A Sunday in May

Today was a beautiful day! A Sunday of work and play.

Here is a rundown of a Sunday in Berlin -

7am: Alarm rings. A little early for my taste but I want to run over my sermon one last time before church.

10:30am - The text:
Hear O Israel! Jaweh is your God (Elohim). Jaweh is One.
That is why, you shall love your God with all your heart (the center of your being, from which you feel and think), with all your soul (the breath in your body - your life-energy) and with all your Strength (physical strength as well as your Will, your Intention.)

In the sermon I focused on how this verse, which we find in the NT in Jesus' mouth and which is the credo of Jewish faith, was completely radical when it was first written. A little known fact for most Christians: there was a time when Israel was Not monotheistic. They, along with all the nations in the area, worshiped many gods - a god (male and female) for each of life's needs - many gods to pay attention to, to worry about, to give glory and honor to. Must have been hard work - having to be so split in their allegiance between multiple deities.
This idea of many gods was such a normal thing that the word for 'God' in the AT - Elohim - is plural. There was no way to say a God, unless you used the name of a particular God.

And then we find this passage: Hear O Israel Jaweh is your Elohim and Jaweh is One. Not many but one. Jaweh, is YOUR God and Jaweh is ONE. How revolutionary this must have sounded in the ears of the Israelites. One God in control of everything. One God to trust and love. One God who has given himself to Israel. And as we believe, not just Israel.

And then that wonderful second sentence: That is why or because of this...you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength. Because God is one, we too are called to be One. Whole people. United in body, mind and Intention. Not split and pulled in our allegiance - but united within ourselves.

We live in a time and a culture where it is normal to cut ourselves in pieces, in our attempt to be everything for everyone, to fulfill the many roles which each of us have - we ripe ourselves apart. We even speak in this way (particularly here in Germany) we talk about our emotions as completely separate from our decisions, our thoughts on one side and our feelings on the other, our responsibilities here -- our dreams there, our health here -- our happiness there, our faith here -- our sexuality there, ...
Martin Luther said: The thing you hang your heart on, that is your God. But we have cut our hearts into many pieces and have hung little bits of heart on so many things... can we really claim to worship just one God?

And again this verse: Your God - in whose Image you are made - is One. Therefore, love your God with all of yourself. God desires us whole, united in our being and our worship. Not for his sake but for ours! And are we? Or our we content trying to hold ourselves together, pulled in 100 directions?

God could have chosen to show himself to us with many faces, Jesus could have been a Hindi - the message being: I am many. BUT he wasn't. God chose to be incarnate in a Jew. A man who himself probably prayed this prayer twice a day: Hear O Israel, The Lord your God is One.

OK. enough sermon for all of you.

11am - The other very big thing for me today:for the first time in my life I am responsible for Holy Communion. I have thought all week about Ken B. saying to me: Invite the people to Christ's table, welcome them, the way you welcome us in your home, then they will see Jesus. I was nervous, it felt like a big new step for me and yet since Gerhard couldn't be there it fell to me so naturally that no one else seemed to blink twice. And it was wonderful. It felt so right to say: Come and taste the goodness of the Lord. It also had such a natural connection to the sermon - another example that our faith is not supposed to be matter of thought or words alone, but of body - of getting up and tasting and chewing, and of heart and mind.

12:30 - Gerhard has had another disk give out in his back and is out sick for the next two months. So, after church we elders met to talk about how we will fill in for him the next 8 weeks. This is maybe the second or third time ever that Gerhard has said to his elders, I don't need to be there, you guys will be fine without me. It is testimony to the trust and wonderful 'one-heart-and-mind-ness of the church these days. Not that we all agree with one another all the time - not at all - but we are very much on the same page, and that too feels really right.

While we met outside in the sun, eating bread with salami and drinking the wine and orange juice, I held the 3 mon old son of friend and fellow elder Trixi Witte (wife of Mark Witte, Gerhard's oldest son.) I love holding little Willy - he is so beautiful, but there is always a piece of my heart that aches in those moments for a child of my own.

14:30 - Trixi invited me home with her for the afternoon. (Lunch - liver and potatoes - well you cant have everything. And I did eat all of my liver, it is just a matter of cutting it into very little pieces with LOTS of potatoes in each bite.)

15:30 - Suse and Tobias Radig and their kids arrived with Felix and Franzi Witte and their son (making it 3 of the Witte kids with families - for those who are newer to my life - i lived with the Wittes when I was 18, so we have all known each other now for over 15yrs.) We sat in the garden and drank coffee, ate ice cream, talked and laughed.

16:30 - A Sunday walk to the park: 7 adults and 5 kids.

18:30 - I got home exhausted, fulfilled and happy. Played with Moses and made myself a salad for dinner while watching Criminal Minds (love that show!) on the Internet before doing a little homework.

23:00 - Homework not quite done, but too tired to continue. I head to bed and sett the alarm for 6:10.

That was my day - A sunday in May. Lovely, huh?
What did you do yesterday?