The church out in the world (Matthew 21:1-11)
In October of 1989, word came down from Moscow: the peace prayers in Leipzig must be stopped.
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Some years ago I met a pastor of St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig in what was once East Germany. During the Cold War, East Germans knew their country lay directly in the path of potential nuclear cross fire. The people were so powerless they did a crazy and ridiculous thing. They decided to go to church and pray.
That’s where St. Nicholas came in. On Monday evenings a small group of people, usually no more than ten, would gather in the church to pray for peace. Government officials took notice. They infiltrated prayer meetings and looked for signs of revolution. The pastor told me he was careful to cut the microphone if anyone started to sound “too political.” He didn’t want the church to get fined or the prayer meeting to be shut down.
