It’s a tradition that a church service for runners is held in the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church on the evening before the Berlin Marathon. The sermon by the Reverend Klaus Feierabend, who has run many marathons himself, always makes reference to running. What follows is the text of his sermon this year:

Good Evening to Friends Old and New!

I remember my first marathon. That was 28 years ago when it was still held in the Grunewald, the last occasion before they took it out into the city. The loneliness of the long distance runner was a very real experience, at least a few hours after the start at any rate. Was that because I was so fast or because I was a back marker? I’ll make that my little secret; I don’t like to be a show-off. But here’s a clue: I was quite high up amongst the back markers, but well down on those up front. All I could see on the Kronprinzessin Avenue besides the Avus motor racing circuit were trees or was it the Königsweg and the nearby Mommsen stadium which I was longing to see in my mind? Where were all the others, I was missing them a little though not the one whose noisy, splat, splat footstrike after slogging through an hour alongside or behind me was getting on my nerves, neither overtaking me nor dropping back. Was that perhaps the sound of my own footsteps which I couldn’t escape? Here, where the trees began to take on shapes, move and make faces, everything was possible and conceivable.

Ahead I could see someone who had come to a halt and was looking back, waiting for me. He obviously wanted another human being to run with and there was nobody but me far and wide. Those were the days! His name was Johannes, a young doctor of medicine. We saw each other again quite often in the years to come but then only at the start. On that day we ran the last half-hour together which to us seemed to take 40 minutes. We talked a little about ourselves, told each other a few stories. When I wanted to take a short break, he wouldn’t let me: “How are you going to explain that to your congregation when you wanted to greet them running and not as a dying swan!” That’s exactly how I appeared to F., my dear and careworn wife, when we ran, stride for stride, to the finish line in the stadium and then sank down onto the grass. There is a photo of this moment, because apart from the grandmother of what would be six grandchildren there was no-one else from the congregation of the Nathan-Söderblom church present. It took just one “Snap” and I can still remember to this day what F., my wife, whispered with the expression of a trainee social worker on her first day working in intensive care in a Senior Citizens’ Home: “My God, my hero is dying and no-one is taking a blind bit of notice!”

Some of you, dear friends, know that a few years ago I mentioned the bit of bother that my first marathon caused at the monthly get-together of vicars from my colleagues in Spandau: “He leaves his congregation in the lurch and goes off on a jaunt on this Sunday of all days!” In the lurch!? First of all, that simply wasn’t true because at that time the Berlin Marathon took place on the day for Harvest Thanksgiving when I would in any case celebrate the service with my congregation in the afternoon. I had to return to Spandau straight after the race where my congregation was patiently waiting for me.
Changed back into my working clothes but no time for a shower, talcum powder here and there, scattered around the vestry, my joints were stiff but I was ready with my sermon. Secondly, I was proud of my trusty fellow Christians who could celebrate their religious service on their own if I didn’t happen to be there. The complaint of my colleagues, mostly of the older ones, that a service wasn’t possible or shouldn’t be allowed without a vicar presiding I considered thoroughly out of keeping with evangelical concepts.

I had to defend my yen for distance running at the vicars’ meeting, saying that the corpulent idleness of quite a few vicars was also no proof of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, a real vicar always feels that they are working, even when they are sitting on the toilet! What do we do when we are supposedly off-duty? Well now, some, as I’ve already said, hang around and get really fat, others get themselves waited on hand and foot by their wives, some drink too much and smoke like chimneys and others again go in for politics or write books and some put all their energies into educational trips or carve out careers for themselves, whether they be in archaeology, stamp collecting or dog rearing. Quite a few are addicted to being on call all the time and very few, perhaps two, run marathons. I’m not making anything up, it’s all true. But we all do what we do as a service to the Lord. Not all of it is equally healthy. When someone still voices the suspicion that old Feierabend is carrying on with this nonsense only because his congregation has gone astray, I counter this with the following Limerick:

There was an old Pastor who was in a bad way,
His Christian flock had long gone astray.
But when taking his ease in the forest green on a run,
He encountered a meeting of Pray for Fun.
That’s how he brought the congregation together again.

But you know: They were all correct to some extent, even my harshest critics. No-one should become fixed in their own self-righteousness. And if I didn’t receive words of approval now and again from a few people in those days as I remember, I would look back on my long career as vicar to the community as a misspent life to some extent. But that there were such words of encouragement from other quarters, sometimes from people who had no stake in the matter, brought me joy which has meant more to me as I’ve grown older.

Now for something mysteriously poetical. It leads at the same time to the heart of Christian Belief, there where it is clear that we have to get used to the idea of having more questions than answers in our lives. Have a listen to this without rushing to make hasty conclusions:

September 29, the day after tomorrow, is traditionally dedicated to the Archangel Michael, who it is said defeated the dragon with his host, the snake, Satan, who was cast out from Heaven onto Earth and we’ve been in this mess ever since. Now there is a lot that can be said about angels and still more has been written about them than said, almost an entire literary genre.

What do angels do? Angels praise God! But take care, in no way should you imagine this as never-ending song in which all those holy creatures sing with one voice the whole time, us included, as far as possible. I like singing, and sing to F., my wife, almost every day on the small seat by her gravestone the songs I have from her and we stay close that way. But endless singing, for centuries and millennia? Even if the renowned evangelical theologian Karl Barth reveals to us that the angels in heaven sing Bach and then Mozart in their leisure time, what about a break in the heavenly chorus for a couple of hundred years?

What does singing mean really? They are songs of praise. Singing is praise. But wait a moment: we shouldn’t imagine such praise as too one-dimensional: whoever needs to be praised constantly, unceasingly, is ripe for psychiatric treatment. That would be just what I need, I don’t think, to be hooked on appreciation, that would be “All to Human,” that is, far from God. The angels in the pasture on Christmas night are saying something else to us: “They praised God and said: Glory be to God in the highest and Peace on Earth!”

Praise means therefore that we make use of His creation, not as gluttons but in gratitude as we serve and love it as God’s gift of life for us.

In a magazine which calls itself a Christian publication, I found this sentence: “You cannot be aflame with the love of God and for all that is going on around us at the same time. If we want to win souls, we have to restrict our interests to what is most important.”

My reply is: You cannot be aflame with the love of God and at the same time be indifferent to everything else around us.

I was listening to a vicar give a funeral oration and all he talked about was life after death and nothing about life in the here and now as something to be appreciated, as time spent which could be seen as a joyous gift from God. I so wanted to say to him afterwards that I was sorry for him with all his gloomy, morbid thoughts. All human beings have the opportunity to be grateful for the gifts of life, the gifts bestowed upon us, for everything they can do. We and those like us who run long distances these days think about people who can’t run and admire their achievements in sport or art or simply their indomitable zest for life and how they come to terms with their handicaps.

Let’s be clear about this: Praising God is not a something which should be a party pooper for those on Earth and those above who have had enough of singing, it should be the natural expression of the creative act. God gave us life and that’s how we breathe, sing, speak and run. However, silence and pausing for reflection are also part of this great gift. So we do what we are on earth for. In this way rivers, mountains, trees and animals also praise God the Creator. Now for a big theme which we can only touch upon for the present: natural catastrophes are the other, the darker side of the same creation which always does what it can. Our joy at life is constantly struggling to find a balance with lamentation and both are grounded in God’s act of creation. Let us listen to the Psalm 148:

“Hallelujah! Praise to the Lord in Heaven, praise Him in the highest!
Praise Him, all his angels, praise Him, all His mighty host!
Praise Him, Sun and Moon, Praise Him, all the stars that shine!
Praise Him, Heaven upon the heavens and the waters upon the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord; for they were created at His command.

He gives them life evermore: He gave them order which they may not transgress.
Praise the Lord on Earth, the great fishes and the ocean’s deep,
Fire, hail, snow, mist and tempest which bear His message.
Mountains and hills, Trees bearing fruit and cedars, animals and all cattle, the small creatures of the earth and birds,
Kings on earth and all peoples, princes and judges,
Young women and men, old and young!
Let them praise the name of the Lord; for His name alone is on high, His majesty extends throughout heaven and earth.
He raises up the power of the people.
Let all praise His chosen, holy ones, the children of Israel, those who serve Him. Hallelujah!”

All the peoples of this earth are His people. Isn’t that wonderful and—if we are honest—also very rare that we have the chance to take a peek over someone’s shoulder as it were at a bible text which doesn’t give much away and yet see what it’s all about?! In such a wonderfully simple way we can discern His plan for us.

Finally I can reveal my latest secret to you. After six years away from the marathon I want to take part in another one next year, if my training goes to plan. I shall then be 75-years-old. As the saying goes: Old age is no hindrance to foolishness! But let this be a secret between us few, okay?

“But Reverend, there are people who oppose your plan, who want to talk you out of it!” Well now, as a preacher and expert in rumours I know this much: the more you spread them, the more secret they remain.

I made no secret to you of my delight in my first marathon. Tomorrow You will be running your first marathon! May it become a cherished memory for You!

And to all of you: Be brave and merry when you set off tomorrow morning and finish the course, wherever it may be, in good spirits and with a brave heart!

AMEN