Love Your Neighbor - Vote!

VOTE!

If you love your neighbor - you will vote because you care about what is best for our country, our state, our community, and your neighbor, regardless of where s/he stands politically.

If you love your neighbor - you will not shirk your responsibilities that affect your neighbor and neighborhood. You will value your responsibilities, opportunities, and involvement because they stretch you to know and serve your neighbor, and love won’t thrive where we do not know and serve each other.

If you love your neighbor - you will not just cast a ballot when an election comes around, but you will vote daily with your words and actions. You will vote against hate, injustice, greed, irresponsibility, self-centeredness, and wrong of every kind; you will vote for civility, integrity, kindness, mercy, responsibility, generosity, selflessness, and goodness.

If you love your neighbor - you care about them the way Jesus Christ/God cares about them, which means you won’t like or approve of everything your neighbor says or does, nor will you save them from all the consequences of their choices. But you will be hopeful and merciful for them as long as they have breath.

If you love your neighbor - the way Jesus/God commands you to love your neighbor - you will soon discover that you need God’s help because it is a difficult thing to do, and you will come to know your need for God’s forgiveness because not loving your neighbor is sinful.

If you love your neighbor - you will not just care about the voting records of those in office, but also your own, not just on November 3rd, but every single day.

So, vote, vote for your neighbor’s sake!

To God be all glory, Pastor Hans

Your "Erbe"

A good man, a good woman will leave an inheritance tho his/her children’s children – Proverbs 13:22

Heiningen Cemetery is where members of both sides of my family have been buried there for I don’t know how long, brothers, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and who knows how many greats, great great ... To me, it feels like a sacred burial ground in other cultures, deep roots, deep ties. The two Memorials for WWI and WWII have, for as small as the town was then, many names on them. Frei, Eitle, Aigner, all direct relations to my family are chiseled on it. A number of families have three, four names inscribed, entire generations decimated. “To Remember Them, To Warn Us,“ the World War II Memorial reads.

Right in front of the WWII Memorial, I noticed an older gravestone, it seems to have survived the 25-year policy. I am not sure when they decided to limit someone's stay in the Heiningen Cemetery to 25 years, but I seem to recall my brother telling me that they were both running out of space and that after 25 years no one shows up anymore to take care of the graves. So, after 25 years the plots are dug up, the remains are cremated, and the burial plot is recycled. Sometimes even the gravestone, it will have the current occupant on the front and a former on the back. However, this one grave in front of the WWII memorial was left untouched, it remains even though the couple buried there died more than 50 years ago.

It is the grave of Lutheran Pastor Erbe and his wife. They were part of the resistance, they trafficked Jews and other people to safety through the parsonage, right under the nose of the towns Nazi leader. I cannot tell you what impact this couple had on our town, my Mom, my Dad, my Aunt, my family and scores of others. They never forgot them, always spoke of them in ways that if you could meet anyone in Heiningen’s past, in their past, it would be this pastor couple.

What is most uncanny about Pastor and Mrs. Erbe’s grave in front of the WWII war memorial is the meaning of their last name – "Erbe" means inheritance in German. These two died neither rich nor famous, but they left a tremendous inheritance behind, an "Erbe" that by now is impacting the third and fourth generation past their own.

Walk with me for a minute to the Heinigen cemetery. We step through the wrought iron main gate and down at the end of the main path we already see the World War II Memorial. Two thirds the way down on the left we pass by the grave of my Mom and Dad with my brother Friedrich buried between them. Just a few steps further on the right the fresh grave of my oldest brother. A few more steps on the right the Erbe grave marked by an overgrown, weathered sandstone slab, and right past them, across the path turning right and left the WWII Memorial testifying to utter senselessness and waste. All of my family members we walked passed were impacted by what is at the end of this cemetery path, two memorials, two inheritances, one that will forever regret, weep and warn and one that knows no regret, turns tears to joy, and still blesses.You and I will not stay here today, we will most likely not be buried here. The iron gate will fall shut behind us as we leave to still live some and determine our "Erbe."

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans   

Love Your Neighbor! You Owe It

I say, “Obama,” you think _____________.
I say, “Trump,” you think _____________.
Chances are high, depending on your political persuasion, you’ve badmouthed one or the other, that you love one and despise the other, that you have respect for one while feeling at liberty to disrespect the other.

I say, “Taxes,” you think ____________.
I say, “You owe,” you think ____________.
Chances are high you have an opinion on taxes, and, living in the United States, chances are equally high that you are very familiar with owing, with indebtedness.

Romans 13:1-10 concerns itself with Christians living in the larger society, within the constructs of government, their surrounding culture, the country they live in. God, through the Apostle Paul, reminds us to  “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” Romans 13:7 (ESV).

Do your responses above reflect the spirit and demeanor of the Romans 13 passage? Are your conversations, tweets, and posts in compliance with the word of God, or do they reflect the culture at large or the subgroup you affiliate with? Do you have an honor and respect debt?

Even after you’ve paid all your bills, paid off your mortgage, and are square on your taxes you owe, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” Romans 13:8 (ESV), not according to some law passed by the legislature, but according to God’s law, “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” Romans 13:1-10 (ESV).

Why do you and I owe love daily? Because we owe our very existence to God’s love and are daily recipients of his mercy and grace, "To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that's charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that. I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind” Luke 6:27-36 (MSG).

God has a vision for this world we live in, the countries we love, the communities we live in, and the lives we live (Read the Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:1-17, and the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5-7).

And, he expects the followers of Jesus to live out that vision right now, not in some distant future. He wants us to embrace the highest law now, not when things are hunky-dory, but amid ugly politics, chaos, violence, injustice, opposition, stress, worry, and even evil. Heavenly Father forgive me when my standards do not reflect yours, when I excuse myself from the supreme law, when I declare myself indebted to no one, when my daily life is without heavenly vision. Please me the courage, the tenacity, and humility to pay all I owe, especially my love debt. Amen.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans         

Who Is My Neighbor? Ouch!

Have you ever had a question to which you already knew the answer, but you didn’t like the answer?“Yes, stop smoking, exercise, and change your diet,” was the doctor’s reply to his smoking, overweight patient asking, “Hey Doc, is there anything I can do to improve my health?” 

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.
"Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"What is written in the Law?" he replied, "how do you read it?"
He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'""You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." Luke 10:25-28 (NIV)

This Jesus/God testing lawyer knew the answer to his question, but he didn’t like the answer. It’s even worse when the answer comes out of your own mouth, isn’t it? When you know you are and hear yourself being a living discrepancy. So, this lawyer did what you and I usually do, try to justify ourselves, tell ourselves why we can’t, why it is too difficult, fish for something simpler, a way out, find an excuse to not change.

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Luke 10:29 (NIV) He was asking for a pill that would spare him having to act, not have to give up anything, change nothing. He was trying to excuse his not-neighbor-loving passivity by raising a philosophical/theological inner dilemma. He was fishing for a minimum standard, like love is in the habit of functioning by minimum standards. He wanted to remain in control instead of his love for God and people controlling him. He was looking for some legitimacy for selective loving or loving not at all.Jesus never does answer the “who is my neighbor?” question, instead, he tells maybe his most famous story and asks a question in return, makes the God-tester say the answer out loud for the second time.

In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? "The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise" Luke 10:30-37 (NIV).

The question is not, “Who is my neighbor?” it is, “Are you a neighbor?” Because when you are a neighbor you see like a neighbor, you empathize like a neighbor, you have compassion like a neighbor, you engage like a neighbor. You no longer are trying to complete a checklist of love before taking off to eternal life/heaven but see life, people, circumstances through the eyes of love and react accordingly. Maybe it is time to drop the excuses, the action-paralyzing mind-games, the magic pill search that will remedy our selectively loving or outright loveless hearts and begin to “love your neighbor as ourselves.”

May you and I, long before we go to heaven, be known as the kind of neighbors the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” envisions.

To God be all Glory. Love you, Pastor Hans