Wilhelm's space

Chairing last weeks staff meeting had me give the word to our student representative Abia Anibati from Sudan. He’s busy with his MTh at the University of Pretoria and working on the idea of mission in the gospel of St. John. A pleasant, capable and amicable fellow by any standards. Well, amongst other things he describes the difficulty of our foreign students to get efficient and sympathetic treatment in the hospitals and clinics around Pretoria: “If we ask in English, people just talk to us in seTswana – and tend to ignore us if we can’t understand their vernacular.” That’s not much the spirit of “Ubuntu” – especially if you consider that our students only go there if they are seriously ill and in need of medical assistance and treatment. However there seems to be system in that madness – it happens regularly. Students don’t like going there. I am fuming. What kind of hospital is that? We need this to be addressed. I am sure the Korean CEO at Steve Biko Hospital is not aware of this shameful treatment of patients from the rest of Africa – and don’t we have friends at the trauma unit with Dr. Ilse Gravett and others who have trained our advanced deaconess course last October with Grace Rao and others. Well, we’re considering alternatives – like visiting my house doctor and going to our dentist instead, but I still think this is unacceptable. What can you loose by being friendly and providing some extra help to those, who need it most?

Back at home I read the latest edition of the Beeld and find a letter to the editor from South Africans living in Austria. It seems they experience something very similar. They are discriminated just because they are foreigners – even if they are employed and pay their own way. Read more about that here: http://www.beeld.com/Rubrieke/Gasrubriekskrywers/n-Uitlander-Dan-is-jy-seker-ook-werkloos-20120511

Seems that people everywhere need to be encouraged to be a helpful, sympathetic and merciful neighbour to those, who need this most. Just think of the good Samaritan and do likewise.

Ich bin gnädig, spricht der HERR, und will nicht ewiglich zürnen. Allein erkenne deine Schuld, dass du wider den HERRN, deinen Gott, gesündigt hast. (Jeremia 3,12-13)

Ich will mich aufmachen und zu meinem Vater gehen und zu ihm sagen: Vater, ich habe gesündigt gegen den Himmel und vor dir. (Lukas 15,18)

“Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!”  (Psa 66:20 ESV) That is the watchword for the 5th Sunday after Easter (Rogate: Pray!), which is based on the victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven…” and also promised them: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. (Joh 16:23 ESV). This is very comforting in this time and age – and it gets even better, because we believe that Christ is at the right hand of God ruling all in our favour since his glorious Ascension  and since he has wonderfully fulfilled his promises to hear our prayers on that holiday of Pentecost, the birthday of the one, holy Christian Church from all nations and every corner of the world.

The Old Testament reading is from Exodus 32,7-14: “And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'” And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.” But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.'”

Here God’s word teaches us so much about his holiness, but also his willingness to hear his servants pray – for sinners rightly deserving punishment, death and hell – and Moses also tells us a lot about our triune God: his faithfulness to his own promises made to the fathers, his absolute authority over all nations and his willingness to stand up for his majesty and glory – even if his people fail him and don’t live up to his holiness and absolute divinity.

The Epistle from St. Paul’s first epistle/letter to his disciple Timothy holds a lot of wisdom and truth for our prayer life as we struggle more or less successfully to live faithfully as Christians in the public domain and in various callings of our life in society, culture and other spheres – praying for all people (even for our enemies as our Lord taught us by his example on the cross of Golgatha: “Father: Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing!” St.Paul writes to Timothy in the 2nd chapter:  “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.  This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, (1Ti 2:1-6 ESV).

This is strong medicine against the fallacy and heresy that God desires the damnation of some people and also that some people are hopeless cases. I remember Missionary Peter Rehr at that time in Salem, Mpumalanga telling our Youth from Wittenberg some years back that you can’t hate those, you are praying for. He was encouraging us to pray for our neighbours and compatriots and fellow citizens like St.Paul encourages us to pray for all people – especially the government, leaders, people in responsible positions. Prof. Volker Stolle has written a remarkable essay on the 4 verse “Gottes Hilfe fuer alle Menschen (1.Timotheus 2,4)” in the Festschrift fuer Friedrich Wilhelm Hopf: “Unter einem Christus sein und streiten” (Verlag der Ev.Luth. Mission Erlangen: 1980, Pg.26-36) Creation, salvation and sanctification of all by the triune God are an active antidote against fallacies and heresies of racism and supremacist ideologies of some or other “Herrenvolk“.

Tomorrows gospel is found with St.John in the 16th chapter. Jesus says to his friends and disciples: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (Joh 16:23-1 ESV)

What wonderful news that the Father himself loves us and that he grants us his peace and that Jesus Christ has overcome the world. Therefore take heart and pray to the Lord in good and bad times, since he himself has encouraged you: “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Tomorrows sermon is on Colossians 4,2-4: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison– that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” It is short enough to memorize, meditate and practice the entire week and all of our life!

Here are the sermons in both isiZulu: wz1226120513 Rogate and seTswana: wt Rogate, written by Rev. E. Mkhabela and translated by my father Rev. E.A.W.Weber. Thanks to the support of LHF these sermons are also available in hardcopies. Please make use of them and distribute them as you deem fit.

Here is also the link to tomorrows gradual: http://youtu.be/OHU1av6TOuI  and thank God that his only begotten Son Jesus Christ taught us to pray.

Praying that tomorrow will be a very blessed Sunday for you and that you will taste and see how friendly our Lord God is, who hears our prayer and grants us his grace forever more. Amen +

Who the heck did that to them? Their own family or mormons? Read this news from ENI news: Dutch criticize Mormon baptism-by-proxy of royals Utrecht, The Netherlands (ENInews)– There is public criticism in the Netherlands of the Mormon practice of baptism by proxy after a Dutch newspaper revealed 9 May that several members of the royal family were posthumously “baptized” into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as the Mormon church. The daily newspaper Trouw quoted unpublished documents in the Mormon church’s global genealogical database that show the late Queen Juliana, her husband Prince Bernhard and Queen Beatrix’ late husband Prince Claus were all baptized as Mormons after their deaths. [635 words, ENI-12-0270]

This is what the noise is about. Read for yourself and see, what you make of it. After all it’s your history too … and no one has the monopoly over that – not even with an absolute majority in parliament.

Here is the drawing from God’s word and the accompanying teaching for Friday, the 11th May 2012:

Losung und Lehrtext für Freitag, den 11. Mai 2012

But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. (Jer 1:7 ESV) 

and

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2Ti 2:1 ESV)

That’s where you were saved …

“To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness…” (Daniel 9,9) and “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,  he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3,4-5)

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Pretoria (UP) invites cordially to a colloquium with Prof. John Higgins (English Department, University of Cape Town)  under the topic: “Between a Rock and a Hard place”. Read more here: Colloquium on the Humanities in SA (1)