The stories we tell
Sermon on Luke 4:1-13
Dear Saints!
The last one and a half weeks have been extremely hard. And no, I don’t mean our trip to Disneyland, even though that was intense in a different way. Tons of people, crazy rides, overstimulated kids, and music everywhere. So, I thought I would go absolute bananas within no time. But then, there was the magic, too. The fun, the joy, the “I know it’s all fake, but it feels real”. Yes, that was crazy in a good way.
Yet, all the fun, all the joy, all the music, and cotton candy and popcorn and burgers at a gas station on Route 66 didn’t prevent me from worrying, from secretly checking the news while waiting in line. And you all know that there are a lot of lines to wait in, even with the Genie pass. So, I have been reading about Ukraine like crazy, checking updates, always worrying about the next revealed horror. I have been watching interviews with moms fleeing to Poland and Romania. I have been reading text conversations with young adults trapped in Kyiv. Every time I cry. And somehow it makes me feel a little more connected, a little less helpless. Even though I know that’s a farce. That my constant worries and fears really don’t help anybody. That I need to find better ways of coping with this situation.
In my life, this is the second time that war hits close to home. The first time was in the 1990s during the Serbo-Croatian war. The last war in Europe that many seem to have forgotten nowadays. I feel like everyone has that one war in their life that made them realize that wars aren’t a relict of the past, that they still rage on and destroy people’s livelihoods and dreams and futures. For me, that was the Serbo-Croatian war. With its war criminals like Milosovic, with its refugees coming into Germany. And it became even more real in 2010 when Philipp and I couch-surfed in Belgrad and our host who was even younger than us back then told us about the bomb nights he survived with his mom when NATO planes dropped bombs on is hometown to stop Milosovic from killing even more people. It became real in 2008 when I visited Belgrad for the first time as a volunteer at an orphanage and visited a memorial for a village that had been entirely killed in 3 days. And when I saw the holes from bombs in Belgrad. It was my first and last visit to a country so far that had recently experienced a horrible war and tried to live on while dealing with the deep trauma of neighbors killing each other.
In the past days, I have been thinking of the villages I visited in Serbia. The people I met over a decade after the war, the pain that lives on in their kids. And I thought about the beautiful Ukrainian cities and villages I visited in 2008. For Easter, of all times. The buildings sharing stories of the old times, when Ukraine was considered a part of Western Europe through the Austrian-Hungarian empire. The sky-scraping apartment blocs telling the stories of the past 80 years under Russian influence, the typical blocs that look grey and cold to ignorant travelers. But when asked about them, people will lovingly call them “my bloc” where everyone knows each other, where apartments have been passed down for generations, where the luxury of running water and electricity and central heating is appreciated as well as the feeling to belong. I think of the many coffee shops filled with young people who have lived and studied abroad, are highly educated and dream of a new, democratic and independent Ukraine. I think of the Orange Revolution in 2014 that brought so much hope to Europe from Ukraine. The idea that old spheres of power can still be overthrown by peaceful revolutions. Just like my home country did in 1989.
While I have always been saddened by wars, this one scares me like none before. And I need to question myself why. Of course, it’s close to home. Like literally 8 hours by car from Berlin to Lviv. But there is more to this story. More to why other than in 2015 the EU opens its doors to Ukrainian refugees when it hesitated to do the same to Syrians. There is always more to a story when told with an interest. Which is what today’s Gospel is about among other things.
The devil tries to reframe biblical stories in a way that would hurt Jesus in his relationship to God. And in questioning Jesus’ self-worth. “If you are the Son of God”, the devil begins 2 of the 3 dares. That’s basically the goal. To make Jesus believe that he is not enough, not loved, not worthy on his own but that he has to prove that to the devil among all beings.
And the devil tries that using the most obvious and tempting topics: food, power, safety. Three things everyone would like to have in their life. At least enough to always be fed, to always be safe, and to hold the power of making decisions over one’s own life. All of which refugees lack. Yes, the lack of food, power and safety is literally what defines a refugee. In today’s Gospel Jesus sides with the refugees and the people withstanding the temptation of mere survival for surrender. Jesus opposes the powers that try to reframe history and its stories in their own interest no matter the cost of lives and dreams.
In the coming weeks, maybe months, hopefully not longer, you will see me cry. You will hear me plead with God to spare my friends’ country and homes and lives. To stop Putin. And while those pleas will be true and right and important, you will need to keep in mind that the way I will tell my stories has a goal. I will want you to be compassionate and to give to Ukrainians in need. I will want you to bear the economic consequences of the heavy sanctions knowing that they are in place to spare lives and protect Europe, our world from a Russian dictator. And, while the war in Europe will be on my heart and mind and soul, occupying much space and energy, I will need you to also remember and to remind me that there are many other stories that need to be told and felt for. That caring about one people, millions of mothers and kids saying bye to their dads as the men stay behind to defend their country, hoping that their wives and children will still be alive to see the day Ukraine is free again. And so, they send them abroad. Not knowing if they will ever see each other again. That caring deeply about Ukrainians right now doesn’t excuse us one bit from caring about all the other families being torn apart by wars in this world.
That while we only have so much compassion before we are too fatigued to even see anymore, we have to ask ourselves the hard questions. Why it’s so easy for us to cry over people who look like us, whose lives have been similar to ours in so many ways, who believe like us, who pray like us just a little prettier and sung because they are Orthodox. Why we care so deeply for these people as we should. And why I at least didn’t cry nearly as much over the pictures of Syrian and Afghan refugees and their destroyed cities. Why I donated, yes, but my heart didn’t ache as heavily. Why seeing a refugee woman wearing a hijab or an African woman in great distress and poverty has become so horribly normal that my tears have dried up. No, this is not to do some “what aboutism”. This is to know our stories, to be truthful with ourselves. So that we will not tell stories like the devil who doesn’t necessarily lie. He just picks bits and pieces and takes them out of its context. Beware of preachers using just one verse from the bible to dare your faith. Not good! You might even want to remind them of this story. Beat them with their own methods.
In today’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness. She never leaves Jesus there. She always stays with him through the end of the fasting and the temptations. I pray that the Holy Spirit will stay with the Ukrainians through their suffering. I pray that the Holy Spirit will stay with us through the next months. When we will all pay the price quite literally at the gas pumps and grocery stores. When we might be tempted to give in, to give up, for some bread and gas. Bread and gas that many in our country already cannot afford anymore. That’s when we will have to know and listen to the stories. Not to the short ones that make everything look like there are easy solutions. Not to the evil stories that just serve you a residue of truth. But to the ones we have a harder time understanding. The ones Jesus tends to give. Like: One does not live by bread alone. Or: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Dear Saints, dear criers in the face of evil: We cannot heal the world. That’s up to God. But we can tell better stories. We can tell more stories. We can withstand the temptation that the war in Ukraine is different from other wars we care less about. Because it isn’t different. All wars are equally horrible and uprooting to the people affected.
We can live by the truth that “One does not live by bread alone” when we not only share with refugees in our cities but also try getting to know them. To hear their stories. To connect with their lives. We can live by the truth that “One does not live by bread alone” when we don’t forget one group of suffering people over another. When we help the poor in our country carry the burden of high inflation in the coming months. When we pray for Ukraine and for Russians to stand up against Putin. When we don’t forget the many millions of refugees that don’t look like us, that aren’t Christians. When we don’t let the devil rule over us. Which is really what Lent is all about. That God will heal the world. And that we need to call out evil. Because we worship the Lord our God and serve only God. Amen.
