Seminarian Seedlings
My first month as Vicar at Bratislava International Church
Preaching at Milltown Lutheran Church
Global Mission Group
Bratislava
Leaving Home to Serve in Slovakia
I arrived on August 13 and since then I have:
- Spent a week at the only Lutheran seminary in Slovakia.
- Witnessed Rev. Harman lead a Slovak-American wedding.
- Preached a sermon on a beer crate because the pulpit is too big for me! I preached on Christian tradition by asking what is the Church's true foundation? If you are interested the sermon text is below.
- Toured Old Town, which is amazing!
- Taste-tested just about every schnitzel available.
- Taste-tested a lot of good beer.
- Rapped a Jay-Z song with some Young Adults in the congregation at a karaoke bar.
- Had a proper Slovak greeting as a guest. This includes taking off your shoes, putting on house slippers, drinking a plumb brandy shot (about 150 proof), and eating anything covered in meat and gravy.
- Met with the faculty of the school and a few students.
- Made friends with a few coffee house owners.
- Learned a lot more about technology. HAHA Ask me how to do weekly announcements, bulletins, and other church related things!
All in all it has been a busy but amazing time!
About Bratislava International Church
Weekly English-language worship takes place at the historic Malý Kostol located on Panenska 26/28 near the Presidential Palace in downtown Bratislava. Worship starts at 10am. Fellowship takes place following the service at Next Apache Cafe. Weekly Bible Study takes place on Tuesday nights at Palisady 48, starting at 6:30 pm."
Email: intern@bratislavainternationalchurch.org
Website: http://bratislavainternationalchurch.org/about/
Location: Panenská 26/28, Bratislava, Slovakia
Phone: 0918 828 156
Facebook: facebook.com/BratislavaInternationalChurch
The Evangelical Lyceum
The Lyceum was established by one of Martin Luther's students in 1606! It has a long history of academic excellence and recently it has allowed in Christians of other faith traditions. After the fall of communism, the school reopened in 1991and it was then that the ELCA and the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession joined alliances to provide English teachers from the States to teach at the Lyceum. BIC was established because of the need to provide English-speaking services.
Website: http://www.evlyceum.sk/
Courtyard in Old Town
11th C. gravesite in St. Martin's Cathedral!
St. Martin's Cathedral
Mail Address
Emily Stelling
c/o Evanjelicke Lyceum
Vranovska 2
851 02 Bratislava
Slovakia
Upcoming
- Next week will be my first week teaching at the Lyceum!
- I will be meeting with the Youth Group and Young Adults as well as other members of the congregation on the annual Fall Retreat
- I'll learn how to chant...pray for me!
- This Sunday I will be doing the Children's sermon...again, please pray for me!
- Bible study, choir, confirmation, council meetings, Sunday School, etc. will start up again this September.
Outside my bedroom window!
Napoleon's Army left something in this clock tower!
St. Michael's Gate
Sermon
Sunday August 27, 2017
12th Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
Please pray with me the ancient psalm: May the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD. Amen.
{Story of church and choir ducking}
I’d like to open my first sermon with you here at BIC with a short, but very true, story. There once was a small Lutheran Church in the north woods of Minnesota. They were a very proud Norwegian congregation who kept tradition at the forefront of their ministry. One of these traditions was having a robust choir. A few years ago, they called a new pastor. Over the course of her first few months she couldn’t help but notice something rather odd about the congregation. Every time the choir processed in on the side aisles they would sequentially bow down at the exact same spot. The new pastor spent some time examining the area around where they would bow but she couldn’t find anything of symbolic significance to explain why they would bow there. Members of the congregation could not explain why it is they did that. The organist said it is just something the choir has always done, and so when he took over as cantor to the congregation he continued the tradition with no questions asked. The pastor got in touch with the synod historian to help her investigate this weird phenomenon. It turns out, that when the church was built in the late 1800’s there was a stove in the middle aisle that extended to the outer aisles with pipes. So out of necessity, the choir would have to duck their heads when they walked up the side aisles! Even after the stove was taken out, the choir continued to bow at that spot. Such is the danger with not questioning church traditions!
You may notice that Pastor Derek and I have different preaching styles. He is able to freely go in front of you and speak from the depths of his pastoral wisdom and bring you a bonafide sermon. This may look easy, but that is the point. It is actually incredibly hard to preach that way, as many preaching professors will attest. He is able to talk with you like Christ did with his disciples. He is able to read the congregation and see if they are understanding the gospel message and deliver it in a more personable way. I, on the other hand, still need training wheels, so to speak. At this point in my ministry, I feel much more comfortable right here--with my manuscript and a pulpit to grab onto for dear life.
--And yet, even with these differences him and I are called to do this thing called “preaching.” We have different styles, different levels of comfortability, different personalities and yet we are called to be part of the same office. PAUSE.
My pastor in college was also gifted in preaching and preached in a similar fashion to Derek. After worship one Sunday an old alumnus came up to my pastor and said, “Now why do you preach to the congregation in this way. This is not how Church is supposed to be!” My pastor simply told the man that he works really hard on the sermon preparations week in and week out, and it is the way that he feels called to preach. The old man left and the pastor continued to preach that way and continued to bring the gospels alive to many people.
This is not how Church is supposed to be! that old man said.
----This begs me to ask, then, what is Church? For millennia, this passage from Matthew’s Gospel has been used to define what Church is and different traditions have used this same Word of God to describe what it is Church ought to look like. The Roman Catholics have long said that this is evidence that Peter is the first of the papal line—a pope to lead Christ’s Church on earth. Lutherans later contended that it is not literally on Peter, Petra, the Rock that the Church was built on, rather it was on the faith that Peter described. Whatever your view, it is clear in our Gospel today that Christ is saying that those who are a part of the Church are those who proclaim that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God.
To be clear, the Church is the Body of Christ. Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans also makes it clear what that Body of Christ looks like. It is not a uniform set of people who make up the one Body of Christ, but rather it is the diversity of people, the unique individuals who are truly themselves before God, who make up the one Body of Christ. So, is Church what that old man was talking about to my college pastor or is it what Christ tells us it is? PAUSE.
I am convinced that it is what Christ tells us—that the Body of Christ proclaims Christ. Being part of the Body of Christ, being Church, is far more than doing the right thing in the right way…or, in the ways of that old Minnesota church: “having it done like it has always been done.” …No. Ecclessia semper Reformanda! The Church always reforming! This was the battle cry [motto] of the Reformation and it is committed to the principle that the life of faith, being part of the body of Christ, is the work of the Holy Spirit and not of our own. The gift of faith, given to us solely by Christ, is fully embodied—meaning Church is more than
preaching styles, garments, and other traditions, and it is even more than meeting once a week. Rather, it is about completely embodying Christ in everything that we do. It’s about presenting our selves as Living Sacrifices—not in order to be redeemed, but because we already are. Pause.
As Christ’s Body was risen and given to God, so too will the Body of Christ be risen and given to God.
While I am speaking of the one Body of Christ, it needs to be understood that it is in our diversity that makes us the one Church. Paul reminds us today that it is our unique selves, our personal, one-of-a-kind characteristics that make up that oneness.
So do not be conformed to the idea of what it is a Christian is supposed to look like or what it is the Church is supposed to be. Rather, be your whole self, be your whole baptized self. Your body, your mind, your mental state, your most prideful aspects and your most vulnerable shortcomings, all these aspects of your self are not just wonderfully made and then loved by God, but through Christ your body is Christ’s body. [repeat]
Looking at this congregation, then, I see that Christ has red hair, tattoos, makeup, gray hair, is young and old. The Body of Christ speaks different languages, is hurting, is lost, is scared. Christ is loved, is in love, Christ is judged and accepted. The differences God has created within us are the Body of Christ. Our very bodies, our very selves, are sacrificed, killed, to be part of that Body of Christ. The new life in that Body requires us to discern what the will of God is. “That which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Look to yourselves. Do not point your mind toward your neighbor but examine what it is you are doing. You are told today to “think with sober judgement and to not think too highly of yourself than you ought.” For our old selves are dead. We are new in the Body of Christ! A child of the Living God!
Once you have reflected on your self with sober judgement, look at the gifts God has given you. Listen again to what Paul says: “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” So, what are your gifts? What is it that you bring as your whole self to the Body of Christ?---Keep in mind that your unique self is what God wants, and this is what God calls us to be. To be Church, to be of the one Body of Christ, is not to keep things “as they have always been,” but rather, it is to be your true self.
So! Rejoice, give thanks, BE HUMBLE, and sing! for we are the Body of Christ who continues to proclaim: “Jesus Christ, you are the Son of the Living God!!!” Amen.