Those People

In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the Pharisees and scribes complain to the disciples about the behavior of their leader, Jesus. They point out that Jesus eats with "tax collectors and sinners," something that his self-righteous inquisitors would never condescend to do. Overhearing the challenge, Jesus responds that it is the sick and struggling who need him most and who he has come to call to a new life.

There is something important about this passage that is easy to miss, and it is easy to miss because it is an omission. The narrative leaves out a critical detail. And we may notice it only if we read this passage in the context of the many other gospel passages where Jesus offers guidance to those around him.

The gospels describe numerous instances where Jesus spoke to assembled crowds--and the gospels tell us exactly what he said to them. The gospels recount many conversations between Jesus and his beloved disciples--and, again, the gospels give us specifics about how Jesus instructed, corrected, and sometimes even rebuked them. Over and over again, the gospels tell us exactly what Jesus said--to a mob, to his persecutors, to his parents, to his followers, even to Satan himself.

But here, Luke tells us nothing about what Jesus said to those "tax collectors and sinners" when he sat and broke bread with them. In this respect, the story differs dramatically from what the gospels say about the Sermon on the Mount or the Last Supper or even the Crucifixion. Here, the gospels tell us that Jesus joined in the company of those people but are oddly silent about what he said to them--if he said anything at all.

In the course of human history there may have been no better storyteller than Luke and it is a safe bet always to assume that he knew what he was doing. So I want to put aside the possibility that this omission was an oversight or an error. To the contrary, I think that Luke fully understood the significance of leaving out these details. And I t think that, through this omission, Luke intended to convey two messages to us--loud and clear in their silence.

The first message is that what Jesus said to those people mattered much less than that he welcomed the opportunity to sit and eat with them. Through this simple act of grace and compassion, Jesus transformed "those people" into "his people." We can imagine a variation on the moment when his parents found the young Jesus, who had gone astray, teaching at the Temple: "Where else would you expect to find me?" he might ask here, too. Where else but where love is needed most?

And the second message is this: we are among "those people." We are, each and all of us, in desperate need of the sacred presence of forgiveness and acceptance. We are, each and all of us, fighting an urgent battle against the demons around us, within us, before us, behind us. Part of the power of Luke's story here comes from the bristling unease we feel if we align ourselves with the Pharisees and scribes: for those among us who are willing to do the hard work of looking into our own hearts, the very act of saying "I am better than those people" unsettles the possibility that it is so.

The brilliant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr gets at the essential point here in a famous sermon called "The Providence of God." Niebuhr writes: "[Our faith] believes that within and beyond the tragedies and contradictions of history we have laid hold upon a loving heart, the proof of whose love is first impartiality toward all of his children, and secondly a mercy which transcends good and evil." Exactly.

By breaking bread with "those people," Jesus reminds us of his central message--that we must be quick to love and slow to judge. In these, our troubled and divided times, we have become accomplished at getting this formula exactly backward. And we will persist in this tragic error--and will continue in our relentless persecution and sacrifice of love--until we awaken to the fact that "those people," in whatever way we mean that, are his people, are our people, are us.

Amen.

The Lonely Questions

Many people view Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a modern martyr of the Christian faith and, more expansively, of the cause of human freedom. Recognized as a gifted theologian while still a young man, Bonhoeffer could have chosen to pursue his career in the safety of one of the countless American seminaries and universities that would have delighted to include him among their faculty. Instead, he returned to Hitler’s Germany to join in the effort to resist fascism, knowing that he might never again see his family, friends, or fiancé.

Bonhoeffer was arrested in April of 1943 and executed two years later, shortly before the liberation of the prison camp where he was confined. While in prison, Bonhoeffer wrote a number of letters and papers that have been preserved, collected, and published. Together they make up one of the masterpieces of spiritual literature. In these documents, Bonhoeffer models a courage, faith, and uncompromising intellectual curiosity that must amaze and inspire us.

In a letter written to his friend Eberhard Bethge on July 16, 1944, Bonhoeffer says: “If you have to preach in the near future, I should suggest taking [one of the following] texts.” He then lists a number of passages for Bethge's consideration. The list is remarkable for at least three reasons.

First, he lists seven passages. The number eerily—and perhaps not coincidentally—corresponds to the number of passages traditionally known as "the last words of Christ."

Second, he lists six passages from the Hebrew Bible and only one from the New Testament. This is consistent with Bonhoeffer's deep interest in the Old Testament, particularly during his time of imprisonment.

And, finally, he offers Bethge almost no guidance whatsoever as to why these passages matter or what he should say about them when preaching. Because Bonhoeffer was not only a brilliant theologian but an inspired speaker and teacher, it seems fair to assume that he provides no instruction here for a simple reason: he thought it obvious.

These are the passages Bonhoeffer commends to his friend, in the order in which he lists them:

Psalm 62:1: “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.”

Psalm 119:94: “I am yours; save me, for I have sought your precepts.”

Psalm 42:5: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

Jeremiah 31:3: “[T]he Lord appeared to [Israel] from far away [and said] ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.’”

Isaiah 41:10: “[D]o not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”

Isaiah 43:1: “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Matthew 28:20: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We might gain some insight into Bonhoeffer's view of these passages if we put them in the context of a poem he had written shortly before he drafted this letter. The poem is called Who Am I? and it is stunning in its stark candor. In the poem, Bonhoeffer explored the doubts and conflicts that raged within him and asked:

“Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And I before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?”

But then he concludes:

         “Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

         Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.”

Probably as much as anyone who has ever lived, Bonhoeffer understood what it means to be plagued by the “lonely questions,” the uncertainties that hunt us down and seek to devour us, the unceasing and radical instabilities of the human condition. He found his answers in his confidence that God had called him by name, that he belonged to God, and that God would accompany him through his tribulations--the central themes of the seven passages he conveyed to his friend.

It seems to me that our answers to our own "lonely questions" lie where Bonhoeffer found his: in the recognition that God calls each of us, that each of us belongs to Him, and that He will never, ever leave us. On the days when anxieties bedevil us, we can find a saving grace in the knowledge that the most powerful and loving force in the universe summons us, embraces us, and stands with us--now and forever.

         To the end of the age.

         And to the end of the age. Amen.