What is around the next curve in life?
sermon by Manfred Schreyer

As you well know last Friday my nephew had a terrible car accident and he died at the tender age of thirty-five years the following day. He was a Christian and had given his life to Christ in his late teens.

My nephew had been living with my family for two years from 1985 to 1987.

He was a great young man, he was smart, very athletic, and he was very giving.

My brother and his wife were glad that we would offer him the experience. We had a wonderful time together.

He then left to go back to Germany and had been faced with a terrible situation: My brother had left his wife and was living with another woman.

My nephew and his sister were heartbroken and devastated.

My nephew’s mother was alone helpless. She never had to take care of anything, she had no working skills, and the family retrieved from her, because in Germany for the most part blood stands by blood. Right or wrong . . .

The problem was with my nephew since he was part of our family bloodline, however he cited with his mother and despised his father.

He committed acts of deep hate against his father and his father retaliated with the same act.

Evil met Evil.

This was not the nephew I knew.

But the truth is we all have sides like that. For the most part we are good people. For the most part we want to do good and we want to be treated good and as a whole person.

Dr. Carl Jung said that we as humans are motivated by the Ego, who represents the true being (the self), but the Ego is not the true being.

The Ego is the guy who represents the company and he manipulates, and interprets and facilitates . . . but he is never the true company.

Jesus Christ asks us to give up the old self, to be born again, to let the true self be in the center of our life.

In that ‘true self’ lies "the image of God," which our ego misrepresents. Our ego wants to make the image of God out according to the ego’s image and this wrong image wanders into our hearts and from our hearts it wanders into our actions.

To complicate the situation further, my brother got married to the new woman and she was never . . . until this day . . . accepted into my family. They had two beautiful children, neither one of them were ever visited by my nephew nor were they able to see him.

When my family discussed the situation polarities of opinions appeared on the scene of family peace.

Everyone wanted to re-create a healthy family . . . arguments for and against my brother leaving flew like whirlwinds at dinner conversations . . . but never did we all find a common understanding of right or wrong.

My nephew did very well. He got to know shortly after his arrival a beautiful young lady, who he would live with for the next fifteen years. He made rapid career advancements, he bought a beautiful house, he lived a great life . . .

In our devotions the day before the funeral friends and family explained what a wonderful person he was. He was probably one of the most giving person I have ever known. He was not the kind of person who would publicly display his kindness, but was rather an individual who would quietly give in a thousand ways.

My brother will never hear the stories, because they did not invite him that day, where everyone was there, everyone who had got to know my nephew and all recited experiences with him for more than three hours.

The decision of my brother to leave his wife had a tremendous impact not only on his life, but on the life of hundreds. The path my nephew was going from the day he understood that his father had left his family was not the intended path God wanted him to go.

I do not know if the other path would have been an easier path, but what I do know is that God had looked with sorrow upon the whole situation.

My brother also had never talked to his wife since he had left and the lawsuits from either side had taken a toll on their lives.

I began negotiating between them to find peace; starting the day of the burial service fo my nephew so no more could be destroyed. To make up and to forgive and to move ahead.

I had seen hope to facilitate the process . . . because my brother’s wife had become a very committed Christina and just over Christmas my brother told me that he and his wife were ready to attend an adult bible study.

I negotiated for three days and they both committed to see each other.

It was a very important step in their lives.

You see brothers and sisters . . . a lot of times in life when we become unforgiving we do not get a second chance. We become so hardened that hate fills our heart and we rejoice in the pain of the suffering of the other.

My nephew had taken it hard with his father, my brother! He mentioned too many times that he would never forgive him for what he had done to their family, because of the pain they had felt.

During my visit over Christmas I saw my nephew and we were making arrangements to see him during the NY marathon. He was a tremendous athlete. He participated in Siberia running events, etc. and he was looking forward coming and running the race in the US.

I briefly talked to him about my brother and during the conversation. I saw his eyes which were filled with experiences of pain and suffering.

He did not give any indication of a change of heart, and he suggested arguments of forgetting and leaving the subject alone.

Two days before he died, my nephew wrote me an e-mail in which I recognized a change of heart. He indicated that reconciliation will happen and that he was making an effort of walking the slow path of healing. He had spoken to my brother-his father on his birthday . . . and the day he wrote me these lines I truly thought that they will make it . . .

They did NOT!

My nephew died and was never able to tell his Dad that he loved him and that he forgave him.

He left this earth with a million questions in the hearts of my brother, his ex-wife, his sister . . . and many others.

You see it matters that we become forgiving and reconcile, because we do not know what lies ahead on our path.

On the day of the funeral . . . my brother and his ex-wife gave each other a hug, they spoke words and their eyes gave each other new hope . . .

1 Phil. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. :13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, :14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus

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