‘deaf’ has a small ‘d’. The Lutheran March 2013
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Having its way with us Ask members of a congregation, ‘How was church on Sunday?’, and you’re likely to get an extremely wide variety of answers.
of
grace
In the ebb and flow of liturgy, God is at work, whether we hear him or not.
The fact that public worship can be experienced as ‘challenging’ or ‘comforting’ or ‘long’ or ‘interesting’ or ‘excruciating’—or any other word you can think of—has to do with a number of things. First, we are all different, and this means that our appreciation of worship depends, to some extent, on who we are. No doubt a visitor, a regular worshipper, a young child, a musician and the pastor will each be attuned to worship in their own unique way. But experiences of worship also vary because a lot of different things are happening when we assemble as God’s people. There are the things we set out to do (pray, listen, commune and sing) and the things that happen anyway (we grumble, daydream, worry and gossip). There are also the things that only an ‘expert observer’ might notice, such as the social dynamics, cultural realities, ritual acts and symbolic understandings of worship. All this means that I can’t say what worship can or even should mean for you. Worship can be experienced in many ways!
by Linards Jansons 8
The Lutheran March 2013
However, it can also be said that the central communion liturgy of the church has been ‘designed’ (although it has also just ‘grown’) to do and achieve some very definite things. Both the overall shape of the liturgy and its individual parts exist to affect and change us. In fact, liturgy makes a daring claim: God is here, and this is what God is doing to you!
So, while we react to the liturgy in various ways, the liturgy itself has a very clear ‘agenda’ towards us. Perhaps the trick to ‘getting more out of worship’ is to recognise that agenda and give ourselves over to it. That’s what this new column in The Lutheran will be about—to recognise and welcome the way liturgy would have its way with us. The first step in doing this can be to get a sense of the big picture of the liturgy. Just as stories or dramas have unique ways of signalling their beginning, middle and end, so too does liturgy. Today, many denominations—even some that are traditionally less liturgical—recognise that, despite our distinct worship traditions, we share a common worship pattern that looks something like this: • We gather as God’s assembly. • We attend to God’s word. • We share in God’s meal. • We depart anew into God’s world. The Lutheran liturgy also follows this pattern. It serves to break our earthly routine by bringing us together, by letting us hear the voice of God and share the meal of God, and by finally sending us back to where we came from, ideally as changed people. And while it might seem that we ourselves have been quite busy during worship, we remember the claim liturgy makes about itself—and about all our activity: God is at work, sometimes obviously, but more often than not, in a hidden, humble and quiet manner that we may not even recognise. Rev Linards Jansons teaches Liturgy and Worship at Australian Lutheran College. Vol 47 No2 P48
Great Expectations Great Expectations is one of the finest coming-of-age stories ever written, making it to the big screen seven times since 1917. This latest version, helmed by Harry Potter’s Mike Newell, makes much of the sinful choices that can steer an entire life off course. Charles Dickens originally published Great Expectations as a serial in his weekly periodical All The Year Round. The epic story traces the life of an orphan boy named Pip, who is living a peasant’s existence in his sister’s home. Pip appears set to become the apprentice of his sister’s blacksmith husband, the kindly Joe. However, trips to decadent Satis House plant seeds of discontent in his heart. The eccentric Miss Havisham engages him to play with her adopted daughter Estella. Pip falls in love with Estella, but Miss Havisham is training her ward to break hearts, not fill them. When a lawyer arrives at Pip’s home to announce a mysterious benefactor is determined to make him a gentleman, our hero sees his chance to finally have everything he wants. He throws over the salt-of-theearth Joe in favour of the class that can put him in reach of Estella. He begins a life of ‘great expectations’—but sadly, that’s all they end up being.
Newell’s version strives faithfully to deliver Dickens’ warning that good blessings can make bad gods. Pip’s love for Estella is pure, but the director says the steps he takes to attain her end up twisting his character. ‘He’s treacherous and he’s callous and he’s cold and he does terrible things to the people who love him the most’, Newell explains. ‘And he constantly longs for the people who love him least.’ The tragedy at the heart of the film is Pip’s mostly unrequited love for Estella and the damage that desire does to the hero’s life. But the truth is that Estella is as culpable for her choices as Pip. Taking the wrong path and refusing to take the right one are equally bad. Though many adults shamefully manipulated these lovers, Pip and Estella remain responsible for their active and passive decisions, and this is one of the conclusions Dickens writes for his hero: ‘In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong’.
One bite isn’t enough, is it?
GREAT EXPECTATIONS Rating: M Distributor: UPI Release date: 7 March 2013
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Much of Great Expectations’ appeal rests on its perfect casting. Pip is played by War Horse’s Jeremy Irvine and childhood scenes by his little brother Toby. The ghoulish Miss Havisham, forever garbed in the wedding dress she was jilted in, was a role written for Helena Bonham Carter, and her beautifully cruel Estella is Comments on equally matched to Holiday Grainger. or contactculture LCA Subscriptions: Robbie Coltrane and Ralph Fiennes contemporary lutheran.subs@lca.org.au round out the cast as Mr Jaggers Phone (in Australia) 08 8360 7270 and Magwitch, mean and malevolent Phone (outside Australia) +618 8360 7270 characters who mould Pip’s life. But the brightest star is Dickens’ moral.
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Conclusions formed over a lifetime are hard to cram into a two-hour film, and there’s no doubt that Great Expectations sometimes struggles for coherence. However the dangers of ambition and a conscience neglected are clear enough. Dickens was more a moralist than a Christian preacher, but Newell has revived for a new generation the author’s original caution to consider where our choices will take us:
‘Pause, you who read this, and think Subscribe online at www.thelutheran.com.au for a moment of the long chain of
by Mark Hadley Vol 47 No2 P51
iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.’ The Lutheran March 2013
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