The Japanese had been the enemy. That was the general thinking in 1948 while Luther Kistler and other soldiers occupied Tokyo. So it seemed unusual for Kistler when his father — a Lutheran pastor — asked a former seminary classmate who was Japanese to take his son to Sunday worship at Koiwa Lutheran Church in Tokyo.
“It was the first time that I was with an only-Japanese group, and I wondered what I was doing there,” said Kistler, a retired ELCA pastor from Celebration, Fla.
Then he heard the words “Ten ni mashimasu warera no chichi ya,” which translates loosely to “Our Father which art in heaven.”
“I thought if the Japanese are saying ‘Our Father’ and I am saying ‘Our Father,’ we must be children of the same heavenly Father,” Kistler recalled. “I said to myself that if I could do one thing I would like to help as many people as possible to say ‘Our Father.’”
That thought remained in the back of Kistler’s mind after he returned home, went to college and seminary, and got a call in Florida. “I just thought we’d stay there for who knows how long,” he said. “All of a sudden a call came from the Board of Missions (of the former American Lutheran Church). My wife and I said, ‘Can this be true?’ We knew there was no doubt that God was calling us to go.”
Kistler went to Musashino Lutheran Church in Shimoigusa, Tokyo, where he served for 19 years, a time he calls “marvelous.”
Learning the language was a challenge, he said, but the people were understanding and patient with him. Also, he had a good relationship with his neighbors, whom he said were mostly Buddhist.
“They accepted us and we accepted them,” he said. “We had no doubt that God is one, and we just wanted them to know the true God fully through Jesus.”
Kistler said one of his most memorable parishioners was Adm. Sueo Obayashi, who was in command of suicide pilots and later became a Christian.
“He sat in the front row of church every Sunday,” Kistler said. “I visited his home many times, and he told me the story of his life. We said the Lord’s Prayer together, and the word our tied us together in a very spiritual way.”
His call to Japan was unexpected, and so was Kistler’s call home. In 1988 he helped lead the first ELCA mission start, Immanuel in Palm City, Fla. (The Lutheran; Jan. 27, 1988, and August 2013). Musashino Lutheran wanted to be a mission partner, Kistler said, and the Japanese congregation donated $25,000.
Kistler’s spreading of “Our Father” to as many people as possible had come full circle, as those he sought to help in Japan had now helped American Lutherans.
“The Lord’s Prayer is one of Jesus’ greatest gifts to the whole world,” he said. “It is prayed in many languages and binds us all together.”
