The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)
Preachers tell us we need prophets. Prophets tell us what is really going on. They are not primarily people who predict the future. They tell us what is going on right now in our present situation and what it means in the light of the sovereignty of God. Sometimes what they have to say lasts beyond their own time. Isaiah and Baruch, for example. John the Baptist, for another. And Zechariah, John's father.
A more modern prophet lived in the last century. He was a German Lutheran theologian, and he spent most of his life in Berlin. Most of his life. He visited Spain, New York City, England, and Sweden. And at the end of his life he was not in Berlin, he was in a concentration camp.
What had he done to earn that? From the beginning of his country's turn to national socialism, he had spoken out to his fellow Christians about what it meant. What it ultimately meant.
To some of them, it meant good times ahead. What could be better than a strong leader who would clean house and bring church and state together to strengthen the nation?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for that was his name, saw differently. He was not alone, but he did not, at the end, have many friends. There were family members who were much more, or much less, implicated in resistance to the national socialist regime that took over their country.
What he did at first and for many years was simply to point out what it meant for the church to merge its identity into a national project. What it meant for the church not to be an independent voice, for justice, for the poor, for the person on the edge of society, and for the person pushed there by politics. What it would mean if it was. And so he was among those who raised that voice.
During the war he became involved in working for military intelligence, but while he worked there he was also a courier for the resistance movement, trying to build bridges for democracy with people in other countries. And his clandestine work, for awhile, included raising money to help Jews seek safe haven in Switzerland.
He was famously involved, but only peripherally, in a plot to kill Hitler. That plot failed in July 1944 and gradually the conspirators were rounded up. Eventually they came for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
But that is not the end of the story. In prison he was able to write to friends and family, and continue to develop his understanding of what was going on. He continued to be a prophet.
One thing he said that I have been thinking about puts a different spin on this season of Advent.
Advent we rightly hold to be a time of preparation, of repentance and renewal, in anticipation of the arrival of Christ at Christmas.
It is a time of hope, hope that bridges the distance between faith and love, between what we hold to be true and how we put it into action.
That bridge of hope is what got Dietrich Bonhoeffer into trouble. Most pastors just went along with what was going on - or took quieter ways to resist.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taught something important to think about. God is already active in the world. From the beginning of the world through Christ to the consummation of time, God is at work. Responding to God’s love by placing our trust and primary allegiance in his hands, and faithfully participating in God’s work of redemptive love, will carry us through the toughest time.
Want to know more? I’d start with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s own writings, especially Discipleship, Life Together, Ethics, and Letters and Papers from Prison.
The Rev. Dr. John Leech is a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.
Previous version submitted to the Arizona Daily Star, December 8th 2024, as a Guest Opinion. Slight corrections made here 7 Jan 2025, after reading Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945, Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. T&T Clark/Continuum, London, 2010. Original edition Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945 Eine Biographie. München, 2006.
P.S.
Unpacking Bonhoeffer's Legacy, a conversation with Victoria J. Barnett, Wednesday 15 January 2025, spnosored by the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies (https://youtu.be/KPiT9fUON3A?feature=shared) yielded this list...
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment