Sermon for Kore Bohmer Funeral

Funeral Sermon for Kore Bohmer, by Pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson, based on Psalms 91:14-16 & 92:12-15; Eph 3:14-21; Lk 23:39-43, on Friday, November 18, 2022, at Bawlf Lutheran Church. 

A loving husband and father, a kind-hearted friend and neighbour, an active and respected citizen in the community, and a faithful member of Bawlf Lutheran Church, Kore Bohmer, has left his long and full life-journey in this world for life eternal. You who knew and loved Kore shall certainly miss him. 

Kore lived a long and full life of 99 years. Thus in our scripture passages from the book of Psalms, we learn a couple of truths, which I believe resonate with the life of Kore. First, we learn that God shows his care for us by protecting us throughout our lives. Having lived for 99 years, God honoured Kore’s love of God and his faithfulness to God by protecting him and giving him a long life. One example of God protecting Kore was him riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle until he was in his mid-80s! Wow! Quite amazing, that he could benefit from God’s protection and ride his motorcycle in his senior years. 

The second truth we learn from the psalmist is that God promises to bless some folks with a healthy, active, productive, long life. God says: “With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.” And in Psalm 92: “The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. In old age they still produce fruit.” I think that word “satisfy” is a good description of Kore’s life. His life was a satisfying one in that he lived it to the fullest.

I also like the way the psalmist compares those in old age with the palm tree and the cedar of Lebanon. These are both very stately trees and can serve a variety of purposes. 

Indeed, the Syrians list over 360 uses for the palm. It can be twisted into ropes, used for thatch, it gives shade, is used to construct booths, and heralds an oasis from afar. Furthermore, some say that a palm tree bears its best fruit in old age. Dates growing on palms past one hundred years are said to be the best ever! 

The palm and cedar trees, being productive in old age, are living reminders that we humans need not feel useless, unproductive, or bored when we grow old. Rather, we can be productive as Kore was in his 99 years. Kore continued to be a loving parent to Brenda, encouraging her when she took over the farm, and helping her on the farm in his retirement years, and participating in community organizations and events, including sports, Boy Scouts and 4-H. Kore also served on Church Council, and did not like to miss attending worship services on Sundays. Speaking of serving, Kore’s life was, in numerous ways, an example of the line that we sang in our hymn, Christ, Be Our Light: “Let us be servants to one another, signs of your kingdom come.” 

As a person of faith, Kore liked to read the Christmas story aloud to his family every Christmas Eve. He was also proud of his biblical name, which in 2 Chronicles 31:14 refers to Kore as the son of Imnah the Levite, keeper of the east gate, in Jerusalem, and was in charge of the freewill offerings of God.

Turning to our passage from Ephesians, which is a prayer for the faithful—the prayer emphasizes the blessings those who have faith in Christ are given, among these blessings and gifts are: “...being rooted and grounded in love, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Just as a plant, in order to grow and be healthy and productive, needs to have a healthy root system; so too it is with us spiritually. Kore as a faithful follower of Jesus, was rooted and grounded in love. For his faith to be healthy and productive, Kore needed to be rooted and grounded in Christ’s love, which he received through his involvement in this congregation. Kore’s being rooted in Christ’s love, made it possible for him to share that love with his family, and members of Bawlf Lutheran, and members of the community. 

God’s love in Christ is all-inclusive, it reaches us in every area of life—that is why we are filled with all the fullness of God. We call it mercy—it is God’s forgiving love. We call it providence—it is God’s caring love. We call it kindness—it is God’s understanding love. We call it—Christ’s passion and death—it is God’s proven love. We call it happiness—it is God’s encouraging love. We call it the will of God—it is God’s unerring love. We call it heaven—it is God’s rewarding love. We call it eternity—it is God’s unending love. Insofar as we share this fullness of God’s love with others it becomes a real blessing to them as well as us—which, I believe was true for Kore in his life, as he inspired and influenced others in loving ways, he and they were blessed. 

Turning to our gospel passage from Luke, the fullness of God’s love in Jesus became a reality for that criminal crucified beside Jesus, when he said to him: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus, in love answered him with that wonderful promise: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” 

May we be inspired by the long, full and faithful life of Kore Bohmer. May we, like Kore, live healthy, active and productive lives as we grow older. May we be like the productive palm trees that produce the best fruit in old age. May we, like Kore, live life to the fullest, because God through Jesus has filled us with his love to share with others, and make a difference in the world and in the church. As we leave this world, may we, like the criminal on the cross pray: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”--trusting that Jesus will answer us with his promising, comforting words: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” 

Brief Book Review: The Spirit Of Counsel

The Spirit Of Counsel: Spiritual Perspectives in the Counselling Process

Author: Martin Israel

Publisher: A.R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd., paperback, 192 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

At the time of publication, the Rev. Dr. Martin Israel lectured in pathology in the University of London at the Royal College of Surgeons, he was also an Anglican priest, and author of several books.

Contents

The contents include a Forward, sixteen chapters with the following titles: 1 The Way of the Spirit; 2 Illuminated Self-Love; 3 Self-Discovery and Illumination; 4 The Path of Counsel; 5 Bearing One Another’s Burdens; 6 The Way of Unknowing; 7 Psychic Communion and Counselling; 8 The Discernment of Spirits; 9 Counselling Towards Liberation; 10 Discipline in the Service of Freedom; 11 The Counsel of Perfection; 12 The Need to be Wanted; 13 The Identity Crisis; 14 Matters of Life and Death; 15 Counselling for Death; 16 Intimations of Joy; and a short conclusion, titled: The End of Counsel. 

Brief Observations

This reviewer struggled with the Rev. Dr. Israel’s style and language of prose; finding it difficult, obscure, and in places too abstract and elitist. In short, it was not an easy read, and perhaps the author had in mind as his audience professional counsellors and physicians. Moreover, this volume would have been far more accessible, I believe, had the author shared more concrete examples from his own life experiences. Another irritating factor is the author’s sexist language. That said, I’d like to conclude with three quotations, which may awaken the curiosity of some readers to check out this volume. Two stars out of five.

“As I grow in love, so the full burden of human suffering becomes known to me. I become increasingly available to all the world’s pain, which has to be borne in love before it can be transfigured by the power of the Holy Spirit (p.49).” 

“Without forgiveness there is no love, without love no growth, without growth no continuing life (p. 168).”

“The more experience one has in the various disciplines of life, the less dogmatic does one become (p. 171).” 

The Weekend in Black & White - November 4, 2022

 

           Taken on November second, our first snowfall.

              For the Weekend in Black & White

Book Review: Stories by Willimon

Stories by Willimon

Author: William H. Willimon

Publisher: Abingdon Press, paperback, 251 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

Will Willimon needs no introduction to many preachers and professors of homiletics—especially here in North America. In addition to his life as a preacher and professor, Willimon is also a prolific writer, having published over 65 books, and thousands of periodical essays, and blog posts. He has also served as a popular keynote speaker at numerous clergy study conferences. 

Contents

This volume consists of a Forward; Part One: Sowers; Part Two: Seeds; Part Three: Senses; Part Four: Secrets; Story Title Index; Scripture Index, Theme Index; and Credits. The volume is a collection from a variety of Willimon’s writings from various sources over the years.

Willimon’s writings include—among other genres: sermons, theology, humour, prophetic exhortations, satire, fiction, personal reflections/autobiography, lament, and more. 

The following examples, one from each part, hopefully inspire readers of this brief review to purchase or borrow this volume from the library.

In Part One: Sowers, here is a brief citation from Willimon’s advice to someone who, in a letter, asked him how to preach like him. The piece is titled “So, You Want to Preach?” Willimon advises: “So, you want to preach? Fall in love with words. Collect clichés and burn them. Read all the plays (sonnets too) of Shakespeare. Poach from the poems of Yeats, consume the short stories of O’Connor. Fall in love, and out again. Be in pain. Get lost. Roam. Come back home. Get saved. In sin, be bold. Gape at your people when doing visitation. Listen to their lives, their lies, their dreams, their hopes. Keep notes. Listen. Attend one of our first-rate theology schools (pp. 20-21).” 

In Part Two: Seeds, Willimon tells a brilliant parable titled, “Teach ‘em a Lesson.” The parable’s main character is a successful, yet merciless business leader, chair of his church’s board, Chamber of Commerce, and Rotary. After he dies, God the Judge commands: “Forgive him! It’ll teach him a lesson (p. 50).”

In Part Three: Senses, Willimon, in a sermon he preached at Duke University Chapel on December 7, 1986, titled “Jews and Christians, All in the Family,” re-tells Luke 15:1-32. He concludes: “The younger brother had succeeded in locking out his brother, he had the whole house to himself, but alas, he had locked out his loving father as well (p. 122).”

In Part Four: Secrets, Willimon humours readers in his piece titled “Feedback,” in which he shares from his collection of responses to his writing. “Criticism of liberal theology won me this fusillade: No Dr. Willimon, we will not march back into the dark ages of narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and closed thinking. If I had my ways, you would be banished from the pages of every church magazine, defrocked and silenced. Just imagine what he would do to me if he weren’t open-minded” (p. 208). 

For preachers—and others—who love stories, this volume will humour, inspire, offend, encourage, critique, challenge, instruct, affirm and more. 

Wordless Wednesday: September 14, 2022

 

                                                  Underpass mural

                                       For Wordless Wednesday

Book Review: The Watch That Ends the Night

The Watch That Ends the Night

Author: Hugh MacLennan

Publisher: Macmillan of Canada, paperback, 373 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author

John Hugh MacLennan (1907-1990), was a reputable Canadian author and professor of English at McGill University, winner of 5 Governor General’s Awards, and a Royal Bank Award. He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. He wrote several novels and non-fiction works. 

The novel’s title comes from the hymn by Isaac Watts, “O God, our help in ages past,” which Watts based on Psalm 90:4. 

The novel begins during the first winter of the Korean War. The place is Montreal. The main characters are George and Catherine Stewart. George was a political commentator on the radio, and a freelance writer. Now he lectured part-time at the university. Catherine was a painter. She had been married before to a surgeon, Jerome Martell, and they had one daughter, Sally. He had been a close friend of George. After not hearing from Jerome for around a decade, George and Catherine believed he had died in a Nazi prison camp.

Catherine had been handicapped since childhood with a rheumatic heart. In the last few years, she had almost died from it. So each day George and Catherine were aware of the sobering reality that it could be Catherine’s last. 

In Part One of the novel, one day George received a phone call at the university from Jerome Martell, whom he believed had died around ten years earlier. However, Jerome’s life was spared because he was a surgeon. He spent time detained by the Russians, and later was sent to China. Eventually he was freed, and now he arrived back in Montreal. Jerome told George he wanted to see Catherine and Sally. 

Part Two goes back in time, when George was seventeen, and he has just come home from a long canoe trip from Port Arthur to Georgian Bay. He then introduces his parents, sister and aunt Agnes, as well as when he and Catherine fell in love with each other. They both decide to study at McGill. However, because of Aunt Agnes’s influence and deliberations, George did not go to McGill; and his relationship with Catherine ended until several years later.

Part Three fast forwards the reader to Montreal again. George is hobnobbing with federal politicians in Ottawa. George, reflecting on the meaning of time has these thoughts: “What is time anyway? The past seemed part of the present today. Time had lost its shape. Time is a cloud in which we live while the breath is in us” (p. 90).

As Part Four begins, George tells of his past, when he lived and worked in Toronto in a bank and studied and obtained a degree. During those ten years, George states: “I lost my faith in religion; I lost my faith in myself; I lost my faith in the integrity of human society” (p. 107).

With an honours degree in history from the University of Toronto, George was able to find work teaching at Waterloo school for boys. He describes the backgrounds of the other teachers.

Part Four also focusses on George’s relationship with both Catherine and Jerome Martell. Both of them share personal details about themselves with George. Jerome, having fought in World War I, has this to say about the capitalist system: “Wars are the inevitable products of the capitalist system. We’re all compelled by the capitalist system to become murderers” (pp. 167-168). Jerome confessed to George that he had killed eleven men with a bayonet. In a state of psychological shock (likely post traumatic stress disorder), Jerome couldn’t speak for several weeks. 

Part Five consists mainly of Jerome telling George about his childhood. After his biological mother was killed, he was adopted and raised by the Reverend Giles and Josephine Martell in Halifax.

Part Six describes the demise of Jerome as a reputable surgeon, thanks in large part to the press’s negative coverage of a riot Jerome participated in; the exposure of his affair with nurse Norah Blackwell; and his subsequent resignation from the hospital.

One of the impressive features of this novel is MacLennan’s creative, poetic and mystical descriptions of the natural world. For example: “April had turned into May and the world was bright and clear: cool air and warm sun, a powder of buds on the hardwoods, fields skunk-cabbage green against the heavy viridian of spruce and fir, the muscles and bones of the land visible as an athlete’s under the light dust of its first verdure. All the waters were cold, and crossing the bridge at Sainte-Rose I saw the wash of the river coming around the northern curve of Montreal Island with eddies as smooth as the backs of enormous jellyfish” (p. 262). 

Also in Part Six, Jerome leaves Montreal for Spain because of his communist-leaning political convictions, and the loss of his reputation as a surgeon, and the unlikelihood of finding another job.

In Part Seven, Jerome returns to Montreal after twelve years of being tortured by the Nazis and imprisoned in concentration camps in Poland, Russia and China. Everyone had thought he had died, but he had survived all of his sufferings. He has one last visit with Catherine, and tells her that he was most likely going out west, and would not see her again.

After Jerome’s visit, Catherine ends up in the hospital. George is beside himself, and goes into a long monologue lament about God’s seeming lack of justice, theodicy, and the meaning and meaninglessness of life. He interestingly cites portions of the Genesis creation account, 1 Corinthians 13, and Job. Catherine seems to be lingering between life and death.

In the Epilogue, Catherine after taking a long time to recover from a surgery, has a second surgery, and recovered from it as well—although it had weakened her and she was slowly dying. George eventually becomes more peaceful and content. Both George and Catherine come to view life as a gift. The novel ends with the Latin phrase: nunc requiesce in me (now rest in me).

Overall, this novel is somewhat autobiographical: for example, in real life MacLennan was not happy teaching at Lower Canada College, nor is George happy in the novel teaching at Waterloo School.

In this review, I have left out a detailed description of several of the rather intense and lengthy conversations involving the main characters concerning several personal, political, philosophical and theological, etc. subjects of the day. I therefore commend the novel to readers to discover them. 

Book Review: Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life

Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life

Author: Harold S. Kushner

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 171 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

At the time this volume was published, Harold S. Kushner was rabbi laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, having long served that congregation. He is best known as the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In 1995, he was honoured by the Christophers, a Roman Catholic organization, as one of the fifty people who have made the world a better place in the past half century, and in 1999, the national organization Religion in American Life honoured him as their clergyman of the year. Rabbi Kushner is the author of a number of other popular books. 

Contents

This volume consists of a Preface, nine chapters—the titles of which reveal the themes addressed—and “A Love Letter to a World That May or May Not Deserve It.”

In his first chapter, Lessons Learned Along the Way, Rabbi Kushner states that even though he enjoyed studying and learning the centuries-old Jewish traditions at Jewish Theological Seminary; he realized that his congregants’ questions could not be answered by what he learned in seminary. He learned that traditional Jewish theology needed to be reformulated to address questions about God, suffering and the meaning of life and forgiveness. “When I was ordained a rabbi at age twenty-five, they told me I was ready to go forth and teach. The truth was, I was at best ready to go forth and learn” (p. 16). 

In God Is Not a Man Who Lives in the Sky, Rabbi Kushner goes into some detail about the God he does and does not believe in. When he prays the traditional prayer that God is one, he believes that “God embraces all polarities, male and female, young and old, scolding and forgiving. Everything—all polarities—finds its place in God. “God is one” means something like “God is all” (p. 24). He does not believe that one has to beg or bargain with God. Rather, God is with us to help us do what we need to do as we journey through life. 

According to Kushner, God Does Not Send the Problem; God Sends Us the Strength to Deal with the Problem, genetics, chance, and bad luck are the cause of problems. “And God cannot make the problem go away, no matter how many prayers and good deeds we offer. What God does is promise us, I will be with you; you will feel burdened but you will never feel abandoned” (pp. 48-49). I do not completely agree with the rabbi on this. Sometimes God answers prayer, and works miracles. Sometimes our problems are due to/caused by our or others’ sins and evil in the world. Sometimes we do feel abandoned. 

Rabbi Kushner, in his chapter titled, Forgiveness Is a Favor You Do Yourself, cites examples of the necessity of forgiving in order to prevent the offending party from continuing to victimize and having power over the one who is offended. He cites the story of Joseph as an example. Forgiving someone does not mean you are excusing the offending party for what they have done. Rather, the person who forgives does not have to live as an angry victim for the rest of their life. 

In his chapter, Some Things Are Just Wrong; Knowing That Makes Us Human, the author makes the case against Original Sin, and for Original Virtue: “...the uniquely human gift and burden of being able to know right from wrong, good from bad” (p. 94). He is sceptical of the Christian view of inherited guilt and shame from Adam and Eve. Rather, he claims that human babies are born with a sense of good and bad, fairness and empathy. 

According to Kushner’s chapter Religion Is What You Do, Not What You Believe, unlike Jesus who taught that sin comes from the heart, the rabbi states that lustful thoughts and feelings are not sinful until they are carried out in deeds. 

In his chapter, Leave Room for Doubt and Anger in Your Religious Outlook, Rabbi Kushner emphasizes that doubt and anger are not expressions of the lack of faith. Rather, they are expressions of faith, citing Jeremiah and Moses as examples.

In his chapter, To Feel Better About Yourself, Find Someone to Help, Kushner, commenting on Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, renders Genesis 21:18 as follows: “make your hand strong in his.” He adds, “You will make yourself feel stronger by reaching out to someone else” (p. 137). 

In this chapter, Kushner cites Dr. Sherwin Nuland’s insight that he learned from his grandmother: “Knowledge refers to know how to do something; wisdom means knowing when and whether to do it” (p. 139). 

In his chapter, Give God the Benefit of the Doubt, the author provides a comparison of several translations of Genesis 15:6, and then offers his interpretation of it. He favours the rendering Abraham trusted or believed God rather than trusted in or believed in God. Abraham trusted God’s promise that God would fulfil it in the future. According to Kushner, because Abraham trusted that God would keep his promise, Abraham was able to offer Isaac as a sacrifice in Genesis 22. 

Out of Abraham’s trust of giving God the benefit of the doubt, Kushner suggests there is a “theology of not-yet” (p. 162). For Kushner, this not-yet theology is one where the world is not as God intended it to be. However, when people of faith work together: “...to bring about the day when what should be, will be” (p. 169). 

I leave it up to readers of this review to read this volume, if they wish to discover the contents of Rabbi Kushner’s love letter. 

Although I differ from Rabbi Kushner on a few subjects, I do appreciate his many insights, wisdom, knowledge and compassion, which have grown out of five decades of faithful ministry.