wrecked

 

 

Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. . . Follow me.  (John 21:  18)

 

Too much to tell this week.  The new biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer that Jake gave me just wrecked me over Palm Sunday.  Then I sang "You are stronger..." at Derek's and Dylan's funeral until I thought my heart would burst in my throat.  Now it's Easter Monday and I'm sitting in the Boiler Room library, typing and watching Emily put out the Boiler Room sandwich board sign on the sidewalk "Hospitality 10a-12p and 3p-5p" as the woman with the double stroller goes to pick up her kids from school.

I remember reading Gordon MacDonald so many years ago in Ann Arbor.  Ordering Your Private World.   He wrote of the inestimable value of reading biographies in order to be changed.  As the young literature punk undergrad, I scoffed at this "antiquated" view.   Today I am wrecked by Bonhoeffer's insistence on living faithfully in the face of seemingly impossible odds.  For him to observe the Nazi juggernaut gather momentum, it must have been clear by the time he was in the United States in 1939 that things were heading south fast and his life would be in grave danger if he returned to Germany. 

 
But he heard a clear call from the Lord to return and take care of His church in Germany.  And He did.  Only to be captured and killed in a concentration camp.  Halfway through this book, you could predict that this wasn't going to end well.  But he wasn't motivated by being successful in his call to the church;  he was moved to be faithful to his call. 

When I look at Dave and Dave and Steve and Marv and Joe and Derek and Jeff and Marie and Dennis and Richard and Lisa who have fallen off so many times, I lack the faith that this demon can be overcome.  But Bonhoeffer sails back to Germany and urges me to be faithful not successful.  When I look at Larry and Robert fighting at the Love Feast;  when I see Tanner and Ladarion blowing up the dinner table;  I am discouraged that we are never going to learn how to let the little children come to Him on the Westside.  And Dietrich teaches his underground seminary students who are going to be killed as soldiers and captured as saboteurs in the coming years.  And I learn,  faithful not successful.  When I desire to see sleepers awakened throughout our neighborhood and our city and I "only" see a humbler awakening of Awake participants, I wonder if we were praying "right."  And Dietrich fights against the church (the church!) adopting racial heresies propogaged by Nazi churches as well as the belief that Hitler was Messianic.  Tilting at windmills, like the Don Quixote that he read and loved.  And I hear the call to be faithful rather than successful. 

Charity Taatjes has been writing Facebook entries documenting how God's mercies are new each morning.  How she's been able to laugh so hard it hurts.  How she's remembered Derek's sarcasm about inane Facebook entries.  How she's realized the power of the resurrection.  And this wrecks me too.  His mercies in the face of tragedies and addiction and orphans and Nazis. 

Derek's and Charity's life verse from Job says, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."  Bonhoeffer understood this.  Jesus' week of suffering and resurrection screams this over the din.  To this we are called.  

And He does give us His mercies.  He shows us today as Dee from the Mission Church helps Dave to pray the prayer of surrender.  And we (to be transparent) hold our breath for Dave this time while saying "we trust you Lord."  Then Dee prays for Dennis who is distraught beyond imaginings at the pain in his life.  And His mercies are new each morning.

Bonhoeffer's students in his underground seminary kept a rhythm of prayer and worship in the face of capture and martyrdom.  He wanted them to sing their songs to the Lord.  He wanted them to learn the biblical foundations for a life of following Jesus.  And so they kept this rhythm.  Bonhoeffer kept it all the way to his death. 

Isaiah wrote, "I am ruined."  I think in a humbler way, I am wrecked.  All my vain worries about success and recognition are chaff in the face of such loss and suffering.  I am wrecked by Jesus and his death and resurrection.  I am wrecked by how Jesus in Charity and Jesus in Dietrich and Jesus in Dee proclaim the truth of the resurrection. 

May we all be lead where we don't want to go;  with joy and singing.

::tony::

 

Comments

[brooke collier]

tone, thanks for this peek into your heart in a more personal way. thanks for letting me learn from your learning from bonhoffer, taatjes, and life in whole. you're a very good rabbi.