Thoughts on Psalm 139, 13ff

*** Der Originaltext auf Deutsch wurde gestern eingestellt.

Klaus-Dieter Ehmke is a doctor at a Berlin dialysis centre and for many years, he has been on the Bible Dialogues’ team of volunteers. He has contributed a lot to how I view not just my work but also my various other little voluntary services in my church. His lay sermon holds so many good thoughts that I decided to snip them into several parts. Today you can read part 1:

“As a doctor specialized on internal medicine, I have been thinking about psalm 139 for a long time. Luther’s German translation of the psalm mentions kidneys meaning internal organs that stand symbolically - in the interpretation of the Old Testament - the place of the most inner emotions. When God tests your kidneys, he tests your motivation. Those are never static or just happen stance. On the contrary, they are a constant process and give and take.

So, when I ask the nurses at our centre to send matter to the lab for testing, I really just want to know a small part of their function, but I have already been through thorough anamnesis, for which I often have to give excuses, explaining to the patient “You are not just made of kidneys!” Some of the more self-confident patients reply to that: “When I then look around in your office, I guess, doctors are only human too.” Patients are often right and when you speak to them at eye level: always!

As a rule, we are happily amazed at how wonderfully we are made. If that is the case, give and take are in an organic process that we do not perceive with due gratitude until something is lost that we hold dear. I experienced this at an early age, because my parents allowed me to partake in the parting from my great-grandmother. When you grow up on a farm like I did, becoming and passing is natural over the years. I had it good for all that.

Concerning my motivation to apply for the study of medicine, I remember clearly what I wrote in my “statement of development” at age 17 and this continued during my first internship in a hospital in the town of Anklam. I worked for three years as an assistant nurse, because I had said no to serving in the army. Today I know that the foundation of my motivation was laid in those years and that this widened my horizon for my studies of medicine and reflects somewhat of how God has touched my life.

My calling in the classic sense happened later in Berlin. Conditions were perfect for it. . I was freshly in love (and therefore had 120 % vitality) and I had St. Hedwig’s hospital to back me up. It was there that I learned to welcome life as well as death. I had wonderful teachers there, first and foremost the nuns, who were just as likely to take a way a head doctor’s guitar during his break if they felt another thing more important. And colleagues who knew what and why they were doing what they did. And a natural extra were the community worship, training sessions, and cheerful celebrations: an extremely healthy combination.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

You know my sitting down and my rising up;

You understand my thought afar off.

You comprehend my path and my lying down,

And are acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word on my tongue,

But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

You have hedged me behind and before,

And laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is high, I cannot attain it.

(Psalm 1391-6)“

Part 1 of the lay sermon for the congregation of Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtniskirche , on July 18, 2020 based on Psalm 139.