The Lutheran World Federation

Dr. Ishmael Noko the General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation shared a brief personal history. As a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe he started ministry as a pastor in a refugee camp. He told us, “No one should be ordained without spending time in a refugee camp. There you meet the son of Mary who fled to Egypt.” He approaches his entire ministry from the perspective of including the least and the last. In addition to the practical education he received from experiences like this he studied with Douglas John Hall (I know Judy Messal has read some of Hall’s work). Noko was Hall’s first doctoral student and is now only months away from retirement. A new LWF General Secretary has already been chosen. Bishop Hanson has been meeting with him during our time in Geneva.

I want to share a few quotes from our time with Dr. Noko. In no particular order, just a sample of his rich thinking:

As Lutherans we are at our best when we do things with and for others. When we don’t we become more cantankerous.

Our educational system teaches us only to talk and not to listen. We need both the capacity and the infrastructure to listen.

All faiths agree that faith works for peace. We can never use faith or scripture to support war. Using scripture to support war is an abuse of scripture.

3,000 to 5,000 people run the world - we see the same people every where we go.

You are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, not of America. You are Lutherans with all the rest of us and your place in the United States means that you are critical to our global life because of your position.

Today we visited Bossey Ecumenical Institute, an educational institution devoted to ecumenical theology and training future ecumenists. The director listed some of the graduates of the Institute including the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, which certainly helps us understand why he received us so warmly. At the institute students not only study but live an worship with students from many faith traditions and countries every day. They help to plan daily worship and prayer. Then they have to participate as students from other traditions do the same. It helps them to appreciate other Christian traditions, but also become sensitive about how to plan worship and lead worship, and how to pray in ways that include rather than alienate.

The pictures include: Dr. Noko, the chapel at Bossey and a picture of our group at our final dinner together with one person having left this morning and one not in the picture.

I leave the hotel at 5:00 am for the flight home. I can't wait!