Worship October 18. 2020 German Church of Atlanta Greeting and Announcements
Psalm 32: 1-7: Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the one whose sin the LORD does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit. 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.[b] 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.� And you forgave the guilt of my sin. 6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. 7 You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
Sermon on Ephesians 4:22-32 Dear church, Recently we have eight Confirmands in our community again. In the next nine months, they will be prepared to confirm their baptism at the Confirmation. Confirmation means "affirmation" in English. You dear Confirmands will learn what it means that your parents have baptized you, and you will decide next year whether you want to accept your baptism and join the community that Jesus has gathered around himself. The community of people that today we call church. And since we are all so new together on the way, it would be good if you, our Confirmands, parents and parishioners get a few tips for this, what a life in the sense of Jesus can look like. We just listened to Paul's letter to the Ephesians in the fourth chapter who actually has a few tips for us. This biblical section makes it very clear how the baptized live together. Three things therefore make up a baptized person: He or she is a new man, has a new spirit, and exhibits a new behavior. The first: I.
We are a new person
What does this old person look like, and what does it mean that the old person goes down in baptism? In the time of
Jesus, people were completely submerged at baptism, in a river, for example. Today we are making this more symbolic with water. That the old person perishes at baptism means that the old way of life is disappearing. Paul talks how the old way of living means having deceptive desires." What does this mean? What such deceptive desires can look like becomes clear to us when we see people who want more and more. Even though they already earn a lot, they want more and more. Some do not even shy away from tax evasion. There are many multimillionaires who smuggle large parts of their wealth past the tax office into other countries. I am not concerned now with making certain people bad. This is only one behavior that is instructive for all of us. For one thing I find difficult to understand: even if such top earners had properly taxed their entire income, they would still have been multimillionaires and would have had more than enough! Even Millionaires can't eat ten schnitzels a day or buy a new car every week. In theory, they can do that, but where do they put the many cars, and when do they drive with them? This shows for me a human behavior, more precisely: a behavior of the old person that never has enough. I would like to share another example. When I was a student, there was a pretty famous rock group called Pink Floyd - the older ones among us may still remember. In the eighties they released their legendary album "The Wall". The biggest hit on it was the song: "We don't need no education! Hey teacher, leave us kids alone! - We do not need
education! Hey teachers, leave us children alone!" We liked to grumble about it at school - the only problem was that our history teacher was a Pink Floyd fan himself and wasn't impressed by it, but he kept teaching. The musicians of Pink Floyd have of course also made quite a lot of money through their success. And then a few years ago I found a message in the newspaper that I would like to read out: "David Gilmour has a house too much. David Gilmour, guitarist of rock group Pink Floyd, has donated the proceeds from the sale of his home to a charity for the homeless. The musician sold his home in London to Earl Spencer, the brother of Princess Diana, for 7.3 million euros, according to reports in the Sunday Telegraph. "I don't need the money," Gilmour said. He had bought the house years ago for 480,000 euros. Gilmour, who also owns a house in Greece, currently lives in a country house in West Sussex. He's fed up with owning too many expensive things, Gilmour said. "You collect Ferraris, and then you have to collect people to take care of the Ferraris, and you have to collect buildings to accommodate the Ferraris. Life gets quite complicated. And finally, at least in my case, you think: I don't need this stuff anymore. And suddenly life becomes easier." That's the way it goes. What I find impressive about this is that one comes to the realization: I don't have to have more and more. I'm happy with what I have and can still give something away from my abundance for people who need it. I don't know now whether this rock musician is baptized or what denomination or
religion he belongs to. But his behavior reflects quite accurately the new consciousness of the new person, as God manages to do in us through baptism. For one thing becomes quite clear in the words in the Epistle to the Ephesians: becoming a new human being is not an option that we have out of ourselves. No person can create himself into a new human being. Only God can do this, and He does it through baptism. In baptism, God promised to all the baptized: "You are my beloved child, I accept you, I love you and I am always with you." In this way, through baptism, God makes us new people: by giving us the awareness of being accepted and loved by God - and thus we know through baptism that we are accepted, precious and loved by God. Then we become free from the compulsion to have more and more to prove our status. For in Baptism we have long since been granted our status: in God's eyes I am a precious person and his beloved child. That's why I don't always have to have the latest phone or the latest car. And I don't have to look down on the one in my group who doesn't have the latest clothes, or on the work colleague who can't afford such a great holiday. For baptism has given me a glimpse of the fact that all persons have the same value with God. Through baptism, I am a new person. II.A new spirit And those who are baptized will also be given a new spirit at baptism. The Bible puts it this way in the Epistle to the Ephesians: "For through him, the Spirit of God, you are given the seal that you belong to God. And this seal remains on
you until the day when God's redemption will unfold completely." In baptism God gives us a new Spirit, His Holy Spirit, who inspires and guides us. Only in this way will it be possible at all, as the Epistle to the Ephesians tells us here: "You shall be renewed in your thinking and in your mind." This Spirit of God awakens in a person the new life and establishes a relationship with God and with other people who believe in God. And in the Epistle to the Ephesians we are also provided with instructions on how to live then by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is given to us in baptism: "Speak the truth, each and every one with your fellow men! ... If you are in a state of anger, behave in such a way that you do not initiate any guilt on you!" After all, we belong together like the limbs of a single body." Because baptized Christians belong together as the Church of Jesus Christ and like body parts on one body, therefore we should also be honest with each other. "Speak the truth" - that also means sincerity: not to be superficially friendly to each other and talk badly about each other behind your backs, but express praise and criticism openly and in love in direct conversation. And another example from the Bible: "If wrath is felt, behave in such a way that you do not initiate any guilt on you! Before sunset, your wrath shall come to an end." The Ephesian letter assumes here very soberly and realistically that even Christians get a “Koller�. But baptized Christians should not become guilty in anger - for example, by the fact that their relationship with other people is permanently damaged by insults or mutual injuries. The
practical advice on this will be provided immediately, namely not to wait until the evening for reconciliation. The Holy Spirit gives strength and impetus to this. If the conversation is not sought and reconciliation or apology is postponed or refused altogether, it gives space to negative energies written in the Epistle to the Ephesians as "destroyers" – Destroyers are negative energies that attempt to destroy the relationship between humans or between God and us humans. When we have become new people through baptism and are inspired by the Spirit of God, it also gives us the strength and ability to withstand these destructive influences. The third hallmark of the baptized person is: III.A new behavior According to the Epistle to the Ephesians, this new behavior becomes visible as follows: "Far from you shall be any kind of bitterness, as well as anger, rage, shouting and destructive talk, and any kind of malice! But be kind and cordial among one another, and forgive one another, just as God has forgiven you in Christ�. Bitterness, anger and rage strain relationships and keep those who feel those feelings tense in their behavior towards others. Shouting as a form of violent communication poisons human coexistence. "Destructive talk" about others breaks relationships. These relationship killers are taken away from believers by the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon them in baptism. Yet we can't do it on our own. Instead, the community of us baptized should be positively determined by
kindness and compassion. And this new community that baptized Christians practice is based on the experience that Jesus has forgiven us and always forgives us anew when we have become guilty before God or other people. In Baptism, God gave us this. And that's why we can forgive each other without being relentless. We can do all this as baptized people if we live by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Epistle to the Ephesians also states: "Do not give the Holy Spirit of God any cause for mourning!" When our life with each other is burdened by lies or anger, then the Holy Spirit, who has made us baptized into new people, becomes, so to speak, embarrassed - for he is punished by the continuation of the old way of life of the baptized as if he had failed and brought about no change. This is where a creative tension builds up: we Christians have a new being through baptism and through the acceptance of our baptism in confirmation, and yet Paul us appealing to us. The Holy Spirit has done his work in baptism and will continue to do so, and yet we as baptized we can at any time contradict Him through our actions and we seem to wrong him. Our human freedom also includes the possibility of depriving ourselves of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And such a relapse of the baptized makes God's Spirit sad as Paul claims. God and His Spirit are not simply insensitive. God does not immediately become angry when we resist the guidance of His good spirit - it makes him sad. That is why we would do well to expose ourselves as often as possible to
the healing inspiration of the Holy Spirit – for example, here in the service of God in listening to God's Word with other Christians, and in reading the Bible as you do as a Confirmation Group here in the Church. Dear baptized confirmands and members of the congregation, if we take the last sentence to heart: "But be kind and merciful among one another, and forgive one another, just as God has forgiven you in Christ." If we take these words with us on our way - then the three signs that the Epistle to the Ephesians mentions for the life of the baptized become apparent to us: We will be new people, the good spirit of God will guide us and we will have kindness and forgiveness for others. Amen