HOMILETICS

Kristallnacht 70th Anniversary Coming Soon

A week from this coming Sunday marks the 70th anniversary of Kristalnacht.

I know that some churches are using this anniversary to have an interfaith dialogue and/or shared services with the local Jewish community.

Some will rent a Bonhoeffer movie from Blockbuster and show it in at an adult study class. Some of you may want to devote some sermon time to a discussion of the implications of this event which arguably defined the malevolent nature of the Third Reich, even though Europe at the time was not willing to believe what was happening before their very eyes.

Here’s some material gathered from various Internet sources:

On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of pogroms against Germany's Jews. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed. This event came to be called Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") for the shattered store windowpanes that carpeted German streets.

The pretext for this violence was the November 7 assassination of a German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish teenager whose parents, along with 17,000 other Polish Jews, had been recently expelled from the Reich. Though portrayed as spontaneous outbursts of popular outrage, these pogroms were calculated acts of retaliation carried out by the SA, SS, and local Nazi party organizations.

Stormtroopers killed at least 91 Jews and injured many others. For the first time, Jews were arrested on a massive scale and transported to Nazi concentration camps. About 30,000 Jews were sent to Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen, where hundreds died within weeks of arrival. Release came only after the prisoners arranged to emigrate and agreed to transfer their property to "Aryans."

Kristallnacht culminated the escalating violence against Jews that began during the incorporation of Austria into the Reich in March 1938. It also signaled the fateful transfer of responsibility for "solving" the "Jewish Question" to the SS.

Some questions for discussion:
1. How does cultural hatred grow? What are the factors that feed it?
2. What can the church do to be a voice against hatred, racism, anti-semitism in our culture?
3. On this post-election Sunday, what effect do you think this election will have on race relations in our country?
4. What role does self-interest play in racism? The need to “belong” to a group, or a superior group?
5. Holocaust survivors have implored emerging generations to “never forget.” What do they mean?
6. How have race relations changed since you were a child? Do you think more should be said and celebrated about the improvement in race relations since, say 1950, if indeed you think there has been improvement?

7. Have you ever been the victim of racial discrimination? Describe it and explain how the event made you feel?
8. Elie Wiesal has said "the victims suffered more, and more profoundly, from the indifference of the onlookers than from the brutality of the executioner … The cruelty of the enemy would have been incapable of breaking the prisoner; it was the silence of those he believed to be his friends-cruelty more cowardly, more subtle-which broke his heart." Explain what he means.

The Financial Crisis, Retirement Packages and a Story

I was chatting with Rev. Elyn MacInnis, Episcopal priest, today, who’s traveled recently in the Sichuan Province area of western China which was devastated by the earthquake last spring which took the lives of 70,000 people and left countless thousands of others homeless.

She reports that the churches in the area have begun rebuilding, thanks to help from Christians and friends all over the world, and help also from the Chinese government.

But one church just outside the earthquake zone got little help even though it too had been affected the quake. The building is now highly unstable, and efforts are underway to strengthen it, but funds are scarce.

In the village is an elderly man who lives simply in a little hut, with one electric light bulb. Mr.Wu, MacInnis reported, had managed to scrap together about 12,000 RMB (almost 2,000 USD) for his old age retirement. But when he heard about the crisis his church was having in the aftermath of the earthquake, he gave his retirement to the church to help in the rebuilding effort.

The local media picked up the story and asked him about it. Mr. Wu was quite frank. “I am a Christian, a follower of Christ. And this is what Christians do. We help each other.” And the paper reported it.

Mr. Wu’s actions don’t ease the financial pinch many are feeling in the west, but in a little village in the far east, there’s a Mr. Wu, a Christian, who has little, and like the widow and her mite, is willing to part with what he has for a greater good.

It’s what Christians do, he said.

Ethel Waters and the Present Financial Crisis

I am writing a sermon idea e-mail to all Homiletics subscribers, in which I reference Ethel Waters whose rendition of “His Eye Is On the Sparrow” was among her most beloved hits. So here is one version from YouTube. You can find it yourself at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoCO_1GcoV0

God in the Dock -- Again

Homiletics subscribers will remember we suggested a sermon idea last June based on a state senator in Nebraska who was taking God to court.

Here’s the latest, without further comment:

LINCOLN, Nebraska: A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator’s lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn't properly served, because of his unlisted home address. State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God.

He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants.”

Chambers has said he filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have access to the courts regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

On Tuesday, however, Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk ruled that under state law a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a lawsuit to move forward.

“Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice,” Polk wrote.

Hole in the judge's ruling?

Chambers, who graduated from law school but never took the bar exam, thinks he's found a hole in the judge's ruling. “The court itself acknowledges the existence of God,” Chambers said Wednesday. “A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God’s omniscience.”
Therefore, Chambers said, “Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit.”

Chambers has 30 days to decide whether to appeal. He said he hasn't decided yet.

Chambers, who has served a record 38 years in the Nebraska Legislature, is not returning next year because of term limits. He skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians.

Hi. Nice to Meet You. My Name is JesusSaves.god

Jennifer Thornburg is 19 years old—an age of extraordinary vulnerability to causes, especially lost causes.

Her particular passion is directed against the dissection of animals in schools. So she’s making use of an anti-dissection page on the site of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Surprise.

But the world, in Jennifer’s opinion, has been spectacularly lukewarm in rallying around her cause, and even has been pretty much heretofore unaware of it.

So she changed her name to CutoutDissection.com.

Just call her Cutout for short. I have a feeling no one will call her Cutup by mistake.

These sorts of name changes make the headlines every once in a while. Part of me wishes people would just cutitout.

But … bless her, Jennifer wants to change her world, and she’s in a stage of her life during which she feels her passion the most. Unfortunately, as we age, for too many, the idealism of youth and the zeal to which it gives birth fades as inexorably as the noonday sun.

First: The idea that in the scary future, babies may routinely be given names that are in fact URLs of some kind is not so far-fetched. The name/url becomes the child’s identity and will probably be aided by a chip of some kind embedded subcutaneously on the upper shoulder somewhere.

Second: What’s wrong with this protest? Nothing. Without speaking to the merits of her particular position, her methods, while unorthodox, are perfectly acceptable, and moreover, will give her many, many opportunities for her to rant about the problem and give her a ton of exposure to people who will think she’s a kook.

Good luck getting a date Saturday, unless it’s with Dontchopdownthattree.nerd.

I just love people who are passionate about their issues—as long as the passion stays nonviolent of course. Fortunately, we have millions of young people and older ones too who are passionate about homelessness, the poor, the Darfur genocide, the Dalit Christians in India, child trafficking, child abuse, and so on.

Christians are people who understand the concept of name changing. Enter a convent, you might get your name changed. If you’re in the Orthodox priesthood or diaconate, you probably took a new name. Christians have taken a new name, to go along with what we call a new birth.

I am thinking of changing my name to JesusSaves.god but I think it’s taken.

The Mushroom Message

Today, October 13, is the nineteen-hundred-fifty-fourth anniversary of the death of Emperor Claudius who died at age 62 of mushroom poisoning.

This historical note, therefore, brings us to the subject of mushrooms—which I love, btw. Which also means I love eating fleshy, spore-bearing, soft-tissue, gilled fungi which thrives best when using compost as a food source.

The most common variety of course is the little white button mushrooms you find so often in supermarkets. But there are thousands of varieties and many uses for mushrooms. They’re use in cooking, of course, and therefore are useful as food. But they’re also being studied for their medicinal value. Mushrooms are useful for some dyeing, and this was especially true before synthetic dyes were developed.

Some toadstools have been used as firestarters and are known as tinder fungi.

And, some mushrooms are toxic, as Claudius discovered.

As I think of the humble mushroom, I am amazed again at the infinite variety to be found in the natural world. Aquinas is right: the teleological argument prevails. Look at the odd little fungus. Who thinks this up? Who makes these little wonders? What sort of Creator would think that a mushroom might be a good thing?

The mushroom message for this Monday morning is that God is good, and if we accept the premise that God put these little things in our world for a reason, it’s not hard then to revisit the idea that God put us here for something more grand.

And if you think that like the mushroom, you’re being asked to grow in a pile of compost, cheer up. It’s possible that this is precisely the place where you’ll thrive.

How Much Would You Bet On Peace Breaking Out?

As I write this, the announcement of the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize is just hours away from being made. The formal declaration will occur today at 11 a.m. CET (Central European Time). As you read this, it’s probably happened already. The pre-announcement betting is already underway in Las Vegas and elsewhere. One house has President Bush down at 500-1, and his boy, Vladmuir Putin is getting 250-1. More odds Lidia Yusapova - 6/1; Ingrid Betancourt - 8/1; Morgan Tsvangirai - 8/1; Martti Ahtisaari - 8/1; The Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) - 10/1; The Peace Jam Foundation- 25/1; Bob Geldof - 33/1; Greenpeace - 40/1; Bono - 50/1; Tony Blair - 66/1. You get bet online on just about anything, Peace Prize recipients included. But how much would you bet on peace? Homiletics had a piece about it for last Sunday in anticipation of the announcement today. And we’ve done it once before, too. It’s in the online archives (October 28, 2001).

Yom Kippur: Are You Dirty or Are You Clean?

“...In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and you shall not do any work ... For on that day he shall provide atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the L-RD.  —Leviticus 16:29-30.

I am not going into details about Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for our Jewish friends. If God had wanted me to explain Yom Kippur, God would not have invented the Internet.

Wait! My bad. Gore, Al Gore, invented the Internet. I keep forgetting. Anyway, instead, I tell you a story which, on this solemn Day of Atonement, may help you understand the difference between being clean and being dirty.

The Priest met his friend, the Rabbi, and says to him “You have taught me many things but there is one thing in particular I want to learn very much but you do not wish to teach it to me. I want you to teach me the Talmud.”

The Rabbi replied: “You are a Non-Jew and you have the brain of a Non-Jew. There is no chance that you will succeed in understanding the Talmud.” But the Priest continued in his attempt to persuade the Rabbi to teach him the Talmud. Finally, the Rabbi agreed.

The Rabbi then said to the Priest: I agree to teach you the Talmud on condition that you answer one question. The Priest agreed and asked the Rabbi “What is the question?”

The Rabbi then said to the Priest: “Two men fall down through the chimney. One comes out dirty and the other comes out clean. Who of those two goes to wash up.”

“Very simple,” replied the Priest. “The one who is dirty goes to wash up but the one who is clean does not go to wash up.”

The Rabbi then said to the Priest: “I told that that you will not succeed in understanding the Talmud. The exact opposite happened. The clean one looks at the dirty one and thinks that he is also dirty goes to wash up. The dirty one, on the other hand, looks at the clean one and thinks that he is also clean and, therefore, does not go to wash up.”

The Priest then says to the Rabbi: “This I did not think of. Ask me, please another question.”

The Rabbi then says to the Priest: “Two men fall down through the chimney. One comes out dirty and the other comes out clean. Who of these two goes to wash up?”

The Priest then says to the Rabbi: “Very simple. The clean one looks at the dirty one and thinks he is also dirty and goes to wash up. The dirty one, on the other hand, looks at the clean one and thinks that he is also clean and, therefore, does not go to wash up.”

The Rabbi then says to the Priest: “You are wrong again. I told you that you will not understand. The clean one looks into the mirror, sees that he is clean and, therefore, does not go to wash up. The dirty one looks into the mirror, sees that he is dirty and goes to wash up.”

The Priest complains to the Rabbi “But you did not tell me that that there is a mirror there.”

The Rabbi then tells the Priest: “I told you. You are a Non-Jew, with your brain you will not succeed in understanding the Talmud. According to the Talmud, you have to think of all the possibilities.”

“Alright,” groaning, said the Priest to the Rabbi. “Let us try once more. Ask me one more question.”

For the last time, said the Rabbi to the Priest. “Two men fall through the chimney. One came came out dirty and the other came out clean. Who of these two went to wash up?”

“That is very simple!” replied the Priest. “If there is no mirror there the clean one will look at the dirty one and will think that he is also dirty and will, therefore, go to wash up. The dirty one will look at the clean one and will think that he is also clean, and will, therefore, not go to wash up.
If there is a mirror there, the clean one will look into the mirror and will, therefore, not go to wash up. The dirty one will look into the mirror and will see that he is dirty and will, therefore go to wash up.”

The Rabbi then says to the Priest: “I told that you will not succeed in understanding. You are a Non-Jew, you  have a Non-Jewish Brain. Tell me: How is it possible for two men to fall through a chimney and for one to come out dirty and for the other to come out clean?”

“I don’t mean to preach, but …”

I listened to a colleague recently — not a preacher — talking to some middle-school kids about their online profiles at Facebook or MySpace. After gathering a head of steam, she blasted to the core of her message by saying, “I don’t mean to preach, but …”

Clearly, she thought that were she to lapse into a “preaching” mode, that would not be a good thing. Not, at least, for these seventh-graders. God forbid that a middle-schooler should ever be preached at.

Her remark cause me to reflect on the preaching task, and how it is perceived by people as a meddlesome, judgmental, onerous business in which some holier-than-thou prune of a person explains why you are going to hell in a Starbucks latte.

Even if this were true, would it be bad? Is it a bad thing to have someone in your life—someone who is not beholden to you, who is not your pal, who is not a part of your “support system”— who continually and relentlessly pulls out an ethical and moral yardstick, explains its function, and then occasionally hits you across the backside with it? Is that necessarily a bad thing?

That person is the preacher man/woman.

Many books in the field have already been written about the current love of “therapeutic” preaching, and it’s preaching that has nothing to do with “Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts,” and more to do with biblical paraphrases like, “The Lord is my Buddy, I shall never have to worry.”

But I digress.

My colleague says —as I mentioned — “I don’t mean to preach, but…” and then incredibly, she starts preaching! She went on to tell them a story, and according to her own account, “tell it like it is.”

Preaching formula: STORY + TELLING IT LIKE IT IS.

Sounds like preaching to me.

Welcome to Monday Morning

Thoughts for this coming Sunday, October 12, because I know that the first thing you’re thinking about on a Monday morning is what you’re going to be preaching come next Sunday.

We’re less than 10 days from a significant 100th anniversary. On October 14, 1908, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers. The score was 2-0 in the fifth and final game of the series. This was their second World Championship win in a row. It was also their last.

For 100 years, the Cubs have been in a World Series drought. Our country has changed radically over the past century, but the failure of the Cubbies to win a championship has been a depressing constant in American life. When they last won, Henry Ford was producing his first Model T. Orville Wright was demonstrating his flying machine to the U.S. Army. The First World War was still years away. Being “online” meant hanging your clothes out to dry.

The Cubs have suffered the longest dry spell between championships in modern sports history. No one else in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League or the National Basketball Association comes close. In fact, the other three major sports leagues were not even in existence when the Cubs last won the World Series.

Of course, the Cub faithful THOUGHT that this was the year. They won their division. Won 97 games I think. The waiting was over, and Cub fans know all about waiting. But then, the Dodgers, skippered by that ex-New York manager, simply blew them away last week in the playoffs. Time to pull out the familiar mantra: “Well, wait til next year.”

So we’re waiting for the Cubs. Waiting for Godot. Neither one seem to show up. Homiletics looks at this phenomenon for this Sunday, but takes a different tact in a sermon suggestion we call “Rejoice in the Cubs Always.” Take a look. There’s a link on the subscriber home page.