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The Gospel of John is an affront to every way in which I try to box in Jesus. It is a journey to life that we cannot attain or even imagine. It is also an affront to every attempt to claim this life I have in Jesus as MY life. It is always life in Jesus’ name. This Gospel of John confronts me with the reality that I cannot live, claim, or understand life – real life – apart from total immersion in Jesus.
This message is both the most crushing, humbling, destroying truth and also at the same time the most invigorating, freeing, life-giving truth. It is crushing, humbling, and destroying because it shows me that as a human being I am “dead”. Please note – not bad, but dead. If I were bad there might be hope; I might be able to reform and become good. But no, the essence of my state is not evil or bad. The essence of sin which the Gospel of John addresses has to do with relationships – relationship with God, life, self, others. It is s not actions but relationships. We are “dead”, totally disconnected. Just like a body is dead when the nervous system or blood flow becomes disconnected even though the heart may still be beating or the brain is temporarily still alive. So we are disconnected from the truth about God, life, self, and others. The “sin” reality which the Gospel of John confronts is not a “sinful nature” that sees human beings as bad or evil and as needing truth so that with this new and better information we become good. NO! The Gospel of John confronts a “sin” reality in which we are “dead”. There is no life in us! No hope, no possibility, no reform, no trying, no improvement; it’s over; we are “dead”. We can hear and receive truth but it will do us no good. When the system is disconnected, even though the heart sends out blood and the brain sends out messages, it won’t get through.
The writer of the Gospel of John knows the Old Testament, the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the letters of Paul. Human beings were already “institutionalizing” that word. People were taking the living truth of Jesus and boxing it into packaged “correct” information. The message of the Gospel of John is – get over yourself! Right thinking, right actions, right doctrine, right institutions are hopeless. We are dead! Being “right” is first of all a figment of our imagination –as though right morals or correct theology were possible – and secondly “being right” is a human creation and not of God. Even if we could conceive right thoughts, actions or institutions it would do us no good. We are fundamentally disconnected. Being “righteous” is not a matter of being right. It is a matter of being in relationship and only God can resurrect us from death into living relationship with God, life, self, and others, life.
Note – not from Jesus but in Jesus. Jesus does not give life which we then live on our own. NO! Jesus gives life which is being connected, staying connected, and living connected IN Jesus. The truth Jesus gives is not some independent information. Jesus’ truth is relationship – formed and living always only in Him.
So what does the above – sin as being “dead” – have to do with reading the Gospel of John?
The Gospel of John is declaring if we ever read Scripture, think of Jesus, or use the church as information – we miss the point! Point by point, this gospel takes up the array of ways we make the Bible, Jesus, and church information and smashes it. God’s truth is not information, an institution, a packaged way of life! It is a real human being who is God – Jesus!
Our sinful nature wants to be right. We institutionalize the church. We make Jesus into a statement, a story, a past action, a moral example. We treat the Bible as information. Then, in spite of what we claim, we use my church, my Jesus, my Bible as having validity and power in themselves apart from God and without our need for remaining in Jesus.
(In my “Discovery on Sabbatical” I explained how preaching and studying the Gospel of John immediately before and while on Sabbatical in South Africa led me to experience the Gospel of John much more deeply. Living in a different culture led me to realize how institutionalized, culturated, and informational I am and how I readily box-in and box-up Jesus and God’s truth. I package it into something I can understand, control, and grasp. The greatest discovery and importance of “Companion” relationships (developing ongoing relationships in other countries) is how they lead us to Jesus. They reveal the artificiality of my institutionalized Christianity and lead me back into the daily journey of remaining in Jesus)
An institutionalized Jesus, church, faith is all about:
1. Believing the truth as revealed in the Bible
2. Worshipping and worshipping correctly
3. Knowing Jesus
4. Hanging around good people
5. Using (and keeping holy) holy places, days, and words
6. Seeing and seizing signs
7. Right works, right doctrine
8. Claiming and shedding our light on life
9. Knowing who to blame
An institutionalized church and faith wants a boxed-in Jesus that gives us:
10. The plain truth
11. Answered prayer addressing our fears
12. A majestic, charismatic Jesus
13. Old commandments that we can do
The Jesus in the Gospel of John proclaims:
14. Jesus IS the way, truth and life: It is only through Jesus that we come to the Father, love, and receive the Holy Spirit, our Advocate to be in us, teach us, and give us peace.
15. Jesus IS the vine: remain connected to him, love one another as Jesus loves us, be servants, testify of Jesus.
16. Jesus is with the Father: the Advocate (Holy Spirit) has come to guide us into truth (Jesus), joy (asking the Father in Jesus’ name), and peace (Jesus has conquered).
17. Jesus’ prayer: that we may be one as God is one so that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus.
Jesus’ Hour of Glory:
18. Whom are we looking for? JESUS, not human weapons, human declarations, or human truth.
19. Flogged, mocked, lawfully condemned(religious & political law), silent, carrying the cross, crucified, labeled, and naked Jesus cares for his mother, drinks his whole cup, and completes God’s work. Only when dead do people show care, look on him, and give his body respect.
The new life in Jesus:
20. Peter and the other disciple see and believe but do not understand. Only when her name is called does Mary Magdalene understand, but this understanding means not holding Jesus but testifying of him. Jesus gives peace to the disciples, sends us, breathes the Holy Spirit on us to empower our forgiveness. Thomas struggles to declare Jesus his Lord and God. The purpose of the Gospel of John is not to tell us about all the signs of Jesus but that “we believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that we have life in his name.”
21. Instead of the Great Commission (Matthew), the amazement and terror of the resurrection (Mark), and the Ascension (Luke) with which the other gospels end, the Gospel of John ends with the disciples catching nothing; Jesus directing the “children” and making, inviting and giving them breakfast; Jesus’ three haunting questions of Peter, “Do you love me?”; Jesus’ declaration that it is not for us to know God’s will for others but for each of us to heed his call, “Follow me!”; and the disciple’s testimony is not about him but all about Jesus.
The first nine chapters of the Gospel of John smash our institutionalized Jesus, church, and faith:
• John, chapter one: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of the Bible
• John, chapter two: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Worship and worshipping correctly
• John, chapter three: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Knowing Jesus
• John, chapter four: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Hanging around good people
• John, chapter five: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Using (and keeping holy) holy places, days, and words
• John, chapter six: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Seeing and seizing signs
• John, chapter seven: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Right works, right doctrine
• John, chapter eight: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of Claiming and shedding our light on life
• John, chapter nine: Smashes our institutionalized boxed-in definition of who to blame
Chapters 10-13 of the Gospel of John show how blind and closed we are to Jesus/ Even when we seek him, see his signs, praise and want him, and know, receive and are blessed by Jesus ,we continue to hold tightly to our institutionalized, boxed-in Jesus:
• John, chapter ten: The plain truth
• John, chapter eleven: Answered prayer that addresses our fears
• John, chapter twelve: A majestic, charismatic Jesus
• John, chapter thirteen: Old commandments that we can do
Chapters 14-17 of the Gospel of John is Jesus’ Discourse after the Last Supper and before His arrest in which Jesus proclaims:
• John, chapter fourteen: Jesus IS the way, truth and life: It is only through Jesus that we come to the Father, love, and receive the Holy Spirit, our Advocate to be in us, teach us, and give us peace.
• John, chapter fifteen: Jesus IS the vine: remain connected to him, love one another as Jesus loves us, be servants, testify of Jesus.
• John, chapter sixteen: Jesus is with the Father: the Advocate (Holy Spirit) has come to guide us into truth (Jesus), joy (asking the Father in Jesus’ name), and peace (Jesus has conquered).
• John, chapter seventeen: Jesus’ prayer: that we may be one as God is one so that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus.
Chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel of John witnesses to Jesus’ Hour of Glory:
• John, chapter eighteen: Whom are we looking for? JESUS, not human weapons, human declarations, or human truth.
• John, chapter nineteen: Flogged, mocked, land awfully condemned (by religious & political law), Jesus is silent, carrying the cross, crucified, labeled, and naked, and such state Jesus cares for his mother, drinks his whole cup, and completes God’s work. Only when dead, do people show care, look on him, and give his body respect.
Chapters 20 and 21 of the Gospel of John witnesses to the new life in Jesus:• John, chapter twenty: Peter and the other disciple see and believe but do not understand. Only when her name is called does Mary Magdalene understand, but this understanding means not holding Jesus but testifying of him. Jesus gives peace to the disciples, sends us, breathes the Holy Spirit on us to empower our forgiveness. Thomas struggles to declare Jesus his Lord and God. The purpose of the Gospel of John is not to tell us about all the signs of Jesus but that “we believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that we have life in his name.”
• John, chapter twenty-one: Instead of the Great Commission (Matthew), the amazement and terror of the resurrection (Mark), and the Ascension (Luke) with which the other gospels end, the Gospel of John ends with the disciples catching nothing; Jesus directing the “children” and making, inviting and giving them breakfast; Jesus’ three haunting questions of Peter, “Do you love me?”; Jesus’ declaration that it is not for us to know God’s will for others but for each of us to heed his call, “Follow me!”; and the disciple’s testimony is not about him but all about Jesus.
Jesus is not about giving us information so that we can get our life together (this includes our church, our theology and our morality). Jesus is about life! This is life only God can do and give! We have life only in Jesus: John 20:31, “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
Monday, September 27, 2010
Discovery on Sabbatical - Gospel of John
Strange! I spent nine weeks in an African village and my greatest personal discovery is the Gospel of John! I know the Gospel of John. I had it all marked up in my “Living Bible” back in high school and it was some of the first material we read in Greek class at Concordia College, Milwaukee in spring of 1972. Yet with all the reading, studying, memorizing, commentaries and Greek analysis, I did not know it so powerfully as what I heard and learned in South Africa!
It started for me in 2006 during a three week visit to Lekubu Lutheran Parish in the Northwest Province of South Africa, just north of Zeerust and sixty miles straight south of Garborone, the capitol of Botswana. We arrived at Lekubu with no idea of what this village would be like, whether we would be greeted, and how they would receive us and what they would do with us. I know well the day, time, and place they greeted us – June 23, 2006 at 4:30 PM in their Parish Hall – because of the sincerity, quality, and depth of their welcome. The Parish Choir sang, with a sound rivaling an ELCA College choir; the public school’s Traditional Dance group performed; Mr. Jake Matladi announced, “the Americans have landed and just as in 1969 – one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”; and Pastor Solomon Seaketso read Luke 14:28-32 as the opening devotion – “No one begins building or marches to war without having prepared.” “Ohhh,” we marveled and trembled, “They are more committed, eager, and prepared for this relationship than we are!”
Then Pastor Ishmael Motswasele spoke. We had never been told about this man or his role, but I was instantly struck by his many years, regal bearing, and his soft voice that commanded and expected instant respect. He looked at me as the pastor in our group of four – Al & Deb Overhaug were with my wife Claudia and I – and he read John 17 and then announced, “This is why you are here, that we may be one!”
The last week of that 2006 visit Claudia and I lived with Ishmael and his wife, Lydia, and we learned their story. Lekubu is their home where they grew up, were taught about Jesus by the German missionaries, where they fell in love, attended school under the big tree near the parsonage, and where one of the missionaries talked with Ishmael about becoming a pastor. “I was not interested in becoming a pastor,” Ishmael told me, “But I loved school and books and studying and if being a pastor was a way to that, I was willing.” The Holy Spirit works in different ways, Ishmael went on to explain to me and it did not take long before Ishmael was sold on being a pastor. Many others also saw his gifts and they too encouraged him. So it was that this young man from an African village went on to be the first South African to serve as pastor to a church in Germany in the 1950s, to learn Greek and Hebrew besides German, English and at least three South African languages, to earn a doctorate in Biblical studies, to be a professor at Marang Seminary, and then a Dean of a Circuit. Pastor Motswasele not only saw the radical change of the Lutheran Church in South Africa moving from a white, German, missionary church to become a Black, South African, native church, but he was a key point person in that process being the missionary to Germany, among the first native professors, and one of the leaders in the independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa when it was officially formed in the 1970s.
I treasured those late afternoons walking with Ishmael Motswasele along the dusty paths of Lekubu as he pointed out to me the influence and change Jesus brought to his village. His keen insights in theology are anchored in the practicality of why African village streets are not laid out in a grid, why cemeteries represent a huge cultural change, and his constant challenge as to why I was there – “we must be one as God is one.”
“Oneness” haunts me. My home farm has been in the family since 1843 when the community of Kirchhayn was formed by members of a congregation from the village of Natelfitz in Pomerania, Prussia who moved to the Territory of Wisconsin with their Rev. Kindermann because of King George’s attempt to form a Union Church of Lutherans and Reformed together in Prussia. Within twenty years this Kirchhayn group split into three different groups – the group calling themselves Immanuel joined the Missouri Synod as they embraced C.F.W. Walther’s leadership in forming new church in America, free of prior strictures and structures and very devoted to Luther and the Lutheran Confessions. The largest group (including my mother’s family) kept the original name “David’s Star” and stayed independent, being wary of all organized denominations, and eventually joined the Wisconsin Synod. The third group (including my father’s family) remained in the Buffalo Synod. Taking the name “St. Johns”, this group did not necessarily agree or like the overbearing hierarchy of the Buffalo Synod, but remaining together with the larger church was important to them as well as recognizing that the church as human institution will often disappoint us (Buffalo Synod in the 1930s merged into the American Lutheran Church [(ALC] which merged again in the 1960s into The American Lutheran Church [ALC] and in the late 1980s into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA]).
Grandpa Rusch (my mother’s father) was the Sexton at David’s Star, the WELS congregation. As his grandson he had me ring the church bell with him counting out the toll for the age of a person who had died. His three daughters and we grandchildren would help him with the spring cleaning of the church and school each year. Our parents paid tuition for my siblings and I to receive our eight years of elementary school at David’s Star. Their church council offered to pay my tuition to attend the WELS Northwestern Prep School. I love the people in that congregation and they love me, and I respect the sincerity of their faith and their devotion to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. But our family could not receive Communion, we were told in school that our church, St. John’s, was wrong (though everything we learned and memorized in each was the same), and we could not participate in the weddings of our cousins – bridal party or even playing my trumpet. After my grandparents’ early death their brother and sister, Uncle John & Aunt Laura, took over as the Sexton and as grandparents for us. Though loyal to their WELS, they made it clear to us that God is not a respecter of denominations and no matter what their pastor and the WELS declared our ALC family was just as much children of God and inheritors of eternal life as anyone in WELS. My mother’s brother, Verlin Rusch, was my baptism sponsor, and when he died he chose me to be one of his pallbearers. His pastors, hearing that I am ELCA and an ELCA pastor, refused to allow this, but Uncle Verlin persisted, he was the one dying and this was his decision and so I sat in the front row at David’s Star and carried my uncle to his grave.
In the early 1970s there was a brief time period when the LC-MS (Missouri Synod) and the ALC were in fellowship. It was an amazing time following the formation of LCUSA (Lutheran Council in the United States) in 1967 when nearly all Lutherans (LCA, ALC, LC-MS) were in respectful dialog and seeking to do ministry together. As a result, though an ALC member, I was able to attend Concordia College, Milwaukee for the same tuition as LC-MS members, and Concordia, Milwaukee was closer and the tuition was a good deal less than where my sisters attended at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. With my friends now being Missouri Synod, because of respect for the Biblical and Confessional rootedness of my professors, and delighting in their challenge to think for myself, to wrestle with Scripture, and to be aware of the world and culture around me, I went on to Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the prospect of becoming a LC-MS pastor. Then came Seminex and the formation of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). I saw the politics of that development – a professor at Milwaukee bringing charges of heresy against a fellow professor; the college in Fort Wayne eliminated and the Springfield, Illinois Seminary moved to Fort Wayne (suspicious since most professors at Fort Wayne supported the “walk out” of the professors at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis); and my college classmates suddenly taking hard-line stances some very conservative and others liberal, often with little openness to dialog, as they decided which seminary to attend – Concordia Seminary or Seminex (the seminary in exile formed by the professors that “walked out” because of the dictates of what they must teach that the LC-MS leadership began imposing on them).
Wartburg Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa was where I decided to attend seminary. It had a “rural” feel to it and was part of a consortium with Aquinas Seminary (Roman Catholic) and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (Presbyterian Church, USA). Then my father died, six weeks after I started (which necessitated me telling my younger brother attending UW Platteville that our father had suddenly died and subsequently many weekend trips home to assist with the farm work). My father’s surprising and sudden death impacted me more than those theological stances and disagreements for I realized that faith in Jesus Christ and the Good News we are called to witness must be relevant; it must address the real, lived experience of life and death, of tragedy and day-to-day struggles, and of relationships.
“This is why you are here!” That statement of Rev. Dr. Dean Ishmael Motswasele pointing me to John 17, was a major factor in bringing me back to Lekubu, South Africa for my Sabbatical. Verses 20-21 of John 17 which Ishmael had pointed out, especially haunted me, "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
With all the discord in my “Lutheran” background and experience and with all the strong stances people had taken – a congregation leaving Germany and moving to the United States; a congregation splitting into three; my sister sadly being told by her elementary teacher that she and her family were going to hell because she was ALC; a boring, you-must-answer-correctly professor bringing charges of heresy against a thought-provoking professor; and the conservative turn of the LC-MS, its split, and the formation of the AELC which led to the formation of the ELCA – I longed to ponder what Ishmael was saying – not intellectually, but to ponder upon it in a setting entirely different from my own.
And then it happened. The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly took place after I had already resolved to go to South Africa. Discord became even more personal as a dear and trusted colleague of mine urged her congregation to leave the ELCA and join the LCMC (Lutheran Churches in Mission for Christ). It so happens her congregation is the one where I had the privilege of baptizing my first (and at this point my only) grandchild and to which Zoe’s mother’s family has belonged for more than a century. Oh the pain of Zoe’s parents and her grandparents as they have left that congregation! Oh the power of statements pastors make, actions congregations take, and emotions that influence thoughts more than we want to admit! I read WordAlone’s statements – wow – how clear and emphatic they declare that a new church must be formed, and that they are not judgmental nor divisive but it is the ELCA leadership that has driven them to take this necessary action which they have been most reluctant to do. It is God’s Word and the Confessions that are at stake, and it is to God they must be faithful no matter what the personal cost.
One of our very involved members and a dear friend to me left Grace because of that Churchwide action. I realized how shocked and emotionally distraught I was by his action when I had two car accidents within 17 hours. By action, I do not mean his leaving (there are others who left Grace) but most of all in this case despite our friendship and respect for each other, it was his announcing he had left without talking or discussing his action with me and his assumptions that one) I would only argue and seek to win him to my thinking, two) that he must leave because to stay in the ELCA meant he was supporting an action that was opposed to Scripture, and three) that what Scripture states can and must be individually grasped and acted upon correctly and that this correctness of doctrine is what most defines and creates the church
The Gospel of John is the assigned gospel lesson for much of the seasons of Lent and Easter. ELCSA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa) uses the same lectionary. Since I left for South Africa the day after Easter Sunday, I preached on the gospel of John in America during Lent and I ended up preaching on the gospel of John in South Africa during the seven Sundays of Easter. It was in that context I went on Sabbatical – studying and preaching on John; wondering why John 17 and “being ONE” is so significant for Rev. Dr. Dean Ishmael Motswasle; my emotional and mental anguish with the discord in times past and right now among Lutherans; and my experience that addressing real, human, day-to-day struggles and tragedy is of more value than holding to insightful, eloquent, and correct doctrine and that focusing on doctrine often leads to showing little care for dialog or relationships and appears to increase distancing ourselves from those who think differently.
My discovery? The gospel of John is anti-institutional! Already in the early church, well intended Christians were forming the gospel, the Good News of Jesus, into an established tradition of liturgy and practice. The writer of the gospel of John purposely writes much differently from Matthew, Mark and Luke in the stories, statements, and actions of Jesus. Is John seeking to counteract this human desire to form Jesus into our image? Was he already seeing that the written gospels were being used to establish a tradition of wording, believing, and acting that people had to follow exactly to truly be Christian?
Scholars agree that the gospel of John was the last of the four gospels to be written and that its style and stories are different from the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Many scholars think that it was written as much as two decades after the other three gospels, and tradition has assigned its authorship to John, the disciple of Jesus. What struck me during my Sabbatical, is how relevant the uniqueness of the gospel of John is to the reality of differences among Christians – different theologies, practices, and liturgies. I hear God declaring in the gospel of John – it is not enough to know Jesus and to agree (establish a tradition and an institution) on the understanding and practice of following Jesus – we are called to love as Jesus loves us!
The Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20 (“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.") has guided the church through the centuries along with Jesus’ summary of the law in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27 (“'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.") In place of those two, however, John ends his gospel not with The Great Commission, but with Jesus’ haunting question, “Do you love me?”, and in place of The Greatest Commandment, John records Jesus stating, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35)." What is more, John inserts The Great Prayer of Jesus of John 17.
The most valuable “discovery” on my Sabbatical begins with a deeper appreciation for my human arrogance: The church as institution and we as human beings are constantly inclined to create traditions and institutions. In spite of knowing better, the observed faith that we live, shows that we give more devotion to our human created traditions and institutionalized definitions of Jesus than what we do to Jesus. Our “making disciples” looks more like getting people to obey everything that we command; and our “loving God and neighbor” becomes in actuality a “tough” love concentrated on getting people to live and think like me. How we understand God’s Word, the wording of the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism and Communion, and the Christian community and its way of life are developed and defined (traditionalized and institutionalized) to fit my culture. The gospel we proclaim(Great Commission) and the love we exercise (Greatest Commandment), sure looks and feels like people had better agree with mine and my church’s tradition and had better join my institution.
My greatest discovery is love. Duhh! But we just plain don’t love – as Jesus loves us. AND we self-righteously deny our lack of love by calling our actions “tough” love and concentrating on people’s thinking, their theology, and their church-life practices and our prejudiced desire that it agree with mine.
John’s gospel hit me! I am haunted by Jesus’ question to Peter, “Do you love ME?” First, until I admit my denials of Jesus and face up to the lack of depth in my relationship and love for Jesus, any gospel I announce and any love I exercise will be warped to fit my boxed-in-Jesus. Second, love – do I love as Jesus loves – crucified, dying and still loving? Third, do my concrete, observed, lived actions show that I am ONE with those who are as different from me as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different and yet ONE? Am I about building my institution or will I allow the Spirit of Truth to lead me into Jesus?
It started for me in 2006 during a three week visit to Lekubu Lutheran Parish in the Northwest Province of South Africa, just north of Zeerust and sixty miles straight south of Garborone, the capitol of Botswana. We arrived at Lekubu with no idea of what this village would be like, whether we would be greeted, and how they would receive us and what they would do with us. I know well the day, time, and place they greeted us – June 23, 2006 at 4:30 PM in their Parish Hall – because of the sincerity, quality, and depth of their welcome. The Parish Choir sang, with a sound rivaling an ELCA College choir; the public school’s Traditional Dance group performed; Mr. Jake Matladi announced, “the Americans have landed and just as in 1969 – one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”; and Pastor Solomon Seaketso read Luke 14:28-32 as the opening devotion – “No one begins building or marches to war without having prepared.” “Ohhh,” we marveled and trembled, “They are more committed, eager, and prepared for this relationship than we are!”
Then Pastor Ishmael Motswasele spoke. We had never been told about this man or his role, but I was instantly struck by his many years, regal bearing, and his soft voice that commanded and expected instant respect. He looked at me as the pastor in our group of four – Al & Deb Overhaug were with my wife Claudia and I – and he read John 17 and then announced, “This is why you are here, that we may be one!”
The last week of that 2006 visit Claudia and I lived with Ishmael and his wife, Lydia, and we learned their story. Lekubu is their home where they grew up, were taught about Jesus by the German missionaries, where they fell in love, attended school under the big tree near the parsonage, and where one of the missionaries talked with Ishmael about becoming a pastor. “I was not interested in becoming a pastor,” Ishmael told me, “But I loved school and books and studying and if being a pastor was a way to that, I was willing.” The Holy Spirit works in different ways, Ishmael went on to explain to me and it did not take long before Ishmael was sold on being a pastor. Many others also saw his gifts and they too encouraged him. So it was that this young man from an African village went on to be the first South African to serve as pastor to a church in Germany in the 1950s, to learn Greek and Hebrew besides German, English and at least three South African languages, to earn a doctorate in Biblical studies, to be a professor at Marang Seminary, and then a Dean of a Circuit. Pastor Motswasele not only saw the radical change of the Lutheran Church in South Africa moving from a white, German, missionary church to become a Black, South African, native church, but he was a key point person in that process being the missionary to Germany, among the first native professors, and one of the leaders in the independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa when it was officially formed in the 1970s.
I treasured those late afternoons walking with Ishmael Motswasele along the dusty paths of Lekubu as he pointed out to me the influence and change Jesus brought to his village. His keen insights in theology are anchored in the practicality of why African village streets are not laid out in a grid, why cemeteries represent a huge cultural change, and his constant challenge as to why I was there – “we must be one as God is one.”
“Oneness” haunts me. My home farm has been in the family since 1843 when the community of Kirchhayn was formed by members of a congregation from the village of Natelfitz in Pomerania, Prussia who moved to the Territory of Wisconsin with their Rev. Kindermann because of King George’s attempt to form a Union Church of Lutherans and Reformed together in Prussia. Within twenty years this Kirchhayn group split into three different groups – the group calling themselves Immanuel joined the Missouri Synod as they embraced C.F.W. Walther’s leadership in forming new church in America, free of prior strictures and structures and very devoted to Luther and the Lutheran Confessions. The largest group (including my mother’s family) kept the original name “David’s Star” and stayed independent, being wary of all organized denominations, and eventually joined the Wisconsin Synod. The third group (including my father’s family) remained in the Buffalo Synod. Taking the name “St. Johns”, this group did not necessarily agree or like the overbearing hierarchy of the Buffalo Synod, but remaining together with the larger church was important to them as well as recognizing that the church as human institution will often disappoint us (Buffalo Synod in the 1930s merged into the American Lutheran Church [(ALC] which merged again in the 1960s into The American Lutheran Church [ALC] and in the late 1980s into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA]).
Grandpa Rusch (my mother’s father) was the Sexton at David’s Star, the WELS congregation. As his grandson he had me ring the church bell with him counting out the toll for the age of a person who had died. His three daughters and we grandchildren would help him with the spring cleaning of the church and school each year. Our parents paid tuition for my siblings and I to receive our eight years of elementary school at David’s Star. Their church council offered to pay my tuition to attend the WELS Northwestern Prep School. I love the people in that congregation and they love me, and I respect the sincerity of their faith and their devotion to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. But our family could not receive Communion, we were told in school that our church, St. John’s, was wrong (though everything we learned and memorized in each was the same), and we could not participate in the weddings of our cousins – bridal party or even playing my trumpet. After my grandparents’ early death their brother and sister, Uncle John & Aunt Laura, took over as the Sexton and as grandparents for us. Though loyal to their WELS, they made it clear to us that God is not a respecter of denominations and no matter what their pastor and the WELS declared our ALC family was just as much children of God and inheritors of eternal life as anyone in WELS. My mother’s brother, Verlin Rusch, was my baptism sponsor, and when he died he chose me to be one of his pallbearers. His pastors, hearing that I am ELCA and an ELCA pastor, refused to allow this, but Uncle Verlin persisted, he was the one dying and this was his decision and so I sat in the front row at David’s Star and carried my uncle to his grave.
In the early 1970s there was a brief time period when the LC-MS (Missouri Synod) and the ALC were in fellowship. It was an amazing time following the formation of LCUSA (Lutheran Council in the United States) in 1967 when nearly all Lutherans (LCA, ALC, LC-MS) were in respectful dialog and seeking to do ministry together. As a result, though an ALC member, I was able to attend Concordia College, Milwaukee for the same tuition as LC-MS members, and Concordia, Milwaukee was closer and the tuition was a good deal less than where my sisters attended at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. With my friends now being Missouri Synod, because of respect for the Biblical and Confessional rootedness of my professors, and delighting in their challenge to think for myself, to wrestle with Scripture, and to be aware of the world and culture around me, I went on to Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the prospect of becoming a LC-MS pastor. Then came Seminex and the formation of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). I saw the politics of that development – a professor at Milwaukee bringing charges of heresy against a fellow professor; the college in Fort Wayne eliminated and the Springfield, Illinois Seminary moved to Fort Wayne (suspicious since most professors at Fort Wayne supported the “walk out” of the professors at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis); and my college classmates suddenly taking hard-line stances some very conservative and others liberal, often with little openness to dialog, as they decided which seminary to attend – Concordia Seminary or Seminex (the seminary in exile formed by the professors that “walked out” because of the dictates of what they must teach that the LC-MS leadership began imposing on them).
Wartburg Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa was where I decided to attend seminary. It had a “rural” feel to it and was part of a consortium with Aquinas Seminary (Roman Catholic) and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (Presbyterian Church, USA). Then my father died, six weeks after I started (which necessitated me telling my younger brother attending UW Platteville that our father had suddenly died and subsequently many weekend trips home to assist with the farm work). My father’s surprising and sudden death impacted me more than those theological stances and disagreements for I realized that faith in Jesus Christ and the Good News we are called to witness must be relevant; it must address the real, lived experience of life and death, of tragedy and day-to-day struggles, and of relationships.
“This is why you are here!” That statement of Rev. Dr. Dean Ishmael Motswasele pointing me to John 17, was a major factor in bringing me back to Lekubu, South Africa for my Sabbatical. Verses 20-21 of John 17 which Ishmael had pointed out, especially haunted me, "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
With all the discord in my “Lutheran” background and experience and with all the strong stances people had taken – a congregation leaving Germany and moving to the United States; a congregation splitting into three; my sister sadly being told by her elementary teacher that she and her family were going to hell because she was ALC; a boring, you-must-answer-correctly professor bringing charges of heresy against a thought-provoking professor; and the conservative turn of the LC-MS, its split, and the formation of the AELC which led to the formation of the ELCA – I longed to ponder what Ishmael was saying – not intellectually, but to ponder upon it in a setting entirely different from my own.
And then it happened. The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly took place after I had already resolved to go to South Africa. Discord became even more personal as a dear and trusted colleague of mine urged her congregation to leave the ELCA and join the LCMC (Lutheran Churches in Mission for Christ). It so happens her congregation is the one where I had the privilege of baptizing my first (and at this point my only) grandchild and to which Zoe’s mother’s family has belonged for more than a century. Oh the pain of Zoe’s parents and her grandparents as they have left that congregation! Oh the power of statements pastors make, actions congregations take, and emotions that influence thoughts more than we want to admit! I read WordAlone’s statements – wow – how clear and emphatic they declare that a new church must be formed, and that they are not judgmental nor divisive but it is the ELCA leadership that has driven them to take this necessary action which they have been most reluctant to do. It is God’s Word and the Confessions that are at stake, and it is to God they must be faithful no matter what the personal cost.
One of our very involved members and a dear friend to me left Grace because of that Churchwide action. I realized how shocked and emotionally distraught I was by his action when I had two car accidents within 17 hours. By action, I do not mean his leaving (there are others who left Grace) but most of all in this case despite our friendship and respect for each other, it was his announcing he had left without talking or discussing his action with me and his assumptions that one) I would only argue and seek to win him to my thinking, two) that he must leave because to stay in the ELCA meant he was supporting an action that was opposed to Scripture, and three) that what Scripture states can and must be individually grasped and acted upon correctly and that this correctness of doctrine is what most defines and creates the church
The Gospel of John is the assigned gospel lesson for much of the seasons of Lent and Easter. ELCSA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa) uses the same lectionary. Since I left for South Africa the day after Easter Sunday, I preached on the gospel of John in America during Lent and I ended up preaching on the gospel of John in South Africa during the seven Sundays of Easter. It was in that context I went on Sabbatical – studying and preaching on John; wondering why John 17 and “being ONE” is so significant for Rev. Dr. Dean Ishmael Motswasle; my emotional and mental anguish with the discord in times past and right now among Lutherans; and my experience that addressing real, human, day-to-day struggles and tragedy is of more value than holding to insightful, eloquent, and correct doctrine and that focusing on doctrine often leads to showing little care for dialog or relationships and appears to increase distancing ourselves from those who think differently.
My discovery? The gospel of John is anti-institutional! Already in the early church, well intended Christians were forming the gospel, the Good News of Jesus, into an established tradition of liturgy and practice. The writer of the gospel of John purposely writes much differently from Matthew, Mark and Luke in the stories, statements, and actions of Jesus. Is John seeking to counteract this human desire to form Jesus into our image? Was he already seeing that the written gospels were being used to establish a tradition of wording, believing, and acting that people had to follow exactly to truly be Christian?
Scholars agree that the gospel of John was the last of the four gospels to be written and that its style and stories are different from the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Many scholars think that it was written as much as two decades after the other three gospels, and tradition has assigned its authorship to John, the disciple of Jesus. What struck me during my Sabbatical, is how relevant the uniqueness of the gospel of John is to the reality of differences among Christians – different theologies, practices, and liturgies. I hear God declaring in the gospel of John – it is not enough to know Jesus and to agree (establish a tradition and an institution) on the understanding and practice of following Jesus – we are called to love as Jesus loves us!
The Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20 (“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.") has guided the church through the centuries along with Jesus’ summary of the law in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27 (“'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.") In place of those two, however, John ends his gospel not with The Great Commission, but with Jesus’ haunting question, “Do you love me?”, and in place of The Greatest Commandment, John records Jesus stating, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35)." What is more, John inserts The Great Prayer of Jesus of John 17.
The most valuable “discovery” on my Sabbatical begins with a deeper appreciation for my human arrogance: The church as institution and we as human beings are constantly inclined to create traditions and institutions. In spite of knowing better, the observed faith that we live, shows that we give more devotion to our human created traditions and institutionalized definitions of Jesus than what we do to Jesus. Our “making disciples” looks more like getting people to obey everything that we command; and our “loving God and neighbor” becomes in actuality a “tough” love concentrated on getting people to live and think like me. How we understand God’s Word, the wording of the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism and Communion, and the Christian community and its way of life are developed and defined (traditionalized and institutionalized) to fit my culture. The gospel we proclaim(Great Commission) and the love we exercise (Greatest Commandment), sure looks and feels like people had better agree with mine and my church’s tradition and had better join my institution.
My greatest discovery is love. Duhh! But we just plain don’t love – as Jesus loves us. AND we self-righteously deny our lack of love by calling our actions “tough” love and concentrating on people’s thinking, their theology, and their church-life practices and our prejudiced desire that it agree with mine.
John’s gospel hit me! I am haunted by Jesus’ question to Peter, “Do you love ME?” First, until I admit my denials of Jesus and face up to the lack of depth in my relationship and love for Jesus, any gospel I announce and any love I exercise will be warped to fit my boxed-in-Jesus. Second, love – do I love as Jesus loves – crucified, dying and still loving? Third, do my concrete, observed, lived actions show that I am ONE with those who are as different from me as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different and yet ONE? Am I about building my institution or will I allow the Spirit of Truth to lead me into Jesus?
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