A Thought for August 13

August 13, 1727, Berthelsdorf, Germany, the Renewed Moravian Church was born. The Spirit descended in the midst of Holy Communion and they were changed. The people responded at the end of the day,

"We learned to love!" 



The Moravian motto has been

In essentials, unity;
In non-essentials, liberty;
In all things, love.

 Perhaps then, LOVE is the #1 essential? After all, God IS love and we remember that God so LOVED the world... Yet, too often, we hate and divide. We judge, blame, point fingers, seek to build ourselves at the expense of others.

How then, in an age of division, can we again learn what it means to love? Ah, but love attracts less attention than attacking. No one gets hurt, no great headlines can be written, no "Film at 11:00!" because love is much deeper. Everyone gets hurt when we hate- and it makes for good ratings.

How do we love when all around us there are calls to yell, get angry, shake the hateful fist, retaliate?

How do we stand for the work of the Holy Spirit when the Spirit and the Word have been undermined by a culture of division where those who are different are an enemy?

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Short Reflection on 44 Years

September 15, 1974,
Grace Moravian Church,
Center Valley, PA

I was ordained into the ministry of the Moravian Church.

Not what would have been expected just slightly more than 13 years earlier when I had my Bar Mitzvah. (God can have an incredible sense of humor.)

For the next 30 years I served four different congregations and then took a leave of absence, then retirement, to move into the world beyond the church. I was already working very part-time as an alcohol and drug counselor, but decided it was time to make that my full-time work. As I said a few years later, I finally heard God calling me into ministry outside the church.

I am still at that ministry of addiction counseling! Back in the 1970s days I used to say that the older pastors should retire when they got to 65. They had earned the rest; they should relax and enjoy life. That kneeling 26-year old in the picture had no idea what he was talking about. I am now 70- and still working. Admittedly it is on an as-needed basis. But for the past four months that has been 40 hours per week. I have no thought of hanging it up. I like what I am doing, although admittedly the 40-hour grind can get a little much. I'm now at 20 hours/week.

But it is always and forever about being there for people. That's what ministry means to me. Over the years I have asked many non-clergy about how they "do ministry" in their daily jobs. Most were not able to answer me because they saw ministry as the work of the clergy. What I do now is not done because I am an ordained pastor (Ret.) Nor is it a job. It is an expression of who I am and what I have received and experienced from God, as I understand God.

It all officially began in that moment pictured above. After 44 years, it is no less exciting. And I still have so much to learn.

“We Learned to Love”: August 13, 1727

The events of August 13, 1727, when at the conclusion of a Holy Communion service in Berthelsdorf the residents of Herrnhut united into the Renewed Brethren’s Church, are traditionally considered the spiritual birthday of the Moravian Church. - Moravian Archives

It was 290 years ago today. The Renewed Moravian Church was empowered through the Holy Spirit working on the refugees from the historic Moravian Church- The Unitas Fratrum. From that moment everything changed and they moved into a different world than they had been living in. They were never able to describe what happened in that service that was so powerful. They only knew that they had "learned to love." They discovered that they had a calling from God. They weren't sure what that would mean, but they were willing to begin the journey.

As a result of that one day, factions dissolved and, in but a few years, they were sending the first Protestant missionaries around the world. They started a rich musical heritage second to none. They had an important impact on the life and faith of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church. They started a 100-year long continuous prayer watch.

The world-wide Moravian Unity is still witnessing to the power of God to use all who follow to do amazing things. We have shown over and over that it does not need to be the large and famous churches that do the great things. It is in faithfulness and commitment that the Holy Spirit works.

Our motto continues to move and direct us:
In essentials, unity;
In non-essentials, liberty;
In all things, love.

Calendar of Saints: Jan Hus (2)

Twice a week I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.


Jan Hus
Priest, Prophetic Witness and Martyr
July 6
600th Anniversary

In 1414 he was summoned to the Council of Constance, with the Emperor guaranteeing his personal safety even if found guilty. He was tried, and ordered to recant certain heretical doctrines. He replied that he had never held or taught the doctrines in question, and was willing to declare the doctrines false, but not willing to declare on oath that he had once taught them. The one point on which Hus could be said to have a doctrinal difference with the Council was that he taught that the office of the pope did not exist by Divine command, but was established by the Church that things might be done in an orderly fashion (a view that he shared with Thomas More). The Council, having just narrowly succeeded in uniting Western Christendom under a single pope after years of chaos, was not about to have its work undone. It accordingly found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake on 6 July 1415.

After his death, his followers continued to insist on the importance of administering the Holy Communion in both kinds, and defeated several armies sent against them. In 1436 a pact was signed, by which the Church in Bohemia was authorized to administer Chalice as well as Host to all communicants. The followers of John Huss and his fellow martyr Jerome of Prague became known as the Czech Brethren and later as the Moravians. The Moravian Church survives to this day, and has had a considerable influence on the Lutheran movement. When Luther suddenly became famous after the publication of his 95 Theses, cartoons and graffiti began to appear implying that Luther was the spiritual heir of John Huss. When Luther encountered the Pope's representative Johannes Eck, in a crucial debate, Eck sidestepped the questions of indulgences and of justification by faith, and instead asked Luther whether the Church had been right to condemn Hus. When Luther, after thinking it over, said that Hus had been unjustly condemned, the whole question of the authority of Popes and Councils was raised.

-Link

Calendar of Saints: Jan Hus (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Jan Hus
Priest, Prophetic Witness and Martyr
July 6
600th Anniversary

John Huss (Jan Hus) was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in about 1371. He received a master's degree from Charles University in Prague in 1396, became a professor of theology in 1398, was ordained to the priesthood in 1400, was made rector of the University in 1402, and in 1404 received a bachelor's degree in theology (presumably a more advanced degree than the term suggests today).

Meanwhile, Hus had begun to denounce various church abuses in his sermons. His disputes with authority did not concern basic theological issues, but rather matters of church discipline and practice. The custom had arisen, at celebrations of the Lord's Supper, of distributing the consecrated bread to all Christians in good standing who desired to receive it, but restricting the chalice to the celebrant alone. Hus denounced this restriction as contrary to Holy Scripture and to the ancient tradition of the Church. He also held that Church officials ought to exercise spiritual powers only, and not be earthly governors. In 1412 his archbishop excommunicated him, not for heresy, but for insubordination. (The real problem was that Hus supported one papal claimant and the archbishop another. Hus's candidate was ultimately declared to be the true pope.) Matters came to a head when one claimant (later declared unfit) proclaimed a sale of indulgences to raise money for a war against his rivals. Hus was horrified at the idea of selling spiritual benefits to finance a war between two claimants to the title "Servant of the Servants of God," and said so.

-Link

Jan Hus- Apostle, Prophet, Martyr

I preached yesterday and since today is the Saints' Day for Jan Hus I brought some of my Moravian history and legacy to the Episcopal Church where we are now members. Here's the basic manuscript I went from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday's Gospel

Mark 6:1-13
He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

The Sermon

On Being a Prophet

This morning’s Gospel is one of those eminently quotable passages: A prophet is not without honor, Jesus says, except in his home country. Mark made sure we saw the contrast as he moves from Jesus NOT being able to do many miracles in Nazareth to what the disciples did as they were sent out.

But this isn’t a story about having to leave your hometown behind in order to preach or minister. It’s about "call"- and the prophetic side of responding to the call. Which of course raises the question: What does it mean to be a prophet?

First we have to set aside the idea of telling the future - which is not what prophets are all about. When they tell what is going to happen in the future, they are telling what will happen when the people don’t follow God’s call to them. So the first thing prophets are about is hearing the "call". That leads to a sense of humility- the "call" isn’t about me, it’s about God calling the person. Humbling- or should be. When the prophet reaches that point then, they will begin to follow set of values or principles based on the way of God.

So far so good.

Unfortunately when one reaches that level of being “called” things begin to get a little dicey. A quick look around will show that the ways of God- God’s values- are not often the basis for what is happening around us in the world. You know- those values like

• caring for the least and the lost; 
• remembering the prisoner and the sick; 
• working for the betterment of the homeless and those oppressed by political, religious or economic injustice.

At which point the one hearing the “call” can quickly opt out or face an even more difficult choice. The choice is whether or not to challenge the status quo- the powers that be- and take the side of those who have no power; give voice to those whose voice is muted or silenced.

Perhaps that is why the prophet has so much trouble in his hometown- he knows the people as well as they know him and it becomes difficult to take those necessary stands in that setting.

But many DO stand up and find they have a more far-reaching impact than they would have ever thought.

Six hundred years ago [yesterday]- July 5, 1415- one of those prophets sat in a prison in Constance, a significant university and political center in SW Germany, near the Swiss Border. This prisoner had been promised safe-passage by the Emperor, but had instead found himself imprisoned by the officials of the Roman Church holding an ecumenical council in the city.

The prisoner’s name was Jan Hus and [today] is his Day on the Calendar of Saints of both the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches. He was a priest from Prague who was caught in the middle of church and state because he had responded to a "call" to stand up to what he saw as corruption in the church.

Awakened by the writings of England’s John Wycliffe, Hus antagonized the church by likening the pope to antichrist. He urged that lay people be allowed both the bread and wine at Eucharist instead of only the bread. Calling for a reformed priesthood, he repudiated indulgences and rejected masses for the dead as worthless. Like Wycliffe, he declared that the Bible should be the sole standard by which the church judges religious truth.

He went into exile in 1413, unable to return to Prague, where he had taught and preached for 13 years. He stayed in exile, not from personal fear, but because the pope has placed an interdict on any city which harbored him. Rather than give Rome a reason to deprive Prague of baptism and communion, he chose exile under the protection of his feudal lord.

Hus had been wrongly described as a heretic, charged with beliefs he never held.

Just before traveling to Constance, Hus had written to a friend that he knew that by himself he could not restore all truth but vows at least not to be truth’s enemy. The world may run on in its usual way, but as for himself, he said,

Truth conquers all things.

In Constance, the council refused to allow him to speak. They ordered him to recant his heresies which he couldn’t do, he insists, since he had never held them.

Knowing that he faced death by burning, if he did not recant, he made a final declaration on the 1st of July, 1415:

I, Jan Hus, in hope a priest of Jesus Christ, fearing to offend God, and fearing to fall into perjury, do hereby profess my unwillingness to abjure all or any of the articles produced against me by false witnesses. For God is my witness that I neither preached, affirmed, nor defended them, though they say that I did.

I say I write this of my own free will and choice.

 They sentenced him to die by burning at the stake. On the morning of July 6, 1415, Hus was given one last opportunity to recant- which he naturally refused- and he died singing.

His followers were both religious and secular. The religious side, within 40 years founded what is now called the Moravian Church. Luther a century later affirmed that he was a Hussite. The Moravians found their way to England in the 1600s and bequeathed the legacy to the Anglicans.

The secular side became Czech nationalists and this weekend, celebrations are being held around the Czech Republic on the 600th Anniversary of his death.

The idea that “truth conquers all things,” or “truth prevails,” is not original with Hus. A few years earlier, Wycliffe had written,

I believe that in the end the truth will conquer.

The work of a prophet is to speak the truth to power. It is to be a voice for God’s ways. It may not always turn out the way WE want it to. Nor is it likely to always be popular. But we- each in our own way are called to be a source of the grace of God. As we each hear the call to mission, ministry and the way of a prophet, may we heed the words of one of Hus’s prayers.

Seek truth,
listen to the truth,
learn the truth,
love the truth,
speak the truth,
keep the truth,
defend the truth with your very life!

Toward Pentecost (46): Mission

Calendar of Saints: Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (2)

Twice a week I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf
Prophetic Witness
May 10

Zinzendorf took the deepest interest in mission. He travelled widely, visiting America in 1741-42 and spending a long time in London in 1750. Missionary colonies had by this time been settled in the West Indies (1732), in Greenland (1733), amongst the North American Indians (1735); and before Zinzendorf's death the Brethren had sent from Herrnhut missionary colonies to many other places throughout the known world. -Link

Calendar of Saints: Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf
Prophetic Witness
May 10

I was pleasantly surprised the other year when I first saw the contemporary Episcopal Church Calendar of Saints. There, on May 10 was our Moravian "patron saint." Zinzendorf was a prophetic witness to the power of the Spirit working in renewal and in trying to work across denominations.

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, Imperial Count of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, (May 26, 1700 – May 9, 1760), German religious and social reformer and bishop of the Moravian Church, was born at Dresden. His intention was to carry out into practice the Pietist ideals. He did not mean to found a new church or religious organization distinct from the Lutheranism of the land, but to create a Christian association the members of which by preaching, by tract and book distribution and by practical benevolence might awaken the somewhat torpid religion of the Lutheran Church of his day.

He is celebrated as a hymn writer and witness to ecumenism. -Link

Toward Pentecost (34): Eternal Life

Toward Pentecost (33): Unity

Toward Pentecost (32): Discipline

Reflecting on Mission

Last Sunday was Mission Festival at a local church. I went to hear what the speaker- a dynamic young man with the Board of World Mission had to say and to worship in support of the ideal of missions. Mission Festivals have been a significant part of the life of the Moravian Church (and others) for a long time. The Moravians were the first Protestant missionaries, sending the first workers to the West Indies in the early 1730s. They went to share the Gospel with the slaves, not a particularly popular thing among the slave owners. The first missionary even went so far as to proclaim that he would become a slave if he had to in order to share the Gospel with them.

When I became a Christian at age 15 it was through a mission-oriented Baptist congregation. There was a mission training facility a few miles up the road and one of the sons of the congregation was a mission worker through them. Every year or so he would come home on furlough and share his work with the congregation which was giving him financial support. In addition we would regularly get letters from him outlining what he was doing. This was out version of the Mission Festival and always was moving and exciting to me.

So it should come as little surprise to anyone (but me, of course) that when I found a denomination that I felt called to be part of and to be ordained in, the Moravian Church, mission pioneers, was where I settled. I have been part of the church now for over 43 years, forty of those as an ordained pastor. Mission work has, of course, changed and, in reality, expanded to something I find even more exciting than I did back in my high school years. Mission has become far more than the sharing of the words and promise of the Gospel. It is now sharing the heart, life, healing, and soul of the Gospel where it needs to be shared.

This, too, was part of the early Moravian mission work and there are many stories about care and concern beyond simply converting the unbelievers. But it has been the changes in world cultures, technology and the self-understanding of the church that has made the biggest impact, taking the basic understanding of mission into more than it ever was.

One of the ways I understood this was to begin with the people at home and introduce them to mission as something THEY do, something they are engaged in. It becomes, at that point, a combined educational and missional experience. I first learned this through a Lutheran Church in Greenwich Village when I was doing an internship in Bethlehem, PA. The church in New York would bring youth from outside the city into the Village for a weekend of what the city was about. They had a mission to runaways and, in those days of the early 70s that was significant. It was quite an experience. When I moved to my first Moravian congregation, I signed up to take a group. Later we went to another Moravian Church on Staten Island to experience the city and its potential for mission.

You see what I learned at Operation Eyeopener was that when you enter New York City you are simply placing a big magnifying glass over the problems and needs. The same problems and needs are to be found in your local community. Once you can begin to see them, you can begin to minister to them. To me that was an essential and basic understanding of what the Christian Church is to be. Without that, we are nothing but a country club. (I do have a way of exaggerating for emphasis.) A few years later I moved to Wisconsin where a “mission trip” movement was beginning at the church I was called to serve. The day I was installed as pastor, one of the members was in Alaska on a mission trip. The point was not lost.

Three years later I arranged a trip of about 15 youth and adults to travel east from Wisconsin to New York City where the denomination had a food program for the homeless and were about to open housing for older people who had been homeless. We raised the money and traveled by train in what may have been one of the first such mission trips from the Western District. Others began to organize trips for adults to Central America and the West Indies. It took off- and hasn’t stopped.

There was some initial push-back from others, though not usually from the congregation itself. Other pastors would periodically say that we shouldn’t be spending the money that way or that it wasn’t really mission. We were simply doing tourism. While there is some truth in that, it is as much educational as it is mission so that when we got home we were more mission-aware. Adults or youth would invariably comment that they were touched, moved, changed by the experiences. Interestingly some of those clergy who raised concerns would later go on their own mission trips and become convinced of the importance and power of the experience.

As a result of some major work in the Southern Province along with a number of lay people from the Western District the whole mission trip experience expanded in the 90s and 2000s to include a number of different opportunities. Some of us even began to also take youth to places like the West Indies, Jamaica, or Native American reservations. Friendships were made, rebuilding work was done, mission was expanded.

I thought of all those things last Sunday listening to the next generation of mission leadership challenging us to keep our vision. The work of the church – what we call “mission”- is alive and well. It is just as essential as it ever has been. No, it is not always bringing people to Jesus. It is often more like taking Jesus to them.

I am excited for the future of the mission of the church. The “church” is at a time of change and uncertainty. Politics and fundamentalism have combined forces in our world to distort the message of Jesus into something I don’t believe Jesus would recognize. It is not a triumphalist attitude that mission work promotes. It is just the opposite. It is like the first Moravian missionary, willing to become a slave in order to share the Gospel.

The Passing of a Pioneer

Hers is not a name that will go down in the great annals of the wider Christian Church, but in our little corner of the People of Christ, she was a first.  Her name was Mary and she was the first woman to be ordained in the Moravian Church, Northern Province.

It was the early 70s when she entered Seminary- the same time I did. I was ordained in September 1974, she a few months later. She opened the door to a whole new way of ministry and being the church. It was a wondrous day when the clergy of our denomination opened up to the possibility and joy of being an inclusive clergy population.

Hers was a second career, something unusual for clergy in that era, far more common today. She was the wife of the Dean of the seminary. She was a calm presence among us younger, hot-headed idealists and angry young men. (There was another woman student.) She faced the same questions about women clergy that all women entering the field did (and still do in some places.)

She just did her thing. She was able to do it with a sense of grace that many of us younger students probably didn't appreciate at the time. She peacefully paved a road that had not been traveled before.

Mary died this week. A quiet pioneer who did what she had to do to follow her calling.

So What's a "Putz?"

Church St. & Central Moravian Church, December 1972

We have a month until Christmas. Things are going to be busy, so here's news and links of an old Moravian tradition.

Here's a link to WFMZ-TV in the Lehigh Valley and a video piece on the "Putz" at Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem, PA.

LINK to WFMZ

What is a "Putz," you ask?

According to Wikipedia:

In early-colonial American Moravian homes, the construction of a nativity scene, or putz, at the base of a Christmas tree was a very common holiday activity. The term was derived from the German verb putzen, which means "to clean" or "to decorate."

Central Moravian Putz link

Some other links found quickly on Google:

Nazareth Moravian Web page

Facebook for Edgeboro Moravian Church

Mountainview Moravian Link

East Hills Moravian Link

Article on First Moravian York, PA, putz from 2008

Even in Labrador, a link

Great Stellated Rhombicuboctahexagon

It is now officially Advent.

An Amazing Musical Heritage

Donald at the organ- still after 70 years

Last month the Berea Moravian Church celebrated with our organist 70 years of worship leadership. All at the same church. Yes, 70 years. 1941 when Donald was 16. We had a wonderful day of honoring him, singing to his playing and listening to his special music.

He also received the James Salzwedel Award from the Moravian Music Foundation. Gwyneth Michel, Assistant Director of the Moravian Music Foundation presented him  the award.






WKBT in La Crosse, WI, did a video report on Donald. They gave him over 5 minutes of their news time. Here's the LINK to WKBT website.

The congregation also gave Donald a quilt of pictures and signatures. On the left is the center panel including some of the Salzwedel citation.

An OLD Memory....

A friend and fellow Moravian has this posted today on their Facebook page.

...the Moravian church is 554 years young today...Fighting fundamentalism since 1457. :)

I just couldn't keep it secret.

Moravian Seal, or Agnus Dei,
stained glass window in the Rights Chapel at
Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, NC (J. Jackman)

For over five centuries the Moravian Church has proclaimed the gospel in all parts of the world. Its influence has far exceeded its numbers as it has cooperated with Christians on every continent and has been a visible part of the Body of Christ, the Church. Proud of its heritage and firm in its faith, the Moravian Church ministers to the needs of people wherever they are.

The name Moravian identifies the fact that this historic church had its origin in ancient Bohemia and Moravia in what is the present-day Czech Republic. In the mid-ninth century these countries converted to Christianity chiefly through the influence of two Greek Orthodox missionaries, Cyril and Methodius. They translated the Bible into the common language and introduced a national church ritual. In the centuries that followed, Bohemia and Moravia gradually fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome, but some of the Czech people protested.

The foremost of Czech reformers, John Hus (1369-1415) was a professor of philosophy and rector of the University in Prague. The Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, where Hus preached, became a rallying place for the Czech reformation. Gaining support from students and the common people, he led a protest movement against many practices of the Roman Catholic clergy and hierarchy. Hus was accused of heresy, underwent a long trial at the Council of Constance, and was burned at the stake on July 6, 1415.

ORGANIZED IN 1457
The reformation spirit did not die with Hus. The Moravian Church, or Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren), as it has been officially known since 1457, arose as followers of Hus gathered in the village of Kunvald, about 100 miles east of Prague, in eastern Bohemia, and organized the church. This was 60 years before Martin Luther began his reformation and 100 years before the establishment of the Anglican Church. By 1467 the Moravian Church had established its own ministry, and in the years that followed three orders of the ministry were defined: deacon, presbyter and bishop.
--Moravian.org