Sermon in English GCA 07.03.21

Dear congregation, dear friends, dear confirmands, it's been over fifty years since a rather inconspicuous fifteen-year-old girl from England landed a super hit in the charts. Her name was Peggy March and she performed the romantic love song "I will follow him". "I will follow him," she sang of her lover, "no matter where he goes. I will always be with him; nothing can separate me from him – he is my destiny. Since he touched my heart, I know that no ocean is too deep to separate me from him, and no mountain too high. Nothing can distance me from his love. I love him."

"I will follow him" - whoever missed this hit at that time, certainly found the opportunity to get to know it later: in the movie "Sister Act".

We meet a singer who has to hide because she is running for her life after having witnessed a crime scene. The police lieutenant, who wants to save her life, renames her as sister Mary Clarence and puts her in a monastery. And so, we experience Whoopy Goldberg – she plays the singer with a lot of talent and joy – as she proves herself – more or less exemplary – as a nun. She is forced by the Mother Superior to sing in the choir of the small religious community. This choir, one can honestly say, stands out mainly because it cannot sing at all. Sister Mary Clarence, however, soon brings this vocal ensemble to the point where it does great things and thus brings it to great fame.

At the center of the film is a concert with the song "I will follow him" but this time it is a declaration of love to Jesus. Breathtakingly beautifully sung, rousingly performed and really heartfelt, the song of the nuns in "Sister Act" is given in such a way that it really works to touch people’s hearts. Anyone who hears and sees the choir of the nuns involuntarily feels like making such a declaration of love him or herself – to Jesus, and to say to him: “I want to follow you. Nothing should separate me from you.”

Of course, Sister Mary Clarence alias Woopy Goldberg ploughs the rather conservative and old-fashioned religious life in the community thoroughly, and this is the second joy you feel when you see the film: how she breaks up encrusted structures so that something new can emerge. Anyone who perceives this involuntarily gets a deep desire for new things.

Ploughing: Preparing the soil. Turning the ground and preparing it for a good seed – this is a strong picture. The plough is a symbol of life, and rightly so. In fact, human history can teach us that ploughs can do much more than weapons in the long run: Our ancestors in Germany, who had taken the plough to work the land were afraid of the raids of non-settled peoples, who repeatedly advanced in large horse hordes and conquered large areas in a short time. The Huns, the Magyars, the Mongols – they built large dominating territories at lightning speed – empires however that soon went down again. For those who wanted to own the land in the long term had to care for it and preserve it, and only the peasants did. The families who lived on their land and worked the fields there – they stayed in their place and proved that the plough is stronger than the sword.

The Roman Empire – the longest-lived of all the world's empires to date – was originally a land of free peasants. They won the whole of Italy by farming: ploughing and occupying the land. These free peasants were also willing to defend their land and take up arms when it needed to be. When the war was over, they returned to their ancestral place, ploughing the soil. When the Roman peasants finally lost their freedom and the wars began to be fought by paid mercenary armies, the Roman empire soon fell into disrepute. And the land was and remained with those who developed, built and preserved it.

Before the Roemer Empire, the land was worked with a kind of pick, which the farmer pulled behind him. At the time of the Romans, the ploughs were already pulled across the field by a team of oxen. The farmer led the animals and, holding the ploughshare, went after them.

He or she made sure that the track remained straight so that the seed could be applied evenly and the field could be ordered without any losses. The ploughshare is today the most important agricultural equipment and therefore also a symbol for the whole agriculture.

But we can also imagine in a spiritual way that such a plough is sometimes guided through the humus of our soul and that some

things get loosened up, turned around and thus God’s Spirit ensures that new and good seed can rise and thrive within us. Some things may have become a bit dry, old-fashioned and conservative, and there are certainly areas on the ground of our minds that could be loosened up and worked on.

Farmers who pull the plough through their soil where they later sow their wheat, look forward and move forward concentrated, from one end of their field to the other. When they arrive at the edge of the field they will take the ploughshare out of the ground and re-insert it next to it to go back to the side of the already drawn track, pulling a new gutter again – until they have prepared the entire field for sowing in the spring. They look forward and put one foot in front of the other.

They won't look around, because that would be foolish. Whether they pulled the track wrong or just, they will recognize that anyway, when they arrived at the farm border and have to turn again. If they looked over their shoulder now, while they were going forward, only one thing would happen, the line would have to be crooked. And so the farmers turn their attention forward, just like their step, going straight ahead and pulling the plough through – whether the ground is just hard and dry or soft and wet, whether there are stones in the way or grass tufts grow in front of their feet.

In our sermon text for today Jesus talks about the image of ploughing the field as a symbol for what it means to follow him.

I am reading Luke chapter 9, verse 57-62: As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a

hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” “Whoever puts his hand on the plough and looks back is not ready for serving in the kingdom of God”, says Jesus. This means: “Live attentively and undistracted, live intensely in the present.” If you're just focused on the past and you're constantly looking back at what you've been doing - what you've already done, then you're wavering and swaying, then you're not fully attentive, and then what you're doing will definitely become uneven.

Whoever chooses what we call "being a follower", who wants to lead a life as a Christian and happily says "I will follow him", is reminded to not constantly look back and stare at what was yet focus on what is.

In the Gospel of Luke, we meet three people who say "I will follow him" – and yet they do not leave or walk with Jesus. It is worth thinking about and seeing why this is the case.

"I want to follow you wherever you go," the first says, eagerly. With fiery zeal he wants to plunge into what he perceived and experienced with Jesus. It is fascinating and new. It is special and entices him.

Jesus replies, "You don’t know what you're going to get involved in.

We don't know what to eat in the morning, and we don't have a roof over our heads. The birds and the foxes are better off than us. Do you really want to join? " Anyone who sees a farmer ploughing – with a team of oxen or by hand – may find this romantic. But it is hard work that demands the whole body and costs sweat and then also mindfulness, a sense of reality and willpower. Jesus does not romanticize the journey with him.

The second one definitely wants to join Jesus and his disciples, he says. Absolutely. Only one thing – only one thing he has to do beforehand. Bury his father. This candidate here is apparently not as adventurous as his predecessor, but rather the responsible, perhaps even dutiful family man. "Let the dead bury their dead," Jesus tells him.

How could we understand this sharp response? I have only one explanation for this, which means that the Father has not yet died. He may just be ill. Or maybe quite old. And he may soon be leaving. Under certain circumstances. Possibly. Before that, however, the son does not want to and cannot leave home– he says.

It is often we who see us so involved in roles, customs and duties that there is no room left. These roles and commitments sometimes put obstacles in our way. And they become a distraction and an excuse not to consciously follow the cause of Jesus. Our many responsibilities separate us from the presence that Jesus offers us.

The third candidate, who says "I will follow him" here, just wants to say goodbye quickly and then come along. Saying Good bye to his family, and the old friends, the village where he grew up, and his old life. Shouldn’t that be OK when you join a preacher in order to travel around the country with him and his friends? Yet Jesus tells him: "He who puts his hand on the plough and looks back, is not ready for the kingdom of God." Those who want to follow Jesus should not let the past pass before his inner eye and define themselves by their history, their culture, their social roles, but whoever follows Jesus can and shall leave those behind. Whoever follows Jesus can let go of defining facts of the past and rather seize the now and look forward.

"Oculi" is the name of this Sunday: “Eyes”. And from the Gospel of this Sunday comes a great “Pay attention! Keep your eyes focused!" towards us. Look, look carefully: it is the “here and now”, it is in this very moment that God wants to plough and cultivate this world like a field. And if you look closely, you will notice that you are experiencing and doing everything together with Jesus. Because he is there and accompanies us on the way. He pulls along, yes, he pulls the ploughshare along with us through the field. Last week we listened to the words of Jesus, “Take on you my yoke and learn from me," Jesus once said (Matthew 11:29f). "For my yoke is gentle."

We can also understand these words in such a way that Jesus himself wants to be the second one pulling in this double yoke. He pulls by our side, keeps us in the lane and takes us forward on the way. He

himself ensures that we pull a good, straight furrow and order the field well. When Jesus calls us on the way to His kingdom, his realm of peace and justice, then he is and will be with us.

What is it then that we could contribute?

Only two things, and those are very easy: One, that we open our eyes, look closely and concentrate entirely on this very moment in the present, and thus live entirely in the "here and now" with God, letting everything else go.

And secondly maybe we sing a song from time to time: Maybe the love song: "I will follow you". Or perhaps the old hymn “Jesus goahead". Or the gospel song "Hold on" that we listened to before and after the sermon.

And so: “Let us be attentive. Let us sing together!”

Amen