German Ministry of South Florida

Last sermon of Pr. Rosenhagen at St. Mark's: "The symbol of the bridge", 6/25/2006

Dear parish,

When the famous German theologian, pastor and philosopher Paul Tillich, who had fled Nazi Germany in 1933 for the US, was asked after three years in his new country to explain his life and thinking, Paul Tillich discovered that there was one symbol in particular which explained everything. While pondering about his ideas, his fate and his career, Paul Tillich came to realize that he was always moving along boundaries. Tillich noticed that all along in his life, he had been moving back and forth between different spheres of life, between religion and culture, church and society, theory and practice. Tillich's life and thought were derived from experiences where those different spheres met. At the core of his being, Tillich found as a fundamental symbol the symbol of the boundary.

Like Paul Tillich, I have thought about a deep, fundamental symbol I would pick to describe my own life's journey, my thinking and my work as a pastor. While preparing for my farewell sermon at St. Mark's, I pondered about what motivates and drives me, and what symbol might be at the core of my being, and what would explain best the almost 39 years I've been in this world. And while thinking and pondering about this question, I realized that the symbol that encapsulates best who I am, what I do, and what I stand for is the symbol of a bridge.

The symbol of a bridge stuck with me since I was little. Although I was born in the city of Hanover, when I was in second grade my family had ended up in a small medieval town of the name Felsberg in Northern Hesse. That's where I grew up, and I owe this place most of my childhood memories and lessons. Next to my hometown Felsberg however, there was another small town equal in size and age. A big river divided both towns (well, by the standards of a little boy in Germany big, by American standards it surely was no more than a small creek). One could only cross the river by using the big bridge, which connected Felsberg and the other town. The bridge was an important landmark. There was no other bridge for 5 miles north and for 5 miles south of it, and the stop for the school bus was simply called: "Bruecke", which means: bridge. Most of the times I played on the Felsberg side of the river, but I always had some friends on the other side. And because some of them played soccer for the club of the other town, and I had joined them in their club, I often had to use that bridge to get from my parents' home to the other side. I remember vividly how this bridge captured my imagination as a child. It always struck me as something huge and awesome when I had to ride my bicycle for soccer training on the other side of the river. In autumn and winter, when it got cold and dark early and fog rose up from the river, two lines of lanterns along the bridge barely lit the way. Then, from the distance, the bridge looked like a space ship or like some monument of a forgotten past. But it was nothing but a plain and simple bridge made of grey cement in the early seventies, which connected both sides and which helped me to get to my friends and then to get home again. A plain and simple bridge was the royal path for my childhood endeavors, and I imagined the golden gate bridge in San Francisco not much different than the bridge in my hometown.

I was fascinated with that bridge as a child, and I'm still fascinated by bridges and their construction. But what makes a bridge so special? What is a bridge good for other than to help a little boy in Germany to get to his soccer training? What is its function?

The symbol of the bridge is an almost self-evident symbol. What nature separates, a bridge connects. A bridge connects places and people. A person can walk from one side to the other, and so can ideas and goods travel from one side to the other, too. The bridge is also a symbol for a place where people and things meet. And most importantly it serves to describe relations between people. Therefore we sometimes say that we build bridges between people. When we build those bridges, it usually means that people, who didn't know each other before will now be able to meet, connect and communicate. And by building a bridge one often overcomes a dividing gap.

Yet, the meaning of the symbol can go even further. Sometimes we don't even know what's on the other side so that a bridge also assumes the willingness to explore new things and ideas. A person who builds bridges has to be somewhat open-minded and curious, because things on the other side might be very different. However, the person who builds a bridge is not too afraid about the new things he might encounter, even if they change him, his attitudes, his likes and dislikes.

Finally, at times, it even takes a good portion of courage to build a bridge, because things on the other side could be irritating and troubling.

However, we often times realize the importance of bridges only when they are broken and when we can't cross them anymore. When there is a storm, or some failure in its construction, or may be too much weight damages the bridge, then we can't get from A to B anymore. Then life comes to a halt, and connections previously made are interrupted.

Sometimes people purposely break bridges. The famous bridge of Mostar in the Herzegovina over the river Neretva is a symbol for that. In the city of Mostar, islamic Bosnians and catholic Croatians used to live side by side for centuries, their neighborhoods connected by an old bridge, which withstood many storms over the years. But during the war on the Balkans, this old bridge was bombed and destroyed. The image of this destroyed bridge of Mostar has become a symbol for people who don't want to talk with each other, who don't want to live together but fight and hate each other.

And sometimes we just don't want to build bridges between us and other people but rather stay where we are and withdraw from what's around us. We then stop communicating, we don't let anyone come too close, and we lock ourselves up into the fortress of our self. At the end of the service we will sing the old Lutheran hymn: A mighty fortress is our god. The hymn used to be a sign for God's strength and that even in the midst of life's turmoil we can always return to God for shelter and protection. Yet the flipside of the image of the fortress is that if we don't open its drawbridge, but pull it, we easily begin to entrench ourselves in our fortress. Finally there is the expression "burning bridges". When people intentionally destroy what connects them, when they don't want anything to do with the people they used to live and bond with and just want to make sure that they don't interfere with their lives anymore, than they "burn their bridges".

All this is carried in the image of a bridge. All this helps to understand and value the symbol of a bridge. Bridges are important in our lives and relationships. We constantly need to build bridges, because we don't live alone in this world, but in families, friendships and communities. After all, without constantly building bridges we wouldn't be able to live together peacefully with all our differences.

Let me stay with this symbol of a bridge, not simply as a metaphor for my past of what I see as a symbol for my life's work, but also as a fitting metaphor for all of us here today. Let us now turn to today's gospel, because I think it tells something about the importance of bridges in our Christian journey of faith.

In today's gospel reading we heard about the disciples in a boat. Suddenly a storm rises. Waves are tossing against the boat. Wind howls. The disciples are afraid that the ship they're on is going to sink. Then, finally, Jesus appears and to proof his might, he calms down the storm.

This story was always read as a story of the church in times of turmoil and fear. The ship always stood for the church, and the disciples for the faithful yet doubting congregants. On the one side of the story we see fear and the storm, and the many doubts the disciples have in their situation. Yet on the other side we hear about God's peace, a calm sea, and Jesus miraculously silencing the storm. The narrative plays with the tension between a situation of concern and a situation of peace.

With the symbol of the bridge in mind this story now becomes transparent. Sometimes congregations seem to go through those situations of doubt and concern. Sometimes, in the midst of many changes, a congregation can feel that it lives a turbulent life. In a town like Miami which seems to be in constant motion and transition, and when there are different parts of the congregation who have just started to get to know each other; when there are people who speak different languages, people who are of different cultural backgrounds, and who grew up in very different parts of the world - and I don't just mean the US and Germany - when the situation seems to be like this, then we are entitled to feel like the disciples in the storm. Then we can ask what comes next. Then we are allowed to ponder about the future.

Yet, this is also exactly the time when we have to remember the symbol of the bridge. This is exactly the time when we have to overcome any doubts and concerns to make sure that we as a community of faith continue to be a place where everyone feels God's peace, and where God's beauty and grace is touching us.

Let us continue to be a place of joy and laughter, a place of prayer and fellowship, a place of music and teaching, a place where we can recharge our souls, where we get renewed, strengthened and comforted.

Let us as members of this congregation never tire to build bridges - not just among us, but in whatever situation God has called us into.

Let us be the ones who make things happen.

And may the bridges we build be strong enough that they don't break when there's a lot of weight put on them or when tension on one or both sides threatens to pull it apart.

Well, here I am going on about bridges, and the irony is that I'm the son of a civil engineer who has built many bridges in his life and who always worried that his son was never good at working with his hands. I admit my dad is right. I have never been particularly handy. But the kinds of bridges I've always sought to build and the kinds of bridges I have seen being built here at St. Mark's for the last three years are not the kinds of bridges built with stone and steel, but the kind that are built with heart.

Go on building these bridges of heart.
Go on building these bridges of heart.
And may you all do so with our Lord's abundant blessing.

Amen