Reformation through memory

This week Melinda, Debbie and I started looking through our boxes of library books. There are a lot of books. Believe me! We made it through about 2/3 of the boxes in 6 hours, to be continued. And we looked at every single book. To see how old it is, how meaningful it might be, how harmful the theology might be that it shares. Or how funny, interesting or thrilling the story might be. Most of the books had never been borrowed from our library according to the little cards in the wrapper. Some looked like someone had gotten them for their confirmation and thought: “Oh, I am never gonna read that one. Let’s gift it to the church! There are people who like that stuff.” Forgetting that people at church are no different than that person. The books that had been borrowed mostly had pastors’ names in it.

Had I been alone with that task, I would probably still be sitting in that room, reading. 

The funny books about sex education and marriage from the 1950s with rather interesting approaches to our bodies and relationships. The books with sermons from Pastors in the 1960s. Thank God for Blogs nowadays. That way us pastors can still publish as much as our ego needs and no paper gets wasted and no space taken up in living-rooms and church libraries. Yes, I am being sarcastic. Because going through that library showed me how much we treasure the written word on bookshelves. It makes us feel secure just knowing that it’s there. Even if we don’t actually read it. Ever.

There were a number of books trying to help build the church of the future. One in particular from the 1980s, claiming that with its method of doing church all of our problems would be gone in no time. It mostly focused on organizing the church in a more effective and accessible way. Nothing wrong with that. And it hasn’t solved our church’s problems. (The author of the book would probably claim that we just didn’t really follow their advice. Which is probably true, too.)

So, Reformation Sunday sounds like the perfect Sunday to ask: What’s going wrong? Who is to blame? What are the church’s problems? Luther sure had answers in the 16th century. How about us?

Let’s start with the problem of the church in general and the ELCA in particular. And I can see you look at me like, come on Pastor, it’s obvious. We are few, we are shrinking. On Tuesday, we also discovered old picture albums from the early 2000s when there were many kids running around at church and families being the center of our congregation. And I have to say, you all still look as great today as you did 20 years ago. 

Yes, I can see the difference in numbers. The numbers of our parishioners are accessible to anyone on the internet if you keep clicking long enough through ELCA websites. We just did our budget for next year. It’s getting smaller while the expenses are rising. So many people have moved or moved on to heaven in the past years. And the trend won’t be reversed in the near future either. I see that. Very clearly. 

But I refuse to believe that that is the main problem the church needs to tackle. I refuse to believe that church is about numbers of people in the pews. It’s not what Jeremiah was worried about, or what Jesus was concerned about, nor Paul, not even Martin Luther.

Different times, you might say. Yes, indeed. Different times. When at first there wasn’t a church at all, just people listening to Jesus, telling each other about that wondrous man. Sharing how his presence made them feel seen and cared for. How there wasn’t anything they had to do other than be. And how Jesus made them see how beautiful they were, how loved and worthy. Free. Not because Jesus pretended that they were flawless and holy people. We have been listening to the Gospel of Mark enough during the past months to hear Jesus’ tough words. Even against his closest friends. 

With Jesus, the truth always comes first. He will call out anyone who pretends not to hear it. No matter how rich, how powerful or good of a friend. Jesus says: 

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Not guilty, not ashamed, not paranoid. It will make you free.

The truth will make you free. It’s a truth I have experienced many times in my life. Just a couple of weeks ago, it happened again. 

A few months ago I had met a family from Israel, they had just arrived in Berkeley and we were at the same barbecue with friends. Over Russian chocolate we started joking and immediately clicked. Like when you see someone and know that you are soulmates, who look at life in a similar way. 

So, a couple weeks later we met for breakfast. And talked about our kids, our jobs, living far away from home, staying in touch with friends. All of that. Eventually, I asked her about her family’s roots. Where they had lived before moving to Israel, how they had survived the Holocaust. I was the one saying that word aloud first for us. It had been in the room ever since we had sat down that morning, of course. It’s always in the room when a German and a Jew talk. It’s what in many ways had the most impact on both our people’s past.

For over an hour, we shared our family’s stories. Which is usually beautiful, when that happens. It’s also particular when it’s a Jewish woman and a German woman sitting across each other at a table on a beautiful fall morning in Berkeley. 

I talked about my great-grandfather who warned Jewish families in his town. Legend has it that 7 families were saved that way, 2 actually sent letters of gratitude after the war. A truly heroic story. After the war he was deported by the Russians and died in a concentration camp shortly after. My grandmother was 3 years old and has never recovered from that loss. His picture can be found in the homes of each of his 5 children.

Until 3 years ago I was never told why my great-grandfather knew about the lists. What else he might have done during the Nazi time. I always assumed that he had joined the party after Hitler came into power to secure the survival of his young family. I had assumed, I had never asked. I had also assumed that I didn’t need to ask, that my family would tell me if it there was something more.

The truth, I learned 3 years ago, is much less heroic. He joined the Nazi party very early on, in the mid 1920s. Because he actually believed what they preached. Their cult of human, naked bodies spoke to him. Their songs, their love for nature, hikes, camping, freedom, local food and agriculture. He believed in strengthening one’s body to overcome weaknesses and in cold showers for the same reason. Most of those passions were passed down to me through my grandmother and father. I will probably never know if he also believed Hitler’s race theories and white supremacy ideas. Mostly, because I haven’t dared to ask. Secondly, because no one alive would know anymore.

He held some local power in his small town. Enough power to know which family was going to be deported and to warn families in order to flee. What we don’t know is, how many families he didn’t warn. Or how else he helped the system that divided people into random races with one to be eliminated.

For decades my great-grandfather was only remembered as a hero, denunciated as a Nazi after the war and unrightfully killed by the Russians. Which always left a feeling of anger towards those others in me. Those who had told on him. The Russians who incarcerated thousands of Nazis without trial in the years after the war with many dying of malnutrition and hard work. Those, whose men were incarcerated as Nazis also lost their homes to the state.

Then, I learned the truth. At least, more of the truth. And you know what, it was almost freeing. To know that he wasn’t a saint, that he did play a role in an inhuman system built out of ordinary people who liked to sing around the firepit and wanted to play volleyball naked at the beach and also believed that Jews were a race worth nothing and that one people was made to be the leader of the world and paid for it with his death. It was freeing in the sense that the story of “innocent family father against Russian empire and jealous neighbors” had turned into a story of many shades. Where there was good and evil and a lot of in between. Mostly in between. Mostly humans failing to resist powers. Until the powers got them. And left their families traumatized. Like my 3-year-old grandmother in 1946. 

Then, Tzvia told me about her family, who survived the holocaust in Romania and Sicily. I even knew the little village her family was from in Romania. She talked about their escape from Germans and Romanians, from Italians and Belgians later on. How their neighbors stole everything they had as soon as they could. How they arrived in Israel with their stories, their recipes, their trauma. Their fears of not belonging. Of neighbors stealing from them what they built and love. That story is not mine to share. It’s Tzvia’s. 

While talking we cried, we laughed, we looked at each other, understanding what we heard. We told each other as much of the truth as we know at this point. Maybe also as much as we can bare. But that, we shared.

There was no shame, no blame, no guilt. Just lots of truth, acknowledgment. I didn’t try to whitewash or excuse my ancestors. My people’s sins. They are in my bones, in my skin, I carry them with me. Yes, I didn’t commit any crimes. I am not responsible for the killing of Tzvias’ people. I am not guilty of their deaths and displacement. 

But I have a huge responsibility to know my history, to tell the stories to my kids, to make sure that this will never happen again. The truth will make you free. Free from making the same mistakes. Free from committing the same crimes. Free from feeling superior again over anybody. The truth will make you free. Nothing else can. 

Jesus comes to set free not just the sinned-against, but also the sinners—which is to say, each of us. There is a burden carried by the oppressed and their children, no question. A burden that is manifested in our very own bodies. And there is a burden carried by the oppressors. The constant need to be better, feel better than others. The need to prove that oppression is ok while somewhere deep in our hearts knowing that it isn’t. And so, we just oppress more. To overcome the doubts.

The burden in our bodies is not just a figure of speech, as I realized in my conversation with Tzvia. For the first time in my life, I realized that my go-to-emotion in times of uncertainty and stress is shame. A call from my kids’ teachers? Shame. What might they have done? A call from an unknown number? Shame. What might I have done wrong? There is shame deep in me, born into me. And I have 2 options: To dig deeper into my stories, my history. To discover the roots and work towards the future. Or, I can pretend not to feel what I feel, not to see what I know and hear. The result: I would still feel what I feel. I would hand it right down to my kids. And I would miss out on amazing friendships. So, the 2nd option really isn’t an option at all.

So, that’s a great story, right? But a sermon isn’t about pastor’s family problems and mental issues, right?

Right. It’s not. Today, it’s about the church that will be set free by truth. Because its people are made free by truth. Literally. So, what are the church’s problems in the 21st century? 

Not the numbers. Church has existed in small and large numbers throughout times. The problem is that we have yet to learn to be a place of truth. About God. And about the truth that the truth about God brings. The liberation to admit to our sins and the ones of our forefathers without letting them define us. The liberation to take responsibility for lives lived because God has already forgiven us and them. 

All we have to do is remember the stories, share them, learn from them, cry and laugh with each other. Meet the people we don’t jet know. Especially with the ones our ancestors might have harmed. Directly or indirectly. 

And then, feel deeply connected. Like Tzvia and I after those 4 hours at her kitchen table. Connected as people free to witness truth to each other. To admit our pains and fears, and to know that this is how we make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Denial sure isn’t part of it. Whitewashing isn’t part of it. Glorifying isn’t part of it. 

As much as we claim to be a place of truth in our churches, there are so many things we have a hard time admitting and feeling responsible for. And there are the things we do admit and feel responsible for but choose not to do anything about. It’s like being in a thousand-year Rip Van Winkle sleep. Truth sounds good. Until it doesn’t. Like the truth that our numbers shrink. We can blame the demographics or science or soccer on Sunday mornings. 

Or we can take a deep look at ourselves, admit to all the people that have been hurt by churches. And commit to serving people like Jesus did. And like Luther did. By telling them the truth. About our sins and the sins of our ancestors. About our feelings and our pain. And most importantly, we can listen to their struggles and their stories, even their sins. We can talk about our inevitable death, and about the amazing time in between, when we are called to clean up, rethink, and own our past, present and future. With God by our side. Out of pure grace. Just because she can. 

Our prophets, our teachers and God’s son didn’t worry about the number of Christians on this earth, even less about the number of ELCA members. They came to tell hard truths, they upset some and liberated many. May God guide us in their example, their faith and love. Happy Reformation Day. Let’s keep on reforming the church and the world. Because, the truth will make you free. Amen.