Reprints of 2002 Services - Discussions

For current month's reprints refer to webdoc4, for earlier records refer to the ARCHIVE File

The TEMPLER RECORD together with the WARTE DES TEMPELS carry an account of all the Templer community activities. Click 'Templer Record' for Australia, and 'Warte des Tempels' for Germany to see the current month's content reprinted in full.

SERVICES:

New Years Eve Service, Kurt Beilharz
Founders Day Service 8 December, Renate Weber
Saal im Altersheim, 17 November, Hennig Imberger
Discussion Saal 28 July in Bentleigh, Alfred Klink
Saal 21 July Country Victoria. Rolf Beilharz
Founding Service 23 June in Bayswater; Peter Uhlherr
Saal 14 April in Bayswater; Alfred Klink
Easter Sunday In Bayswater; Renate Beilharz
Sommerfest Service, 17 March; Renate Weber
Saal in Altersheim, 20.01; Hulda Wagner

New Year's Eve 2001;
go to the end

Discussions:

Meeting in Bayswater, on Boronia Hall, 6 April
 

Return to the Top

Service Bentleigh 8^th December 2002

Elder Renate Weber
Pianist Elizabeth Wagner

Welcome to today’s Service!  I am going to share a recently published story with you and the children called “The Wrong Stone” by Russell Deal. This is a story about a group of very diverse rocks and stones in a stonemason’s yard. One day an architect comes and asks for a stone wall to be built using only the best stones. The stones are concerned about them being the best and suitable for the wall. Eventually they are all used except and odd shaped stone (the "wrong" stone) His concern is that he will be crushed/abandoned as he doesn’t "fit" Much to his surprise he is the "very right stone"- he is the key stone needed to keep the whole wall together. "All the stones could see that there was a perfect spot for each of them ".

What can we learn from that story? Stones - can be beautiful, they can be different shapes, they are important, they are all valuable, there is a use for every stone, and they come in different colours and sizes and yes, sometimes, we can be a chip off the old block!  We also learnt that even though a stone or person may be different/ “wrong” it might be the one that holds the rest together!

This then nicely leads me into today’s service. At this time in December we celebrate Founders’ Day. We honour the leaders, who laid the foundation stones of our Community.

Let’s begin by singing verses 1, 2, 6, 7, 9,10 of “Trachtet ruft”  “Seek ye first” Please feel free to sing it in German or English.

Most of you are very aware that our Founder Christoph Hoffmann wrote that song in early 1855 and that in German by combining the first word of each verse it actually is the Templer Motto “Trachtet am ersten nach dem Koenigreich Gottes und nach seiner Gerechtigkeit” Matthaeus 6:33. Translated: “Seek ye first of all God’s Kingdom and his justice before everything else.” Matthew 6:33

(A very talented woman, a direct descendant of Christoph Hoffman’s, Helga Uhlherr nee Hoffmann translated that song into English in 1979 and cleverly worked with the text so that the opening line is the Templer motto. The Sunday school children might like to leave now and have a closer look at the story we have shared.

Most (All) of you are aware that the Temple Society is a small independent Christian Society that grew out of the Pietistic movement within the Lutheran Church in the State of Wuerttemberg in Southern Germany. It owes it origin to the theologist Christoph Hoffmann. Christoph Hoffman was born on the 2^nd  Dec, in 1815 at Leonberg, spending his early youth in Korntal. It was here he developed well defined ideas of community living based on Christian principles. (His father had founded the Korntal Community of Brethren.) In 1832, (not yet 17) he commenced his study of Theology. On graduation he became a teacher and educator. After he completed his theological studies in Tuebingen he willingly and conscientiously made the decision to join his brothers-in-law, the Paulus brothers, in the 1837 founded Christian college. In 1845 Christoff Hoffman together with his brothers in law, Phillip and Immanuel Paulus founded the “Sueddeutsche Warte” (South German Sentinel) a polemical publication. This publication soon made him a well-known figure. The outbreak of the revolution in 1848/9 gave him hope that it would be possible to build the State and society on firm Christian foundations. In 1848 the German Parliament in Frankfurt was formed. Hoffmann successfully stood as a political candidate against very strong opposition and won a seat. But he soon found it was not the road to fulfill his vision. He resigned after 10 months.

Christoph Hoffmann felt that mankind could only be saved if the best people of the world joined forces to form God’s People. (“Volk Gottes”) This community would need to believe in and live by Christian Principles. He felt that people had strayed a long way from the original ideas of Christianity and there were many unnecessary “obstacles” between man and his connection to God.

For many pietists in Wuerttemberg the Second Coming of Christ was near. Christoph Hoffman felt that it would happen in Palestine and specifically in Jerusalem and that God’s people needed to be brought together in the Holy City. The gathering for him was to be the rebuilding of the spiritual Temple. Creeds, dogmas, sacraments and rites meant little to Hoffman. He felt Christian principles had to be lived in daily life. He felt strongly that a community removed from the western civilization’s influences and following the two chief commandments of the love of God and the love of one’s neighbor as oneself, was needed. The first community was established around 1850 and called themselves “Friends of Jerusalem”.  

Around this time he met Georg David Hardegg, a strong willed political revolutionary Ludwigsburg merchant who was born in 1812. Hardegg believed that Germany’s future lay in becoming a republic and was jailed for his views from 1832 until 1840. He turned to a kind of Christian mysticism. Hardegg urged to start bringing together God’s people without delay, thereby implementing the religious ideas of Hoffmann. The 1850ies were difficult times politically and productively in The Kingdom of Wuerttemberg and one crop failure followed another. The Crimean war from 1853 to 56 saw the “freeing” of Palestine from the hundred yearlong rule of the Turks.

In 1854 the Sentinel became the voice to call like-minded people together. On August the 24^th 1854 the committee of the Friends of Jerusalem (Christoph Hoffmann, Georg David Hardegg, Christoph Paulus and Louis Hoehn) arranged for an open meeting. About 200 men attended. This number swelled to 500 by the end of October. At this time a petition was also signed and sent to the Parliament in Frankfurt to ask the Turkish Sultan to facilitate the establishment of God’s People in Palestine. This was not well received!

 Early in 1855 Hoffman wrote the hymn Trachtet ruft  “Seek ye first of all God’s Kingdom.” In this hymn it is very easy to see the close connection to the Bible and that Christoph Hoffmann was quite evangelical. We are sinners, who need to be redeemed and he cleverly interwove many of the parables Jesus used in his teaching.

 In 1856 the Committee decided it needed to set up a community where Christian principles could be lived. The agricultural estate of Kirschenhardthof in Germany was chosen. In 1856 the foundation stone was laid for the assembly hall of the Community of Kirschenhardthof, it was pretty run down estate but in a few years the Templers succeeded in improving the estate immensely. The individuals had free control over their land and income. This closed estate became the centre of the Temple movement.

(Christoph Hoffmann and Louis Hoehn moved there first.)

In 1858 three men set out to explore the possibility of settling the Holy Land. They were Christoph Hoffmann, Georg Hardegg and viticulturalist and agriculturalist J. Bubeck. They were not very hopeful of success in such a barren and neglected land. Hoffmann was very aware at that time that people who chose that path risked their all. However on the 19th June 1861, the Friends of Jerusalem accepted the consequences of their religious convictions. They declared themselves to be an independent religious society under the name of “German Temple”.

The name refers to various sections of the New Testament and I will read an edited version to you from Peter 1: 2 verse 5 –8 “Come as living stones and let yourself be used in building the spiritual temple… The scripture goes on “I chose a valuable stone which I am placing as the cornerstone in Zion: And whoever believes in him will never be disappointed This stone is of great value for you that believe but for those of you who do not believe- the stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all”

At this time there were about 3000 followers in Wuerttemberg, Switzerland, North America and Russia.  The first attempt at settlement in 1860 had failed.  In 1866- 67 a number of young Templers emigrated to Russia and another group went to America. 25 others who had settled in Palestine without the approval of the Heads of the Temple Society suffered severely and only 10 survived. Hardegg and Hoffmann agreed that only methodical, responsible planning preparation and execution would guarantee success. On March 25th 1868 the Committee and Elders met again to specifically set up the Temple Society’s settlement enterprise. In July 1868 at a meeting in the open air 1200 to 1500 members and friends attended to farewell Hardegg and Hoffman. In the spring of 1869 the journey in to the unknown began. The first settlement was founded in Haifa because of the excellent harbor facilities. Here Hoffmann and Hardegg worked systematically and thoughtfully with a great deal of responsibility to plan the next steps. They set up the Central Fund from which the less wealthy benefited. It was not an easy time and Hoffmann published quite clear guidelines under which migration to the Holy land could proceed. Settlers were carefully selected according to their professions and skills. While this limited the number of immigrants, it ensured a more successful and consolidated settlement in Palestine. Meanwhile in Germany there was a decline in membership to about 300

The first settlement, Haifa, was chosen due to its excellent port. Hardegg was able to use his organizing skills to the fullest. He became Haifa’s first leader. Other settlements followed. In 1873 on the plain of Rephaim to the south of Jerusalem, the Templer settlement of Jerusalem was established. It was the seat of the religious head of the Temple Society, of its central administration and of its central fund. This had always been Hoffmann's dream.

Jaffa, which was the port used by pilgrims to Jerusalem at the time, was established next using buildings already established and purchased from Americans. Sarona was then formed as the first agricultural settlement.

 (In 1873 Kirschenhardthof ceased to be the centre of the Temple in Wuerttemberg and the head quarters of the Temple was transferred to Stuttgart. This was because Christoff Paulus came to Palestine.)

.Wilhelma, the fifth Settlement, was founded in 1902.  Waldheim was a settlement founded by the Former Templers who had reverted back to the Evangelical church. Betlehem was founded in 1906

 Nowadays the Temple Society has centres in Germany and Australia.

Moulded by Swabia’s spiritual and religious history, the Temple Society was represented, not simultaneously, in Germany and Palestine, in North America and Russia and in German East Africa and finally in Australia. Wars cost Templers much grief. Between 1918-20 some Palestine Templers were interned in Egypt and then the Germans from Palestine, who were deported to Australia during the Second World War, were finally given permission to settle here. Templers have coped with a multitude of challenges and living conditions in many countries. I have to say it always amazes me and fills me with pride when I do historical research about the Temple Society!

Our text today is from Mark Chapter 11 verses 27 –33

Jesus and his disciples returned to Jerusalem. And as he was walking through the temple, the chief priests, the nation’s leaders and the teachers of the Laws of Moses came over to him. They asked, “What right have you got to do these things? Who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered, “ I have just one question to ask you and if you answer it, I will tell you where I got the right to do these things. “Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”

They thought it over and said to each other,” We can’t say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. On the other hand these people think that John was a prophet. So we can’t say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize”. They were afraid of the crowd and told Jesus, “We don’t know”. Jesus replied, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do”

 The elders, the chief priests and scribes were probably accusing Jesus rather than questioning him. They were questioning his authority. They had established themselves very nicely and here was this upstart challenging their authority, questioning their interpretations of the teachings of Moses. How dare he!  They were really saying, “Who do you think you are?” But Jesus was very clever, (he often trapped people in their own net.) He asked them a counter -question. He made it impossible for Pharisees to answer. They did not believe that God sent John the Baptist, but they were like many people in the public arena -concerned with what the crowd might think. So they answered, “we don’t know” Jesus beat them at their game!

Christoph Hoffmann felt we needed to believe in, love God, and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. He also believed that our actions were important. Our conscience needs to be our guide. We need to listen to our inner voice.  Do we question the role of a higher authority, Force, or spirit/god in our lives? I know at times I feel very uncertain.  These are difficult times all around the world. Political leaders are challenging one another’s authority, people are challenging their leaders ideas and authority, and we are living in uncertain times. Currently I can’t see Jerusalem as being the place where all people of the world can come together for the good of the entire world but may be that is exactly what is needed. If the peoples in the “Holy” land (the centre for the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths) could live together serenely, settle their differences share the land equitably, not constantly feel the need to pay back, live in peace and harmony, what effect might that have on the rest of the world? We must not give up or allow this uncertainty to depress us or cause us to live in fear. What might Christoph Hoffmann’s message be today? To me he is an example of a  “wrong” stone, but we are here today trying to live our lives according to Jesus teaching and Christoph Hoffmann’s interpretations as they continue to evolve. We are a small community but we are still striving to do the right thing by our fellow man, treating others with respect even if their ideas differ from ours, even if they their skin is a different colour and they have different beliefs. (Creating God’s Kingdom on Earth)

 Let us pray,

God,  In this time of uncertainty, help us to be guided by our conscience, let us see the joy in the little things, let us be the best “stone” we can be, accept the shape, size and colour we have been given, but never let us be limited by the opinions of others, let us have the courage of our convictions, stand up for what we feel is right and speak out and if appropriate, take action to correct wrongs. 

If we are the “right stones” let us by our actions set an example to others. Let that action begin with in each of us as individuals, radiate out to include our families, our work colleagues, our own communities, and the wider world. “Your will be done!” Amen

Let us conclude today’s service with the sung Blessing number 108

Return to the top

SAAL im Altersheim

am Sonntag, den 17. November 2002, 10 Uhr
Harmonium: Bringfriede Steller.
Ältester: Hennig Imberger

Lieder 98 (1,4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12), 39 (1 - 6) Bibeltext: Johannes 12: 24-26

VORSPIEL

Wir singen zum Beginn, Verse 1,4,6, und 8 von Lied Nr. 98: "Befiel du deine Wege"

Unser heutiger Text (im Johannes Evangelium) handelt vom Weizenkorn das zuerst in der Erde vergehen muss um neues Leben zu bilden. Bevor wir aber zum Text kommen, eine kurze Einleitung:

Jesus ist zum letzten Mal in Jerusalem angekommen. Wie schon im Alten Testament prophezeit wurde, kam er auf einem Esel, und weil bald das Osterfest war, waren viele Menschen dort.
Nicht lange vorher hatte Jesus Lazarus vom Tode auferweckt und dieses Ereignis, zusammen mit seinen vielen Heilungen und seinen weisen Lehren bewegte das Volk, Jesus zuzujubeln. Mit Palmenzweigen kamen sie ihm entgegen und riefen: Hosianna! Gelobt sei der da kommt in dem Namen des Herrn, der König von Israel!

Doch um dieselbe Zeit, nach der Auferweckung von Lazarus, beschlossen schon die Hohenpriester und Pharisäer Jesus zu töten: "Lassen wir ihn", sagten sie, "dann werden sie alle an ihn glauben und es werden die Römer kommen und nehmen uns Land und Leute." Kaiphas, der desselben Jahres Hohenpriester war, sagte: "Es ist für euch besser, wenn ein Mensch für das Volk stirbt und nicht das ganze Volk umkommt" Johannes schreibt dazu, dass Kaiphas dies weissagte, "denn Jesus sollte sterben für das Volk."

Zu dem Osterfest kamen auch etliche Griechen die Jesus aufsuchten. Zu ihnen sprach nun Jesus unseren heutigen Bibeltext (Johannes 12: 24-26), wie folgt: "Die Zeit ist gekommen, dass des Menschen Sohn verherrlicht werde. Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wenn das Weizenkorn nicht in die Erde fällt und erstirbt bleibt es allein; wenn es aber erstirbt, brinqt es viel Frucht. Wer sein Leben liebt verliert es; und wer sein Leben in dieser Welt hasst, wird es ins ewiqe Leben bewahren.Wer mir dienen will, der folqe mir nach; und wo ich bin, da soll mein Diener auch sein. Und wer mir dienen wird, den wird mein Vater ehren."

Soweit der Text.

Schon lange fand ich, dass das weltliche Leben, im Allgemeinen, kein sehr schönes ist. Man muss nur an die Kriege, die Verletzten, die Flüchtlinge, die Kranken, die Verfolgten, die Beraubten, usw. denken, von denen wir jeden Tag hören und es wird einem nicht schwer fallen, sein Leben in solch einer Welt zu hassen und nach einem besseren Leben zu streben, nämlich nach einem Leben in HARMONIE mit dem All und mit gegenseitiger Güte.

Auf solch ein Leben zeiqt Jesus, und er gibt uns dazu Anleitunqen. Wir sollen ihm also nachfolqen und ihm dienen um das bessere Leben (also das Reich Gottes) zu erhalten, schon auch auf dieser Erde. Wir mögen jedoch fragen, ob wir überhaupt hassen sollen? Sagte nicht Jesus vordem in der Bergpredigt, wir sollen sogar unsere Feinde lieben und sie nicht hassen? Ich finde aber, dass Jesus hier auf keinen Menschen und keine Menschengruppe deutet, sondern auf das weltliche System, in das wir Menschen heute, wenigstens teilweise, immer noch eingegliedert sind, und das wir abschütteln sollen, um es mit der vollen Gottesliebe und der gleichwertigen Nächstenliebe, zu ersetzen. Das können wir ja schon auf dieser Erde tun. Wenn es aber, unser erdhaftes Leben kosten sollte, dann heißt das nur soviel, dass wir in einer neuen Lebenssphäre leben werden - nämlich der Sphäre des ewigen Lebens.

In unserem heutigen Text vergleicht das Jesus mit dem Weizenkorn, das, wenn es in die Erde gesetzt wird, vergeht, wobei aber, aus diesem vergehenden Weizenkorn, ein neues qrößeres Leben entspringt, nämlich das der Weizenpflanze, die dann reiche Frucht bringt. Vielen Menschen mag das, jedoch, unglaubhaft erscheinen: Sie meinen; wenn ein toter Mensch begraben wird, dass dann der tote Körper verwest, ohne dass daraus etwas entspringt. Auch die Jünger Jesu wussten damals nicht recht was sie aus diesen Reden Jesu machen sollten, obwohl Jesus mehrmals zu ihnen sprach, von seinem bevorstehenden körperlichen Tod, seiner folgenden Auferstehung, seinem Gang zum himmlischen Vater, und besonders, seiner, danach folqenden, Sendung zu uns, des Beistands, also des Heiligen Geistes.

So, zum Beispiel, spricht Jesus etwas später, nachdem er die Füße seiner Jünger gewaschen hatte, und nachdem Judas Ischarioth ging, um Jesus zu verraten, wie folgt: Johannes 14: 15-19. "Wenn ihr mich liebt, werdet ihr meine Gebote halten. Und ich will den Vater bitten und er wird euch einen anderen Beistand geben, damit er in Ewigkeit bei euch sei: Den Geist der Wahrheit, den die Welt nicht empfangen kann, weil sie ihn nicht sieht und nicht erkennt. Ihr erkennt ihn, weil er bei euch bleibt und in euch sein wird. Ich werde euch nicht verwaist zurücklassen; ich komme zu euch. Noch eine kurze Zeit, so sieht die Welt mich nicht mehr; ihr aber seht mich, denn ich lebe und auch ihr werdet leben."

Etwas später sagt Jesus: (Johannes 16: 7) "Es ist gut für euch, dass ich fortgehe. Denn wenn ich nicht fortgehe, wird der Beistand nicht zu euch kommen; wenn ich aber gehe werde ich ihn zu euch senden." Und Johannes 16: 12-16: "Noch vieles habe ich euch zu saqen, aber ihr könnt es ietzt nicht tragen. Wenn aber jener kommt, der Geist der Wahrheit, wird er euch in die ganze Wahrheit leiten; denn er wird nicht von sich aus reden, sondern was er hört, wird er reden, und das Zukünftige wird er euch verkündigen. Er wird mich verherrlichen; denn aus dem Meinigen wird er es nehmen und euch verkündigen. Alles was der Vater hat ist mein; deshalb habe ich gesagt, dass er es aus dem Meinigen nimmt und euch verkündigen wird. Eine kurze Zeit so seht ihr mich nicht mehr und wiederum eine kurze Zeit, so werdet ihr mich sehen."

Trotz solchen und anderen Andeutungen, hatte anscheinend keiner der Nachfolger eine Ahnung davon, was Jesus eigentlich meinte: Unter einem ,Gehen' und, Wiederkommen' stellten sie sich vielleicht ein gewöhnliches Fortgehen vor, was ja Jesus immer wieder einmal tat. Darum, als nun Jesus kurz danach verurteilt und hingerichtet wurde, waren für sie ihre Hoffnungen zerschlagen. Das heißt, es war für sie so, als ob Jesus sein Ziel verfehlt hatte. Denn, was kann ein toter Mann noch tun?

Auch diese zeitweilige Zerschlagenheit und Trauer seiner Nachfolger sah Jesus voraus, denn er sagte vordem noch (Johannes 16: 20): "Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: Ihr werdet weinen und wehklagen, aber die Welt wird sich freuen; ihr werdet traurig sein, doch eure Traurigkeit wird zur Freude werden." Bei dieser Zerschlagenheit und Not der Anhänger Jesu, berichten nun die Evangelien, dass das Grab worin Jesus Körper am Abend vor dem Sabbat gelegt wurde, am ersten Tag in der Woche (also am ersten Tag nach dem Sabbat) von Maria Magdalena, ganz überraschender Weise, leer vorgefunden wurde.

Obwohl die vier Evangelien zum Teil verschiedene Einzelheiten erzählen, berichten sie alle, dass Jesus nach der Entdeckung des leeren Grabs auch noch vielen seiner traurigen Anhänger (in kleinen und größeren Gruppen) völlig lebendig erschien und dass er sie überzeuqte, dass er, trotz der Kreuzigung, weiterlebt. So berichtet auch Johannes von dem zweifelnden Thomas der nicht dabei war, als Jesus den anderen erschien, wie folgt: Johannes 20:24-29: "Thomas aber, einer von den Zwölfen, der auch Didymus genannt wird, war nicht bei ihnen, als Jesus kam. Die anderen Jünger sagten ihm nun: Wir haben den Herrn gesehen. Er aber sagte zu ihnen: Wenn ich nicht an seinen Händen das Mal der Nägel sehe und lege meine Finger in das Mal der Nägel und lege meine Hand in seine Seite, werde ich es nicht glauben.

Und nach acht Tagen waren seine Jünger nun wieder drinnen und Thomas mit ihnen. Jesus kam als die Türen verschlossen waren, trat in die Mitte und sprach: Friede sei mit euch! Dann sagte er zu Thomas: Reiche deinen Finger hier her und siehe meine Hände, und reiche deine Hand her und lege sie mir in die Seite, und sei nicht ungläubig, sondern gläubig! Thomas antwortete und sprach zu ihm: Mein Herr und mein Gott! Jesus sagte zu ihm: Weil du mich gesehen hast, hast du geglaubt. Selig sind die, welche nicht gesehen und doch geglaubt haben."

Wie ja bekannt, berichten die Evangelien noch von weiteren Erscheinungen Jesu (z.B. von dem Weg nach Emmaus, oder von dem kleinen Fest am See) und es wird offensichtlich, dass die Jünger nun verstanden was Jesus vordem immer wieder sagte. Tatsächlich, war dabei auch ihre Trauriqkeit in Freude umgewandelt.

Um einiges später berichtet noch die Bibel in der Apostelgeschichte, wie Jesus auch Saulus, dem Christenverfolger, auf seinem Weg nach Damaskus, erschien und ihn von der Richtigkeit seines Werkes überzeugte, worauf Saulus, (der sich nun Paulus nannte) von Jesus unterrichtet, ein besonders wertvoller Helfer wurde.

ERSTE SINGPAUSE: Ich möchte jetzt' die erste von zwei kleinen Sinqpausen einlegen in der wir Verse 9, 10 und 12 von dem begonnenen Lied (Nr. 98) singen.

Die Berichte über Jesus Weiterleben sind nicht die einzigen, dieser Art. Jesus selber sagte schon, (als er über das Weiterleben nach dem Tode gefragt wurde); Lukas 20: 37, 38) "Dass aber die Toten auferweckt werden, hat auch Moses bei der Geschichte vom Dornbusch angedeutet indem er den Herrn, den Gott Abrahams und den Gott Isaaks und den Gott Jakobs' nennt. Gott aber ist nicht ein Gott von Toten, sondern von Lebendigen; denn für ihn sind alle lebendig."

Das Lukasevangelium erzählt auch ganz am Anfang, wie der Engel Gabriel dem Priester, Zacharios, weissagte, dass seine Frau, Elisabeth, (die unfruchtbar und betagt war) ihm einen Sohn gebären wird, den er Johannes nennen soll, und der vor dem kommenden Herrn hergehen wird im Geist und in der Kraft des Elia.

Als viel später Jesus mit drei Jünger auf einen hohen Berg stieg, erschienen ihnen Moses und Elia. Danach sagte Jesus zu seinen Jüngern: "Saget niemand von der Erscheinung, bis der Sohn des Menschen von den Toten auferweckt worden ist!" Die Jünger fragten aber: "Warum sagen nun die Schriftgelehrten, zuvor müsse Elia kommen?" Und Jesus antwortete: "Elia soll zwar kommen und wird alles herstellen; ich sage euch aber: Elia ist schon gekommen, und sie haben ihn nicht erkannt, sondern mit ihm getan, was sie wollten. So wird auch der Sohn des Menschen durch sie leiden müssen.", Das (so berichtet noch Matthäus), verstanden die Jünger, dass er zu ihnen von Johannes dem Täufer redete.'

Damit berichtet die Bibel ausdrücklich von dem Weiterleben des menschlichen Geistes und dass es möglich ist, dass ein solcher Geist einen neuen Körper beleben kann, so wie die gerade beschriebene Wiederkunft des Propheten Elia, in der Gestalt von Johannes dem Täufer.

Auch heute gibt es viele ähnliche Berichte und viele normalen Menschen sind überzeugt, dass Jesus zu ihnen gesprochen hat. So haben auch zwei englische Schwestern, im Gebet gehörte Zusprachen, anonym veröffentlicht, weil diese Zusprachen ihnen vieles erklärt haben und ihnen, in ihrer schwierigen Lage, wertvoll geholfen haben. Die zwei daraus entstandenen Büchlein (‘God Calling' und ‘God at Eventide') sind auch ins Deutsche übersetzt worden und haben schon vielen Menschen ähnlich geholfen. Mir selber haben diese Bücher vieles in der Bibel genauer und, angepasst an unsere heutige Zeit, erklärt.

Ferner haben sich heute schon viele Wissenschaftler mit der Frage vom Weiterleben des menschlichen Geistes (also der Persönlichkeit) nach dem körperlichen Tod, intensiv befasst - so zum Beispiel der fähige, vor nicht langer Zeit verstorbene, Professor Dr. Walter Hinz von der Universität Göttingen. In seinem 1971 erschienenen Buch, "Geborgenheit", schreibt er auf Seite 5: "Das persönliche Überleben des Todes ist wissenschaftlich erwiesen" und er verweist auf die von Dr. Emil Mattiesen zusammengetragenen Beweise in dem dreibändigen Werk, ‘Das persönliche Überleben des Todes das 1936 von dem angesehenen wissenschaftlichen Verlag, Walter de Gruyter in Berlin, veröffentlicht wurde.

Außer den Auszügen, die Professor Hinz wiedergibt in seinem Buch, habe ich Mattiesens Buch selber nicht gelesen, jedoch las ich spätere ähnliche Bücher, welche nüchtern über verstorbene Menschen berichten, die nach ihrem körperlichen Tode anderen erschienen. Nicht nur war offensichtlich die gleiche völlig lebendige Persönlichkeit anwesend, sondern sie konnte, in manchen Fällen, richtige Informationen mitteilten (z.B. von einem nicht zu findenden Objekt), die nur die verstorbene Person und kein anderer Mensch wissen konnte.

Es gibt also viele moderne Berichte, die den Erscheinungen Jesu, nach dem Tode seines materiellen Körpers, ähnlich sind. Auf Seite 6, seines Buchs fragt nun Professor Hinz: "Wie kommt es aber, so ließe sich einwenden, dass weder die Fachwissenschaft, noch die Allgemeinheit diese Erfahrungsbeweise zur Kenntnis nehmen wollen?" Worauf er erwidert: "Dafür gibt es mannigfache Gründe. Zunächst tut sich jede neue Wissenschaft schwer von den alteingesessenen Fachgebieten anerkannt zu werden. Dies gilt besonders für die von E. Mattiesen vertretene Meta-psychologie, weil sie als Grenzwissenschaft über das Herkömmliche hinausgreift. Die meta-psychologischen Erfahrungsbeweise für das persönliche Überleben des Todes werden aber vor allem deshalb nicht zur Kenntnis genommen, weil sie nicht in das materialistische Weltbild des 20. Jahrhunderts passen. Schließlich ist der Gedanke an ein persönliches Überleben des Todes vielen Menschen unangenehm, ja zuwider. Also verhalten sie sich, in diesem Punkt, lieber wie der sprichwörtliche Vogel Strauß. Damit schaffen sie jedoch keine Tatsachen aus der Welt.

Ein geistig selbstständiger Mensch hat vielmehr die Pflicht, sich mit jenen Tatsachen vertraut zu machen, die sein Schicksaal bestimmen, mögen sie Ihm gefühlsmäßig zunächst auch wenig behagen." In Bezug auf das von Professor Hinz erwähnte ‘materialistische Weltbild des 20. Jahrhundert', bietet die Darwinsche Evolutionstheorie eine Erklärung der Entstehung des Lebens auf unserem Planeten durch materielle Zufallsverbindungen und natürliche Auslese, völlig ohne Eingriff einer intelligenten höheren geistlichen Schöpferkraft. Im Allgemeinen wurde diese Erklärung von der Wissenschaft als richtig akzeptiert und sie wurde dann in den staatlichen Lehranstalten gelehrt, wobei aber die religiöse Erklärung, ausgeschlossen wurde. Damit wurde auch die Lehre über Seele und Geist ausgeschlossen, mit der allgemeinen wissenschaftlichen Überzeugung, dass solches alles, überholter Aberglaube ist.

Obwohl nun Darwin ein scharfer Beobachter war und ein intelligenter Denker, und obwohl das Leben, wenigstens zum Teil, sich auf seine beschriebene Weise entwickelt, sind heute doch eine Anzahl Wissenschaftler überzeugt, dass solche Entwicklung nur eine relativ geringe Nebenrolle gespielt hat, und dass neue komplexe Lebensmechanismen (die man heute als viel komplexer erkennt als damals zu Darwins Zeit) von einem intelligenten Entwurf zeugen, ähnlich wie, z. B. das erste Uhrenwerk, der erste Motor oder das erste Radio. Ferner beobachtete Darwin den aggressiven Wetteifer in der Natur und folgerte, dass dieser Wetteifer den natürlichen Antrieb gibt zur Weiterentwicklung des Lebens.

Nach meinen Beobachtungen, wurde somit auch in den Lehranstalten der, von Jesus gelehrten Nächstenliebe, immer weniger Beachtung geschenkt, wobei jedoch der Wetteifer in der Natur immer mehr betont wurde. Erst in neueren Zeiten fängt die Wissenschaft an zu erkennen, dass die Natur auch eine harmonischere erhabenere und viel produktivere Lebensart zeigt, nämlich die der gegenseitigen kooperativen Ergänzung, die mit der Lehre Jesus übereinstimmt und ich vernehme, von jüngeren heutigen Lehrern, dass die Schulen neuerdings viel mehr das Kooperative, also das Gemeinschaftliche, betonen.

In der ZWEITEN SINGPAUSE singen wir die ersten drei Verse von dem Lied Nr. 39, das uns Frau Irene Blaich vorschlug.

Von besonderer Interesse ist das, was Jesus sagte über den Heiligen Geist, also den Beistand den er uns sendet. Ich finde dieses Versprechen trostreich: Denn wir haben damit die Gelegenheit (so wie die zwei schon erwähnten englischen Schwestern) mit dem Heiligen Geist in Verbindung zu treten um Führung, und Kraft zu erhalten.

Wie schon in der Bibel offensichtlich, sind manche Menschen dazu erwählt längere und kompliziertere göttliche Botschaften für die Menschen allgemein aufzuschreiben. Als solche Botschaften können auch die Schriften der genannten zwei englischen Schwestern angesehen werden. In dieser Hinsicht gibt es nun weitere moderne Botschaften und besonders kommt mir eine in den Sinn, die sich auf eine Prophezeiung in dem Buch der ‘Offenbarung' (in der Bibel) bezieht. Sie steht im 10. Kapitel, worin eine Wiederkunft des Lieblingsjüngers, Johannes, prophezeit wird. Diese heutige Botschaft betont besonders, dass alle sich auf Gott beziehende Religionen von Christus inspiriert wurden und dass es heute unsere besondere Aufgabe ist, diese verschiedenen Religionen zusammen zu bringen.

Die Botschaft erläutert also, dass die unterliegende göttliche Inspiration bei allen Religionen richtig ist, doch dass das, was die jeweiligen fehlerhaften Menschen daraus machten, oft noch sehr mangelhaft ist, was auch die vielen Konflikte zwischen den Religionen erklärt. Dabei wird das Wesentliche, das allen Religionen zugrunde liegt, genauer erklärt. Indem nun wir Menschen dieses Wesentliche besser begreifen und uns mehr danach verhalten, kann eine harmonische und zweckmäßige Vereinigung erreicht werden.

Ich finde, dass wir Templer solches schon zum großen Teil begriffen haben, und dass wir schon, wenigstens zum Teil, danach handeln: Das heißt, Mitglieder anderer Religionen, wenn sie eine Templergesinnung zeigen, dürfen gerne Templermitglieder werden. Auch zeugt davon unser damaliges harmonisches Auskommen in Palästina, mit den Anhängern des Judaismus und mit den islamischen Arabern. Die erwähnte neue Botschaft ist jedoch zuerst einmal da zum Lesen. Solches Lesen ist ähnlich wie das Lesen der Bibel. Es informiert nicht nur, sondern spendet auch Trost, und gibt Kraft, und Zuversicht, besonders in Bezug auf unsere heutige bewegte Zeit. Ich habe Schriftmaterial über die Botschaft hier ausgelegt und es darf sich jeder gerne nachher davon nehmen. Auch liegen einige Bände zur Besichtigung dabei. Der erste Band ist ein kleiner Einführungsband, der zweite erklärt, schlicht und einfach, die, heute noch, sehr verblüffenden Rätsel in der Offenbarung. Besonders beliebt jedoch für den Anfang sind die drei Bücher, Bände 6,7 und 8, die Weiteres erzählen über das Leben damals auf der Erde mit Jesus: Johannes sagte ja, in seinem Evangelium, dass noch sehr vieles zu erzählen sei. Hier sind nun seine weiteren Erinnerungen.

Wir beten noch das Vaterunser:

Vater unser in dem Himmel!
Geheiligt werde Dein Name.
Dein Reich komme,
Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden.
Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute,
und vergib uns unsere Schuld, wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigern.
Führe uns, wenn wir in Versuchung sind,
und erlöse uns von allem Bösen.
Denn Dein ist das Reich und die Kraft und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit.

Amen

Wir singen noch die letzten drei Verse von dem angefangenen Lied Nr. 39

Spiel von Frau Bringfriede Steller.

Return to the top

Saal in Bentleigh 28 July,
followed by Community Discussion
Elder, Alfred Klink
Music: Ingrid Lämmle/Ruff
Hymns: Number  64     Lobe den Herren verses 1,2,4 & 5
             and       75    Nun danket alle Gott, verses 1 & 2

 Good Morning! Today's Service will be followed by a discussion session (after the customary coffee break) in which you can voice your thoughts on the subject chosen for the debate. As advertised in the July Templer Record, this is called, the role, or relevance, of science in religion. With the vast range of what goes as religions these days I think we should concentrate on the subject with the Temple Society in mind, and how it affects our Templer belief. To me religion must of necessity include an awareness of ourselves, our surroundings and how we fit into the community environment. It should help us understand ideally our neighbour's needs to the extend we can respond to it without being asked. Would you call that science?  Whilst my Service today may seem to be oriented this way it is not my intention to pre-empt the debate, just to stimulate it a little. I look forward to hear your thoughts on the subject later on. So, lets start today's service in the usual way with a musical thanksgiving.

Hymn: Lobe den Herren

My talk has the theme of asking, and the text comes from Luke 11 verses 5-10.  Chapter 11 starts off with the disciples asking Jesus to teach them how to pray. Jesus responds by teaching them the essence of the Lords Prayer. At the end of which he offers an explanation why he feels an earnest, genuine prayer or plea for help will always be answered. We pick up the thread at verse 5:

Then Jesus said to them, suppose one of you has a friend who comes to him in the middle of the night and says, my friend, please lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine on a journey has turned up at my house and I have nothing to offer him; and he replies from inside, don't bother me. The door is shut for the night, the children and I have gone to bed; and I cannot get up and give you what you want.

I tell you that even if he would not provide for him out of friendship, the very necessity in the request will make him get up and give him all he needs.

And so I say to you, ask, and you will receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door will be opened.  For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

The story then goes on and he says, if you, then, bad as you are, would do so, how much more will the heavenly Father give to those who ask him.

As a way of leading into the subject of asking I would like to tell you a little story. At a meeting recently I was prompted to tell the tale of the Hufnagelsupp. Now, roughly translated, a Hufnagelsupp is a soup made with iron horseshoe nails instead of peas or pumpkins or eggs or such. Nothing more elaborate or costly than a horseshoe nail. It is not another iron-man breakfast food, it is a parable, a story with a message. You see, parables, the telling of stories that amplify a philosophical problem to which there is no simple Yes/No answer, did not die out with Jesus. Nor are they exclusively biblical in nature. They have been used by philosophers long before Jesus' time and are still being used today to great effect by experienced public speakers in making a finer point.

For me the story came from our Lesebuch, the official school reader in those times, in my early school-years in Palestine. I'll tell the story again with apologies to those of you who remember it better or could recount it better than I.   The scene is a house at the edge of a forest, somewhere in Germany, in the time when the horse reigned supreme. It was a time of great famine and weary travellers were a common sight on the road. The character of our story is a man, tired and hungry, finding his way through the forest, and glad when at long last he came across a house. He knocked and after a while a women opened the door, looked him over, from scruffy head to worn shoes, and impatiently said something like, what do you want?  I am very hungry, the man said, could you spare me some soup or a slice of bread, please?  The woman was alone at home, it could very well have been a blacksmith's house and the man was out in the forest making charcoal for the farriery. Go away, the women said there is nothing to eat in the house. Please, the man said, surely you could find something for a man who has come a long way today. These are tough times for everyone, the women said, we ourselves have barely enough to live on. If I gave to everyone who wanders in off the street we would starve ourselves. Be gone. The man searched his pockets for something that he could offer the woman to help change her mind, but all his cold and stiff fingers found was an old horseshoe nail. Please, he said again, there does not seem to be another house around for miles, I won't need much, if you just bring me a bowl of water I will show you how to make a nourishing soup with just a horseshoe nail. Remember, horseshoe nails in those horse-days were as plentiful (and cheap) as matches are these days and, being a blacksmith's wife the woman immediately saw the potential in using horseshoe nails as a base for a nourishing broth.

Her curiosity was aroused and she invited the man into her kitchen where the pots and pans and the water and the fire were. Here you are, she said and watched carefully as the man drew the old horseshoe nail from his pocket and started to stir the water in the pot and put it on the fire.  Can you hand me the salt from the shelve there for seasoning please? No harm in that, the woman thought and did as she was told. And a bit of that flour there for thickening. See, that is already starting to look quite appetising, doesn't it, the man said, stirring the broth all the while with the horseshoe nail. I see you have some left-over potatoes there, we might as well mix them in, I'll dice up some of those carrots and parsnips while you get a strip of bacon from the pantry. The woman probably realised by this time what was going on, and that she had been taught a lesson in common courtesy, human compassion and grateful humility in sharing with those that have less than, and are worse-off than you are. She joined in the spirit of the occasion and they both had a healthy and satisfying meal together, made, as the man said, with a horseshoe nail.     

So far the story of the Hufnagelsupp. The horseshoe nail here is of course the catalyst (as they would say in chemistry) that changed the water into soup without being affected itself in the process. I have used the expression before in the context of: it does not really matter where you start or what you start with, if you have imagination and perseverance you can build on it and achieve your goal. All roads lead to Rome, sort of thing.   Why I am telling you this story here is not just for its simple message, but today's subject of asking brought to mind the unexpected negative reaction I received from the members at that meeting I mentioned before: I see, one responded, so the man was nothing but a common con-man! That shocked me. I had never seen the story put in that light, and it made me think.  To me it always had been a lovely story, the delicate twist in it revealing the need for a human touch in our social interactions. Without this occasional humane touch the barriers we tend to erect around our emotional selves in our daily struggles will in time harden, and we become insensitive to the needs of our neighbour. It is easy. You get asked a few too many times for help and in no time you slide into the comfortable attitude: why can't they look after themselves? Serves them right, why don't they get a job and work hard like I do? Or, they should have saved something for a rainy day; planned ahead!  But you see, this attitude does not redress the problem; it does not relieve an immediate, pressing need.  Would you describe Jesus as a con-man when he found himself in the wilderness one day and fed himself and 5,000 others with nothing but five loaves of bread and two fishes? You can read the story in Matthew 15:34, and 16:9, and in Mark 8:5.  Or in John 2, when at a wedding feast in Galilee Jesus made water into wine, would you say he conned the people? No? Why not? because there too was no malice involved, no intend to hurt or to deprive, only the desire to fix an immediate problem by breaking down the barriers of selfishness that isolate and separate people from each other, (the ones that have from the ones that do not have), and open our eyes to the needs of others.

This is the way I have always seen the moral of my little story: To ask in such a way that it allows the other person to acknowledge my need without feeling pressured or compromised. That to me would have been the true Christian interpretation of the events, I thought. But, I was wrong. Those of you who know their Bible, and have listened carefully when I read out the bible text before, will have noticed that I have changed one little word in the text. It is an important word, one that changes totally the moral of the story, and puts the reference to a con-man alluded to above in a more prominent light. To demonstrate, I will read out that particular sentence again, this time verbatim as written in the New English Bible: I tell you that even if he will not provide for him out of friendship, the very shamelessness of the request will make him get up and give him all he needs. That is what it says! Shamelessness. It was not an appreciation of the other's dilemma, not sympathy for a desperate need that made the man get up and help, no, it was the sheer impudence (as the King James Bible puts it), the blatant audacity of the person asking, that drove him to get up and help. Um seines unverschämten Gailens willen wird er aufstehen und ihm geben, wieviel er bedarf. sagt Luther in the German version.

I think my vision of the story is nicer. It is more in tune with the Christian image of today. A belief in the fundamental goodness of man, in his righteous motivation, may not have been essential for society 1000 years ago. Life was cheap then, and the bible seldom refers to man other than sinner or worse. But in today's post-democratic environment, where every individual plays an active part in the evolution of society, a belief in the fundamental goodness of each person is a cornerstone of our society.  It is just another way of looking at life, but the shift in emphasis has dramatic, positive feedback results in making giving and helping your idea, not your obligation. You could call it the 21^st century religion.  

Religion, like other natural phenomena, seems to evolve in steps, or what Stephen Gould called punctuated equilibrium. A long period of adaptation is followed by a sudden breakthrough in conceptual understanding, and greater, more efficient utilisation of what nature provides is the result. Then follows again a period of familiarisation with (and adapting to) the new conditions before the next step. New knowledge and greater insight into the workings of nature gives us a higher awareness of life and our place in it.  It was probably the evolving society itself, with greater overall awareness, (scientific and other) more than Christoph Hoffmann, ?? and other religious revolutionaries that demanded change. They were just the outward signs of an impending change already in the making. Did you know that the sum total of human knowledge has doubled in the last twenty five years, and at the present rate of increase will most likely double again within less than a decade? Small wonder successive changes nowadays leave little time for adaptation. We are in the midst of another such religious upheaval right now, as religion tries to come to terms with (to adapt to) a new, resourceful human image. 

Socially religion used to be the mirror society watches itself in. It reflected public opinion. And its role in society was to provided a basis on which all people could be equal. A cultural left-over from a time when the job of governments was to make war and raise taxes.  It provided for the conflicting needs of people to live together in submissive safety and the emotional desire of the individual to be respected as a person. It provided a haven of safety in the hostile vastness of the universe and a solid support to our precarious existence at the mercy of the elements. Religion was the forerunner of the bill of rights: before God all people are the same.  These fundamental needs of the individual are now largely being catered for by public governing systems. We have forgotten how to ask, because we believe society owes us a living. In modern society traditional religion has lost its relevance to survival, lost it to the extend that those who do not have (or practice) it don't seem to miss it. It lost it to the social services, to the democratic, inalienable rights of the individual for life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

Intellectually religion for a long time provided the only sensible explanation of the universe. It was the frontier of knowledge, the cutting edge, where awareness borders on assumption; and the function of belief was to provide the bridge between the two. Research into astronomy, agriculture, into herbal medicine, into metallurgy and alchemy were all at one time actively promoted by the religious order. Priests and priestesses used to be the experts (and the authorities) on the practical aspects of life.  It was only when religion became a tool to manage society at large that belief in itself, belief  for belief's sake, became the focus of religion and rituals and dogma took over from the desire to better understand nature. When the Word itself became holy rather than the wisdom expressed by the word. It was then that religion became sidelined to the utopian search for universal love and eternal bliss, and was by-passed with a highway of scientific awareness in which there is no such thing as absolute truth.

Spiritually religion used to offer the people stability in an ever-changing environment. This rock-solid structure is now being seriously questioned as to being beneficial to man. Science has shown that change is the nature of life, and I feel religion in the future must give up its petrified structure and join hands with the population's scientific awareness, or risk gradual diminishing relevance for a technologically informed public.

For an answer to how to accomplish this, I think, we have to go to the philosophers, the people who apply scientific awareness to the way we live. It is man's inventive creations that, more than anything shape society's priorities and even our evolution. The environment, whether natural or manmade has the greatest, the most fundamental effect on our evolution. Physically and mentally. Think of agriculture, how it freed man's intellect to think of more than food. Think of the steam engine and how it transformed industrial society. It gave us the thermodynamic laws, laws that revealed the principles energy and allowed our mind step beyond what muscle and brawn can provide. Think of the graceful flight of a large bird, drawing lazy circles in the sky. From the age-old dream to soar like the bird came the aerodynamic laws of lift and drag that made possible heavier than air flight and revolutionised mass transport. For the first time in recorded history man could create artificial Earth satellites, leave the Earth, land somewhere else and return safely. A small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind. It forever altered how we see religion and our place in the cosmos. Think of the computer, an abstract creation that arose from the electro-dynamic laws and today greatly multiplies our intellectual power. And every innovation, every new concept man has developed,  has changed our way of life and increased our capacity to better understand ourselves.

Just as today's scientific community has its revolutionaries and those with the gift to popularise science, such as Cribbin, Davis, Dawkins and Sagan, the religious and philosophical side also produces people with vision, those who see society with the future in mind and highlight our options. One I would like to quote here is bishop John Shelby Spong, author of the books Why Christianity must change or die, and a new Christianity for a new World. In it he says, the new Christianity is born only when theism dies and God (as external to life) disappears from our consciousness and our vocabulary... He feels this is a natural progression and, in the present philosophical climate, a step not to hard to take. But then, he goes on, incorporating some of Carl Young's philosophies, the revolution will not be complete until bad and evil are also accepted as natural and necessary. Our capacity to recognise evil when we see it is an un-separable part of us just as much as recognising goodness is. It is part of our wholeness and what makes us human. Human life is not perfectible without it, ... Not perfectible, not because of insufficient compassion, or altruism within us, no, because good and bad, life and death are the very essence of life, and without it we could perhaps exist, but not live. The very first sin committed by man in the bible was essential to the story of the whole book.  It is a startling concept, not easily absorbed, he goes on to say, yet I believe it is a concept begging to be incorporated into the new Christianity struggling to be born in the 21^st century.

I think this is a fascinating book and, if you are at all interested in what lies in store for religion and social evolution, well worth reading. He takes the Templer philosophy of the God within us one step further and ties it back to traditional Christianity by saying that a kingdom of God on Earth can only come from the creativeness within us. A section on prayers in the book relates to today's theme of asking, where he invites us to make use of the power within to make our vision of a better world become a reality. ... no longer do we need an external, invasive miracle-working deity who must be implored occasionally to come to our aid. We must seek from within ourselves the God-presence that will enable us to embrace our fragile humanity and step boldly into the experiences of Life.  I see good and bad both as being part of the one attribute, behaviour. Like up and down, take one away and the other becomes meaningless. It is a philosophy crying out to be born in these days of endless, unwinnable wars against terror.  Let him without sin step forward and throw the first stone, said Jesus, and he did not judge or condemn either.

A little girl at school once wrote a note to God asking: Dear God, instead of letting people die and having to make new ones all the time, why don't you just make the ones you have perfect and then keep them for ever? It is the old, top-down philosophy that still dominates much of our thinking, especially in religion. We have to get used to the idea that nature organises itself from the bottom up; where the summed actions of the parts give meaning to the whole. We can no longer continue to see ourselves as a failed heavenly experiment, condemned to an eternal, futile struggle with sin, like Sisyphus forever pushing a falling rock uphill. We are individual, fully functional temples of God, whose individual contributions to society can create a community spirit that unites us beyond differences of opinion and selfish motivations.  It is an idea Christoph Hoffmann made large enough to accommodate at the time the most diverse assembly of individuals, and that today still makes the whole of us greater than our summed parts; a community spirit that we cultivate in our religion and in our awareness of the needs of our neighbour, beyond the need for shamelessness.  It is a vision that globally could accommodate the most diverse religion into a world community, making humanity greater than all mankind. That awareness of science Hoffmann in his writings stressed as so imperative to a functional religion, the link that keeps religion in touch with everyday life, has to go deep, beyond a passive adjustment to a changing environment. It has to become an active part in widening our intellectual horizons. When present world governments want to target greenhouse abatement they must address biology, chemistry, physics and marine sciences. Tomorrow's religion will, for its solutions, no longer rely on medieval bible study but such varied disciplines as environment, social studies, psychology and cosmology. As a Templer, grown up in a Templer environment I welcome this bold step in the ongoing religious revolution.

Peter Uhlherr finished his Founding Day Service in June with a call to identify a long-term goal that would make the Templer aim, and our striving, modern, exiting and challenging. Let us work together on this project, create such a vision and light the fire of imagination in all the people. Give everyone the opportunity to contribute in their own way and you do not have to ask shamelessly for help.  Being part of a higher ideal brings out the best in everybody.    

Hymn: Nun danket alle Gott... verses 1 & 2

The texts for today the Temple Society Elders take from the Table of Lessons for their Services are in a way the catalyst, the horseshoe nail in our story above, from which a Sunday service soup then is prepared. The selected text calls forth the thoughts, the ideas, the emotions that carry, like the backbone of a living creature, the words and the sentences that then give features to the structure. If I have been able to make you recognise some of those features, if you found the soup eatable, I hope you will stay and take part in discussions on the role of science in our Templer Religion. After the 15 minute coffee break we will reassemble in three groups for a 20 minute discussion-session, and then re-join for a comprehensive summary. The three volunteer arbitrators are Herta Uhlherr, Rolf Beilharz and myself.

Thank you.                                                                                                                   Alfred Klink

Return to the top

SAAL 21.07.2002 Country Vic Elder Rolf Beilharz

Introductory music: CD player.

Welcome to this meeting of the Country Victoria Group of Templers. We'll start this service by singing "The Lord is my shepherd".

Our text for today is Matthew 6, verses 9 to 13 (the Lord's prayer). I'll read the next two verses as well because these add an important qualification. Read text. Now I want to read another text from later in Matthew from Chapter 19. verses 3 to 9. Read text. The reason why I read this second text is because I wish to expand on that part of the Lord's prayer which says: "Do not put us to the test, but save us from the evil one." Or as we used to say: "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." Before we look at these texts in more detail, let me fill in a little background on how I understand the Bible, and particularly the gospels, which are the parts of the bible that tell us about Jesus. In the summary of the Templer Religion, which we set out in the golden booklet "Temple Society - Religious Perspective", we can read: "The bible contains the basic teaching of Christianity." In the next paragraph it says: "In order to understand the true meaning of Jesus' teaching and its influence on subsequent religious developments, we consider it necessary to read these writings thoughtfully and without prejudice, and to apply to them the same critical standard as is usual for other historical works. Moreover, we must decide which of the traditional words and stories are tied to specific times, and which continue to be relevant for us; the criterion must be the essential guidelines taught by Jesus." So, this is the background from which I wish to discuss the texts I read. Did Jesus actually say these things? It turns out that the theologians and historians who research the life of Jesus find it very hard to guarantee any particular statement as coming directly from Jesus. Nevertheless, there is a consistent message that does come through what we read in the gospels. I am satisfied that I have over time, got a sense of what Jesus taught. Here are some brief facts and inferences. Jesus must have lived in the years we now know as about 5 BC to about 30 AD. Incidentally, we now call these periods BCE (before Common Era) and CE (Common Era). We are now in the year 2002 of the Common Era. Jesus must have had a big effect on the people of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, that is Jews and the Romans who were an occupying military power. What he said seemed to convince many listeners. It made them feel well, so much so that some felt miraculously cured. He gathered a group of followers, the disciples. He was put to death on the cross by the Romans. It seems that other Jews wanted to get rid of him. Jesus was a Jew from Galilee and apparently knew the Jewish religion well. This religion is the Old Testament of the bible. There seems to be agreement that he taught the good news, or the gospel, about the kingdom of God. The Sermon of the Mount, from which our first text came, is a collection of his teachings, which the author of Matthew's gospel put together. However, the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles were not written until about the years 60 to 90 of the Common Era.

What happened in the years since the death of Jesus until the gospels were written? There are some letters of Paul and other apostles which are older than the gospels and come from those years. It seems that the original disciples who knew Jesus formed a community and lived in Jerusalem, waiting for Jesus to come back from God and establish his kingdom. The Jews did not like these early Christians, and harassed them. Saul of Tarsus was particularly zealous in this harassment. On a difficult journey on a donkey from Jerusalem to Damascus he had an experience which completely changed him. As a result he became the apostle Paul. I assume that, on a hot day being shaken on the back of a donkey he was thinking about persecuting the Jews in Damascus. He must have asked himself the obvious question: why am I doing this, persecuting people who actually seem to be nice and quite harmless? According to the Acts of the Apostles, he had a vision, passed out and took a little time to recover. In one of his letters, which are the oldest of the New Testament documents, Paul describes the incident as Jesus appearing to him, in the same way as he had appeared to his disciples after his death. There is nothing physical about this meeting with Jesus. It was a vision, inside his head. According to the" Acts", Paul's companions had seen and heard nothing. Paul became a zealous apostle of the new Christianity. He seems to have had an uneasy relationship with the original apostles, Peter and James, who had known Jesus. Paul founded communities of Christians outside Judaea and Galilee, while the original followers of Jesus spread Christianity inside these Jewish countries. The Jews rebelled against the Romans in the year 72, were heavily defeated and apparently hunted out of the country and scattered throughout the rest of the world. It was in the communities set up by Paul that the gospels were written. Note that apart from a few letters by the original apostles Peter, James, John and a person called Jude, the original Jewish followers of Jesus did not write anything because they thought that Jesus was returning soon. Even normal things like getting married and having families were discouraged as not being necessary any more. It is important to note that the gospels about Jesus were written by people who did not know him personally. These writers depended on hearsay. According to Bishop Spong, the gospels are collections of what Jesus said and did, probably written to be services in Jewish synagogues for the sabbaths in the communities established outside Judaea and Galilee. They were written to make points, to teach, not to be historically accurate. If you take the trouble to read the four gospels in the historical order in which they were written (Mark, Matthew and Luke, and then John) you will see a very definite pattern. Mark is short on personal details about Jesus. He basically says there was John the Baptist calling for people to repent and babtising people in the Jordan river as an outward sign that they had changed. Jesus visited him and was baptised and the spirit drove him out into the desert, where he was tempted by the devil. After John had been arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God. The time has arrived; the kingdom of God is upon you. Repent and believe the gospel. Mark's gospel ends with Jesus being buried and the women finding an empty grave. Verse 8 of Mark's chapter 16 is "Then they [the women] went out and ran away from the tomb, trembling with amazement. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." The footnote here says "at this point some of the most ancient witnesses bring the book to a close. The bibles we have then add a few more verses, apparently added later, which give a short summary of appearances by Jesus to his disciples, the so-called resurrection of Jesus. In Matthew and Luke there are birth stories with elaborated details (Christmas) and also detailed stories about Jesus appearing to his disciples after his death (Good Friday and Easter). In John, Jesus was present with God from the beginning of time. He was made flesh and came to earth to die as a sacrifice to save people from their sinful nature. This is clear evidence of a developing story about Jesus, from an ordinary human to being Godlike or part of God, as it is defined in the Trinity. As the story grew, it also became important for Jesus' mother to be a virgin impregnated by God's spirit. Mark tells us nothing about the background of Jesus. There is no hint that Jesus was anything but a normal human. The first thing we should note is that the later the gospels were written, the more they contain of the developing conviction that Jesus was truly the Messiah whom God had sent. That God would send a Messiah had earlier been prophesied to the Jews, and much detail was known about who he had to be, e.g. a descendant of David. Jesus as the Messiah became more and more Godlike as time passed. We know that shortly after the year 300, Jesus became a part in the Trinity of God, at a council in Nicea in which this dogma was agreed upon. So, anything that gives Jesus superhuman powers we can quietly put aside as respectful exaggeration. Secondly, as all people do in every age, the biblical writers described incidents in the language of their time and understanding of nature and how the world works. One obvious difference from our present understanding of nature concerns how people become sick. In Jesus' time, sicknesses occurred because demons came to live inside people. Jesus made people well by driving out their demons.

Our problems with biblical incidents that sound impossible to us arise from the fact that nature was described so differently. Angels existed. They were God's messengers to the earth. God interfered directly in earthly events through his lightning and thunder and every other catastrophic event that occurred. Man was created directly by God to be similar to God. In Jewish praising of important holy persons, walking on water was not unusual. For the gospel writers, Jesus had to be at least as powerful as these earlier persons. So, we can discount or reinterpret many incidents by taking out the exaggerations, and expressing in modern words the main idea the writers were trying to tell us. Let's now turn to our texts. The Lord's prayer is a fundamentally important statement of what people need in life. It is a plea to God to satisfy our needs. God's kingdom coming and our doing God's will is really up to us. We are asking God's help to change ourselves so that we become peaceful, generous, loving and so that we will treat others as we want others to treat us. If we succeed in doing that and others respond in the same way, then God's will is being done on earth. We ask, humbly I hope, that God will look after our worldly needs such as food. We ask God to forgive us, and we say that we are prepared to forgive others. In the two extra verses I read, Jesus said very clearly that we must forgive first, and the more we forgive, the more forgiveness we can expect to get. Note that this is actually a very accurate description of human nature. A person who forgives is readily forgiven by others. Because people find it so hard to forgive, they make life hard for themselves, as others see no reason to forgive them unless they forgive first. And then we ask not to be tested, or not to be tempted, or, if being tempted, that God may help us not to give in. Clearly this is an important matter. What temptation was Jesus thinking of? There are many temptations to which this plea applies. Just look around us. We should not cook the books of companies to deceive people about the value of shares. We should not steal. We should not hurt others. We should not be bribed or otherwise corrupted or misuse a position of power. Fortunately, most of us and our friends are not likely to be in positions of power where we might be approached with bribes or in a position to falsify company accounts.

But all humans are subject to sexual urges. And as we know from the newspapers, books and television, sexual misconduct is very common all around us. Sexual urges are very powerful and misconduct so often finishes up making many people desperately unhappy. So let's think about sex in relation to temptation. Here the second text I read becomes relevant. "Have you never read that in the beginning the Creator made them male and female. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and the two become one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate." This is the sense of what Jesus said. I think this is also a wonderful description of human nature. While many churches have made a big fuss of the divorce side of this statement (man must not separate), I think it is necessary to understand this whole text as our human nature. What's more, it applies specifically to humans. For most other forms of life it is not relevant. That, and the real significance of it, and of how some have got it very wrong, is what I want to tell you today, using the latest findings of biology. From when I was a student of Agricultural Science I have had an interest in animals. This interest became focussed on the specialities of genetics, animal breeding and animal behaviour. With these interests, I could not avoid becoming interested in the theory of evolution as well. After study in the USA I came to my job at Melbourne University where I taught animal breeding, and later also animal behaviour to agricultural science and veterinary science students. After 6 years of teaching I took a year's study leave in Germany, in Seewiesen, where Konrad Lorenz was a director. He had become famous for writing about animal behaviour in little stories that everyone could enjoy and learn from. In that place among researchers and graduate students, I allowed myself to soak up the knowledge of animal behaviour and its role in evolution. With many people thinking like Konrad Lorenz, I learned much about instinctive behaviour. This is the behaviour that happens without having to be learned, because it is part of the evolutionary adaptation of animals to their environment. Examples are the suckling of all mammalian babies, the sense of being upright, the automatic reflex responses everyone makes when they lose balance, and everything organisms do automatically once they are strong enough to do it, like walking, running, breathing and so on. Sexual behaviour and its motivation are strong instinctive components of behaviour. This must be so, because all those organisms that were not driven to reproduce themselves have been left behind by evolution. The strongly reproductive ones reproduced more strongly. That is how evolution works. At that time, Konrad Lorenz had recently published a theory of how instinctive behaviour worked. He claimed that the motivation for each instinctive behaviour grew with time since the last time it had occurred. In the presence of an appropriate stimulus the behaviour would occur once the motivation was high enough. This means that any behaviour not used for some time was ready to occur as soon as a stimulus presents itself and in the absence of a stimulus would eventually occur spontaneously.

This theory was controversial, because Lorenz said all instinctive behaviours work in this way, and people were looking for evidence for and against it while I was in Seewiesen. What Lorenz claimed about instincts is true for hunger and eating and for sexual behaviour in humans. The longer it is since the last meal, the hungrier any animal gets. The need to eat is common to all animals. Among humans, sex is a taboo subject. People rarely talk about their own sex. That is an important fact in itself. For me, it is true that the urge to have sex increases the longer it is since last time. For single young men actively producing semen, this may result in wet dreams (ejaculations in their sleep while dreaming). I can only make assumptions about what sex feels like in women, but I suspect that motivation also increases with time since the last time. I don't want anyone to tell me what happens to them, but please do think about the topic rationally and without embarrassment. The fact that the topic is rightfully taboo, does not mean that there is anything sleazy or dirty about sex. Sexual behaviour is a very important part of our human nature. Incidentally, Lorenz was wrong in his claim that all instinctive behaviour has increasing motivation to the point where the behaviour must occur spontaneously, as is typical for eating and for humans having sex. Prey animals have instinctive behaviour to escape from predators. They can go on happily forever without using this behaviour if there are no predators. They do not go out looking for predators just so that they can run away. For each behaviour, the environment selects exactly that behaviour which contributes to evolutionary success. Eating is successful only if you do it regularly, even when you don't like the food. So being driven to eat by hunger is necessary. However, why should humans be driven to have sex? In later, shorter visits to Seewiesen I worked with Wolfgang Wickler's group. His group was looking at bonding of mated pairs, which happens in many songbirds and various other species, and the mechanisms which lead to that bonding. Many songbirds sing duets. Those mated pairs in which the duets work well have long-lasting bonds. Local examples you may have heard are Whipbirds and Peewees. The fact is that successful duetting maintains a bond between mated pairs of songbirds. Lyrebirds do not sing duets. Males have developed mimicry to a fantastic level, so that one male can put on a performance that makes the forest ring with all the songs and noises that occur there. The function of their song and dance performance is to attract female lyrebirds to the male so that the male can mate with them. Once mated, each female broods and raises the single resulting young by herself. Just note that lyrebirds are in an environment where a single female can raise one young by herself. Songbirds usually have several young in a nest and while the nestlings are growing fast, both mother and father are working flat out to feed the young. In such songbirds, single females are far less successful at rearing a clutch. You can see that different environments select their inhabitants for different best ways of rearing their young. Back to humans. It turns out that human sexual activity is actually quite different from most mammals and also from our nearest relatives, the great apes. Most mammal species, including the great apes, do not mate unless the female comes on heat for a short period and they mate only then. Once conception has occurred, mating is over for that female until the young is weaned or has become lost in some other way. Coming on heat is tied to the seasons in many animals and birds. Why are humans different? Humans have another very unusual feature. Relative to all other vertebrates, the juvenile growth period of humans is greatly increased. Why? Because humans can think and have culture, and to support these they have a very complex brain. This is a result of evolution. Exactly how it started is unclear. But there has obviously been a coevolution where an enlarging brain made possible thinking, language for communicating thoughts, and the resulting accumulation of cultural artifacts. This in turn selected for even greater brain complexity. But this complexity needs time to develop in growing humans, so the juvenile period became longer. And this requires a secure, protected environment to allow this brain development to occur in an environment free of fear or hardship. Continuing sexual activity, if it bonds two parents together, provides a wonderful safeguard for a relaxed, protected environment in which children can develop their mental abilities to the full. I strongly believe that that is why humans have evolved this strong urge for having sex, which continues over a long part of the lifetime. Sex is clearly not only for reproduction. Thus, I claim that high motivation for, and being driven to have, sexual activity is an important and wonderful aspect of being human. It has been selected to protect the most valuable product we can make, happy, secure children who develop into responsible adults. It is part of being made in God's image, as the bible says. The fact that humans have a spiritual side, which is everything related to our higher mental abilities, is the feature that even the ancients recognised as making us like God and different from all other creatures. Continuing sexual activity of the two parents is a major contributor to the health of this spiritual side of mankind. Why then, if sex is so good, have people always had problems with it and included sex as a temptation, from which we should be protected? Probably because the urge to have sex is so very strong! It takes strong will power to always keep it under control. It must have been for such reasons that religious persons saw themselves as best able to serve God if they controlled all their urges. This is also the ultimate goal of eastern religions, to use the mind to quell all urges so that a condition of complete serenity is reached, where man is master over all desires.

I just ask: Is religion only for extreme humans who use their will to control all their instinctive urges, or is religion for all people, all the normal persons who have many urges, and who struggle reasonably to steer their behaviour so that they do not cause harm to others. My yes is definitely for the latter. Religion should be for everyone. All ordinary people should feel happy living in the peace on earth that Jesus called the kingdom of God. Religion is not being pious and doing rites and other things to spite your normal self, just to prove something to God. Religion should be the striving for the happy peaceful state in which all people live in harmony with other people, with other creatures and with the planet earth on which we all live. In this religion, using sex fully to create a strong parental bond is a wonderful thing. But, remember our second text. "What God has joined together, man must not separate." What this means is that all people should respect and protect the pair bond that any man and woman have made. We should not interfere with an existing pair bond. To me this does not mean that a pair where the bond has broken irreparably, must be forced to stay together. Here, divorce is better, probably even for the children of that bond. Sex should also not become something casual. The character Mullet, in the recent Australian film, put it so aptly after having spent a night in the same bed with the local barmaid. When she asked: "Why did you not have sex with me last night", he answered: "When you have sex it means you have made a commitment." I agree completely. Having sex can create a powerful bond between people who are quite unsuited to each other, when it is done casually. We oldies, who were already grown up in the 1960s, are clearly not liberated from all sexual hangups, as those who became liberated in those years believe they are. But what has been the result of the sexual liberation of the 60s. Many single parent families, a huge divorce rate so that many youngsters today get married expecting their marriage to fail, and an apparently huge number of unsatisfied teenagers who wonder whether life is worth living at all. Could this development be related to the fact that sex is no longer something special to be treasured between two people committed to each other? I suspect it is. Let's summarise. Sex which is private and wonderfully satisfying between two partners paired for a long time is something uniquely human, worth preserving and encouraging. That is also why your own sexual experience has rightly been, and should continue to be, a subject that is taboo. For two people to know and trust each other fully, they should not expose their experiences to others. Society should encourage such full enjoyment of sex in bonded pairs. In such a bonded partnership, giving in to the urge to have sex is anything but evil. Sex becomes a temptation, which we must fight, if it breaks into an existing bond or breaks the trust of your existing partner. Such affairs seem to leave all concerned very much sadder when they are inevitably exposed. They break down a complete trust, the sense of being one flesh, which existed earlier. Such trust is very difficult to build up again. There is no doubt that children growing up in a well-bonded partnership will have an easier, more fulfilling life than others. That is why ongoing sexual activity was selected by evolution. And the ancients also understood this.

Another saying of Jesus is the comment: "The sins of the fathers will be visited on the children and the children's children." This is an accurate description of broken marriages and their consequences. Churches which hold celibacy as important in religion and insist that their priests must be celibate to serve God, have tragically misunderstood what it means to be truly human, made in the image of God. Unfortunately, the power of the sexual urge becomes too strong for some of these priests and, as they are often in positions of power over children, great damage has been done when these children have been sexually mishandled. For me it is sad that churches have so misunderstood the highly positive role of continuing sexual urges. Humans should thank God for the powerful bonding role of sex. They should not put themselves into impossible situations from which they have to fight sex. Let's finish with the Lord's prayer. Please think about what the prayer really means. Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us when in temptation And deliver us from evil. For the Kingdom, the power and the Glory are Yours forever. Amen.

Let's close this time of contemplation with more Music.

Return to the top

Founding of the Temple Society

Elder: P .H. T .Uhlherr

Music: Elisabeth Wagner

Beginning: Templer Hymn (No.1); verses 1,6,10
Conclusion: To praise God (No.118); all three verses.

Text: I Peter, 2:1-5; Ephesians,2:19-22; Founding day 20th June; I Corinthians, 3: 16-17; Ecclesiastes,7:13-18;

Today we celebrate the constitution of the Temple Society on 20th June 1861. Our new table of lessons suggests two texts for this specific date:-
1 Peter, 'come, and let yourselves be built, as living stones, into a spiritual temple'; Ephesians 2: 19. 'Thus you are no longer aliens in a foreign land, but fellow-citizens with God's people, members of God's household. You are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, and Christ Jesus himself is the foundation-stone. In him the whole building is bonded together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you too are being built , all the rest into a spiritual dwelling for God.'

These are clearly texts about community; about individuals being assembled into a community. I want to augment these texts with a third, which concerns the individual:-

1 Corinthians 3: Surely you know that you are God's temple, where the Spirit of God dwells. Anyone who destroys God's temple will himself be destroyed by God, because the temple of God is holy; and that temple you are. Each individual is a temple in which God dwells; each one of us is potentially holy. Each of us strives, more or less, to keep body and spirit whole -and, hopefully habitable by God. It is in our own hands to maintain God's temple within us; or to let it decay; or even to destroy it recklessly.

There is a separate text for this Sunday; it is a passage from Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 7, consider God's handiwork; who can straighten what he has made crooked? When things go well, be glad; but when things go ill, consider this: God has set the one alongside the other in such a way that no one can find out what is to happen next. I have seen it all, from a righteous man perishing in his righteousness to a wicked man growing old in his wickedness. Do not be over-righteous and do not be over- wise. Do not be over-wicked and do not be a fool. It is good to hold on to the one thing ---and not lose hold of the other; for a man who fears God will succeed both ways. The world contains no man so righteous that he can do right always and never do wrong.

There is nothing quite like a pragmatic Old Testament passage to bring us from flights of spiritual fancy back to reality -with a thud. God has created both the straight and the crooked. He has given us inherent strengths to develop; and inherent weaknesses as a challenge for us to overcome.

The individual as a temple of God must come first -- it is a prerequisite. This requires individual effort. The community as a temple of God is possible only if the individual building blocks are suitable, if they are viable. The construction of a community also requires individual effort. However, once a community is established, it has the potential to become greater than the sum of its parts. As individuals, we can "brighten the corners where we are" -as we are exhorted to do in Hymn No.16. But as a community, we can potentially achieve much more. Christoph Hoffmann was very much aware of this, as his grand vision for our community shows.

Peter Lange's address to the ladies here in Bayswater- as reproduced in the June Templer Record - ends with the following observation:- (TR No 640; June 2002)

Modem people have become such individualists that their ability to come to a consensus with others is weakening. But in an ideal community you cannot act in an individualistic, ego-centered way; you have to balance what you want for yourself with what is for the good of the community. (Peter Lange)

That is indeed the modern challenge -and not just for Templers. However, I believe this is not a trend that we should decry or disparage. In fact, I believe it is a natural development that we must face, come to grips with, and finally embrace. The social structure of mankind has progressed from tribal- in olden times - through clans, extended family to the nuclear family- that is two parents and their children -in the 20^th century. The process has continued and has been accelerating, so that currently we are witnessing the disintegration of the nuclear family, at least in Western cultures. What we see as disintegration may, in fact, be our further development towards individualism. Our problem appears to be that this development is faster than the necessary accompanying spiritual growth. There is great stress involved with this mismatch ingrowth.

Perhaps the process of individuation and the accompanying stress are even the driving force for our spiritual growth. Growth does not come out of comfort and complacency. The wise counsel, the wisdom of the elders, has traditionally been available in the tribe, and advice, based on experience was still readily available in the nuclear family. However, now decisions are increasingly made by individuals -and they are becoming younger and younger. The increase in responsibility resting on the individual is enormous. Perhaps the community can adapt to provide support by becoming less of a superfamily and more of a collection of like- minded individuals -with the emphasis on individuals.

We regularly pray: Your will be done! That to me embodies the process of spiritual development of the individual- to align our individual wills with the will of God. A group of individualists can still form a powerful community, provided that each individual still strives to be a temple of God -after all the commandment says: love your neighbour as yourself. We have rarely explicitly stressed the ''as yourself'. Individualism and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. Growth of our individuality simply increases our responsibility; it does not necessarily decrease our spirituality.

The spiritual nature of a person is rarely obvious to others. The monk of any religion- Christian, Hindu, Buddhist -dedicates his whole life to the practice of self -discipline; he learns to control his instincts and emotions; his ultimate aim is to subjugate his own will to a higher will, for the benefit of others. His spirituality is intellectual, abstract and very conscious. It is clearly visible in his way of life. What about the layman, labouring to sustain himself and his dependants? He may have little time or energy to philosophise about spirituality; and yet he may be at least as spiritual as the Buddhist monk, but less obviously so. His spirituality could be more pragmatic, less abstract; more down to earth, less intellectual; more natural, spontaneous, intuitive, and less conscious. I believe there has always been much spirituality of this type among Templers -practical, no fuss, a largely unconscious and integral part of daily activities.

In the end it simply doesn't matter how we rise to the challenge of increasing the straight and reducing the crooked that we have been dealt. Whether consciously or instinctively -so long as it does happen.

A few minutes ago I said that a community can be more than the sum of its members, and that Christoph Hoffmann was keenly aware of this. If he did not believe this, he could not have formulated his plan for our community.

At the very end of Occident u. Orient, Part III, we have the following passage which I have translated very freely: (O.u.O. Ed 2, p269-271.)

."Unfortunately very few individuals have sufficient faith in the invisible and in the future, that this faith can grow to become an effective force. In general, in order to achieve such faith, man needs a great, visible sign. Moses achieved Israel's faith in the invisible God only through the miracles of the exodus and of the transmission of the commandments.
Christianity is founded on the great sign of the resurrection of Christ, which event prepared the apostles to envisage the future kingdom of God, and armed them spiritually to oppose all worldly powers. In the same way, the belief in the final realization of the kingdom of God has to be rekindled through a great sign. The sign that the Temple Society has undertaken to give is the raising of the Orient out of poverty and decay to an existence worthy of man. The founding of the Temple Society in Jerusalem will be the sign and the means for finally reestablishing true Christianity in the Orient and in Western Europe as well."

The Templer settlements in Palestine did not achieve the magnitude of a sign. I have long been troubled by Hoffmann's expectation. I am surprised that he, of all people, should ignore Jesus' words e.g. in Mark 8: 12:- ". ..this generation shall NOT receive a sign. .." meaning unbelievers in all ages. Clearly, the impetus for a sign comes from God, not from man!

In the 19th century, the prevailing sentiment in Europe towards the rest of the world was colonial and missionary .The Templer settlements could easily be misconstrued as fitting into that class. Fortunately, however, the founding Templers were, for their time, extraordinarily enlightened in their approach. Whereas normal colonialism exploits and oppresses, and normal mission proselytizes -that is, both seek power and control over a population -the Templers did none of this. What the Templers offered was unencumbered and without coercion.

The Templers introduced modem European methods of agriculture, manufacture, construction and business first and foremost for their own benefit and livelihood. Benefits for the rest of the population could then follow. Over the decades after 1869 they were regarded suspiciously, then jealously and finally with relative acceptance. Their methods were adopted successfully by Jews and some Arabs. Later, the Jews reciprocated and Templers in turn were able to benefit. To lead by example was the Templers' enlightened and relatively non- invasive approach. They may not have achieved a great sign, nor did they spread "true Christianity", but they did contribute significantly to the raising of the orient out of poverty and decay. I have come across evidence of this in a few unexpected places.

1. PALESTINE, PAST AND PRESENT. L. Valentine, London 1893 p 172-173.

In 1868 in pursuance of this decision, the colony of the Temple Society was established at Haifa. Contending with extraordinary difficulties, -for they could not speak Arabic, they were unused to the climate, and were regarded jealously by the natives, -they nevertheless were completely successful. Their industry and honesty have wonderfully impressed the Arabs round them, who have adopted their modes of agriculture, and have grown to like and respect the Germans. They have built a town, made roads, and introduced carts and carriages; pure goodness, and acting on our Lord's precepts have enabled them to be the real makers of the town which will assuredly be the greatest port in Palestine.

2. THE ZEALOUS INTRUDERS: Naomi Shepherd, San Francisco 1987.

In 1869 the failed American colony was purchased by new arrivals in Palestine, the sober, strictly disciplined German Templers, a Pietistic sect which was in trouble both with government and established church for its visionary, sectarian views.
...the Templer colonies, ... came to be the largest and most solidly established of all the foreign settlements in Palestine before 1882, ... Their work was universally admired by Western visitors to Palestine. One visitor in the 1870s, believed that their colonies 'would become a centre of regeneration for the soft and infantile peoples of the Orient' , ... Templers set up model communities of artisans, and professionals; they experimented with European farming methods and indicated, especially to the more independent-minded Jews, that European colonies could succeed even in a hostile environment.

Templers greatly influenced the local Jews by their example with their modern ploughs and fertilizers. They had no interest in proselytizing among the local Christians or Jews, ... Their contribution to the road services in Palestine was held up as evidence of their claim to have brought culture to the Holy Land. They invested their own money in building a road from Haifa to Nazareth, and from 1875 worked a carriage service from Jaffa to Jerusalem, which proved more successful than previous transport services. .. ...by the 1870s, the Hebrew press was holding up the Protestant settlers as models.

A Jerusalem Jew was sent to investigate the process of grafting in the Templer settlements. Queries about the Templers' work, and the equipment necessary to begin farming in Palestine, arrived from traditional Jewish communities as far afield as Russia. The idea of putting Jews back on the land appeared less threatening to the local community than Christian hospitals and schools, and Protestant models were the original inspiration for the first settlement founded by observant Jews from Jerusalem in 1878.

What all this suggests is that the Templers (a) improved infrastructure where it was necessary for their activities, and was within their means; and (b) by applying discipline and hard work in the development of their own communities, under often adverse conditions, they led by example. Others took note of their techniques and their technology and the results. Their communities were used as models. This continued into the 20^th century. But by WWI Zionism was gathering momentum and its resources so far outstripped those of the Templer communities that these rapidly decreased in significance. What they did achieve, undeniably, was to lay the foundation for Jewish development of the region. Undoubtedly also, the Templers did contribute to raising the Orient out of poverty. But their example never raised the Orient out of spiritual decay. Looking at events in the middle East over the past 50 years, it seems that humanity is simply not yet ready for a unifying world religion (such as "true Christianity").

Furthermore calling this religion "true Christianity" especially in a Jewish and Islamic environment, is like waving a red rag at a bull. One reason for suspicion or even animosity towards Christianity is bitter experience! Organised Christian churches have, over l00's of years of misguided missionary zeal ensured the animosity of most non-Christian populations. The mere word "Christian" raised hackles in many places -and, to my mind, largely justified!

Irene Bouzo's article in the June (No.640) T.R. contains some real insights into the causes of religious tensions. When people conduct discussion about religion with members of another faith, there is a strong temptation to steer the exchange into the direction of religious conversion. The intention to preach and convert is in conflict with a genuine discussion about mutual cooperation in the area of religious beliefs. A person's religious faith is a deeply held conviction. Each one believes they have found the right path. An honest, open desire to work with people of other denominations and religions requires us to overcome our narrow-mindedness and replace it with enlightened thinking that respects freedom of personal belief. The mysteries of the universe have been revealed to the people of the world in many different ways. All of us strive to find the way to peace and perfection. Perhaps the answer lies in the multitude of different religious meanings, not in any single one. (Irene Bouzo )

Even if a discussion has no intention to convert, a simple comparison is already fraught with many dangers; it can be misconstrued as an attack or a belittling. Individuals hold very tenaciously to the faith and values that they received as children. Acceptance of differences, and respect for them are absolute prerequisites to any religious exchange.

Christoph Hoffmann was quite ruthless in his distillation of our own form of Christianity out of Lutheran and Catholic beliefs and practices; we all know the consequences. He also advocated continual revision of our Christian precepts in the light of the latest scientific developments. -today we might also add social/cultural developments in view of where we now live.

About 45 years ago we made yet another fresh start. After a few years of struggle and hardship Templers were again relatively well off. For 40 years we have enjoyed peace and relative affluence, have been putting effort and capital into the community -the results are there for all to see. But today, the gap between ourselves and our neighbours is no longer there. The example of our community and our achievements is no longer that conspicuous among other equally successful communities. Any spiritual progress that we may have made in the last 140 years is also completely integrated into our community -it is not readily distinguishable from outside. I believe we still have something to offer the wider community -but we are probably not sufficiently modern, exciting or challenging to attract much attention or even to maintain the interest of our children and grandchildren. What can we do about that?

Sorry to disappoint you -but I have no answer. But I do want to ask a question. Can we identify a long term goal, of significance to our children and grandchildren, that would challenge them and give them a focus on their future? Achievable or not does not really matter; so long as it fires the imagination and makes them keen and willing to embark on the Journey.

Return to the Top

Text: Mark 10: 13-16. Jesus blesses the little children.
Elder, Alfred Klink; Music, Elisabeth Wagner
Hymn, number 64, Lobet den Herren den mächtigen König der Ehren, verses 1,2 & 4
and 17. Brüder singt ein Lied der Freude verses 1,2 &3

Prelude

Today's Saal is scheduled as a Discussion-Saal, that means at the end of the Service we will have a short break for a cup of coffee and a stretch of legs, then form into three smaller groups for discussing the subject of communication as indicated in the April Templer Record. For now though relax and enjoy the atmosphere of the Sunday Service. To begin will sing the Hymn: "Lobet den Herren... " number 64 in the book, verses 1,2 & 4.

The text for today comes from Mark 10: 13-16, and the theme for the Service will be my interpretation of what Jesus meant by encouraging people to be like little children. We'll try and find the picture behind the picture that Jesus is painting here for us, 'the picture behind the parable' as Otto Hammer so nicely put it in his February Altersheim Saal. The actual Bible text goes like this:

Jesus must have loved the story of the little children. I should say the historians must have liked it, for it appears in every Gospel but John's. And even John uses the expression 'little Children' repeatedly to address his followers and his audience as such, as well as in his letters to the communities, right down to Revelations.

Unless you become like little Children you will not enter the kingdom of God. It is a lovely picture the writer of the Gospel here paints for us. At home we have an old German family Bible illustrated with those Dürer type wood-cuts popular 100 years ago, and at Mark 10 there is this full-page picture of Jesus sitting under a gnarly old olive tree, surrounded by young mothers with babies on their arms holding them out to him to be blessed. What is it, this parable of the little children is trying to tell us? Taking children to be blessed is a common practice. Parents do it regularly. It is every parent's fervent wish to endow the child with the best possible care and support for their future available to them, whether you call it Christening, baptising or presentation. In this picture though the blessing is linked with Jesus' remark that his vision of God's kingdom is for children and only for them. What is the significance of children, little children at that, to the kingdom of God. A hint seems to be in Jesus' stern admonition to the adults to become like little children, which points to a state of mind rather than a child' s physical properties. Something an adult could still acquire (or re-acquire) by conscious practice. That still leaves us with a large period of child development for consideration. Strictly speaking you are a child from the baby stage until you are sexually mature. By English law a person under the age of 14 years. On the other hand it can also mean a family descendant, as in the children of David, how Israelites like to refer to themselves. But when is a child a little child, and what is the defining attribute between a child and a little child? What was it that appealed to Jesus, he who never had any children of his own, in little children? We know that little children are no angels, well, very seldom. They are wonderful and herzig [I could not find an English word for herzig, it would have to encompass all of charming, sweet, dear and loving], but they also have qualities we find deplorable in adults, such as fretful impatience, anger, stubbornness and most of the time don't like to share things: Its mine, I had it first, give it back! Not exactly Christian by nature. -- Childish we call someone simple minded, lacking in maturity, reason and understanding. Yet the expression childlike is normally reserved for noble characteristics like innocence, trust and naivety. In German it is kindisch as in,  sei doch net so kindisch , and kindlich as in glauben mit kindlichem Gemüte. This is where the crucial difference could come in. Like little children does not mean childish behaviour and it does not mean helpless babies without any identity of their own, (here I am a little bit like my grandfather Gotthilf Hornung who is known to have said 'all babies look alike; up to the age of 12 month you could have swapped any of my children and I would not have known it'), no, childlike means those things we now and again find to our surprise in children of all ages, unconditional trust, unquestioning innocence and an acceptance of ourselves just as we are. And because it is so rare, when we do find it, it touches us deeply. -- There is one more quality that all children have. I shall come back to that, in a little while.

The picture of a world, a kingdom, populated by innocent, dependent children leaves us with another problem. Such a world may have made sense in the intellectual environment Jesus lived. It sounded reasonable when a large part of the population did not know any other than that man was put on this Earth to mature in spirit so that they could die peacefully and go to another world, called heaven, for a life of eternal bliss for ever and ever. It was their culture. In this other world joyful reunion was to take place and bodily needs were unknown. The Earth was considered a temporary abode for man, created by their God for this very reason. In seven days it was created and God said it was good. And that was all there was to know. No one asked where did the light on that first day of creation come from? There was morning and evening on the first day on Earth even though the sun and the moon were not created until the fourth day. No one asked what holds the sun and the moon in space. Well, a physical concept for space had not yet evolved. They did not have our perspective of the cosmos. There was no Hubble Space Telescope, nor pictures of the round Earth taken from the moon as it hangs suspended in black nothingness, or of other planets, other suns, of galaxies behind galaxies of stars to the end of the universe. They did not know that the light coming to us from some of those stars in the sky has taken ten thousand million years to reach us. They had none of that. They did have their theory of evolution though: man was born out of sin and had to grow and evolve to an awareness of the virtue of bliss, (be born again is the popular expression) as a being capable to enter the kingdom of the chosen, and confess to his iniquity. The why and the how were God's domain and that was not open for debate, it had to be believed. And it was in such an environment that the ideal mental attitude of man was that of a child, a little child, a being unable to fend for itself, to think or reason for itself, who was dependent on constant nurture from an environment made supportive of such delicacy by a benevolent, almighty God.

That 2000 year old picture no longer makes sense today. We now know the need to look after little children is within us by nature; to care and think for them, to teach them until they are ready to fend for themselves. We know it from our own experience and by appreciating an evolving nature; if this were not so then there would be no grown-up people on this Earth to have children anymore. A species that does not provide a suitable environment for its young will die out within the second generation. Their niche in nature will be taken over by a species that does care for its off-springs. Everything that is, is here today because it has evolved a way to fit into the greater environment. Natural Selection is the name given to the process, and not even ignorance of this fundamental principle is today acceptable anymore as an excuse for neglect of one's responsibilities towards children.

The picture of Jesus surrounded by little children touches our emotions though. I evokes a longing for a world in which conflict, unnecessary pain and suffering is eliminated. A world in which intellectual harmony unites mankind, much like a musical harmony can capture the attention of an audience of thousands of people. Sitting in a concert hall have you not wondered on occasions how a slow adagio from a Beethoven piano sonata for instance can move all those people of different persuasions, different philosophy, different ages, even hardened, shrewd business people, into absolute silence. You could hear a pin drop. It touches everyone alike and unites them in their appreciation of beauty. Intellectual harmony is just as gripping in its beauty. Perhaps we appreciate it so much because of the very reason it is so special. Would you go to a concert were the same music was played 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year? Of course not, even if you had the time to do it. I have said it before, permanent bliss would be hell to endure on Earth. We have to live with the fact we are part of an evolving nature and have the need for changes in body and mind built into us, because it is a necessity of life; if we did not strive for those things we would not be here. The secret is to find the correct balance in what makes us individuals and what makes us part of a species; that "will" to maintain our way of life, and the "want" to be part of the future of nature.

Our wider understanding of nature, the driving force behind what we call life, our part in it, allows us to appreciate the obstacles Jesus was facing in painting this picture of the Little Children for us. People did not understand him. Many religions still do not. They insist on people having to somehow be "re-born" to become like little children before they can go to heaven.  A well known quote says: If a message has been preached continuously for 2000 years and still has not got through to the people, surely there must be something wrong with either the message or the messenger. The kingdom of God has had innumerable messengers, teachers and preachers over the 2000 years since its inception, including the greatest teacher of them all, Jesus, yet the realisation of this ideal society is still as elusive as ever. We can only assume then, the fault is not with the messenger, but lies in the message itself. It is being interpreted wrong. At least nowadays it is. All parables need interpretation, that is they need an emotional link opened between the story and a common situation people are faced with. A parable's beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, you must be able to relate to it. But sometimes people see a parable in a different time, a different social climate and then draw the wrong conclusion. I feel the conventional, literal explanation of the above parable is unrealistic and asks for something impossible, nature does not work this way. Little children cannot remain childish, or even child-like for the rest of their life and still lead a normal life. They must mature, learn to live in a competitive world where natural selection is at work, adopt to a changing society, grow into adults to reproduce and sustain the environment in a way to support the next generation. That is not the aspect of life that comes to mind with the expression little children. The reflection to become like little children fits more in the dated belief that an individual's life is eternal in a timeless hereafter, where the kingdom of God is perpetual bliss. The story, as told in the Gospels, does not fit into today's intellectual climate anymore. If Jesus was here today he would not be telling the story in the same way. If there is one thing we have learned in the last two thousand years it is this: Man has no God-given right for life, or for dominance over nature. The right has to be consciously earned anew each day with better knowledge of nature and what makes it tick, and a greater awareness of our place in the cosmos.

There is another famous quote, once given to me by our penultimate TS president Dietrich Ruff. I believe it originated from Mahatma Gandhi: A religion which takes no notice of the practical things in life, and does not help to solve them, is no religion. For religion to stay relevant to the society of man it has to evolve with that society, with the increasing technical know-how of man, with the evolving problems facing us in the future as we see it. A religion that promotes a kingdom of God exclusively for little children, or for childish or even child-like adults, is no religion at all, because it takes no notice of practical things, how things are, nor does it offer a realizable solution to the problems facing the world population. -- Let me now come back to that other quality of children I have hinted at in the beginning, one that would in my opinion give a current meaning to the picture Jesus presents to us in that parable; a meaning not period-bound by conventional interpretation. The one thing all children have in common is, they are all young! They will in their time see further into the future than we can ever hope to do. Their's will be the future. To them computers, lasers, video recorders, CDs and mobile phones are not technological wonders, they are the natural, the existing environment, and the basis on which to build their own knowledge. Their minds will understand things we can only see darkly. Our visions will be their realities. They are the future. -- Let us try and rephrase Jesus' statement above then in a modern form, the way I feel Jesus would put it if he were here today. Those of you who would like to rise for this affirmation please do so. I feel Jesus would say:

Amen. -- Thank you.

You will of course have noted that there were no references to 'The Kingdom of God'. I feel there is no satisfactory modern synonym for the expression kingdom of God; one that would carry the emotions from Jesus' time to our current world view. The concept itself is dated. It belongs with a culture that believed in an eternal life for a chosen few people. The rest of the population could literally go to hell. It makes a blanket division between good and bad. Today this is no longer an acceptable philosophy, nor a way of life. Humanity has to make it together into the future, me, you and our neighbour. Diversity is an essential requirement for the success of life, and cultural diversity is an essential ingredient in human society. By replacing God's Kingdom with the concept of Future, my future, your future, our future, it becomes an all-embracing concept in which everyone can become involved. And most of all it belongs to the young. The modern kingdom of God is the future; that's what belongs to the children and the little children. The future that starts now and is tomorrow. Do whatever you do today in such a way that your conscience can live with it tomorrow, and all the rest will come to you as well. The constructive part we all play in this is to see that your future and my future becomes our future, that is our individual actions today will complement each other tomorrow in the world of our children.

Let us now together sing the Hymn 'Brüder singt ein Lied der Freude' , verses 1,2 & 3.

In discussing today's text I have tried to make you think about how difficult it is to impart meaning to words and phrases that can then be related from person to person, from age to age, without distorting that intended meaning. A living language evolves with an evolving civilisation and its technological and intellectual advances. We have to be wary of putting meaning into dated words and phrases that would have involved a greater awareness of scientific facts than that available to the original teller of the story. It is often said the culture of a society is embodied in its language and that it is almost impossible to transcribe the scope of the meaning to a different language. Because words, by definition are just words, and can never fully present a picture, an emotion or an action, the meaning of a word has to evolve with a culture, be backed by it, to be fully conveyed. That's why it takes half an hour of talking by me and well over a thousand words, to try and impart my concept of the picture of the little children and their kingdom to you. And I am her talking to people of a similar background to me. People that already know what I am talking about. Imagine what would happen if I had to talk to complete strangers about this! I takes continued use in a group of people over generations, for words to take on their definitive meaning and become pictures in themselves. To the gospel writers the expression "the kingdom of God" did not need a definition. In their culture everyone immediately saw in the phrase the new Jerusalem, beautifully dressed up as a bride for the coming of the messiah. Transcribed in a different language, a different culture, the phrase is unlikely to carry the same emotion-laden message. For it is not supported by the fundamental culture needed for comprehension. So, it is vitally important for a group of people, a community, a society, a country, to cultivate communication amongst it's people, to generate and maintain a culture of understanding between its members. There is more to 'talking the same language' than to speak the same language. Not just hallo, how are you, but also creative communication on things deeply felt by individuals. Without such interaction the culture-carrying capacity of a language will collapse and words again will become just empty words. You know the feeling: It's like talking to a stranger.

We will take this subject up again in a little while when we debate the merits of communication in cultural and community evolution as announced in the April TR. Renate Weber, Herta Uhlherr and I will try to lead the discussion on "How would you like to see the Templer Record, the Warte, grow with the times, and what are the future possibilities". As I now close this Service please remain seated and listen to Elisabeth Wagner play "Dies ist der Tag des Herrn..." for us, and for her grandson whose birthday it is today. Happy 8^th birthday James!

Elisabeth Wagner

We will have a 15 minute break now, there is coffee and biscuit available at the back. Then we will re-assemble in three groups for the community discussion session as foreshadowed in the April Templer Record. What we would like to concentrate on are: how to improve social communication means practiced in our communities, Telephone, letters, Templer Record, Internet, others. What are your feelings, your ideas your suggestions. Back in 15 minutes.

Alfred Klink

Return to the top

Return to the top

SAAL IM ALTERSHEIM 20.1.02
Elder: Hulda Wagner Text: Acts 2: 43-47

Hymns: No.114 "O Gott, du frommer Gott". ..1-5 No.141 "Wach auf mein Herz" 1-5

Unser Text für den heutigen Sonntag steht im 5. Buch des Neuen Testaments, in der Apostelgeschichte. Der Verfasser dieses Buches ist derselbe, der das Lukas-Evangelium geschrieben hat. So beginnt die Apostelgeschichte mit den Worten (im Neuen Testament in heutigem Deutsch):

"Verehrter Theophilus, im ersten Bericht habe ich alles beschrieben, was Jesus tat und lehrte, von Anfang an bis zu dem Tag, an dem er in den Himmel aufgenommen wurde. Für die Zeit nach seinem Abschied gab er den Männern, die er als Apostel ausgewählt hatte, durch den heiligen Geist genaue Anweisungen. Nach seinem Tod hatte er sich ihnen wahrend vierzigTagen wiederholt gezeigt und ihnen eindeutig bewiesen, dass er lebte. Sie sahen ihn, und er sprach mit ihnen darüber, wie Gott sein Werk vollenden werde."

An diese einleitende Worte abschließend berichtet Lukas von der Himmelfahrt Christi und von den Ereignissen am Pfingstfest, wie der Geist Gottes über die versammelten Apostel kam.

Wie wir mit unserm heutigen Erkenntnissen das Erlebnis der Apostel beschreiben würden, laßt sich kaum ermessen. Es muß aber eine gewaltige innere Erschütterung und ein unvergeßliches Erlebnis gewesen sein. Die Männer, die nach dem Tod Jesu verstört und unsicher waren, konnten plötzlich voll Überzeugung verkünden, daß er auferstanden sei und alle, die an ihn glaubten, von ihrer Schuld erlösen könnte.

" Andert euch und laßt euch alle auf den Namen Jesu Christi taufen" predigte Petrus, "dann wird Gott euch eure Schuld vergeben und euch seinen heiligen Geist schenken." Viele nahmen seine Botschaft an und ließen sich taufen. Darauf folgt unser heutiger Text: Apostelgeschichte 2: 43-47.

Durch die Apostel geschahen viele Zeichen und Wunder, und jedermann spürte, daß Gott hier am Werk war. Alle, die zum Glauben gekommen waren, taten ihren ganzen Besitz zusammen. Wenn sie etwas brauchten, verkauften sie Grundstücke und Wertgegenstande und verteilten den Erlös unter die Bedürftigen. Täglich versammelten sie sich im Tempel, und in ihren Häusem feierten sie in unbekümmerter Freude das gemeinsame Mahl. Sie lobten Gott und waren überall gem gesehen. Der Herr führte ihnen jeden Tag Menschen zu, die er retten wollte. Soweit unser heutiger Text.

Die christliche Urgemeinde in Jerusalem lebte in dieser ersten Zeit nach dem Tod Jesu in einer engen Gemeinschaft. Sie taten ihren ganzen Besitz zusammen und wenn die Kasse leer zu werden begann, verkauften sie, was sie an Wertvollem besaßen. Nun dürfen wir nicht vergessen, daß diese ersten Christen ganz fest damit rechneten, daß die Wiederkunft Jesu und das groBe Weltgericht unmittelbar bevorstand, deshalb war weltlicher Besitz bedeutungslos für sie geworden. In unserem Text heißt es, sie versammelten sich täglich im Tempel, lebten friedlich und waren überall gern gesehen. Die Gründergeneration der Tempelgesellschaft hat diese christliche Urgemeinde als Vorbild betrachtet.

Warum gelingt es uns Menschen so selten, in solch einer engen Gemeinschaft friedlich und fröhlich zu leben? -Weil jeder von uns seine eigenen Wünsche und Hoffnungen hat, weil jeder seine eigenen guten Eigenschaften und Veranlagungen hat, und weil keiner von uns ganz fehlerlos oder vollkommen ist.

In dem Choral, den wir zu Anfang gesungen haben, werden verschiedene Tugenden erwähnt, die zu einem guten Verhältnis mit den Mitmenschen führen. Ein reines Gewissen zu behalten ist wichtig. Ich kann mich erinnem, wie mein Vater einstmals in unserem Konfirmandenunterricht gefragt hat, was eigentlich eine Sünde sei, die unser Gewissen belastet. Wir antworteten darauf: "Wenn man etwas Böses tut." Das war nicht ganz richtig, denn er antwortete darauf, daß schon viel Streit entstanden sei über die Frage, was gut ist und was nicht. So gab er selbst uns die Antwort: "Wenn du weißt daß du etwas nicht tun sollst, und tust es trotzdem, so ist es eine Sünde, und Jesus hat diesen Gedanken noch weitergeführt und gesagt: "Wer da weiß, Gutes zu tun, und tut's nicht, dem ist es Sünde."

Dieser Gedanke ist auch im 2. Vers unseres Chorals enthalten, wo es heißt: "Gib, daß ich tu mit Fleiß, was mir zu tun gebühret." Das soll nicht heißen, daß wir uns völlig verausgaben sollen im Dienst für andere, sondern, daß wir uns zuerst einmal an das Wort halten sollen: "Was du nicht willst, daß man dir tu, das füg auch keinem andern zu" und wenn wir noch einen Schritt weitergehen wollen, denn gilt das Wort: "Alles, das ihr wollt, was euch die andern tun sollen, das tut ihr ihnen!"

Der dritte Vers unseres Chorals mahnt uns, nichts Unnützes zu reden; aber zu reden, womit wir bestehen können. Wenn wir merken, daß jemand traurig ist, so dürfen wir wohl teilnehmend fragen; aber wir müssen den Wunsch des anderen achten, wenn er nicht darüber reden will.

Wir Menschen sind verschieden. Manchen fällt es sehr schwer, sich andern gegenüber auszusprechen, andere dagegen brauchen dringend eine Aussprache. Oft fällt es uns auch schwer, ein besonderes inneres Erlebnis in Worte zu fassen, ein Gefühl, daß wir in einem bestimmten Augenblick eine Gott-Verbundenheit wie ein helles Licht oder einen strahlenden Glanz empfunden haben.

Vom Schweigen und vom Reden, vom Glauben an die Auferstehung handelt die kurze Geschichte vom Kurt Niewald, die ich jetzt vorlesen machte. Sie heißt: "Der Glanz Gottes"

Sie hatte eine merkwürdige Art, sich die Menschen vom Hals zu halten. Mit den Augen machte sie das. Kein abweisendes Wart, keine Handbewegung, die andeuten könnte: "Laß mich allein!"; nur unter halb geschlossenen Augenlidern wegsehen. Das genügte, und jedermann wußte: Jetzt ist es genug. Ich will nicht mehr!" Die Schwestern wußten das, die Ärzte und ich, der zu den regelmäßigen Besuchern gehörte. Sie lag allein, angeschlossen an Transfusionen, die nicht abgesetzt werden durften. Jeder wußte, lange kann das nicht mehr gut gehen. Wahrscheinlich hat sie's selber auch gewußt. Gezeigt aber hat sie's niemals, und gesprochen wurde auch nicht darüber. Zu keiner Zeit hatte sie das zugelassen.

Ich hatte den Eindruck, daß ihr vieles durch den Kopf gegangen war in den langen Wochen. Wir sprachen darüber. Dann aber gab es Stunden, in denen wir stumm waren. Das war wohl jene Zeit, die wir unvollkommenen Gleichklang, Einverständnis nennen; wo jeder weiß, wohin die Reise geht. Doch nicht immer war das so gewesen. Manchmal kamen die Worte nicht schnell genug, wenn Erinnerungen aus vergangenen Tagen heraufstiegen, unvergessene Bilder der alten Heimat Lettland. Ein Wort kehrte immer wieder: Flucht.

Ihr ganzes Leben mußte von dorther geprägt worden sein. Zwischen Traum und Wachsein wanderte sie durch die weiten Landschaften Innerasiens, in die sie einmal verschleppt worden war, dann unterwegs nach Westen, immer nur nach Westen. Schlesien tauchte auf, Glogau, Flucht mit dem letzten Zug. Spuren der Vergangenheit? Sicherlich!

Eines Tages, es muß gegen Abend gewesen sein, sprach sie vom Licht, von dem sie hoffte, es würde auch dann noch sein, wenn hier alle Lichter verlöschen würden. Ob das mit Ostern zu tun hatte, mit Christus und Auferstehung? Sie sprach davon wie jemand, der mit verschlossenen Augen sehen kann. "Gibt es dieses Licht? Ist es so, wie ich es zu Ostern erlebt habe?"

Und dann war sie mit ihren Gedanken wieder in Lettland, in einer russisch-orthodoxen Kirche, nahm teil am Ostergottesdienst, hörte das "Christos woskress" des Priesters, sang jubelnd mit: "Er ist auferstanden, wahrhaftig auferstanden." Nach dem Licht hatte sie gefragt und selber die Antwort gegeben: "Wahrhaftig auferstanden." Das genügte. Ihre Augenlider senkten sich. Es war, wie wenn aller Glanz erloschen wäre, und doch meine ich, daß nach eine ganzen Weile etwas von jenem unbegreiflichen Leuchten auf ihrem Gesicht gewesen wäre, das jenen zuteil wird, die sich von Ostern einholen lassen."

Soweit die Geschichte.

Um wieder auf unseren Choral und das Leben in einer engen Gemeinschaft zurückzukommen, da finden wir im vierten Vers die Worte: "Gib, daß ich meinen Feind mit Sanftmut überwind; gib Freunde, die mit Rat und Tat mir nahe sind!" Einen richtigen Feind werden wir wohl in der engen Gemeinschaft nicht haben; aber vielleicht jemand, der uns auf die Nerven geht, der uns gern verletzt oder beleidigt. Statt Gleiches mit Gleichem -oder mit noch Schlimmerem -zu vergelten, gilt es Sanftmut zu üben. Das ist oft nicht leicht. Aber es ist das, was Jesus meinte, wenn er in der Bergpredigt sagte: "Wenn dich einer auf die rechte Backe schlagt, dann halte ihm auch die linke hin."

Das ist eine Lehre, die sehr, sehr schwer zu befolgen ist. Das alte Gesetz: "Aug um Auge, Zahn um Zahn" leuchtet uns viel mehr ein. Ein Zorn in uns drängt uns, Böses mit Bösem zu vergelten. Es ist nicht leicht, eine Beleidigung zu vergessen und zu vergeben, oder ein Unrecht, das uns zugefügt worden ist. Manche Menschen grämen sich jahrelang über ein Unrecht, das ihnen angetan wurde, ohne daß man sich jemals bei ihnen entschuldigte. Dabei könnten sie viel froher und freier leben, wenn sie die Sache vergeben und vergessen könnten. Wir können selten die Menschen in unserem Umkreis ändern, wir können nur an uns selbst arbeiten, daß wir verzeihen und vergeben können.

In diesem Zusammenhang möchte ich eine Parabel zitieren, die uns vor 2 Jahrtausenden der Meister Kungfutse oder Konfuzius gegeben hat. Sie ist heute noch gültig und unabgenützt, wie am ersten Tage, vielleicht, weil sie injener langen Zeit zu wenig benutzt wurde. Die Parabel lautet so:

"Die Alten ordneten, um das Reich zu befrieden, zuerst ihr eigenes Land. Um ihr Land zu ordnen, schufen sie Ordnung in ihren eigenen Familien. Um Ordnung in ihren eigenen Familien zu schaffen, bildeten sie ihr eigenes Selbst. Um ihr eigenes Selbst zu bilden, reinigten sie zuerst ihr eigenes Herz. Um ihr eigenes Herz zu reinigen, suchten sie lauter, also rein, in ihren Gedanken zu werden. Um lauter zu sein in ihren Gedanken, erforschten sie die Dinge. Dadurch, daß sie die Dinge erforschten, wurde ihre Erkenntnis vol1kommen, wurden ihre Gedanken lauter, ihre Herzen rein. Weil ihre Herzen rein waren, war ihr Selbst gesittet, waren ihre Familien geordnet, ihre Lander gerecht regiert, und das Reich wurde ruhig und glücklich. Vom Herrscher hinab bis zum niederen Volke muß jeder daraufbedacht sein, sein Selbst zu bilden, denn das ist die Wurzel aller Dinge."

Soweit die Parabel.

Leider ist es bei uns auf Erden immer noch so, daß zwischen den Völkern Gewalt mit Gewalt bekriegt wird, daß auf jeden Schlag der Gegenschlag folgt. Auf Frieden können wir erst hoffen, wenn wir unser Leben nach den Worten Konfuzius' ausrichten: Vom Herrscher hinab bis zum niederen Volk muß jeder daraufbedacht sein, sein Selbst zu bilden; denn das ist die Wurzel aller Dinge." Dann wird es möglich sein, mit jedermann in Fried und Freundschaft zu leben, wie es die Urgemeinde in Jerusalem tat, die, wie es in unserem Text heißt, überall gern gesehen wurde.

Wir schließen mit dem Vaterunser.

Als Schlußchoral habe ich No.141 gewählt, "Wach auf, mein Herz und singe. ..", denn all unser Bemühen braucht Gottes Segen! Wir singen alle 5 Verse. ..

Hulda Wagner

Return to the Top

Elder: Renate Beilharz

Return to the Top

Elder Renate Weber
Musician Sonia Glenk
Reading Jeremiah 29: 4-9 Counselling the People in exile

Guten Morgen! Good Morning! Welcome to this special occasion in the Templer calendar. We have a number of visitors from far flung places as well as having the President of the Temple Society Peter Lange with us to share in this community day. I am aware of visitors from Sydney, a new confirm and from Queensland, I know we have our friends from country Victoria is there anyone else to welcome?

At the Christmas service I was given a plastic shopping bag containing a foolscap size memo book. Inside is recorded all the happenings of this space. Each user is asked to provide a summary of the occasion. I looked through the recorded history of the Sommerfest over the last decade. In 1991 we celebrated in February and were still presenting bilingually under the auspices of the youth group, our "JG" and Religious issues were tackled and we sang "Geh aus mein Herz" by 1993 the youth group was using the forum to tell us about their activities and we also heard of the experiences of our youth exchangees both those who had come to Australia from Germany, and those from our Australian community who had experienced life in Germany and attended the Goethe Institute. In 1995 Rolf Beilharz presented on religious themes and then there were joint presentations by Dieter Ruff and Rolf Beilharz with Nigel Gohl who was the youth group president. In the late1990's the youth group/JG was in serious decline. In 2000 we moved our celebration to March and an Elder once again held the service alone. Jesus and his teachings featured in most of these services. I spent a contemplative hour "browsing" through this book and it is a special record of the events of this building Thanks to Meta Beilharz for being so vigilant in getting it to the people who use the space.

In 2002 we will begin our service by singing Geh aus mein Herz! Sing, O my Heart all15 verses, it's Number 31 in the Hymnbook.

Our reading today comes from the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet living in the 6th and 7th Century BC. He warned God's people of catastrophes that would befall them and of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian king- Nebuchadnezzar

It is Jeremiah's letter to the exiles in Babylonian taken from the Good News Bible "The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those people whom he allowed Nebuchadnezzar to take away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia: build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what you grow in them. Marry and have children. Then let your children marry so that they may have children. You must increase in numbers and not decrease. Work for the good of the cities where I have made you go as prisoners. Pray to me on their behalf, because if they are prosperous you will be prosperous too. I, the Lord, the God of Israel, warn you not to let yourself be deceived by prophets who live among you or by others who claim they can predict the future. Do not pay any attention to their dreams. They are telling you lies in my name. I did not send them. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken."

Some times the Old Testament readings are "dated" but in this letter we find much excellent advice, still relevant today. It encourages people in exile to live life stably and follow the usual pattern of daily living, put down roots, build houses, plant crops and reproduce. It also advises to live peacefully and pray for the prosperity of the people whose homeland you are now sharing. I struggled with the last warning about

future predictions. At first I thought more in religious terms as in Jeremiah's times

there were quite drastic dire predictions for seventy years of foretold exile, but then when I thought about it in current refugee terms it gained more meaning. It is

"predicted" if we allow all the asylum seekers in who arrived on boats illegally then we are sending a message to the world's refugees that this is an acceptable way to

jump the queue and get into Australia. We could debate that "prediction" but today it is not the theme I want to take up. .

Templers have been exiles on a number of occasions during our history, these

deportations occurred during the first and second World Wars. We were exiled from

our settlements in Palestine, including Jerusalem, which the early Templers also saw' as the Holy place, where the second coming would occur.

Templers as a community have always been house builders in the spiritual and

physical sense. We have also always had practical know how. When the settlements in Palestine/ Israel were being colonised, our founding forefathers made sure they selected people realistically, not just based on religious fervour, but on the basis of what would enable the settlements to grow and prosper. Hoffmann and Hardegg realised we needed a variety of skills and talents and people who could pay their own way.

After the Second World War, our people in the internment camp at Tatura were given a choice. Go back "home" to Germany where many of them had never been or make a new beginning in this vast country they had been shipped to. A few chose to go to Germany but the majority decided to take their chance and settle in Australia. The camp at Tatura, near Rushworth, was stuck in the middle of a windy desolate piece of land surrounded by barbed wire. Our people could have so easily been downtrodden and faced defeat in exile, but they took heart, they elected leaders, quickly organised rosters, created gardens, set up school and made the most ofwhat was orloffer. They also heeded the advice Jeremiah gave the people of Israel-that they worked for the good of the land where they were being held. In the beginning of the internment period I feel sure there was hope that the internees would be able to return to Palestine. After all so many had their life's work, achievements and property there. It was inconceivable that they should lose it all yet again and be challenged to make a fresh start. But that is what happened. We now realise that there is no hope and may be no need for Templers to return to Jerusalem. It is not the physical place so much as the spirit of the people that we see as important today. It is the inner spark, the God within us that is significant I also read the text in the revised English bible. It is very similar in the broad content but one thing struck me forcibly, women are mentioned in it, to my way of thinking, derogative. It states, "Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners among you and pay no attention to the women whom you set to dream dreams. They prophecy falsely to you in my name: I did not send them."

I thought about not mentioning this difference but then decided to use it to make a statement of my own. For far too long women have been considered as second-class citizens in recorded history. In the Bible the women are mentioned briefly and often not in a charitable light. Eve is the one accused of giving Adam the fruit, she is "damned to great labour in childbirth. ..and a desire for her husband but he will be the master." yes, there are a few significant exceptions such as Ruth, Elizabeth and the Marys, but percentage wise the role of women in the Bible is pretty much reflected in real life. List me six famous men of science, politics, philanthropy, literature- most of you can do that, but list me six famous women in those categories and we all need to research widely to list the few that are acknowledged. While I was researching the history of the Temple Society for the140th celebrations, it struck me how little mention there was of women. They hold the individual history of the Society and of the world at large, in their personal and private stories but very few of these "ordinary women with extraordinary stories" are recorded in our Tempter, Australia's or even world history .

I am pleased, however, to turn this story around in 2002. Today I am going to celebrate the women of the Temple Society. I will begin by acknowledging and giving thanks to all the pioneer women of the settlements in Germany and Palestine who worked their fingers to the bone cooking, sewing, washing, ironing, making preserves, hoeing, milking, as well as bearing and raising the children. Their stories are largely unwritten, unsung and under valued. Thanks also go to all the women who perform some, all or many of these functions still today!

How lucky we Tempters are to have our 21 st Century women. Let's start with Renate Beilharz. She is the Joint Deputy Head of the Temple Society of Australia and works tirelessly as an Elder as well as leading Committees to keep our Society on track, surviving and moving forward. She was instrumental in ensuring that our recorded history is accessible and safely stored in our archives room, she instructs our confirmands, she teaches Sunday school. Like most of the women I am going to celebrate she fits all this in with her other roles as wife, mother and paid employee.

We have three women Heads of Communities Monica Imberger is Head ofBentleigh Moorabbin, Elisabeth Wagner heads Bayswater Boronia and Dr Brigitte Hoffmann is regional Head of Germany. Karin Klingbeil is the business manger in Germany. Herta Uhlherr, among other significant roles such as Elder, Marriage Celebrant, translator and mentor to many, edits our Tempter Record each month and provides us with so many thought-provokihg articles for our enlightenment. All of the pianists, Veronica Rutov.qcz, who also assists with the music for the Women's advent fest, Veronika van Krieken, Sonia Glenk, Krista Imberger, Ingrid Laaemmle-Ruff, Leni Loebert and Irene Blaich who accompany us in our services and without whom we would not sing like angels, are female! Anne Coleman delights us with her flute. Hulda Wagner, as one of the first women to hold services and funerals, is an excellent role model. We are way ahead of many other religions where women are still not allowed to hold services or in some cases share the same sacred space. Annette Wagner Hesse is a special gift to the Temple Society. Annette leads the choir and participates so richly in our lives. Ruth Leshinski also conducted the choir. Our two JG leaders in Melbourne and Sydney are female. Rose Astentorfer works tirelessly for the South Australian group. Ilse Birkner was head of Sydney Tempters for a number of years before she moved to Melbourne. Let us also celebrate and acknowledge other great women. I think with admiration and affection about Eva Morna Kortshak Ruff who was note worthy in so many ways, as an Elder, the conductor of the choir, as a mentor, as the driving force behind the publication of the hymn book you now hold. (Is her story recorded any where?) Sonia Glenk also worked tirelessly on the hymnbook. Then there are all the Matrons of the Home for the Aged.Margrit Wagner who helped create our original " Alterheim " I remember my mother in law talking , about's Katzle. Let us also remember Helga Hoffmann/Uhlherr who worked tirelessly for the good of the Tempter Society. Helga Weberuss had us all keeping fit and enjoying one another's company in her rhythmic gymnastics classes long before aerobics and gyms for women became the norm! Trudi Herrmann leads groups now.

Helga Anderson is our Community Care worker; Susi Blackwell is currently the youth coordinator, all the ladies who work each year in the Bastelgruppe for the Christkindlemarkt under the leadership of Helga Kuerschner and Heidi Vollmer. We acknowledge Monica Herrmann who leads our playgroup. Marianne Herrmann , Susi Blackwell, Renate Beilharz, and Pam Edelmaier who are committee members of the Kids' club. To Nella Weller, Meta Beilharz, and Friede Steller who play piano for the Altersheim (Home for the Aged) residents, or Ella Weber who for years played the organ for the Services, to Anna Eppinger who lovingly chooses and arranges the flowers in the Bentleigh Hall, to the women of Bayswater Boronia who are rostered on to decorate this hall for services. To Linda Stellar, Sigi and Inngart Katz and all

the women who help and helped with Ladies Advent in Bentleigh. To Christine Ruff, a young Elder who has the happy knack of including children so beautifully in our family services. When one names names one runs a great risk of leaving out .. significant people. We have many highly educated women in the Society, who hold Master's Degrees or higher, in such fields as medicine, science and philosophy; many of our women are involved in bringing the German language to young children. Resi Schwarzbauer has had her work published. Who else can we acknowledge? Fraulein Dreher the teacher of so many of our now senior citizens who remember her with

affection. Did you go to Babette Schmidt's Handarbeit group? She taught me to turn heels in socks! All the women in the various Ladies Auxiliaries, our Frauen Verein, they have worked tirelessly and with little public recognition to provide things like new curtains in our halls, to bake the cakes we all love to enjoy. The women of the Temple Society have indeed added a richness and fullness to our existence and we celebrate their input today. I also acknowledge all the women who stand beside our hard working men.

The choir will now delight us with a song "Ich singe dir mit Herz and Mund. I sing your praise with heart and voice. You can follow the words in English in the hymnbook we are singing verses 1,3,6, and 8

For our survival as Templers, we indeed must continue to spread our message to the wider community by example and by sharing our ideals with others. We send a message of tolerance and a willingness to learn and to move with the times. We don't make threats or promises based on fear. We try to be optimistic. Peter Lange suggested in the February Record we may not have found the right themes yet, but let us never lose sight of the individual housing the spiritual temple or divine spark of God, as well as us collectively forming the living stones ofGod's kingdom on earth. Let us pray -please stand if you are able.

Dear God, On this special day in the Templer Calendar let us think with gratitude and affection ofall our forbearers, both men and women who pioneered the way so that we may stand here on this beautiful day as a small but significant community, holding our heads high with pride for the way we live and for what we have achieved. We give thanks that we live in this wonderful country of Australia, as free citizens of the world. Thanks go to those Australians who decided after the war to let us stay, to give us a "fair go", a chance at a fresh start. Thanks also to all our parents for raising us in such a way that gave us a positive outlook. Thank you to all the contributors of our community, male or female, who either in a large or small way have contributed to us being where we are today.

Give us the ability to view others tolerantly, to seek world peace, to become a global community where the earth is respected, and each person on it has sufficient for their needs. Let us celebrate today with our family, friends, and bless the time and food we share together.

I'd like to conclude with the Lord's Prayer in German.

Vater unser im Himmel,

geheilgt werde dein Name, Dein Reich komme.

Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel, so auf Erden unser taeglich Brot gib uns heute,

und vergib uns unsere Schuld wie wir vergeben unsem Schuldigern. Fuehre uns, wenn wir in Versuchung sind, Und erloese uns von dem Boesen,

Den dein ist das Reich und die Kraft und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit . Amen

Each of us can make the world a better place! It is important that we realise that each one of us is a significant individual! We can make a difference! Don't ever underestimate the good you can do. Collectively, if we strive for our ideals of loving God and our neighbours as ourselves, we as a community can endeavour to create a just, fair and peaceful existence here on earth. Today, as the Temple Society lays a new foundation stone in our history with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque, we celebrate the beginning of our new religious centre.

Let us finish with the hymn, Brighten the comer where you are, its number 16 all 3 verses, Sonia will play it through first.

As a choir we limber up our voices and Annette always finds us delightful little exercises. I have asked her to allow us all to create the sound of bells together as a round. Annette!

As I wish you all the very best for a wonderful Sommerfest, it is with pride and pleasure I invite the Temple Society President Peter Lange and the Regional Head of Australia, Rolf Beilharz to share a few words with us. Please make them welcome!

Footnote

I was told that Lilli Kuehnle has been recognised with some sort of award (O of A?) For her services to the Tatura Community..

Renate Weber

Return to the Top

New Years Eve Service in Bayswater

31/12/2001  Alfred Klink

Prelude and music: Elizabeth Wagner

Good evening to you all. Good evening and welcome on this, the last day of the year 2001. Today is a good day to reflect on the year just passed, contemplate on the way we see things and the way they could be. Have we done everything we wanted to do this year, have we achieved our goals? Do we want to make a new years's resolution, get our affairs in order? - With all this importance attached to the start of a new year it is good to remind ourselves occasionally that a year is but an arbitrary time span, of no cosmological significance in itself. Its length is determined by the environment our planet finds itself in, by the mass and spacing of Sun and Earth, and its seasons by the tilt of the Earth's axis. A year can fluctuate by several minutes from one orbit to the next, depending on the position and interaction of the other planets and comets . And the end of the year, our moment in time tonight, is but a point on an endless circle, set arbitrarily at one stage in human history to coincide with the rising of a particular heavenly constellation. Furthermore as this reference point takes 24 hours to travel around the globe, New Year celebrations are at different times in almost every country on Earth. With the Dateline only 3 hours East of us we are amongst the lucky first to welcome 2002 on Earth. Hawaii, 21hrs behind us, is probably the last place to great the new year. You won't feel a bump as we cross the threshold into another year, there is nothing special about tonight except what we make of it. What we make of it can be very important though. Commemorations and celebrations tend to bring people closer together and promote social harmony. And what better occasion to let loose your imagination than the end of an era and the beginning of a new year. Imagination and fantasy play an important and creative part in our lives and I would like to reflect on it tonight

People like to plan ahead, to, in a way, prepare the future, visualise it and make plans for it. When the future then does arrive it will not be such a shock to the system. Even our Templer motto in Matthew 6: 33, by asking us to 'set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice…' in its own way asks us to plan for tomorrow with this in mind. When Jesus tells us in the next sentence 'not to worry about tomorrow…' he does not mean we should not plan and be prepared for it. It does not mean we should not think about the coming year. Just not unduly worry about it, '…for each day has troubles enough of its own'.

It is in the nature of life to prepare for tomorrow. Birds build their nests before they lay eggs, some go north before winter sets in. Bees collect and store honey during Summer. They do it instinctively, (at least we think so) without being aware of it, we humans go by a man-made calendar. Calendars, by their very nature are organising our time in the future. It comes as quite a shock to realise that there has never been a consistently accurate administration of time in the past, that our calendar is but a few hundred years old. We glibly speak of this or that event having happened five thousand years ago; that Jesus was born on Christmas Day anno Domini, that is, year one. But a quick reflection shows this time scale was established retrospective, we count backwards, because a universally applicable calendar was not adopted until the twentieth century; when global travel and time-tables made a consistent reference frame mandatory.

Have you noticed the beautiful full moon last night? How it rose out of the trees into a pale sky just as the sun was setting? If you had looked carefully you should have also seen the fuzzy penumbra shadow of the Earth in a grazing eclipse touching the Moon between about 7:30 and 11:30pm. Many songs have been written in tribute to the mystique and the bewitching beauty of the moon. About the lure of its romantic golden light and as a quiet companion of lovers. It was the home of the Greek goddess Selene, sister of Helios the sun-god, and Eos, mother of the four winds and goddess of the dawn. - Tonight I would like you to look with me at a song about the moon, "Der Mond ist aufgegangen...". A simple song from the days of my generation's childhood about the beauty of nature, and our obligation to see its wonders in an awareness of our human need for each other. It is number 22 in the new Templer hymn-book and we will sing the customary four verses, that is 1, 2, 3 & 7. What I would like to do tonight though, is to sing each verse separately, that is we will sing verse one, then stop so I can say a few words about it, then the same with verse two and so on.

Let's start with verse one "Der Mond ist aufgegangen"

Here simple statements set the scene: the moon has risen into a star-studded sky, with each star a brightly twinkling point of light against a satin background. The trees in the bush are standing black and silent as if waiting for the light of the moon to waken the nocturnal animals. From the paddocks along the creek a hazy fog is slowly rising, ghostly white in the pale moonlight. A feeling of wonder fills the air.

These are all things we would not notice during the day. Only the proper environment creates in us an expectation of mystery and wonder. It needs the absence of dominating sensory distractions. Then the senses are joined by imagination and give fantasy a free reign. We may well sometimes see the moon in daylight during its 28 day journey around the Earth. But no one has ever written an ode to a daylight moon. The moon plays a poor second in brilliance to the sun. In fact the sun is almost ½ a million times brighter than the moon. And the stars are 10 magnitudes dimmer still. Even the sharpest eye cannot detect a star in broad daylight. Why not, do the stars go to bed during the day? They don't go anywhere, they are there as bright as ever but we do not see them, for the power of the sun causes the air to become a translucent bluish-white. In the evening, when the sunlight disappears from the sky above us the air becomes invisible again and we can see right through it up into the blackness of empty space. It is as if a curtain was lifted on a theatre stage revealing the players behind it against the backdrop of heaven, and we ask ourselves, where does reality begin?

Let us sing verse 2 of our hymn now "...wie ist die Welt so stille"

In the stillness of the night the world seems at peace with itself. The hushed quiet surrounds us like a familiar and friendly home where sleep can free you from a harsh day's problems. After a hectic day we long for the quietness and isolation offered by a familiar room, we seek a security blanket to sleep our worries away. It is indeed strange how the light of day gives us the courage to face work and all sort of adversity, in fact we look for challenges, but when night falls we long for the safety of a true friendship and the security of family and community life. Our sense of reality seems to shrink when full use of our senses is restricted. Two seconds is all, the philosophers say, what our mind sees as the present that makes up reality. Ten seconds is the maximum time consciousness can dwell on any one subject or thought before it must refresh itself with a new stimulus, either from the external environment or from the brain's memory banks. Did you know it is impossible to form a complete sentence of more than seven words in your conscious mind prior to speaking it. Try it, you'll find you lose the start of the sentence before you reach its ending. 10 seconds of reality is all we can ever truly call our own in this world.

Let us now sing verse three "...Seht ihr den Mond dort stehen"

When you are young things seem to be so straight forward. They either are, or are not, tall, short, thick, thin, round, square, black or white, alive or dead. All our life, from the time we are born we try to make sense of the world around us and the way we fit into it. Awareness of the surroundings is a necessity of life, an individual's very survival may depend on it. It is deeply ingrained in us, for evolution is an effective teacher and natural selection an efficacious tool. We are the product of countless generations that have gone through this learning institution in survival. As you get older experience teaches you that things are not always black or white, the edges get blurred. Nature has equipped all life forms with sufficient capacity to fend for itself, otherwise we would not still be here, but nature is at the same time a very prudent administrator and seldom invests in unnecessary baggage. To empower a brain with imagination and abstract thoughts is an expensive biological investment, the pay-off for which I feel is to a large extend, still outstanding. That is, we humans seem to have a capacity for understanding complexity way beyond what is currently known and needed by mankind for survival. That's where imagination comes in. The waning and the waxing Moon is no longer a mystery to us. We know how it comes about, and have even learned through that process the relative sizes and distances of Sun-Earth and Moon. But coming to grips with abstract thinking as a learning tool is still at the superstition stage. Take Christmas for instance. Ursula and I have grandchildren that are just starting to question the reality of Santa Claus. The eldest one proudly proclaims 'there is no Father Christmas. When I ask how do you know that? She answers, 'because I know where the presents come from'. When I tried to explain that sometimes life is easier to understand if we use imaginary or abstract concepts, like father Christmas, or a half moon, to make something universally understandable she asked why, when it is so much simpler to tell the truth? Now, how can you answer that? Is there such a thing as a simple truth that everybody can understand? Without conditions or embellishments? If we wanted to take the simplest approach to giving a present we would not go to the trouble to wrap our present in pretty paper, not tie it with a coloured ribbon, we would give them as they are, at any odd time in the year and not wait for Christmas to arrive. Pretty soon we would argue there is no need for Christmas at all. You know giving presents is not just about passing something from one person to another. It is a way of showing love and friendship and pleasure. And this truth is brought out more fully in the care you chose and take in preparing the present. But, she argued, how can you make me believe in things that are not real? Well, there are different levels of reality, as there are different levels of belief. There is the reality of things you can see, feel, taste, touch or smell; Other things like electricity, radiation, gravity, life, you can only know from the effect they have on other things; and then there are things which don't exist on their own, but are needed to make something else understood properly, we call them concepts. Such as loving your neighbour, friendship, dimensions, democracy and trust. We belief in our parents, we belief the schoolteacher, we belief in God, and sometimes we make-belief with a fairy tale in 'once upon a time' just to enjoy ourselves. Our mind works best if it has those concepts to work with, to play with, to build bridges between people over otherwise impassable divides in social interactions, and around large gaps in our existing knowledge. Had she been a bit older I could have mentioned how the belief in an omniscient and omnipotent God makes us aware of our limitations and lets us strive to greater perfection. I could have mentioned Religion, how it can be used to build a bond between people of vastly different persuasion. How the differences in the major religions of the world are like the differences between the waters in a lake or in a river or in a sea. It's the same water only presented differently. I could have picked lots of subjects, but on the spur of the moment I picked time. You can't see, touch or taste time, yet you know it exists. Ah, but you can measure time! No, you can only measure the passage of time, not time itself. Time does not exist on its own, it is something that helps us organise ourselves and anticipate the unexpected. And yet, it is only in time that we can see, make sense of, and understand reality.

Let us now sing the last verse "...so legt euch denn ihr Brüder"

The capacity for human kindness, of altruism, of calling everyone your brother, is deep within all of us. If touched by circumstances it evokes a mysterious longing to please, which is rewarded by a feeling of grateful pleasure. Is it a purely human attribute, a selfless caring for others? Is it self-denial or is it an advanced form of a natural trend, the herd-instinct, visible in its basic structure already in all developed animals? Perhaps it is an unconscious awareness that survival of the individual is meaningless without survival of the group and the species. Something which, like the evolution of sexual propagation, is essentially a recognition that survival of evolution itself is based on ever greater diversity. We know that caring for our fellow humans, helping our neighbour, is good for society. It makes for a caring environment in which people tend to respond in kind. It is a healthy community where children can play and grow up believing in the benefit of friendly competition.

Sleep peacefully neighbour, for the wind of reality is hard and cold. Knowledge has given us the means to soften its edges, and imagination makes this world a home. Knowledge does not destroy the beauty of nature, nor does unravelling a mystery make it go away. The structure of matter was once a mystery, so were energy and light and life. These things are no longer mysteries, yet they have not lost their fascinating appeal. Man has evolved to be creative, and creation means challenges and change. Dear God, do not punish us for the things you have given us to bear, but give us the strength and the compassion to live with the responsibilities the creative life for which you have made us, of necessity brings with it.

I would like to re-count now the people who passed away in the Temple Society during the year just ending. There are 23 names on this list. Would those of you who can do so please rise as I read out their individual names, in respect for their memory: Helen Wagner; Marion Bieg; Pamela Böhmer; Erna Blaich; Ida Buchhalter; Johanna Sottek; Elfriede Wagner; Augusta Gassmann; Hugo-Kunz Hoffmann; Marianne Osswald; Helene Fröschle; Erich Steller; Paul Hoffmann; Paul Struve; Ursula Frank; Grete Lange; Herbert Kübler; Otto Wurst; Norman Talbot; Richard Imberger; Peter Dyck; Hildegard Buchhalter; Gertrud Pulst.

We remember them and all the others not on this list in gratitude for the contributions they have made during their lifetime, to their families, to the community, to society and to mankind, and for enriching the lives of all those they touched with their presence.

During the same 12 month 10 babies were born into our community. They are as follows:

Sebastian Sutterby, (Sutterby/Ulrich); Nikita Bulach, (Bulach/Bennet); Timothy Ruff, (Ruff/Arndt); Alison Cross, (Cross/Beilharz); Sophie Behnke, (Behnke/Eppinger); Emma Wied, (Wied/Tesselaar); Nicholas Franz, (Franz/Ziecik); Alexander O'Brien, (O'Brien/Uhlherr); Matthew Heron, (Heron/Knaub); Daniel Lu, (Lu/Hoffmann).

With God's blessing we wish each and everyone of those newcomers into this world a long and happy life. May they be a joy and delight to their parents (and grandparents), and may they all in time find the satisfaction a creative life brings to every person.

Amen. Please be seated.

To conclude this evening's Service we will now sing the Hymn "Ich singe dir mit Herz und Mund…" number 47 in the new Hymnbook. We will sing all 8 verses.

Please remain seated as Elizabeth Wagner on the piano will bring this Service to a close. May the old year guide you gently into the new, and may the new year grant you all the peace, prosperity and happiness you seek.

return to the top of page

end

last updated 01/4/2004 by Alfred Klink