FootprintsofFaith

A Final Tour Post on the Oberammergau Passion Play

August 20, 2010

 

Since 1634, the residents of Oberammergau have staged 41 Passion Plays using 2000 residents doing just over 100 performances every ten years. When they prayed to God to save their city from the plague of 1632, they said if God did that they would stage a Passion Play every ten years. Many of the city residents were able to survive and they have honored that commitment.

 

For many of us, this passion play has been on our bucket list for years, and today was the day we got to experience this gift from God and his special committed community.

 

The tour is for the first time split up into different smaller hotels. Our bus went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the host of the 1936 Winter Olympic Games and the 1978 World Skiing Championships. From the city, you can see Germany’s highest peak, Zugspitzblatt. The beautiful sunny day allowed us to see the Alps. You just feel like singing “How Great Thou Art” just walking outside.

 

We stayed at the Best Western Hotel in Oberammergau. How is that for exotic? It was very nice. The rustic feel, the stream running beside the hotel, the good food, and the very small elevator is what I will remember the most. We took every opportunity we could to see the town known for its murals and traditional homes. Of course behind every home was a gorgeous mountain or valley.

 

We must say that God has blessed us on this journey. Every time it was raining, it would rain on the bus to the location and clear up for our tour. It was like God put an umbrella over our trip. We had a sunny day at the beginning in Berlin and ended with sunny days in Oberammergau for the Passion Play and the trip back home.

 

What can you say about the amazing Oberammergau Passion Play? The efficiency of the arrival, the serving of meals on a schedule and the seating in the theater are unmatched. Now the line for the women’s bathroom and the comfort of the seats was another story. Like 4,700 sardines stuck in a can…and add a little heat from a warm day…oh my, I shall not wear that shirt again. The first two hours and forty minutes was hot, but the magnificence of the staging made it well worth the sitting.

 

The play itself unfolds in front of you on an expansive and slightly elevated open air stage. Everything from camels, donkeys, lambs and 2,000 different citizen actors graced the stage. They projected without microphones. Whenever Jesus was on the stage, his assertive yet stabilizing presence brought calm to the otherwise hectic world of the passion play. They wove together narrative and choral interludes to transition between the acts. They were punctuated by living images of Old Testament scenes designed to give depth to the impact of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. From Adam and Eve to Daniel in the lion’s den, from Abraham’s near sacrifice of Issac to Moses and the parting of the sea and the Ten Commandments—each brought a new insight couples with narrative and song as you read along in the English translation of the German dialogue.

 

We were struck by the balance of the hatred of religious leaders for the message of Christ’s Gospel of repentance, faith and service and the strength and passion of his followers. Just as there were those calling for Christ’s crucifixion, there were others who were claiming his innocence and asking for him to be spared. All in all, they captured beautifully the energy, chaos and radical transformation of Christ’s coming. You were left with a clear message of the cost Christ bore for each of our sins. The narrative literally confronts the audience to see and contemplate that cost in their own lives.

 

With two hours for intermission, we had time for a walk to a dinner location in Oberammergau. They got us and out in less than 30 minutes. There was time for shopping in the numerous wood carving shops. Many who had not already, took time to buy and ship home a cuckoo clock. Lorie and I remained cuckooless!

 

Rosi helped us coordinate with the Lutheran Church in the area to attend their half-hour devotion service and communion. We invited others on our bus for the moving experience. Pastor Craig participated in the communion and all attending communed together. It was the second time we had Holy Communion on the tour. Both were moving. The passion play finished at 11:00 pm. We went as a group to our bus quickly and joined the steady stream of buses down the hill and back to our hotel. By the time we got back, many on the bus had only three hours to sleep before the bus would take them to the Munich Airport. Only Kathy Rogers joined an early group at 5:45 am. The rest of us slept in to take the train back to Munich the next day.

 

With the late finish, there was little time for closure on the tour. We once again thanked Rosi and Hans the driver. Our group huddled together outside the hotel for one last prayer as we knew all had different paths to take on their way home. Dan and Darlene were heading on to Rome for a week in Italy. Karen was heading to Northern Germany to visit friends. George still had some business contacts to make. The rest were taking at least an extra day before heading back from Munich or Frankfurt.

 

The tour was exceptional, and God is even greater in providing this a deepening appreciation for our Lutheran traditions and for the power of the Holy Spirit to intervene in history to work God’s will. We return confirmed in God’s power and an appreciation for our calling in this our age. May you some day have the same opportunity.

 

August 21, 2010

 

We were up at 6:30, earlier than we needed to, but we were rested with a sound sleep in our room next to the rolling mountain stream. While Lorie packed, I elected for an early breakfast and a quick walk downtown in the early morning air. I was able to take in more of the town, take pictures, and enjoy one final walk.

 

We said goodbye to Dan, Darlene and George, and took our taxies to the train station. The Bullocks, Beekers, Karen, and the Paulsons all took over the train for the hour and a half trip to Munich. It was scenic as every ride is through the Alps. We will have our goodbyes in the Munich Central Station as we all go in separate directions. We grab the 11:57 to Frankfort for one final evening in Germany. Good news—we all caught our respective trains!

By Failing to Tell Your Story You Lose Your Past and Your Future

Pastor Craig Beeker shared a quote from Pastor Rich Melheim in his Easter sermon. I wrote it down and have been thinking about the importance of passing on one's story to future generations. 

Pastor shared the context of the quote, and I'd like you to read it...and react! The quote comes from the First Communion material on the importance of your story: "Why, after thousands of years, is the Jewish faith still in existence while so many other ancient peoples and faiths have vanished from the face of the earth? Some say it is because they remember the Passover. Distribute the following quotation and invite people to pair up and discuss it for two minutes: 'As much as the Jews have held Passover, Passover has held the Jews.' What does it mean? Walk around the room 'Oprah style,' interviewing people for their thoughts and insights. Toss out Tootsie Rolls or a small treat to all who add to the discussion. Then, ask the following questions: 'Do you know any Hittites? Do you carpool with an Amalekite? Are you on the PTA with an Ammonite? No. Where did all of these ancient peoples go? They disappeared. Why? They forgot to tell their children their story. If you forget to tell your children your story, you don't lose your past. You lose your future.'"

If we stop telling the story of Easter, what will the Holy Spirit have to work with? If we stop telling the story about Luther's struggle with grace and the importance of centering faith on the Word of God, we will lose our way as a church. If we stop telling the history of America, American values will not be passed on to future generations.

Do you tell your children God's story? America's story? Luther's story? Don't lose our future by not sharing our past. You may want to share and discuss this quote in your won family. What do you think?

James Caviezel Didn't Just Play Jesus in "The Passion"-He Lives His Faith

I've seen James Caviezel in many quality films. His role as Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was a demanding and awe-inspiring role. But in a recent interview in Calabasas magazine, Jim talked about how his Christian faith impacted his life and work. I hope you can enjoy some of these selected comments from the interview:

"I would never deny my faith.... I'm not one who is afraid to talk about issues of faith, religion, politics or whatever.... The Passion of the Christ was a very powerful film.... Mel found me from The Thin Red Line and maybe a couple of other films, but doing that role in The Passion was the most difficult thing, because I never felt worthy enough to do it. I've kidded people and said, 'They saw me originally as playing Lucifer, because I fit that role.' My job in that film, and as an actor, is the truth. If there are many truths, there are no truths. I have to evaluate what I believe, and what that is. I have to make the decision in my life and career, but I have people now telling me everything. I, of all people, need to know what God wants. So I've got to find that in my family, in my church."

"Is Hollywood a godless sort of place? I think God is in Hollywood, and I think people want Him to be there. I look at a lot of people, at least the ones I work with, and they want God.... Is there decency in Hollywood? An agent friend of mine has been married for 33 years. He and his wife have a history together. He values that. What you do in private is who you really are. What I am to my wife and family and son, and how I treat them, is what I really am. I don't look at Hollywood as being about who has more fame, and what I would like to have that I don't. I look at it as 'Are you a giver or a taker?' It's so tempting to want to take, because, in this business they give you anything. I have a history with my wife. With all the temptations in this business, that's one thing I can hold onto. I cherish my history with her. (As to affairs on movie sets,) I look at it this way. If I'm walking down the street and I see a pretty girl, the first look is free. That's it. There are always those things out there, those temptations. But when you really look from the perspective of love, and what that truly means, something just passing by like that pretty girl doesn't hold up to anything. It's nothing compared to what real love is--for richer, for poorer, in worse times and good times. Fidelity works for me. I think it works for everybody."

I can see why so many respect him as an actor and a person. As a fellow brother in Christ, I'm sure glad he is in our extended family.

(Source: Stephen Rebello, "The Coming of James Caviezel," Calabasas, pp. 103-109. 2006.)

Sermon--Struggling Faith, Real Faith--John 20:19-31

Sister Wendy Beckett is the cloistered nun whose work as an art historian has led to several books and television programs. One time when a program of hers was about to air, she was interviewed on the radio show "Fresh Air" by interviewer Terry Gross. Gross is a wonderfully articulate woman, a terrific, no-nonsense interviewer most of the time. But when she interviewed Sister Wendy, Gross was weirdly tentative and off her mark. Perhaps it was because Sister Wendy is devoted to absolute silence except when she's talking about art once every bundle of years. At one point in the interview, Gross asked Sister Wendy, "Have you always believed in God?" "Oh, yes!" said Sister Wendy. "You mean, you've never experienced any doubt?" asked Gross, sounding dubious. "No," said Sister Wendy in her small but solid voice. "Why do you think that is?" asked an incredulous Gross. "Well, I'm sure it's because God knew I was too weak for doubt," said Sister Wendy. "I never could have stood it, so God kept it from me."

Doubt is not a denial of faith. It's one way of faith among many.

We hear today the famous story that has for 2000 years maligned the reputation of the disciple Thomas.  Because of this one story – despite great faith exhibited in other places – we dub him, “Doubting Thomas.”

He apparently wasn’t “too weak” for doubt, as Sister Wendy describes herself.

This story from John’s gospel is one week after Easter.  Some of the women among the disciples and some of the men had experienced the risen Christ.  Thomas, for whatever reason, had been running late that evening with some chore and he missed the Easter evening encounter with the risen Christ…perhaps there’s a lesson here – don’t be late for church, you might miss something important. 

Thomas, needed a confirmation of the sightings with empirical evidence, personal experience.  He said that he would not believe unless he touched the wounds himself.

I don’t know about you but doesn’t Thomas strike you as being exceedingly…reasonable?

Jesus seems to condemn Thomas and shun his need for evidence when he says:  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”  This isn’t good news for poor, empirical, now “doubting” Thomas.  But it’s good news for us – we, who have not seen him but believe!

Yet, we too have come out of some evidence.  Whatever was that evidence?  Believing parents.  A personal experience.  The word of Scripture. I was speaking to a pastor this week who is involved with the teen Cursillo movement.  He was telling of one of their speakers who shares his conversion.  He had been in a violent motorcycle gang, and one afternoon a drug induced stupor, Christ called him to life.  He quit drugs that day, dropped out of the gang and, because of the trouble he got into because of his conversion and leaving the gang (he knew too much) went into hiding for nearly 2 years. 

That’s not anything like my story…is it yours? How did you get here? 

I am a person who has an experience of Christ – a personal, felt experience of the presence of Christ.  I admire those who do not have the experience of Christ and yet believe.  There is some intellectual conviction that keeps you connected – this type of faith I do not understand.  But you are here. You believe and you have not felt anything. Maybe Jesus ought to have added to the words to the disciples today: Blessed are you who haven’t “felt anything” and yet believe.

How does this faith thing work? 

I’ll never forget a colleague storming out of a spiritual retreat.  She was upset over something the spiritual director had said to her.  She had confided in the spiritual director her intense personal struggle to believe. She wanted something to make her feel better, of course.  And they talked quietly about the struggle.

As she got up to leave the appointment, the spiritual director simply gave her this piece of information: “Struggling is your way of being close to God.”

That insight brought out profound anger and her early departure from the retreat.

I did not know what caused the anger.  But we had a good relationship and I came to understand what happened as an unwelcome moment of truth in her life--a shattering of a barrier that was full of fury but would bring a great harvest.

Some time later she would tell me, “I didn’t want to struggle to be with God.  I wanted it easy, light and airy…like other people. But then I realized the director was right.  In the struggle I was close to God. If I didn’t want the struggle then I wouldn’t know the intimacy I do today. I wouldn’t trade the struggle I have for anything...because in it I am close to God.”

Many people know Thomas’ doubt and questions and need however, such as the great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich, who saw doubt not as the opposite of faith but as an element of faith itself. Or as Frederich Beuchner put it in his book Wishful Thinking, “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”

Faith, as described in Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews, 11:1, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” An example given in that epistle is Abraham taking off on a journey with no maps. Faith is not knowing where you are going, but going anyway…trying to trust the one who called you to lead you.

In Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the Creed (on the Holy Spirit) he says this:

“I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; [in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.”]

In other words, this thing called faith is a gift from God. Our experience of trusting Christ comes from the same place our forgiveness comes from – not from self—but from God. 

On that first Sunday after Easter, Jesus came into the room where the disciples were gathered, behind the locks, fearful and hiding, filled with immobilizing doubt and fear. He gave them something they didn’t have – “Peace be with you” he said.

He offered Thomas the evidence that he said he needed prior to belief.  The Biblical record never mentions Thomas taking Jesus up on his offer of the evidence.  Instead, we hear a confession of profound faith from Thomas, “My Lord and My God.”

Thomas, without the evidence he needed, believed…it’s my conviction he believed all along. But Jesus gave him something absent in the midst of his faith and doubt.  It was peace.

The rest of the story of Thomas goes like this.

According to tradition, the apostle Thomas traveled to India, to the city of Madras, and led people there to belief in Christ.  The church that grew in that place, the Mar Thomas Christian Church, has survived 2000 years of persecution as a minority religion.  The church developed a worship life and liturgy without any written word.  Imagine the surprise of Portuguese missionaries who arrived in the 17th century and found that Christian faith was already alive and well, even though the Mar Thomas Christians had never heard of such a thing as the Bible!  What a legacy to leave behind: one who would not believe without seeing leaves a church that does believe, even without the scriptures.

I don’t know how you each have faith or what sustains it.  I would imagine that we’d be surprised by the amazing faith and tremendous struggle for faith we all have. In the midst of it, the struggle can be a way of being close to God…or perhaps even more true, the struggle (the more intense the struggle may make it all the more true) is a sign of the depth of our faith.

Either way, struggle or ease, we have a Lord and Master who comes to us and wishes us to experience peace.

Again, to quote Fred Buechner: “Peace is not the absence of strife…but the presence of love.”  May the presence of love, our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you today. And may you know his blessing: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  He was speaking of us, questions and all.  Amen.

Easter Sermon--Mark's Unfinished Gospel Story Involves You!

Please enjoy Pastor Craig's powerful message and leave your reaction in the comments section. He challenged us to be part of Mark's unfinished Gospel, so add your thoughts to God's positive soap opera at Westlake Lutheran...

Recently, I was working on a project in the garage and came across a box of audio cassettes.  It was quite a find -- music from my young adulthood.  All pre-CD era stuff: Jackson Browne, Yes, Cheap Trick...Unfortunately, what the cassette cases said on the outside did not match the actual tape on the inside.  I don't remember exactly what I expected to hear when I put the cassette in the old, dusty player in the garage, but when the tape started playing I was surprised to hear Garrison Keillor doing his monologue from Lake Woebegone.  I apparently had recorded this show many years ago, and it was a treat to get to hear it as I worked in the garage. 

He is a wonderful storyteller, with tales that twist and wander, eventually coming to some insight or resolution.  The story always leads him to conclude:  "Lake Woebegone: Where all the men are strong, the women good looking, and the children are way above average."

I was well engaged in one of his stories and about to reach the point of resolution when the tape suddenly stopped.  It just ended.  I don't know what happened, because it went to static. How aggravating.

I don't know what happened to the characters in the story.  It was so frustrating to have gotten so engaged and then to have no resolution.   

The gospel of Mark, ending in chapter 16, verse 8, leaves us with a cliff-hanger just like that. Let's pick up the story.

Three days ago, we were here for our Maundy Thursday service, when Jesus celebrated the Passover.  We heard how, in an act of loving service, he washed their feet and commanded them to love others.  They shared the meal at which, like this morning, Jesus would give himself to us through bread and wine. On Friday night, we gathered in this sanctuary to hear how he was arrested, tried, and killed. We heard how he was laid in a stranger’s tomb.

We lived with the story of the Passion of the Christ all week. 

Then, this morning, we continue to tell the story, we heard how, on the first day of the week, three women went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body.  (There had been no time to do this before the Sabbath.)  It was amazing that they went at all.  1) The body, mistreated before death, would have been in terrible shape now. 2) There was a stone barring the way to the tomb, which they had no reasonable chance of moving, and 3) There was a guard posted at the tomb to keep anyone out.

But a person in traumatic grief doesn't think logically or realistically in moments like this.  They walked towards the tomb in pain and silence.

When they arrived, they found a startling thing.  The stone was rolled away!  The body was gone.  A young man was in the tomb, and the Bible says that the women were alarmed.  Of course they were alarmed!  No kidding -- imagine if you went to the graveyard to see a loved one and the grave was open and someone standing there told you the same news.  You'd be outraged. Horrified. The Bible said they were terrified.

The young man said, “He has been raised, he is not here.  Tell Peter and the disciples that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; he will see you there, just as he told you.”

This was incredible news!  Jesus was alive!  He had risen from the dead!  What do you suppose the women did?  Jump for joy?  Dance in the street?  Sing alleluia?  Run to tell others?  No, they didn't, not right at first, anyway.  Verse 8 gives their response: “Terror and amazement seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Perhaps the strangest thing about all of this is that this is the end of the gospel of Mark.  The earliest copies we have of Mark all end like this: “Terror and amazement seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

You have to admit that this is a rather unsatisfying ending.  And the earliest believers felt that way too.  If you look in your Bible, there will probably be additional verses in brackets, with a lot of footnotes.  There is a shorter ending of Mark and then a longer ending, added later to give more detail.  These endings, added later, tie up some loose ends and give more details about Jesus’ resurrection.  But the scholarly consensus, based on the best and earliest manuscripts we have, is that Mark ends with verse 8, almost like he was dragged away from his writing desk in mid-sentence.

Even the longer ending, by the way, is of earlier date than the Gospel of Judas which is receiving so much attention in the media this week. It is a Gnostic gospel written a 180 years later and never had much credit in the main body of Christendom. It would be like me writing an authoritative first-hand, eye-witness account of the war of 1812. It couldn't possibly be an eye-witness account. But I encourage you to look at these early documents known by early church leaders -- in fact, there are still documents they address that are lost or missing to us.  How exciting to find an old document like this one...it is no challenge to our faith -- and the ancient forebears of faith found no authority in them.

Mark’s gospel, written within 20-30 years of the death of Christ, near the time of the martyrdom of the disciple Peter, concludes his book with a non-conclusion. It created so much discomfort among early believers that someone actually added a proper ending.

We're following that same pattern this morning.  We started with Mark’s gospel but also read John’s gospel.  We know how the story ends.  From the other gospels, we have post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.  There are seaside meals, assurance to those who doubt, garden embraces of the Risen Lord, and excited shouts of “He is Risen!”

Biblical scholar Thomas Long writes (Christian Century, April 2005): “Mark offers us none of these, choosing instead to end his story with frightened women fleeing from a cemetery in silence. That’s no way to run a resurrection!

But Mark was trying to impart a different kind of Easter joy, trying to reveal another dimension of Easter faith.  As you come to the last verse of the gospel and contemplate the unfinished ending, fretting that the Jesus story ends in mute fear and wondering where to go from here, suddenly an insight shatters the silence.  Tell us again what the young man said at the tomb:  'Go tell his disciples.  He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.'"

Now, if you read Mark as a short story – as I've been encouraging you during our Lenten services this year – you'll remember that the story of Jesus begins in Galilee. It says in the opening verses of the gospel:  “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.” In other words, reader, the story isn't over at the end.  Leave the tomb now and go back and read it again.  Like the disciples, you did not understand this story the first time. Now that you have been to the cross and to the cemetery and the empty tomb, read it again.

Perhaps you've seen a movie that does that same thing…the whole story with twists and turns and odd-events only makes sense at the very end.  If you knew the one secret that the end revealed the whole movie would have made sense throughout. I think the movie, The Sixth Sense, does this very well.  The character played by Bruce Willis is a psychologist. He’s helping a troubled boy who sees ghosts. Only in the end do you realize that Willis’ character is himself a ghost. Only then does the strange interactions with others make sense – the interactions are strange because they don't see him, what we think are interactions are not. Once you get 'the secret' of the movie, you want to watch it again to understand the movie all together.

Once you hear about Jesus going to Galilee after he is raised from the dead, we remember that the first chapters of the Gospel are in Galilee and we are to hear a cue to return to the beginning.  We are  to go back and find out everything we missed, this time with 'the secret' revealed.

What do we see when we read the Gospel of Mark again, this time with post-resurrection eyes?  We see Jesus healing and teaching and casting out demons, but always misunderstood, even by those closest to him.  The whole story of Jesus, in Mark’s account of it, becomes a resurrection appearance.

What we see is a God who surprises us at every turn in the road, a God whose power is expressed finally in human weakness and frailty. Who’s story is not of a God outside of human experience but of a God who is in the nitty-gritty of human life.

Jesus, as portrayed through the literature of Mark, wants people to discover who he is and to find the meaning of his presence and the nearness of the God’s kingdom for themselves.  Mark leaves it up to us to decide for ourselves about the end of the story...to become ourselves a part of the story of the resurrection...and through us the world will experience the appearance of the resurrected Christ in our world.

When I heard that Garrison Keillor monologue, I had to decide on the ending for myself.  That is kind of the way Easter is, except that Easter is not just a story about Jesus and some followers who lived 2000 years ago.  It is a story that speaks to us personally.   The young man told the women at the tomb, “Tell his disciples…that he is going ahead of you to Galilee.”  Who are his disciples?  That would be us.  You and me.  Jesus is going in two places:  "ahead of you" and "to Galilee".  Jesus is waiting to meet us in the future.  And where was Galilee?  For Jesus, Galilee was home.  Going to Galilee meant going back home.  Back to the ordinary.  Back to the everyday.  Back to real life...into the hardship and hope of life.  As we go into the suffering and care of others we incarnate for them the life of the Resurrected Christ.  For us, we are called to where we live but also called to find him in the future ahead. As the young man at the tomb said:   "he is going ahead of you to Galilee.”

Without hearing his call to join in the story of redemption, in the living of the resurrected life, involved in the suffering and hope of the world, we will miss the power of the Easter message.

Perhaps this invitation means that you are called to become more deeply connected to the story and call of Jesus. Perhaps it means coming home again to him and to his family, the church, to learn what true discipleship means in this world and how Jesus wants us to be living examples of resurrection hope.  Perhaps it means that we are to cast off our anxiety and fear of the future and look instead forward, live creatively into the future, expecting Christ to meet us.

The story of Easter continues as we experience the risen Christ in our everyday lives, without this connection to Christ the power of Easter is missing in our lives and in our faith.

The joy of Easter is that Christ lives and Christ brings us new life, even in the face of death.  And the story of God’s new life continues in our lives, even today.  With God’s help, we continue to write the story.

The Lord is risen!  (And God's Children Said: "The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!")  Amen.


(Source: Pastor Craig Beeker, Westlake Lutheran Church, http://www.westlakelutheran.com,  Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006.)