Chance and risk - a sermon by Rudolf Rennfer

Chance and Risk - a sermon by Rev. Rudolf Renfer director of Human Resources at the Lutheran World Federation
This sermon was preached on 1 March 2010, the gospel text was the tower of Siloam falling down and killing 18 people. You can find the full liturgy here. A choir of 75 members of the Focolari movement also joined us for the service.
Perhaps "opportunity and risk" or opportunity and danger may work better for you that "chance and risk" but I think the meaning is clear.


It seems that in Chinese you use quite often two ideograms which separately mean one thing,
and together something else, but in relation with the two previous ones.
The ideograms on this worship sheet mean (above) “risk” and below “chance”. Together,
they express the concept of “crisis”.
In this context, I want to tell you an old story from China that I heard some time ago.
On the country side of rural China, a father offers a horse to his son who just got of age.
So the men from the village come to see the father and tell him:
“What a chance he has, your son, with such a wonderful horse.”
And the father answers:
“Maybe it is a good chance, maybe it is high risk.”
Some weeks later, the son comes back to the village with his horse, together with a wild horse that he was able to capture, a rare event.
So the men from the village come to see again the father and comment:
“What a chance for your son to capture such a wonderful wild animal.”
And the father replies: “Maybe it is a good chance, maybe it is a high risk.”
Some weeks later, when trying to tame the wild horse, the son falls down from his own horse
and breaks his leg, which is a tragedy in an isolated Chinese village.
So the men from the village come to see again the father and they complain:
“What a bad luck for your son, will he recover with his broken leg?”
And the old peasant answers:
“Maybe it is a high risk and bad luck, maybe it is a good chance.”
Some weeks later, a group from the army enters into the village and takes away all the young
men who can serve to fight on the battlefields. But one young man remains in the village; the
one with his broken leg.
So the men from the village come back to the peasant and comment again:
“What a chance he had your son not to be taken by the army.”
And the father says again:
“Maybe it is a good chance, maybe it is a high risk.”
As I said before: “Chance” and “risk” together in Chinese mean “crisis”. In fact, every
decisive moment in any life is a moment of crisis.
Every crisis has a chance and contains a risk.
We are praying this week, amongst other countries, for Switzerland. During decades, Switzerland has been seen as a blessed country, almost like a kind of biblical place where milk and honey flows. Everything works well, there is such a high standard of living, people are so friendly, and they make such wonderful chocolate and watches and cuckoo clocks and other clichés. But for several years, this image is vanishing, and the country is in the middle of a crisis, I would say mainly an identity crisis.
Look at the Swiss banking system and all these things that have happened behind the scenes
for many years in order to increase gains and profits, without respecting ethical principles, and these were all so friendly and nice Swiss people who did it.
Look at these dirty negotiations about secret bank accounts and names of French, American and German bank clients in Switzerland, and Swiss banks encouraging them to tax evasion.
Look at this incredible saga of two Swiss citizens detained as hostages in Libya, and the Swiss government who has lost any capacity of negotiation, leading finally the president of Libya to his stupid declaration of a jihad, due to the vote refusing the construction of minarets, where Switzerland has lost most of its credibility, and where some very unfriendly and narrow minded anti-islamic ideas become the majority view.
This is a crisis.
Look also at the ecumenical movement, at the organizations where we are working. Of course, there were always attacks from outside and from inside against the WCC and some of its positions, declarations and statements. But in general, it was a respected movement and
supported by the member churches. And now it seems that there is no more trust, that the churches and their agencies don’t see anymore a deep sense of what we are doing in this
house, and there is pressure on funding, on programmes, on staff. And even if we maintain the
hope that declaring this as a winter time where we can do a lot of things inside the house, and
that it is a good occasion for reorientation, we need to know that spring will be coming one day and that we have to get out of the impression of being in the middle of a crisis.
Or look at ourselves, at our own lives, at our chances and risks. Look at the moments we have
been going through or we are now confronted with, in our families, with our friends, at our workplace, with our neighbors, and we realize that life is full of crisis.
I would like to repeat that each crisis has a chance and contains a risk. The risk is to get used
to the critical remarks, to feel resigned and to conclude that in the end, nothing or almost nothing
can be done to reverse the situation. How can you convince member churches or agencies
that we are better than what they think of us? We are such a reduced number of staff, our
efforts did not show many results. Let’s do what we can, but without any illusions. This is a
risk indeed.
But the crisis has also a chance. It allows us to reflect on ourselves, to reorient our action, to
re-centre our activities, to learn from failure. Let’s be convinced that what we are doing and
living is full of meaning, will bring us forward and will overcome negative experience. What
sometimes might have the aspect of a tragedy, like the broken leg of the young Chinese man, can
suddenly be a blessing for a life and give new chances for survival.
In our biblical text from the Gospel of Luke, the disciples come to see Jesus and mention to
him the destruction and collapse of a tower at the city wall of Jerusalem, killing eighteen
persons. They ask him: Is this a fatality, and act of God, like the earthquake in Haiti or now in Chile was a terrible fatality? Were these victims more sinful than any other habitants of Jerusalem? Jesus clearly answers that there is no link between the causes (like an accident) and the effects.
However, what is important is to pay attention to what is happening in the world and to find
out where our responsibilities lie. Each "fatality" is an occasion for repentance. In other words:
obviously there has not been a good prevention when building the tower in Siloam. There has
not been enough consideration for the Haitian people for decades, and the risk that they
would suffer just another catastrophe was left too high.
So let’s look at the chances in a context in Switzerland where economic and political networking is based on justice and transparency and not on fraud and evasion.
Let’s look at the chances to open new spaces for the ecumenical movement where collaboration, confidence building and concrete new steps will be possible.
Let’s take the crisis as an extraordinary occasion for new departures, even if each occasion
implies a new risk.
Let’s be open to Christ’s call for a responsible way of using the opportunities in our lives.
Let’s repent, reorient ourselves, look ahead and start again, in order not to perish.
Not as a theoretical approach, but as a challenge for our daily important and nitty gritty work,
as the Chinese peasant said:
“Maybe it is a good chance; maybe it is a high risk.”
Amen

Copyright (c) Rudolf Renfer/LWF