Evangelical - Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kasachstan and Central Asia.
Lutheran Congregations of Russian Far East
Vladivostok - Ussurijsk - Arsenjev - Khabarovsk
Komsomolsk-na-Amure - Blagoveshensk - Tchita - Magadan
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  Sermon for the 12th Sunday after Trinity, August 18, 2013
  Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, June 23, 2013
  Sermon for Quasimodogeniti Sunday, April 7, 2013

Epiphany Meditation

One of the challenges of serving in the Russian Lutheran Church is the use here of an older lectionary; it is based on a six-year cycle and each Sunday has a single, designated “preaching text.“ This year during Epiphany, on the Sunday we celebrate Jesus's baptism, the text was from the book of Joshua (3:5-11,17) - the story of the chosen people crossing the Jordan.

Joshua is a book in the Bible that many of us might tend to avoid. For modern readers it raises uncomfortable questions about the connection between faith and violence; even more significantly here, the book's dominant image of conquest of land brings to mind current disputes between Russia and its neighbors. Yet, if one can

Every body of water becomes "the Jordan" for the Orthodox on Christ's Baptism.

look beyond or through these difficulties, the text can be significant and helpful on another level.

As the Pentateuch closes, God has brought the people out of slavery. The time under Moses's leadership was filled with much that was positive – manna in the desert, pillars of cloud and flame for navigation, commandments for guidance of everyday living, and God's direct conversation with the people through their leader. But now, after Moses's death, a new era has arrived; God forms relationships differently. There are some disappointments in this, certainly; sometimes it seems preferable to go back to the old way. Yet in a new time there are also new horizons, new hopes, a new vision for the future.

The Russian Lutheran Church has a history that can find parallels with the history of the chosen people. They, too, were an ethnic minority (Germans, mostly, but also Finns and Estonians and Latvians) in a land (the Russian Empire) that viewed their presence as something positive...until they didn't. Then these minority peoples were a problem, a threat. While they did not know slavery as such, the labor camps where they were sent caused just as much suffering; they were torn from their homes, their places of worship were closed or destroyed, and thousands upon thousands died.

Then times changed again. And while there may not have been a single, individual Moses for Russian Lutherans, there were a great many leaders, most of whom came from abroad, who helped guide the church as it was first emerging from what was a kind of slavery under the Communist regime. These “moses“ took the church quite far...but not yet into the promised land. For the church to go further, to really make a home in their new context, they would need new leaders.

And now the Russian Lutheran church is at that stage of settling the land. In doing so there is no trace of an invasion mentality – their neighbors, after all, are not enemies. And just as many Old Testament scholars today would say that the chosen people coming into the Promised Land had a lot to do with winning over hearts and minds to the values and faith of the Hebrew people, so, too, Lutherans spread the Gospel here through word and action, convincing people of the power of the Good News through exemplary lives of faith.

The book of Joshua has limited use insofar as it speaks of taking faith into new territories, but other parts of Scripture provide metaphors that prove to be more helpful; Russian Lutherans together with others in the former Soviet Union have resurrection at the center of their thinking and their action. They experienced a death and now catch glimpses of new life.

Our Lutheran churches in Russia and in the United States were never called to become dominant in the political and religious landscapes of our respective countries. But we the baptized are called to enter a new era, trusting in the Lord's guidance; putting aside disappointments and taking note of all the little epiphanies that have a place both in this season and throughout the year, we continue on our common journey of faith, striving onward (even through death) to the resurrection that awaits.

Bradn Buerkle. ELCA Pastor. Head of the Equipping for Service educational project of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia and Dean of the Russian Far East