Be Patient

Katharina von Bora: 20 December 1552

How do you work with people? You can learn from some heroes in the Bible and history. Noah shows you to Keep Awake to your own feelings. John the Baptizer teaches to Repent from behaviors that do not bear fruit. Katharina von Bora, a woman leader of the reformation, and wife of Martin Luther calls you to Be Patient. One of the greatest challenges in working with people is inappropriate behavior. People who cross personal boundaries are emotionally immature. God confronts bad behavior and helps people to grow and mature. So be patient.

Inappropriate Behavior

Inappropriate behavior can sabotage businesses, schools, governments, and churches. There is no shortage of news stories and examples from history of how people behaving badly destroy their life and people around them. It is particularly shameful when this happens in church because the church should be a leader of Godly behavior.

In the 1500’s inappropriate behavior was widespread in the church. Many priests didn’t take their vows of celibacy seriously at all. Martin Luther was a country priest not unlike John the Baptizer. When Luther went to the “Perpetual City” of Rome he was shocked to see priests openly having mistresses. Another troubling reality was the corruption of monasteries. 

In 1504 Katharina von Bora was sent by her family at the age of five years old to a monastery to grow up and live out the rest of her days. Monasteries and monastics have been powerful and wonderful centers of learning and action when people freely choose to serve God in this way. But the practice of enlisting five year old children was abusive. 

Emotional Immaturity 

People who act inappropriately and cross personal boundaries are emotionally immature. They have not been raised or taught how to have deep and mutually respectful relationships. Instead many people have an unrealistic image of what an ideal life is supposed to look like. 

When Katharina von Bora was a young adult she began to question the monastic life she had been pushed into. She was told that monastics were better than ordinary people because they devoted their life to God. They would be more likely to get into heaven because they didn’t waste their time in Earthly tasks like marriage, family, and business. Then Katharina heard about the teachings of Martin Luther. He argued that every person could serve God in their Earthly vocation: teachers, farmers, merchants, and families doing what they do with faith. 

Katharina von Bora wrote to Luther with a scandalous idea. She and a group of other young nuns wanted to escape the convent, and participate in the work of the reformation. She wanted to leave an idealized life and enter into reality. To do this, however, would be in direct conflict with the teachings of the church, government, and social expectations. Good thing she wrote to Luther and not some Leisetreter!

God is confrontational

I don’t know any well adjusted human being that seeks out confrontation or conflict. God, however, has the job and courage of confronting bad behavior and sin. God came to Earth as Jesus Christ to confront powers and principalities that were contrary to God. Mary sings about this in the Magnificat:

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

Luke 1:51-53

Luther received the letters from Katharina and the other nuns and helped to organize an escape from the convent. There was a food merchant that delivered food to the monastery who was sympathetic to the Reformation. On 4 April 1523, Easter eve, Katharina and several other nuns escaped the monastery in a covered wagon full of barrels of herring. Who said that Lutefisk isn’t good for anything? This escape has been dubbed over time as “A wagon load of Vestal Virgins.” 

Not everyone likes confrontation, however. The plan Luther made was to return these young women to their family homes. But not one family wanted them. It was far too dangerous. They would have been committing a crime against Canon law. 

People Can Grow

Luther played matchmaker. He had been writing and arguing for years that priests actually ought to be married and live out the earthly vocation of family and spouse. Now he could put that into practice. Every former nun found a spouse except Katharina. She rejected all of her suitors one after another. When asked why she finally said that she would only marry Nicholas von Amsdorf (a university colleague of Luther’s) or Luther himself. 

 Katharina and Martin were married 13 June 1525. Luther said that his marriage, “would please his father, rile the pope, cause the angels to laugh, and the devils to weep.” While Katharina said:

“Now I shall no longer be Katharina, runaway nun; I shall be the wife of the great Doctor Luther, and everything I do or say will reflect upon him…It’s like an assignment from God. God, keep me humble. Help me to be a good wife to your servant Doctor Luther. And perhaps, dear Father, You can also manage to give me a little love and happiness.”

Ruth Tucker, “Katie Luther” page 163

God gave Katharina and Martin an abundant measure of happiness. They had six children, and raised another four adopted children. God helped them to grow and mature. 

Martin called Katharina the “Morning Star of Wittenburg,” because she was known to wake up 4:00am and work all day. They were given as a gift at their wedding the “Black Cloister” from John, Elector of Saxony, which used to house the Augustinian monks. Katharina managed the estate: breeding cattle, running a hospital, and of course brewing beer! 

Be Patient

Katharina von Bora, later, Katie Luther is an exemplar of patience. Patience doesn’t mean to accept the status quo of the world. It doesn’t mean to endure the inappropriate behavior of other people. Patience means having faith in the power of God. It means carefully and compassionately working for a more righteous world. The letter of St. James says: 

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.

James 5:7-9

Martin Luther died in 1546, 21 years after he and Katharina were married. Katharina had to raise the family as a widow during outbreaks of war, disease, and non-stop attacks on her character. She was shrewd, powerful, and patient. She died on December 20 1552, just five days before Christmas. It was the third week of Advent. Her dying words were “I will stick to Christ as a burr to cloth.”

As you prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth stick to Christ like Katharina did. Be Patient in your dealings with one another. Repent from bad behavior. Keep awake to your feelings. Amen.