That Fine Balance

Recently, in my class on Bonhoeffer, the professor made a point of stating that Bonhoeffer had said the church should make statements that are relevant today.  The Beatitudes are more than dos and do nots, but need to be contextualized in sermons and statements from the pulpit.  Such thoughts seem to fly in the face of accepted wisdom though.  Nothing seems more unnecessary and irrelevant than one more ill-informed voice whining about the problems of life.  A perusal of Facebook or Twitter proves just how problematic such a desire can be.

Yet Bonhoeffer meant nothing of the sort.  Fortunately I have friends who are far left and far right.  Both sides operate from a world based on fear and scarcity.  The ideologies may not see their partisans offering any hope to the world, but at least they will protect against the clearly evil opposing party.  To this Bonhoeffer is clear that the problems and evils of our society are great; it is solved with humble critiques and not by demagoguery.  It is best to take our template from the sermon on the mount.  It is best to look, really look, at the needs of the victims of society.  How often do we talk as if we know what is best for someone only to do what we want couched in language of compassionate altruism?  When will we learn that we must stand for the manifestation of Christ's kingdom instead of the political mood dressed up in Christian garments?  When we allow the crucified Christ to take not just our sins but our ideologies that get in the way of our obedience?

The world finds an easy target of Christians taking a stand for temporal things that have no bearing on our salvation.  It needs something more.  It needs Christians who see beyond taxes, guns, and superficialities to the needs of real people.  Whatever the pastor or church may say is bound to be deliberately misquoted by those opposed to the Gospel, but the alternative is far worse: a silent church that offers no hope in eternity, no faith in a resurrection  and no love with God and neighbor.  We find the portrayal of the the church as between that of a bad family and a negligent family.  The simple answer is that the church must speak its truth; but in a way that sees not good and evil people, but sinners in need of reconciliation.

What if the church that railed against abortion was the church that provided for the widow and orphan as well?  What if the church that decried gun violence offered a better way than that of the gun?  What if the church saw justice and righteousness as the same thing?  What if we forgave, really forgave, as our Lord Jesus Christ forgave on the cross?  What if we weren't afraid to call sin what it was, but also called grace what it was as well?  What if we sacrificed our political voice for the voice calling out on the hill of the Beatitudes?  The goal of every Christian is to sacrifice being right for being a little Christ.  In this we find that we speak less of the evils of society, but against them all the more.  Yet at the root is the hope that grace will flow down and change a hopeless world into one that can hope again.  It will not be accomplished by politics, economics, or society; but by Christians being unashamed of who they are and humble enough to accept their own call to action.