1The Lutheran August 2012

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AUGUST 2012NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA

Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he … who will sustain you [ Isa 46:4]

Trinity, Rosedale, Qld

Housewife, church organist

Enjoys listening to classical music and reading

Fav text: Ps 23

Margaret MattiskeSt Mark’s, Dalby, Qld

Retired

Enjoys pig-shooting, fishing, bird-watching

Fav text: 2 Chron 7:14

CONTACTS Editor Linda Macqueen PO Box 664, Stirling SA 5152, Australia phone (+61) 08 8339 5178 email linda.macqueen@lca.org.au

Beyond10K Project Officer Janise Fournier phone 08 8387 0328 email janise.fournier@lca.org.au

National Magazine Committee Wayne Gehling (chair), Greg Hassold, Sarah Hoff-Zweck, Pastor Richard Schwedes, Heidi Smith

Design and layout Comissa Fischer Printer Openbook Howden

EDITOR/ADVERTISING phone 08 8339 5178 email linda.macqueen@lca.org.au

SUBSCRIPTIONS phone 08 8360 7270email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au

www.thelutheran.com.au We Love The Lutheran!

As the magazine of the Lutheran Church of Australia (incorporating the Lutheran Church of New Zealand), The Lutheran informs the members of the LCA about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia. The Lutheran is a member of the Australasian Religious Press Association and as such subscribes to its journalistic and editorial codes of conduct.

SUBSCRIPTIONS and CHANGES of ADDRESS LCA Subscriptions PO Box 731, North Adelaide SA 5006 phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au www.thelutheran.com.au

11 issues per year— Australia $40 New Zealand $42 Asia/Pacific $51 Rest of the World $60

Issued every month except in January

ADVERTISEMENTS and MANUSCRIPTS Should be directed to the editor. Manuscripts are published at the discretion of the editor. Those that are published may be cut or edited. Advertisements are accepted for publication on a date-received basis. Acceptance of advertisements does not imply endorsement by The Lutheran or the Lutheran Church of Australia of advertiser, product or service. Copy deadline: 1st of preceding month Rates: general notices and small advertisements, $18.00 per cm; for display, contract and inserted advertisements, contact the editor.

People like you are salt in your world

Trinity, Bordertown, SA

Rural contract fencer

Enjoys enthusiasm!

Fav text: John 3:16

Kieren Brown Des Steinhardt

A RAINY DAY FRIENDRichard Haby (St John’s, Unley, SA) reads The Lutheran during a rain break at Worcester County Cricket Ground, UK. (The famous Worcester Cathedral is in the background.)

Photo: Janet Haby

Send us a photograph featuring a recent copy of The Lutheran and you might see it here on page 2

[ Matt 5:13 ]

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Surprise someone you know with their photo in The Lutheran. Send us a print-quality photo, their name and details (congregation, occupation, what they enjoy doing, favourite text) and your contact details.

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FEATURES

05 A friend at the end

08 This day in paradise

12 Is religion dangerous?

25 Made in China

28 The streets of Wittenberg

COLUMNS

04 From the President

11 Reel Life

14 Little Church

15 Inside Story

20 Letters

22 Notices/Directory

27 Bookmarks

31 Heart and Home

32 World in Brief

34 Coffee Break

08

05For a few seconds there was an ominous emptiness. No intro music, no ‘Good morning, this is the 11.00 am news’. Then these solemn words broke the hefty silence: ‘The Princess of Wales is dead’. Pause. ‘I repeat, the Princess of Wales is dead.’

The news stunned me, as it did millions of people the world over.

I wonder if a major part of the stun factor of Diana’s death was the incongruity of it all. Somehow we had it in our heads that youth, beauty, fame and fortune would protect her against death, grant her immunity, at least until she was 90 or so. And yet, there she was, dead, just like the rest of us will be one of these days.

Death is the great equaliser. No matter who you are or what you've built your security on, in the end you will stare down the barrel of death.

That prospect can strike fear into the hearts of all sorts of people, including those who have been believers in Jesus all their lives. You probably know someone whose lifelong confident faith seemed to falter and fail at the end. My mum used to tell me about a lady who’d been a faithful worshipper all her life, but facing her twilight years, she would wring her hands in agony: ‘Will I go to heaven? Have I been good enough?’ Or you might know a pastor, who’d preached the gospel for 40 years or more, and then, on his deathbed, wrestled with the agonies of doubt: ‘Was it all just one huge lie, a hoax?’

The twilight years can be cruel. On the surface, elderly people might appear calm and cheerful, but who knows what spiritual agonies assault them during all those long, lonely days and nights when they have so much time to think ... and to worry.

Thank God for chaplains who are there to comfort and reassure elderly people as they face their end. I wonder if God sends them as his angels. Angels who carry his grace to his beloved, battle-scarred veterans of life and faith. Angels who are their comfort and strength through their last years, days and hours on earth. Angels who are there with them at the end, still holding their hands and praying until they reach the safe arms of their Saviour.

Aged-care chaplains ... we thank God for you. And we need more of you!

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We Love The Lutheran!

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It’s Sunday morning, and my wife and I are driving to worship. Along the way we see so many people already worshipping. We drive past a gym. The car park is full. No doubt, inside the gym there are bodies to adore!

We pass a junior football match and see parents, grandparents and children. Will the coach proclaim the gospel in this ‘worship’ event, with all its rituals, hopes and expectations?

Next, the plant nursery. Another busy place on Sunday morning. Nature promises so much health and colour with the prospect of new buds.

On the way home we pick up a Sunday paper. Again, so much of it is about worship. Across the pages ‘born again’ atheists and agnostics have a lot to say about nothing. Some followers have become aggressive, vengeful, exclusive and extreme in their negative beliefs.

Perhaps we all unite in searching for something better beyond the confines of our own lives. Is it meaning we crave?

Now we see a mega-structure—a busy, colourful, positive church complex—which seems to have the authority to invite Jesus to their place. We would love to have that. In contrast, in the strangest of places—little, old, cold buildings from another era—a few people gather, and yet are amazed to hear that Jesus, the Saviour, invites them to hear him speak, to join him at his table. Sometimes these are uncomfortable venues and people seem a little reluctant.

The place doesn’t determine it, but there are gatherings where the host invites us in to speak to us, and encourages us

to speak to him. What encouragement! What comfort! We are blessed to hear what God in Christ has done.

Like ‘christian atheists’, we might still appear unsure. We don’t know if we dare to believe. We seem unable to conceive that we have the status of God the Father’s own children, the inheritors of life already now this side of eternity.

Can we really be forgiven? We have our secret regrets, concerns and anxieties. We are tempted to check our stars to see what tomorrow brings.

In these often unpretentious gatherings, the Lord who created heaven and earth, who delights in nature, in our humanness, our expectations, our sport and recreation, our ability to think and to question, gathers us, often ageing, often looking beaten, for a few moments each week to send us out again reassured of his blessing, with our tomorrows in his hands.

The nail-marked hands of Christ. They know pain. They know hopelessness and abandonment. Wounded hands, but the hands which take ours today, tomorrow and into life with him.

Worship is not foreign in this land, but fewer than 20 per cent of Christians worship monthly in Australia. Our Saviour who gives us life and peace and a reason to live eternally says clearly in Hebrews 10:24f: ‘Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching’.

Keep up to date with news, prayer points and call information by visiting http://www.lca.org.au/presidents-page-archive.html or by subscribing to the president’s electronic newsletter. To receive the newsletter, send an email to itofficer@lca.org.au giving the email address you would like included. LCA pastors and layworkers are automatically included in this list.

Rev Dr Mike SemmlerPresident Lutheran Church of Australia

Perhaps we all unite in searching for something better beyond the confines of our own lives. Is it meaning we crave?

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When Cheryl Reif was a chaplain in an aged-care home in Queensland, her day usually started with a coffee, a chat with colleagues leaving from the shift before, and maybe a raid on the staff fridge—just like the start to many other workdays around Australia.

But then her work would often take a turn into matters of life and death. Cheryl might have to sit for hours with a dying man or woman. Things often got challenging. The person might have begun to vomit, or become abusive. Sometimes it was difficult for them to focus on anything except their sores.

Confronting death is not for the faint-hearted. But Cheryl thanks God for every chance she was been given to be part of it, because right at the end, again things often changed.

‘Maybe just before death their eyes open very clearly and they whisper that

they want you to pray the Lord's Prayer or sing Jesus loves me just once more, and as you do so they die peacefully’, Cheryl says.

‘[I was often] still sitting with that person’s body when their family arrived, and they were so grateful that I was with their loved one. Times like this make one feel so close to God. To have the privilege to see one of God’s children return to him is something that is precious and unbelievable and unexplainable and so personal that it still gives me the cold shivers in the best possible way.’

The daily work of a chaplain or pastoral carer in an aged-care setting revolves around the rhythms of faith, such as compassionate listening, praying with residents and providing opportunities for study and worship.

Another large part of the job is allowing people to talk about the things that a

person regrets about their life. These are often the things that are standing between them and God. Some pastoral-care workers give simple acts of care, such as gently massaging people’s hands and letting them talk about anything they want. The gift of touch can also lead to healing.

Cheryl employed even more innovative ways of re-introducing a person to their Lord. Once, her daily routine included watching the television news with an unreconstructed atheist.

She was brand-new to this kind of work. ‘The activities coordinator told me not to bother visiting Bill (not his real name) as he was “not a Christian and his god is his TV”’, Cheryl says.

Unable to resist the challenge, Cheryl went to say hello. But when Bill found out she was the new chaplain, he got quite gruff and said he didn’t want to see her.

Aged care is the new Australian mission field.

A Friend at the End by Serena Williams

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‘I said, “I didn’t come to see you; I came to watch the news on TV … I have no intention of talking about God to you, unless you want me to’, Cheryl says.

After half a dozen such visits, Bill eventually said, ‘Okay, when are you going to tell me about this God you believe in?’

‘The Holy Spirit opened the door and I gently walked in’, Cheryl says. ‘For the next month or so we would watch the news, then talk about my faith.’

Eventually Bill revealed he had had a bad experience with his church and had turned his back on the ‘whole thing’.

‘But before he died, Bill came to re-know Jesus as his personal Saviour’, Cheryl says. ‘We prayed together while he died. He doesn't know how much he taught me—to be patient and wait on God’s timing, to listen more carefully for opportunities, to be open to all faith walks’.

Bill’s story becomes familiar after you talk with a few chaplains. It is a story that is repeated over again by people with shining faces who work with the ageing, the sick and the dying: being able to be with people, to reunite them with Jesus, to be his hands and his comfort as they go back to God.

It is not just ‘prodigals’ who need assurance as they enter their last years, says Kris Reeve, a retired aged-care nurse who volunteers as a pastoral carer for her congregation and its associated retirement village.

‘When someone has Christian faith there is the perception that they are secure, when in actual fact they can be quite insecure as ageing takes place’, Kris says. ‘They question a lot more, and reassurance is needed. We need to remind them of the love of God. Often they may be worried about wrong they have done in their lives.’

A major part of Kris’s role, both in her church’s associated aged-care home and also in her church community, is to provide the help that would traditionally have been the role of the wider family, such as attending doctor’s appointments as driver and advocate.

Often elderly people—even those who have been participating fully in church life—lose confidence in old age. Maybe their family are not as attentive as they would like. It is also common that people who are used to caring for others simply feel worthless when they are the one being cared for.

Society more broadly does not value the depth and wealth of life

experiences. Often, once they have gone into aged-care homes, older people can feel that their life of service and value is over.

As Pastor Tim Kowald, chaplain at Fullarton Lutheran Homes, puts it, ‘God’s children must heed his call to be those through whom people will see him. Everyone needs to know that they are seen and loved, especially by the Lord, as they fulfil their life’s pilgrimage.’

Kris says absolutely everyone feels some fear about the process of dying, even those whom we would view as most faithful. ‘I have been with more than one pastor’s wife … everyone has the expectation that they would be above all the doubts, they wouldn’t have any questions. But just like the rest of us humans, as death approaches they can also become filled with anxiety. One I can remember kept asking, “Am I worthy? What’s going to happen next? Will God accept me?”

‘I reassured her that it is not about anything you have done or are able to do. It is God’s gift that he loves you and will be with you throughout this and finally bring you to himself in heaven.’

Pastor Paul Semmler, Lutheran Community Care Queensland’s

To have the privilege to see one of God’s children return to him is something that is precious and unbelievable and unexplainable and so personal that it still gives me the cold shivers in the best possible way.’

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director of chaplaincy and pastoral care, says aged-care homes are the new mission fields.

‘Aged-care services are no longer merely extensions of the congregation that the pastor pops into every now and then for a visit’, he says. ‘Our services are filled with people who are not Lutheran, in fact not even Christian or familiar with the Christian faith, who are needing to find meaning for life, and God’s love in Jesus Christ.’

Chaplains and pastoral-care workers insist that the chaplaincy relationship does not need to be purely about younger people providing spiritual care to older people. They say we can and should encourage the aged themselves to help in the mission work, in different ways.

‘A lot of our elderly people have a great wealth of pastoral-care experience that they could pass on to others’, says Cheryl. ‘The elderly need to be taught to mentor as well, to keep their brains functioning and to make them feel useful.’

This would lessen the frustrating feeling that they are no longer wanted or needed and empower Christian residents to help build the faith of the whole community, including staff who do not believe.

Just as Kris feels people considering aged-care chaplaincy should have maturity in order to deal with the emotional challenges, so also Pastor Kowald believes that the generations have much to offer each other.

‘Human needs in dealing with loneliness, regrets, betrayals and heartaches remain the same across the generations’, Pastor Kowald says. ‘Often the aged still have spiritual resources on which to draw, which helps them through—such as recalling hymns, recording a friend’s gift of wisdom and reciting the catechism—while this is generally less the case for the younger generation. So our elderly members have good blessings for others.’

Cheryl says that the church’s aged-care facilities could be used as venues where older wisdom and youthful energy can be integrated by having chapels open to families and the young, and also playgrounds for grandchildren.

Pastor Gordon Wegener is the chairman of the Board for Lutheran Aged Care Australia (BLACA). He explains that the work of pastoral care to the ageing is not as simple as just being there when they are dying. It is primarily about being available to listen, as people go through all of the experiences of ageing, and offering grace and hope through prayer, word and sacraments.

‘As people face the losses, changes and diminishings of growing old, our mission is to bring the message that God holds us and is present, that life has meaning, purpose and hope in the later years’, he says.

Pastors have traditionally fulfilled this role, but as our church facilities and community now have such large ageing communities, the church has had to train and prepare more lay workers to share this vital mission work. Many more are needed.

That is the point of the new scholarships that BLACA is offering to people

wanting to be trained as chaplains (see page 10). The training will not only prepare them for counselling but will also ground them in theology.

Kris, who worked as an aged-care nurse for 25 years, reiterates the importance of the Lutheran Church continuing to place its faith at the centre of its work in its facilities.

‘Once the church accepts government money to care for elderly people beyond its own members, then the pressure can be on to take our focus away from our faith. I believe we need to be even firmer in our faith—firm but gentle—because if we’re not doing it on behalf of our God, what are we doing it for?’

This point is illustrated by a story from Pastor Kowald: ‘In recent times, the Lord has called from our community an aged man who in his younger years had drifted away from the church and from an overt expression of faith. I first met him when he was still in his home, and he would visit his wife who was a resident here. The day she died, he shed many an honest tear in my presence.’

Pastor Kowald heard no more from the man for some time, but eventually he too came into care. ‘As his health deteriorated, and I visited him, each time he would ask me, “Is it really true that Jesus forgives and loves me?”

‘I would offer him the assurances of our Lord from God’s word. Before each visit ended he would ask me to sing the assurances, using hymns like Amazing grace and Jesus loves me. Each time he would fold his hands, close his eyes and mouth the words with me. Each time I left, he was peaceful.

‘I often think about the party that the prodigal son received from his merciful father, and I think about this man and the joy of his merciful Father for him … and for all us prodigals.’

Serena Williams is a wife, mother and journalist. She is a member of St Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Brisbane.

As people face the losses, changes and diminishings of growing old, our mission is to bring the message that God holds us and is present, that life has meaning, purpose and hope in the later years

The Lutheran August 20128

Theo was in his mid 80s—a quiet, mild-mannered man, with an angelic, unwrinkled face. He was small, frail, and stooped over his wheelie walker as he shuffled from his room to the central dining area where he lunched with his wife and other residents.

Age had taken its toll, and he communicated only with difficulty, unable to find the words needed to express his thoughts in formulated and coherent sentences.

Entering Theo’s private domain was a disquieting experience at first. His room encapsulated the two passions of his life. The first was his love of Rugby League—St George, and before that Illawarra, and before that the Steelers.

Theo had spent the years of his working life in the Wollongong-Shellharbour area of the south coast of New South Wales. A bright-red bedspread embroidered with the

St George dragon dominated the room, and a large photo of the Steelers football team was unmistakeable evidence of his passion both for the game and for his employment.

Other decorations were confronting, engendering a feeling of discomfort— a framed 1936 Berlin Olympic poster featuring a powerful Aryan athlete, and other German memorabilia, some of it reminding me of Nazi Germany and its architect.

by Colin Hartwich

Like the thief on the cross, Theo secures his place in heaven with only a whisker to spare.

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In his teens Theo had been drawn into the Hitlerjugend where he imbibed Nazi political propaganda along with its irreligious attitudes and atheism. He was proud of his service in the German army. (At the war’s conclusion he was 20 years of age.) He had desperately wanted to show me a photo of himself in uniform in a book he was unable to locate.

Soon after beginning chaplaincy at St Andrew’s Lutheran Aged Care, I began the task of building rapport with Theo. Given his age and frailty, time was of the essence. Conversation turned from his passion for football to his early life. In his halting way he talked with great respect about his grandparents, who had brought him up, but never about his parents, especially his father. I learnt later that his father was exceptionally self-centred and alcoholic.

The young Theo had grown up in the Catholic faith and in the context of the church. The priest was a presence in his early life. He spoke respectfully of his grandparents’ piety and his grandmother’s interest in whether he had been to mass, and his skirting of the truth. Theo insisted that he was not a religious man.

Over time and with the repetitious telling of his story, friendship and trust between us developed, and Theo became more relaxed, though his communication skills and soft voice hampered in-depth conversation. The time came when Theo was taken to hospital. His family was called to his

bedside when it was feared the end was near. With his family around him, we paused for reading and prayer— for his family’s sake and for the Spirit’s working in Theo’s life.

What transpired demonstrates that God doesn’t forget those who turn their backs on him after they have been claimed by him in baptism. God wasn’t finished with Theo. He recovered sufficiently to return to St Andrew’s. Amazingly, Theo seemed more alert and his comprehension and communication skills seemed to improve.

Who can know the thoughts that ravage a person’s mind in the face of dying, and the terror that accompanies them? I suspect that such thoughts more than likely led Theo to a new openness to spiritual realities, and the rapport that had developed over some ten months now aided the process.

On his return from hospital, Theo for the first time came to the informal worship held for high-care residents in the communal area of his house. A new window of opportunity was being provided by the Spirit. Lest his fear of religiosity should become an obstacle or his perception of religiosity be that of the Catholic piety of his grandparents, it seemed prudent to disavow the need for any contrived ‘piety’ and to home in on the essentials: repentance and faith. The past needed to be dealt with: the recognition of the evils perpetrated in past generations, the crimes against humanity, especially the Jews, and any guilt—real or by association.

Given his life-long allegiance to Hitler, Theo had to choose. Would he continue to follow the Fuehrer—guilty of heinous crimes against humanity, an infamous and failed leader without influence and long dead by his own hand? Or would he follow Jesus, who bore the injustice of humanity and suffered the ignominy of execution through crucifixion at the hands of political power in order to redeem the whole world from sin, guilt and death? Would he follow Jesus—the Jesus who accepted the penitent terrorist on the cross, forgave him for his murderous deeds, brought him peace, and graciously assured him of immediate life with him in paradise?

Theo’s return to faith wasn’t immediate or easy. He experienced for a time the struggle between faith and unbelief. He continued to come to the ward services and to hear the word of Jesus, ‘the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes’. He was able to read and reflect on the words of the hymns. He readily accepted my visits and the presentation of appropriate chosen Gospel readings and prayer. He accepted the encouragement to imitate his grandparents in their faith and

Who can know the thoughts that ravage a person’s mind in the face of dying, and the terror that accompanies them? I suspect that such thoughts more than likely led Theo to a new openness to spiritual realities.

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