As I write this, ANZAC day is being celebrated in one form or another across Australia and New Zealand. The world has lived and is living through many wars, but it is the two World Wars that are in the forefront of my mind today. Quite by coincidence (or God-incidence, as my Aunty likes to call it!), I have been this morning chatting with a friend in the US from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, who considers themselves to be bi-racial (Japanese and American heritage), holding citizenship in both countries.  And, like many Lutherans, I’m from multi-generational solid German ancestry!

At different points, all these nations have been at war with each other, and I can’t help but reflect how utterly miraculous and poignant it is that today of all days, a white Australian of Germanic descent can have a discussion of matters of faith with someone from such a background, without either of us having any fear of being beheaded, arrested for treasonous behaviour, or sent off to a POW camp!

There’s no doubt that whole populations were praying back during both World Wars that God would bring an end to them.  I’ve never really reflected before that this was the work of his hands, and the conversation with my friend today was made possible through God responding to the cries of his people all those years ago.

This realisation brings great comfort; when I try and wrap my head and heart around the current realities of our church, that the LCANZ, is ‘at war’, and ‘the church is breaking, I know that the same God who ended two world wars can also create and resolve our conflict.

‘the same God who ended two world wars
can also create a solution to our conflict’

It may still cost us a lot – people may leave rather than accept, for example, the solution of one-synod-two districts.  Congregations may struggle to resolve the internal dilemmas of members with differing perspectives.  As then-New Zealander said in the iconic hair product advertisements in the 90’s, ‘it mightn’t happen overnight, but it WILL happen!’  We have a God whose ways are both beyond ours (text) and much more powerful than hair shampoo!!

Within our own church, God ended a long period of many, many, divisions with Union in 1966.  I was 5 years old, and have vague memories of Granmas’s tinycorrugated church, and occasionally worshipping there, but from that point on, we all worshipped together at the new LCA in Cummins, South Australia.  My maternal Granma’s family was UELCA, and my paternal grandparents family was ELCA – talking with some of my relatives, it is interesting to hear that as young people back then,  regardless of separate formal worship spaces,  they nonetheless gathered together in joint youth group activities, and maintained friendships in both ‘camps’, and even married across existing synodical divides!

Yet here we are in 2023, still with division and disagreement.  This last week I have heard people say to me they have realised that despite all efforts to maintain the fellowship agreed to in the Theses of Agreement, that ‘the church is breaking.’  It is a struggle to come to terms with both the practicalities and tangled thoughts and emotions that might ensue from this. It seems to be a different space to that of 1966.

AND YET … there is hope!!  If God can end two World Wars surely he can bring an end to the situation with the organisation of the LCANZ.  Perhaps it will be broken before something new emerges.  Perhaps it will simply change shape. Whatever the process, we’re all on a journey of both grieving and hoping, as God changes our church.

So I have an invitation for you today, wherever you are up to on your own journey.  Let’s shift from the short=term view of ‘the church is breaking’, and to take a leap of faith and start talking about how God is reshaping our church.

Let’s shift from … ‘the church is breaking’ … and start talking
about how ‘God is reshaping our church’.

ANZAC day is traditionally when we remember the sacrificial service of those who fought for peace in our wars.  I’ve become more conscious today that it is also a day to celebrate the powerful hand of God in bringing an end to war.  Many things changed needed to change. In particular, God used those times to begin a process of remaking many different relationships between people that where previously there was hostility.

I just have to look at a field of red poppies to remember I am just an insignificant little fading flower in this enormous and amazing universe, with such a short temporal life span. Jesus’ words below suggest to me that likewise, the earthly aspect of any church organisation is but a temporal thing.  It’s the Father’s house in the spiritual realms that is truly eternal. The relationship between the two is complex and beyond my capacity to explore fully, but our awesome God knows us both individually and as a church organisation.  He sees our suffering, cares for us, and in the fullness of time, works healing and change in both the spiritual and earthly levels.  Jesus says to his disciples in John 14. 1 – 4:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.”

This is a potent passage – yet when I think about what was to come to some of the disciples that Jesus was addressing – wow!  Some of them would be brutally tortured, and killed because they chose to follow Jesus.  That kind of puts our current concerns into a bit of different context, doesn’t it?!  I spend some time in Canada many years ago working at a Summer Camp, discovered a wonderful saying used by my Baptist friends that reflects this … “What does it matter in the light of eternity?”

The challenges we face in finding ways forward for our church are by no means going to be easy to work through … but in the light of World Wars, God’s rebuilding of relationships, and eternity itself,  perhaps they’re not as big as we first might think.

Awesome God
Creator, holder of all things created and Lord of eternity
Forgive our frailty,
Remind us of your power and gentleness,
And give us hope.
Helps us remember that it is you that carries us into the future
Encourage our fearful hearts
Carry our troubling anxieties
And call us to walk with untroubled hearts despite our troubled times.
We believe in you.
In Jesus name.