How Is Your Faith Instructing You?

John 14:1-14 (CEB) 

 

“Don’t be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. My Father’s house has room to spare. If that weren’t the case, would I have told you that I’m going to prepare a place for you? When I go to prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with me so that where I am you will be too. You know the way to the place I’m going.” 

Thomas asked, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 

Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have really known me, you will also know the Father. From now on you know him and have seen him.” 

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father; that will be enough for us.” 

Jesus replied, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you all this time? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I have spoken to you I don’t speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me does his works. Trust me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on account of the works themselves. I assure you that whoever believes in me will do the works that I do. They will do even greater works than these because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask for in my name, so that the Father can be glorified in the Son. When you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it. 

Don't be troubled, Jesus tells the disciples shortly before he is arrested and crucified.

Don't be troubled.

The NRSV puts it -- Do not be afraid.

I don't know about you --- but at times --- during this crisis --- I have been afraid.

My soul has been deeply troubled

Before Easter, when Nancy went up to Chicago to help Jessica and Sam take care of Hattie --- I was afraid.

When they debated about putting Hattie back into childcare --- I was afraid.

When my girls were talking about coming home for Easter --- I was afraid.

Maybe you haven't felt fear during this time --- but I would be lying if I said that I had not.

It has not paralyzed me --- but it certainly has taken my focus at times.

One year ago, follow services on Mother's Day, I got into my car and began to drive to North Carolina.  Nancy had left earlier that day with our girls.

We were on our way to celebrate Nancy's mom's life.

She had died on May 3rd, and the following day, on our 33rd anniversary Nancy, Lindsey and Haley ran (well actually we walked) the Indy Mini in the cold rain.

If all of this hadn't taken place around these other events, I am not sure I would have remembered exactly when it happened --- Covid-19 has made marking time challenging

As we continue to recognize the cloud of witnessed that surround us, today I want to take a moment and look at three individuals that have deeply influenced my life, and how I believe they can help illuminate the texts for today.

Corrie Ten Boom

Anne Frank

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Three names that I imagine most of us are fairly familiar with.  

And if you are not --- I encourage you to learn more about them.

All three lived during the horrors of the rise of Nazism in Germany --- and each lived out their faith in unique ways.

Corrie ten Boom has long been honored by Christians as an exemplar of what the Christian faith should look like in real life. 

Corrie was arrested by the Nazis along with the rest of her family for hiding Jews in their Dutch home during the Holocaust.

They knew the potential risks of harboring Jews

Corrie was imprisoned and eventually sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp along with her beloved sister, Betsie, who perished there just days before Corrie's own release on December 31, 1944. 

In 1947 Corrie was forced to define herself in the most powerful way.

Listen as she tells the story from her autobiography The Hiding Place.

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavy-set man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. ...

And that's when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. 

Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent. ...

[The man said to me] "since that time, I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, ..." his hand came out, ... "will you forgive me?"

And I stood there — I whose sins had every day to be forgiven — and could not. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling."

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"

For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.

Could you?

Would you?

I imagine most of us are more familiar with Anne Frank.  

Anne was a Jewish teenager from Frankfurt, Germany who was forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust. She and her family, along with four others, spent over two years during World War II hiding in an annex of rooms in Amsterdam.

 

On Friday, August 4, 1944, Anne, her family, and the others living with them were arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. 

Miep Gies, who had been helping them during their hiding --- climbed the stairs to the hiding place and found it had been ransacked and wrecked. 

Anne and the others had been betrayed by an informer who was paid about eight dollars --- or about one dollar for each of the eight people who were in hiding

Miep Gies picked up what she recognized as Anne’s papers and put them away, unread, in her desk drawer. 

There Anne's diary lay untouched, until Otto Frank emerged alive from Auschwitz.

Sometime around March of 1945, seven months after she had been arrested, Anne Frank died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

She was fifteen years old.

We struggle with being in quarantine.  

It has been about 7 weeks since most of us went into some type of self-isolation.

Could you stay --- indoors --- unable to go out even for necessary items or to just enjoy the outdoors --- for over two years?

I don't even want to think about it

Probably the most influential in my life of the three is Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and pastor who resisted the government of Adolph Hitler when he recognized, very early and very clearly, the dangers of Hitler’s regime. 

Bonhoeffer saw himself as a Christ-centered pacifist and he studied Gandhi’s theory of nonviolent political resistance, he also wrote extensively how we must love one’s enemies 

Despite his belief in pacifism --- Bonhoeffer eventually became a member of a conspiracy that was attempt a coup against Hitler. 

By Bonhoeffer’s own account, he was living in a time and place in which 

“the huge masquerade of evil has thrown all ethical concepts into confusion” and in which evil appears in the “form of light, good deeds, historical necessity, [and] social justice.” 

Bonhoeffer emphasized redemptive suffering in solidarity with the most vulnerable as well as what he called “costly grace,” 

he made a distinction between religion and Christ-centeredness 

• religion is our effort to reach God 

• while Christ-centeredness embraces God’s self-revelation to the world in the incarnation and in the church 

Martin Luther once spoke of “theologians of the cross”; 

people --- like Bonhoeffer ---who join God in the world, in solidarity with those who suffer, 

those who make difficult, even countercultural decisions

especially in times when evil is disguised as good.

How do these three witnesses help us interpret our biblical texts for today?

In the book of the Acts of the Apostles we hear this story of the stoning of Stephen.

Acts 7:55-60   (CEB)

But Stephen, enabled by the Holy Spirit, stared into heaven and saw God’s majesty and Jesus standing at God’s right side. He exclaimed, “Look! I can see heaven on display and the Human One standing at God’s right side!” At this, they shrieked and covered their ears. Together, they charged at him, threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses placed their coats in the care of a young man named Saul. As they battered him with stones, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, accept my life!” Falling to his knees, he shouted, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” Then he died.

What had Stephen done to solicit the crowd --- along with Saul (who we know of as Paul) to murder him?

According to the story he was stoned to death for the crime of blasphemy --- proclaiming what those in power say is untruthful about God.  

When you read his speech in Chapter 7 of Acts you realize that Stephen was speaking the truth --- 

He was not murdered for blasphemy 

he was murdered because they didn't like what he had to say

Do not be troubled. 

Trust in God. 

Trust also in me --- Jesus tells us in John's gospel.

In 1943 Bonhoeffer wrote an essay of support to his friends and family working in the resistance.  Bonhoeffer asked, 

“Who stands firm? Only the one whose ultimate standard is not his reason, his principles, conscience, freedom, or virtue; only the one who is prepared to sacrifice all of these when, in faith and in relationship to God alone, he is called to obedient and responsible action. Such a person is the responsible one, whose life is to be nothing but a response to God’s question and call.”

Do not be troubled, Jesus says

Do not be afraid

I am afraid

I am afraid to speak the truth

Afraid to acknowledge the racism that is rampant in our society 

• That if you are white --- you can carry an AR17 into the Michigan State capitol and scream at police, not following any social distancing practices --- because you don't like the lawful order of the Governor telling you to sheltering in place --- and have nothing done to you
• Yet, if you are Ahmaud Arbery, the young black man in Georgia, who would have turned 26 on Friday --- you are shot dead while out for a run in your own neighborhood --- simply because you was black

I am afraid to shine the light on the economic disparities that exist in our society

• our inability to see the systemic fences we have built to keep people in their place
• the privilege I have just because I happened to be born straight, male and white

Afraid to say --- WE CAN'T GO BACK TO NORMAL

Normal wasn't working for too many of our brothers and sisters

We must find a better way --- the way of Jesus

Richard Rohr in his devotion on Friday wrote:

In the midst of the social distancing necessitated by this pandemic, people have nevertheless come together in creative and loving ways. Some have called this virus a massive “trigger event” with the potential to change everything. As individuals and communities, we can respond with justice and compassion, or we can double down on the pursuit of accumulation and power, with no more than a return to business as usual.

Why am I afraid?

I am afraid that if I were to say these things that you might stop liking me

I am afraid that you might stop supporting the church

I am also afraid, that if our society became more just --- that I might have to spend more of my money and give more of myself

I am afraid --- my soul is troubled

And yet Jesus reminds us, over and over again NOT to be afraid

Throughout the biblical story --- God calls us to trust in God and not be afraid.

God goes so far as to remind us in the 23rd Psalm that God will be with us always and will help us through those hard times.

God does not promise to get rid of the hard times --- no it seems that God wants us to stand up --- which sometimes creates hard times, but if we do that, we will never be alone

Somewhere in the last few weeks I came across a couple of little sayings that have stuck with me

The first is from Anne Nelson

There are moments in history when people of faith must ask what their faith instructs them to do.

I think this is one of those moments

I think she is asking us --- are we willing to be like Corrie Ten Boom, Anne Frank or Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

Will we stand up for the "least, the lost and the last" or are we only concerned about ourselves.

The second comes from one of the wisest sources that I know --- Dr Seuss (The Lorax)

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

How is your faith instructing you to live?

And if you are not sure --- I encourage you to reach out and begin to find out more about this man from Galilee who invites us to do greater works than even he did

https://faithandleadership.com/why-dietrich-bonhoeffer-relevant-today

Is This A Bonhoeffer Moment? Lessons for American Christians from the Confessing Church in Germany. By Lori Brandt Hale and Reggie Williams Sojourners Magazine February 2018