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Sermon on Sunday: Examples of lived humanity give hope

2020-04-06T08:54:41.159Z


The churches are closed, services are not taking place. For this reason, the Protestant churches have made the texts of the Sunday sermons available to Munich Mercury for publication. Today Pastor Jan Freiwald (Jesus Christ Church) addresses the readers.


The churches are closed, services are not taking place. For this reason, the Protestant churches have made the texts of the Sunday sermons available to Munich Mercury for publication. Today Pastor Jan Freiwald (Jesus Christ Church) addresses the readers.

Dear reader, hand on heart: Would you have thought at the beginning of the year when the first reports of the mysterious lung disease from China arrived that this would affect us one day? That three months later mankind would be in an unprecedented crisis?

New perspectives

We look around and rub our eyes - no, we can't because of the risk of infection. We look around and do not recognize our life, our society, indeed the whole world. Not even the very old among us can remember ever seeing church services canceled. A tiny, microscopic creature has managed to change everything and impose entirely new perspectives on us.

Whether and how we master this crisis also depends on whether we engage with these new perspectives and learn our lessons from them. For example, whether the solidarity we are experiencing these days will be permanent. Many no longer just look at themselves, but discover their sense of the whole, which gives hope. The unity with which aid measures are decided in politics gives hope. The many examples of lived humanity that are everywhere give hope. Volunteers agree to do shopping for the elderly or look after children whose parents have to do their jobs.

Fear of isolation

Due to the initial restrictions, geographically separated people move closer together, maintain social contact by phone calls, emails or chats and thus strengthen the community. Like all natural disasters, a pandemic does not differentiate between good and bad, poor or rich. Like an earthquake, it hits everyone or it can hit everyone. Some are only marginally affected, while others are severely affected, have an illness in their environment or are themselves ill.

Those who live alone fear that they will soon be completely isolated or that they will no longer be able to take care of themselves. The economic consequences are also different, some can continue to work, others cannot, some are secured, others are threatened in their economic existence.

And what applies to our country applies even more to other countries. It is not uncommon for the poorest and weakest to suffer especially because they do not have access to an efficient health system. They also need our solidarity and our help.

Beginning of Holy Week

Holy Week began yesterday, in which Christians all over the world prepare for Easter, the most important festival of Christianity. It is the most important because Easter and Good Friday deal with the most important things we know: life and death. It's all or nothing. The Easter message is: We are destined for life and not for death.

Against the backdrop of the terrifying news of thousands of deaths, this belief is given a new urgency. God wants life for us, before our physical death and afterwards as well. Easter is therefore the great change of perspective in the history of mankind: If our goal is life because God has it ready for us - before and after our death - then the primary purpose of our existence is to serve life. In gratitude to God and in humility to people.

This is the reason why Jesus Christ repeatedly calls love of God and people in one breath: We cannot respect God and disregard our neighbor. But who is our neighbor is decided in the specific case, there are no limits. Whoever is our neighbor, this circle will continue to grow as the ends of the world move closer together.

Rude awakening

Whoever imagined himself in our country on the rich island of the blessed in the past decades, while the world seemed to have gone far away for millions, is awakening from his dreams because he realizes that we have long since lived in a world in which everything what happens somewhere on earth also affects us at some point. People in China are probably infected with animals from the wild, and a short time later our social life is frozen and the economy goes on a cellar course.

It can hardly be made clearer: we live in one world, we are a global community of destiny. God complains that a small virus is needed for this insight. Neither the refugee crisis, global injustice, nor even climate change have led to such drastic changes in behavior as we see it now. Neither in private nor in politics.

It's amazing what we can do when we have to. Imagine what would be possible if we had so much solidarity and self-renunciation to fight climate change or to enable the poorest on earth to live a decent life.

One could ask the challenging question of whether humanity has learned anything from catastrophes so far? From Chernobyl? Not really. At least we still accept incalculable risks so that our prosperity does not decrease. The climate catastrophe too. There are always the many self-interests that no one likes to give up, and rethinking starts small and takes time. But there is no time in the current situation.

Crises are opportunities

This is the chance in this crisis, it is the positive, if one can speak of something positive at all in view of the devastating effects for hundreds of thousands: that perspectives are forced to change. Also the view of our otherwise safe life. In a few weeks, everyday life around the world was completely upset. We can see from this that our society is at risk and that the life in which we are so meticulously timed is not as safe as it seems.

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Pastor Jan Freiwald

And we get a clue as to how people may have been in earlier times: They had to face much more dangers and uncertainties than we do now. And they had much less to oppose to medical care or welfare state. Then the question of God came up differently, more insistently.

That is why people used to like to sign their plans with two letters: CJ They stand for "conditio Jacobea", the "condition of James". This alluded to a sentence in the Letter to James in the Bible warning against too great self-assurance. Everything we do takes place on the condition: "God willing and we live" (Jak 4:15). These days we can understand a bit how this word is meant, when so much that seemed reliable has suddenly become uncertain. CJ.

Crises are always opportunities. As dangerous and needy as they are, they release so much strength and energy because they change the perspective. They sharpen the eye for the essential. We can experience that at the moment. People learn to be more respectful and appreciative. The gift of time, which many can look forward to, ensures deceleration. Many rediscover completely different sides, live more intensely, play with the children, read a book, enjoy spring, write a letter.

It feels good, but it is not for everyone. Greetings from the hut. But maybe you can compare this time in which we are taken out of everyday life with a trip: You only notice how nice it is at home when you have been away. If everyday life comes back, you can see it with new eyes.

Perhaps this crisis will help us to really appreciate our life and everyday life. It's the same with faith: if you dare to look at your life through the eyes of God, you will realize how valuable you are. These days you can learn that a change of perspective helps you to see yourself and the world differently.

Stay healthy and stay protected! your
JAN FREIWALD

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-04-06

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