BLOG 3/21/13: BONHOEFFER AND POPE FRANCIS

In his first mass with the cardinals after his election as pope, gathered in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis made some pointed comments in his homily that reminded me, for all the world, of some similar teachings in the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer some 75 years ago. The new pope reminded the assembled “Princes of the Church” that if they did not have a passion for Jesus, and the gospel, and the cross … they might be cardinals, or archbishops, or priests, or religious—but they were not disciples of Jesus Christ.

Ah! There’s the point: a passion for Jesus and his cross.

Is it any different with any of the millions of those of us who inhabit church communities, sit in the pews, engage in all kinds of quite commendable church activities and identify themselves as Christians? Is it any different with those multitudes who inhabit pulpits, and are called “reverend”? Are we truly Christ’s disciples?

Unbelief in the church—or participation in the church without a passion for Jesus that is contagious and knowledgeable—is a devastating pathology that eviscerates the whole mission of Jesus Christ that is to be carried out by his church.

In the 1930s, the young theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was struggling with the inner-contradictions he was observing in the German church in its complicity with the emergence of Adolph Hitler. Out of agony of soul that he wrote his classic (in my view): The Cost of Discipleship. Chapter 18 of that work is entitled: “The Great Divide” and is one of the most demanding calls to the essence of authentic discipleship I have ever encountered. It is an exposition of the ending of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus tells his followers: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them,  ‘I never knew you: depart from me you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-23).

Bonhoeffer referred to what he was seeing in the German church as religious Christianity, i.e., the form and words but without the content, without the repentance and faith, without the love and passion for Jesus that results in obedience to his teachings. The church in Germany was captive to Hitler’s false gospel, and multitudes of church folk never saw it, and became totally complicit in the darkness of that period. But then, Bonhoeffer found something of the same absence of true gospel and true discipleship in the church in the United States during his tenure in New York in the 1930s.

This Easter season, with all the pageantry and rehearsing of the message of the resurrection … if it does not result in a demonstration of a passion for Jesus, and his cross, and the mission of God in the existential realities of our everyday lives … then, as Pope Francis would remind us: We are not Christ’s disciples. Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would remind us by the very words of Jesus: “I never knew you. Depart from me …”

Somehow, our heart’s fervent prayer must be that we will be discerning of all that is hollow and fraudulent in church participation/membership that loves the ambience but misses the point—that we will never hear Jesus say: “I never knew you. Depart …” Jesus’ taught that it is those who have his word and do it, are the ones who are his disciples.

Thank you for the reminder, Your Holiness (or Brother Francis)!