Dear Friends,<\/p>\n
I have to write a sermon, a sermon that on the one hand gives voice to
\na very particular situation and, on the other hand, is understandable
\nfor Christians in Germany. What specific situation am I talking about
\nhere? I’m sitting in the southernmost Lutheran congregation of the world;
\nmore specifically, in Patagonia, the southernmost part of Argentina, a
\ncountry that is both beautiful and tragic at the same time\u0085
\nI have read these words again and again. I have even sung them, this song
\nof Mary. And I have even written down in simple fashion what strikes me
\nhere:
\n„\u0085forgotten, excluded, woman, power, doubt,
\nsurrender, fear, hopelessness, tears, hunger, human rights, trampled upon,
\nguilt\u0085., but also restore, exalt, esteem, honor, justice, dignity,
\njoy, laughter, celebration, wiping away tears, regarded by and before
\nGod, \u0085in the world, God for us\u0085, God with us\u0085<\/p>\n
(Reading of the text)<\/p>\n
When the Soul sings\u0085<\/b><\/p>\n
„\u0085the one who suffers has the deepest experience with God..,“
\nan old woman once said to me. That’s probably true and that’s how I understand
\nMary’s Song, her „Song of Praise,“ as a response to her experience
\nwith God.
\nWhoever lives in this country, on this continent, which has been exploited
\nfor 500 years, and the plunder still continues\u0085, whoever sees the
\nfaces of the hard-working women, these faces, ageless, the last smile
\nlong forgotten\u0085, women who care for ten children, hold down three
\njobs at the same time and at night have to contend with their domineering
\nhusbands\u0085, whoever lives here reads, sings Mary’s song in a completely
\nnew way, everything mystical disappears, all theological deliberations
\nbecome irrelevant, and one begins to „see“ in the sense of „understand.“
\nMary sings, her soul sings, nothing is left other than to sing, this marvelous
\nPsalm\u0085, because God has been mindful of her\u0085! He, the „God
\nof men,“ shows himself to her in his reality, as he really is\u0085,
\nno, as he always was!
\nOnce somebody asked me: „\u0085if Jesus had chosen a different, a
\nmore ordinary way, would the cross have been inevitable for him?“
\nI think he chose this way freely, although he knew that this would lead
\nhim directly to the cross. In this decision it becomes clear to all how
\nGod really is: He is on the side of life and he gives it dignity because
\nHE is the author of life. Mary sings because HE, the author of all life,
\nconveys to her finally the dignity that belongs to her.
\nThat is the experience with God that people of all times and places are
\nallowed to make again and again\u0085<\/p>\n
\u0085if the Forgotten murmur\u0085<\/b>
\nthen HE hears and sees\u0085; and this murmuring does not go without answer:
\n„I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt and heard their cry
\nover their oppressor, I have recognized their suffering\u0085,“ says
\nGod to Moses in this primordial experience: God wants to free us, to
\nredeem us!<\/b>
\nWhy do we always want to take merely the tip of this message? Why can’t
\nwe probe it for something deeper? Why do Christian theologians have to
\ninvent a „Liberation Theology…?“ Is there any other kind\u0085?
\nLuther says: „It comes down to this, that God’s eyes see not into
\nthe heights, but only into the depths\u0085“ „For that reason,
\nnecessarily, he sees within and all around him, and the more deeply one
\nis a part of him, the better he sees him.“
\nOne couldn’t formulate it more poignantly!
\nAs I put this sermon on paper, children and old women in this country
\ndie of hunger; yes, even in Argentina, a major „food basket“
\nfor a hungry Europe. In the coming months, over 500,000 babies will be
\nborn whose mothers are weakened with malnourishment and illnesses\u0085
\nWhat kind of a future do these children have? Or the 5.5 million school-age
\nchildren who don’t get something to eat every day? Have these children
\nor their mothers any guilt in all this? Or does it rather belong to the
\nWorld Monetary Fund, Americans and Europeans insisting on the repayment
\nof Argentina’s huge foreign debt-which in reality has already been paid
\ntwice over (a problem of growing interest rates, not actual debt!). Our
\ncorrupt politicians and functionaries are the best helpers of the multinational
\nfirms with home offices in New York, London, Madrid, or Frankfurt\u0085
\nThey assure themselves of astronomical financial gains which are easily
\ntaken out of the country.
\nWhat does this „local news report“ have to do with Mary’s Hymn
\nof Praise? A great deal: because he tells us that our grief is over<\/b>\u0085
\nbecause\u0085<\/p>\n
When God acts\u0085.<\/b>
\n\u0085then his own people soon join in the hymn of praise. A God who acts,
\nwho actually intervenes, I first learned to know right here. As the crisis
\nmounted in indescribable ways, as on Dec. 20 of last year over 40 men,
\nwomen and children died from police beatings and bullets, people gathered
\nin the squares, in homes and, above all, in the churches. Since that time
\nthere are Centers of Hope everywhere in which people gather to think about
\na new and better future, and not only about that: these people „see“
\nand „hear“ and answer, they act\u0085 Perhaps at the moment
\nthousands of children, mothers and old men are being saved from starvation
\nbecause the Centers of Hope provide food and medication, distributing
\nit all justly and un-bureaucratically.
\nAnd we here, a little Lutheran congregation with a Home for the Aged and
\na street ministry for children, are a tiny minority in the vast diaspora.
\nWe are, however, able to act, to fulfill our mission, because there are
\nChristians in Germany who, before they act, don’t read the financial reports
\nor the political commentary about corruption in Argentina, but respond
\nto the real human murmuring. This kind of seeing, hearing and acting conveys
\ndignity, elevates, lifts up, restores hope (and thereby also future),
\nand above all: the feeling of not being alone.
\nThe Magnificat does not want to trivialize anyone. Rather, as the song
\nof our own heart, it wants to touch the hearts of the well-endowed in
\nthis world, that we may „regard“ the suffering and the lowly
\namong us (or in Argentina) just as God does.
\nThis is exactly how Mary sees it: In the depths the „great things“
\nfirst become visible.
\nOur spirits will soon sing: My soul glorifies the Lord! He has regarded
\nthe low estate of his own people and he has done marvelous things\u0085,
\nhe has brought down the corrupt from their thrones and given his own people
\ndignity\u0085, the faces of the women are young again and their smiles
\nfill the streets.<\/p>\n
Amen.<\/p>\n
A little Table Prayer well known in our church:
\nLord, bless our bread, and give bread to the hungry, and hunger for righteousness
\nto those who have bread. Amen.<\/p>\n