Other translations of the sermon:
Text: Deuteronomy 7: 6-11 (NIV)
6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.
8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.
11 Therefore take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.
Dear Congregation!
The Bible is a wonderful book. It offers words of promise, consolation, and encouragement. Today, the 6th Sunday after Trinity Sunday, is dedicated to the subject of baptism, and today this observation is particularly true.
The Bible’s message has a story. It does not begin with Christianity, but leads further back to the Jewish roots of our religion. For there too, God has a history that can be experienced and understood in the history of the people of Israel. God has chosen Israel, and he is with them, through the bright, but also through the dreary and dark times that this people had to experience. In times of crisis and uncertainty, it is important to confirm that one is not alone, to be clear that life has meaning, and that God gives us support, even and especially when the ways we are guided are not understood by us.
Today’s text is such an assurance that God calls us all by name. The Bible’s text fits – even though baptism cannot be its original theme – this Sunday where we focus on baptism. In the fifth book of Moses (Deuteronomy), the people of Israel are reminded of God's promises, reaffirmed with God, who has begun a story with his people.
God’s original promises are a reality here: God chooses the smallest of the small, which, at first sight, is hardly meaningful. He chooses His people out of love and affection, out of loyalty and attachment. He does it because he keeps His word and promises, no matter how long ago they were made. Even if this God can sometimes be angry or far away. He is there; his mercy overshadows every wrath and apparent absence. And again, God keeps his covenant and faithfulness eternally. We have not chosen Him, but God has chosen us – formulated here in today’s text. It’s a joy to find this fact in the Bible, this wonderful book, so clearly explained.
I have been baptized: that is the summary of Martin Luther’s belief, who, unfortunately, sometimes had his difficulties with tolerance against other Christians. Yet I have been baptized quite rightly sums up his faith, his confidence, even when it was difficult and dark in life. We have been chosen is how Israel, God’s people, held fast to their God and, in spite of all the evil adversaries, did not despair of their God. How did they persevere? God’s people, just like Israel of the Bible, need this certainty, this hope based on the fidelity of God. So that we do not lose ourselves, so that we may keep hope, so that our fears will not overpower us or lead us into unilateral friend vs. foe schemes, from which it is difficult to exit. We cannot invent promises to promise ourselves, it must be a promise, a commitment, spoken towards us. That is why we join others in worship, why we seek the fellowship of others, why we go out to testify of God's message in this world.
But sometimes I also notice how fragile, how precious, this life is. I experience this as a priest, but of course also in the circle of my family and friends again and again. How often do I have to accompany people's diseases, in case of death? Especially when it comes to young people or even to children, this is hard for me. It also questions me. I too then read the words of God's promise and faithfulness once again. The words are not simply said as rote, but they combine doubt and faith. Both belong together, cannot be separated. Is God really true to his word? Where are God’s promises of consolation, his accompaniment, if something unbearable happens, when a beloved person who could not even live his life, which was still at the very beginning, is taken away?
Is God faithful? Does he keep His promises? I do not know how I would react if adversity would meet me, or my family, very closely. I hope I know. Just as I try to share with people: I firmly believe that God is also there, in the pain of parents, in the hopes and fears, in every life, whether it is three, eighteen, or 94 years. I want to believe it, because otherwise very little makes sense in life. I cannot know it, but I want to believe it, because it carries me, because it carries others, even where knowledge and speeches no longer support us. That's what faith is. In baptism I receive a promise, a promise also for times of suffering and distress and pain. Just as we will sing it now in the chorale:
You have declared me as your child and heir, my dear father,/ you have given me the fruit of your death, my faithful Saviour, /to be in all torments and pain, o holy spirit, my comforter.
Amen.