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Oh, The Things We’ve Seen
Greetings to you in the year 2025! There was a time when I could barely imagine reaching 2025 (I thought 2024 was so far in the future, but that was the year Marty McFly transported to in the movie Back to the Future 2 !).
The faster time seems to fly, the faster things change around us. My mother, who just turned 89, has seen a lot in her years – jet planes flying across oceans, rockets off into space and landing on the moon, telephones without cords and without dials, atomic energy harnessed to provide
power and to destroy cities, television sending pictures and videos through the air, first in black and white to color and high definition, wars that shook the world, women elected leaders of their countries (sadly, not her own), computers/internet/microprocessors to sift and retrieve
information at lightning speeds, and a greater cultural awareness than ever before. Television is now available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (even Public Broadcasting!).
I don’t think she ever thought she’d see the day when women would be serving as ordained ministers, let alone bishops. And I know that the idea of homosexual persons being called as pastors or being married legally were beyond the imagination. But even having Lutheran pastors from Honduras, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Slovakia, Latvia, Jordan, Palestine, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea among us was unthinkable.
When she was little, exotic food choices in Pittsburgh area were Italian, German, Polish, Slavic, Mexican (not really), and maybe some Chinese. Now, most cities have Korean, Thai,
Vietnamese, Cuban, Mexican (real Mexican), Spanish, Italian, German, French, Lebanese,
Turkish, Greek, Slavic, Russian, Japanese, Chinese of different strains, Indian, Pakistani,
Afghan, and a lot of African varieties.
Clothes are lighter, brighter, and more comfortable. Keeping house is easier with washing
machines and driers, dishwashers, programmable self-cleaning ovens, microwaves and air
fryers, refrigerators that dispense cold water and ice, non-stick pans that are easier to clean,
everyday dishes that don’t break (well, you really have to try to break them) and freezers just for holding extra foodstuffs.
Items you buy can now be delivered to your door. Airline tickets are on your phone. Highway
tolls are paid automatically by your license plate number. Food can be delivered, too, and not just pizza.
So much change. No wonder many of us feel at times overwhelmed by the change and the
pace at which it comes. We can fight back by resisting it or try to get familiar and make the best of it. I haven’t worn a wristwatch in almost ten years – my phone keeps me abreast of the time!
Yet it fees somewhat unreal, risky, even dangerous.
This sense of dislocation is something that many who resist the actions of others feel all the
time. It is wearing on one’s energy – physically, mentally and emotionally. And when the stakes are high – life and death, existence, salvation – it is even more onerous.
During the early 1930s, a German Lutheran pastor/scholar came to America to lecture and
learn. Dietrich Bonhoffer spent time in the Harlem area of New York City eager to learn how
Black Americans worshipped and how it sustained them through hard times. He came away
with a renewed sense of the power of faith to sustain us during periods of struggle and turmoil.
Which is what his home was going through, following the reparations after World War I
subjected Germany and much of its neighbors. He saw the rise of the German National
Socialists – Nazis – as problematic, both politically as well as morally. And even though he was safe and sound in America (and had offers to stay for years) he felt the call to go home and help resist the worst impulses of his native land.
The recent theatrical film on Bonhoffer got mixed reviews – good, bad and indifferent. But it
certainly raised (or re-raised) interest in his writings and his struggles. This spring, we will offer book studies on two of Bonhoffer’s books – Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship. Even if you’ve read these books before, I invite you to read it again and enter into discussion with others as to the meaning, intent, and possibilities that Bonhoffer’s ethical deliberations offer us.
More information will be brought out in mid-January. I’m happy to take any suggestions as to
dates/times/means that would make it easier for you to able to participate.
Amid all the change and challenge of life today, I hope we all are able to find ways to be at
peace, when possible, work together collegially, and learn something new. After all, the world is always evolving!
Happy New Year.
Shalom.
Pr. Mark
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