Last week, I got this query:

Hello Anna,

As I walked to work this morning I saw posters for a “Hell-oween” event…I called the number on the poster and learned that it is going to be a haunted house similar to “Hell House”  which highlights “real-life” terror such as abortion, suicide, homosexuality, etc.

I am concerned, and frustrated. You can’t argue, you can’t call them out publicly, but at the same time I can’t just sit here.

What would your response be? As a human I fear for the teenagers that enter on Friday night and walk out with such intense, misguided understandings.

First, I apologize that I am only now getting to it: sick kids have dominated my thoughts this past week, and their yuck has been frightful enough!

I know of these houses.

Whenever I disagree with somebody, I try to get into their mindset.  It’s a trained habit, forcing me to move out of a reptilian, amygdala-fired reactionary frenzy and toward a thoughtful, perhaps even mindful, consideration of what is being presented and why.

It’s practiced caritas.

So, in the spirit of charity (which stems etymologically from the word caritas), people who create these houses of horror think that they are saving souls.  They think that if people would only “have eyes to see” the eternal consequences of their “immoral” choices, they would abstain and therefore regain their place in heaven.

While many of us find this “evangelism technique” distressing (to say the least) many of us would not hesitate, say, sending our children to a talk against drunk driving given by someone terribly maimed by their decision to do just that.  It’s not Schadenfreude, but rather cause-and-effect made manifest with the goal of averting disaster.

How much more, they figure, ought we literally scare the hell out of people?

We are doing it for their own good!

And let’s face it: it gets people’s attention.

Young people’s impressionable attention in particular.

But here’s the thing about young people: they are in the process of maturing.

And they are ripe (that’s the meaning of the word ‘mature’) for owning their own opinions, their own beliefs.

They are beginning the process of emancipation from the obligatory acceptance of Authority’s opinion, a move which frees them to learn not only that there are other ways of thinking about matters, but that it is acceptable to think!

And so I see these houses as an opportunity to empower them with the gift of some questions at exactly this fortuitous moment in their development into adults.

These questions, for example, aren’t a bad place to begin:

1. Where in Scripture does one see this notion of God’s desire to eternally damn people?

2. What is going on in those texts, and in the time in which those text were written?

3. Where do you see in Scripture contrary notions of God?

In other words, what does a teenager love to do as much as anything, but question authority?

And these houses try to gain authority by scaring the hell out of them.

So the teen has an opportunity to own what they believe, and why they believe it.

They also have the opportunity to learn how arguments are made.

Those who use this approach to make someone come to their understanding of God use coercion via fear as a primary tool.

“Believe or die” can be effective…though the integrity of the effect is questionable.

And so here are more questions:

1. Why use fear as a way to convince people to act or believe in a certain way?

2. How does fear as a catalyst for belief shape the nature of the end-result belief?

3. How does this method reflect the group’s/person’s understanding of God’s essence, or at least God’s way of engaging?

And then I wouldn’t hesitate asking yet another set of questions:

1. Why these terrors?

2. What do they seem to have in common?

3. What sort of terror might those who consider having abortions, or those who have suicidal thoughts, or those who fear coming out, be experiencing here and now?

4.How might we be complicit in their terror?

5. What of other terrors like starving children, the ill, the destitute?  Or of terrors such as greed, monopoly of power, of apathy, of ignorance?

6. Are we as ready to offer help and compassion as we are to condemn?

In short, it seems to me like these “Houses of Horror” are horrible indeed.

But for different reasons than they like to think.

And one can redeem them by inviting those who might be influenced by them to steer clear of the anxiety they produce, to remain calm, and to ask the questions.

One more thing:

Today is Reformation Day.

The key piece of the Reformation is that we are saved by grace and not by works.

That also suggests that we are also not damned by them either.

And it seems to me that that notion, the notion of grace for all, is more frightful to some then hell.

Maybe across the street from your friendly neighborhood “Hell-oween,” you could hold a Counter-Event , a “House of Heaven,” on All Saints’ Day, tomorrow.  You could call it, “Hello, even’ you?”

I’ll stick with my day job.

I’d never heard of the things, but wowza.

You don’t want to meet one in a dark alley, or anywhere else for that matter.

Here are several links to give you an idea about why a whole show was dedicated to rogue waves:

Discovery Channel

Another Discovery Channel

Damninteresting.com

Wikipedia

US News

So a ship sails peacefully on the blue, when out of this very same blue, a 70-to-115 foot tall wall of inviable power appears.

One can do nothing but wait for impact.

No escape.

No hiding.

No pleading.

No mercy.

The wave will sink you.

Until 1995, scientists doubted that rogue waves were anything but the inspired legends of captains and sailors who had spent too much time on the open sea.

But that year they changed their minds.

Off the coast of Norway, an oil rigg measured one of these fluid behemoths to be 76 feet high as it hit the structure.

And the legend became the documented phenomenon.

Now, not only was my friend taken aback by the awesome power of these rogue waves.

Not only did it cause her to rethink a tentatively scheduled cruise.

But she pointed out that life provides its own rogue waves.

You’re sailing along, and then you look up and have only a moment to realize that your whole life is about to be overcome.

And there’s nothing you can do.

You will be tossed into the sea.

In Scripture, the sea is a symbol, a metaphor, for chaos.

(Were I to have a natural personal totem, suffice it to say that it would be the sea)

The presence of God’s power shows itself when the sea is controlled and calmed.

There’s an image circulating about on Facebook (I got it on the Nebraskans for Peace page), and it looks like this:

Rogue waves, this confluence of power, this convergence of energy from unrelated directions, this concentration of destructive forces, threaten us all, and are threatening precisely because they are beyond our control or our perception…at least until the moment right before they stare down at us, and announce that we are about to be thrown overboard.

And, true to the metaphor, sometimes the power of the chaos isn’t believed by anybody.

But in point of fact, the chaos is there and, assuming that the wave doesn’t take us down, down, down, we need someone to rescue us, to pull us out of chaos.

Insofar as someone does just that, sending in the Coast Guard, the lifelines, plucking us out of the water and leaving the broken timber and sunken treasures behind, they’re calming the sea, and stewarding God’s presence, extending a hand to someone who is otherwise drowning.

That said, another way of looking at rogue waves is this story from Perth, sent on to me by my husband.

So here’s a guy with the best of intentions to do himself in, and a rogue wave comes in and saves him.

There’s an interesting thought: sometimes rogue waves might be the very thing that rescue us. Southern and Roman Catholic author Flannery O’Connor understood this idea: in fact, she built a literary career on it.  Sometimes it is precisely concentrated chaos that throws us onto shore.

And then yet a third take, also from my husband: perhaps there is something to be said about rogue blessings, a wall of tremendously overwhelming grace and undeserved forgiveness and unmediated love and unexpected reconciliation and awesome, joyful surprise.

Rogue waves.

On reflection, one hopes, I suppose, to be spared from, saved by, and blessed with them.

Though I confess that I prefer to think about the whole thing on the prairie while looking at amber waves of grain.

Anna

A baby’s birth isn’t just the event itself, but is a symbol of new beginnings, of uncountable possibilities, of history and hope and peace in a bundle.

Else was almost Petrea.  Petrea was my paternal grandmother’s sister’s name, and is the middle name of my sister.

In the end, she got the first name of my quite fantastic sister; it’s also my cousin’s name and that of my father’s Danish cousin.

Her middle name is Kristine, which was my paternal grandmother’s name; Kris was the name of my maternal grandfather, and is also the name of my wonderful cousin on this same side of the family.

She has another two names following ‘Else Kristine.’ Up until she was a year old, they were Madsen Coning: my last name and the last name of my late husband.  I had kept my name, you see, and yet after Karl and Else were born, we wanted to have one family name.  As a gift, I was willing to take his name once we returned to the States.

But then he died.

And it seemed a bit pointless to change my name, so I changed the kids’ names, and so now we have Karl Overgaard Coning Madsen, and Else Kristine Coning Madsen.

Familial connection is key to me, you see.  To the minds of my late husband and me, names anchor our children in something.  Else and Karl are expressions of whence they came.  Their names recall that they are not random blips; unique, truly, but not isolated incidents.

We know who we are in large part by knowing our history.

In fact, just two nights ago, Else crawled on my tummy with watery eyes, which rarely come.  ”Baby Girl, what is wrong, Sweet One?”  ”Mama,” said Elsegirl, “I miss Papa.  It’s just sad that I am the one who knew him the least.”

And so we spent time, her tiny body burrowed into me so that she could hear and feel new stories about her Papa, so she could know more about him, and therefore about herself.

Else was only eight months old when her papa died.  Her first aware “normal” was chaos.

I think that’s partly to what she owes her depth.  She knows that chaos exists.  She learned that it’s o.k. to ARG at the universe (in our family, the kids are allowed a swear word.  They’ve chosen Scheisse, the German word for “shit.” I don’t think that they know what it means in English, but sometimes the power of cussing comes just because it’s a word that somebody says you’re not supposed to say).  Once one ARGs for a while, one moves on, because otherwise one doesn’t just say the ARG.  One becomes the ARG.

Her depth showed itself early on.

When she was only 18-20 months old, Sweet Baby Girl stopped her toddling across the kitchen floor.

It creeped me out.

She never stopped.

Ever.

So I leaned down, and said, “Else, honey girl, is everything o.k.?”

And she looked at me with big blue eyes, and was clearly shocked at something.

“Mama,” she said, and then slowly, “I remember God.”

I stared at her, and got to my knees, and grasped her shoulders, and looking directly into those eye pools, said, “Tell me!”

And she simply shook her head, “No.”

Else knows things that she shouldn’t know.

She knows about empathy, about compassion, about metaphor, about symbol, about wry humor, and about grace in ways that she isn’t supposed to yet.

She knows about delight, and serenity, and defiance, and righteous indignation.

She knows that when people act badly toward others, there might be something troubling them.  That fact doesn’t excuse what they are doing, and it doesn’t mean that one needs to tolerate it, but it does mean that it might be up to us to offer the kindness to them that they can’t seem to offer to others, or even to themselves.

She knows about acupuncture needles in Karl’s body, and knows to sing to him when he’s scared, and to get toothpaste after he throws up, and to wait patiently until he actually says what we all know he will say, and that we can’t go on hikes or camping as other families, and that none of this is Karl’s fault and so we love him and us through it.

She shouldn’t have to know these things, but she does.

Sometimes, when she knows she’s gotten herself into a bit of a pickle, she will say in rapid-fire succession, “I know I know I know!” And then realizes that were she really to know, she wouldn’t be in a position to protest that she did.

She knows, then, that she could be wrong, and that Mama can also be wrong, and that it is o.k. to be wrong.

Perhaps most of all, however, she knows that she is known.

We have two verbal rituals, my children and I:

Every morning before I say goodbye to them on the playground, I say: “You are my….” and they add “sunshine…” and then I pick up, “and you are a….” and they reply “miracle.”

Every night before they fall asleep, I say to them as they are snuggled into their beds and blankets, “You are beautiful, you are safe, and I love you.”

Imprinted with notions of sunshine, and miracles, and beauty, and safety, and love, the two of them know that they are treasures, and treasured.

And on this, her 8th birthday, let me take this moment to let the world know a bit of my daughter, a child of God, a blessing to this world, and even still a bundle of history and hope and peace.

Dang.

There’s always gotta be one in the crowd who listens and then in their free time chases something that bugs them.

So this fine woman sent me this question because she participated in Family Camp at Outlaw Ranch, near Custer, South Dakota. (Insert shameless Outlaw Ranch plug.  ELCA bishop Dave Zellmer and I are leading camp again over the week of July 4th, 2012, aided by the musical talents of Paul Tietjan. It’s way fun, and so you should sign up.  Info is here.)

And I went off on my radical grace schtick.

And she went off and found her Bible.

It has been said that systematic theologians read more about the Bible than the Bible.

Perhaps.

But the Bible is always read with an interpretive bent: the question is whether that bent is manifest or latent.

I just happen to have a manifest bent because I get to be a systematic theologian.

And my bent is Easter.

That’s key to mention at the outset.

That means that my way of thinking through scripture is not to believe that it is literally true, for example.  (Why that is so is another question, but the blogs I’ve written here and here and here might give a hint). Instead, I believe that the defining event for Christians is that Jesus is no longer dead.  So everything is seen and read and thought about through that lens.

Death, in all its forms, doesn’t win.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the text. The part you’re most curious about is italicized at the tail end, but is informed by the beginning and middle of the really really long section below.

13That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.²Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. ³And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow.⁴And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. ⁵Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil.⁶But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. ⁷Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹Let anyone with ears listen!” ¹⁰Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” ¹¹He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. ¹²For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. ¹³The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ ¹⁴With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. ¹⁵For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’ ¹⁶But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. ¹⁷Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.¹⁸“Hear then the parable of the sower. ¹⁹When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. ²⁰As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. ²²As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. ²³But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

²⁴He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” ³¹He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³²it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” ³³He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” ³⁴Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. ³⁵This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.” ³⁶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.⁴⁰Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴²and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

I’m going to turn to two sources here: Robert Farrar Capon and Brian Stoffregen.

The first time I came across Capon was when I was a student at St. Olaf.

My English professor came into my classroom with a cookbook in hand.  He sat down, and said, “I must read to you from this cookbook.” And he proceeded to relay Capon’s essay “The Heavenly Onion” taken from The Supper of the Lamb. (Wish I could find a link to the text, but I can’t. Tons of references to it, but no actual text.  Please send one if you know of one!).  My professor had tears in his eyes, either because Capon’s writing was so moving, or because Capon’s writing was so vivid that the virtual onion caused his eyes to water!

Capon, an Episcopalian priest as well as gourmet, has written a three-volume series about the parables.  It’s brilliant. The Parables of the Kingdom, The Parables of Grace, and The Parables of Judgment have all shaped me and my way of thinking through Scripture.

In his text The Parables of the Kingdom (note, not the Parables of Judgment), Capon tackles the text.

He gets pleasantly hung up on the Greek word aphete, which can be translated as “let,” “permit,” “suffer,” (!).  In this context, the sense is that the wheat and the weeds ought to grow together.

But then he brings us on an etymological journey, and instructs us that not only does the word lend itself to that meaning, but is also translated as “forgive!” Poking around in the King James Version, Capon says that 47 of the 156 versions of aphienai find their way into some form of the word “forgive.” (106).

As far as Capon is concerned, this implies that (note the snarkines in his writing below–has anyone else noticed that word surfacing more and more as of late?  I like it. Capon’s snarky):

On the basis of the parable as told, the farmer has announced, publicly and in advance (do you seriously think the servants told nobody about his crazy plan to leave the weeds alone?) that his enemy is quite free to come back any night he chooses and sow any weeds he likes.  Not just more zizania [weeds], but purslane, dock, bindweed, pigweed, or even–when he finally runs out of seriously mischievous ideas–New Zealand spinach.

There is more.  On the basis of Jesus’ ministry as lived and died, God has announced the very same thing.  No enemy–not the devil, not you, not me, and not anybody else–is going to get it in the neck, in this life, for any evil he has done…

And then there’s the clincher.  On the basis of jesus’ ministry as risen, there is no change in that policy.  He comes forth from the tomb and ascends into heaven with nail prints in his hands and feet and a spear wound in his risen side–with eternal, glorious scars to remind God, angels, and us that he is not about to go back on his word from the cross.” (108-109)

Capon is not oblivious to that final verse: you know, that bit about the weeds being collected and burned.

He has a couple of things to say here:

1) Proportionately, the parable is about the aphesis of evil, “not about the avenging of it.”

2) God gave us what we want.  A little fear-inducing, behavior-shaping, yikes-y stuff.  But with it, he writes: “The human race is hooked on eschatology [notions about the endtimes]: give us one drag on it, and we proceed to party away our whole forgiven life in fantasies about a final score-settling session that none of us, except for forgiveness, could possibly survive” (109-110). And then:

When we dwell too simplistically on the Final Judgment, we almost always picture it as the day when God finally takes off the gloves of mystery with which he has so far handled with world and gives his enemies a decisive taste of eschatological bare knuckles.  That image, however, leaves one important truth out of account: the judgment occurs only after the general resurrection of the dead.  And since the resurrection of the dead (of the just and the unjust alike) is something that happens to them solely by virtue of  Jesus’ resurrection–about which we have very little unparadoxial information–we should be very slow to imagine scenarios for it that are based on simplistic extrapolations of our present experience.  Everything that happens after the second coming of Jesus–judgment, heaven, and even hell–happens within the triumphantly reconciling power of his death and resurrection.  We simply don’t know how or to what degree that power affects the eschatological situation.

Take, for example, the question of whether we are in a position to discuss the meaning or even the possibility of ultimate human rejection of the reconciliation.  To be sure, Scripture says clearly enough that the sovereign, healing power of Jesus can and will be refused by some.  I have no problem with that.  What I do object to, however, are the hell-enthusiasts who act as if God’s whole New Testament method of dealing with evil will, in the last day, simply go back to some Old Testament “square one”–as if Jesus hadn’t done a blessed or merciful thing in between, and as if we could, therefore skip all the paradoxes of mercy when we talk about hte Last Day and simply concentrate on plain old gun-barrel justice.” (113-114).

Let me be clear: I could quote Capon all day, but you would stop reading.  His lawyers might not, however, and I’d get in a mess of trouble for breaches of copyright.

But I’m sorely tempted to quote him ad nauseum because Capon understands mystery and he understands grace and he sees that Easter makes all the difference in the world.

So does Brian Stoffregen.  He’s a Lutheran pastor who writes illuminating textual notes on the weekly Gospel verses.  You can find his insight and honest, well-written prose here.  Here he writes on the parable-at-hand (I know it’s a long excerpt, but if you’re into grace and humility, here’s some good fodder for you):

I notice that the angels collect “out of his kingdom”. Earlier the field was defined as “the world” (kosmos, v. 38). Does Jesus/Matthew intend us to think that “his kingdom” is the same as “the world,” or, as I’ve discovered in other passages, there is a greater judgment for those on the inside, who don’t measure up in some way.

Those that are gathered for punishment are defined as “all causes of sin” and “all evildoers” (NRSV). These need further comments.

“causes of sin” is skandala. This word originally referred to a trap — most likely the type held up by a stick; then, metaphorically, to something that causes a person to be trapped, caught, be stuck where they don’t want to be — that is something that was offensive to them. Finally, came to refer to things that tempted others to stray or sin. The word is used three times in Matthew (once in Luke and no occurrences in Mark or John).

On one hand, especially with the verb, skandalizo, there is the sense that such things have to be removed, e.g., if a part of your body causes you to sin, remove it (5:29, 30; 18:6, 8, 9). The noun is used three times in 18:7 to refer to the dangers of being a cause of sin to others.

Besides seeing “causes of sin” as people within the community who are leading others astray, they could also be within each individual — parts of us that remain under the power of sin and continually tempt us to stray away from the faithful life. The parable suggests that the day will come will all of that will be destroyed. Then, we, as truly and fully righteous will shine like the sun. To use Luther’s terms, presently we are simultaneous sinner and saint; but the day will come with the “sinner” part will be removed and destroy. All that will be left is the saintly part.

The other use of the noun presents an interesting problem. In 16:23 Jesus turns and says to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Similarly, the verb is used of the disciples in 26:31: “Then Jesus said to them, “You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

Peter and the disciples are “causes of sin,” but will they be gathered and thrown into the blazing furnace?

Perhaps we can say that they deserve that kind of punishment, but by God’s grace they don’t receive it.

“all evildoers” is more literally “the ones doing lawlessness”. They are those living as though there were no law. Matthew has made it clear that Jesus came to fulfill the law (5:17-18) not to do away with it. (I might phrase it, “He came to restore the law to its proper uses.”) My hunch is that there may have been some within Matthew’s community who proclaimed that the law no longer applied to them, and lived without it. For Matthew, “lawlessness” is not just outward acts, but one can be “lawless” inwardly (23:28), perhaps not inwardly wanting to obey the law, but putting on an outward show of obedience.

The images of “furnace of fire” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” seem to be Matthian. Only Matthew uses “furnace” (kaminos) as a picture of punishment (13:42, 50). (Its other uses are Rev 1:15; 9:2).

It is used often in the OT as a picture of refinement (Is 48:10; Sir 2:5; 27:5; 31:26) — so this text could be interpreted as refining those who are in the kingdom. They are purged of all the sins and lawlessness that is within them through the fires of God’s judgment.

The phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth” occurs six times in Matthew (8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30) and once in Luke (13:28), and no where else in the NT. Thus, it seems to be a strong emphasis in Matthew.

What I find interesting about Matthew’s six uses is that those who will weep and gnash their teeth, all seem to have been “insiders”!

• 8:12 it is the “heirs of the kingdom” (probably Jews vs. many from east and west)
• 13:42 some from “out of his kingdom”
• 13:50 evil from righteous, but both are “caught in the same net”
• 22:13 someone at the wedding banquet, but not wearing the wedding robe
• 24:51 wicked slave (as a slave, he was part of the household)
• 25:30 worthless slave (as a slave, he was part of the household)

It seems to me that this harsh judgment is uttered against those within the community of faith, but who fail to bear the proper fruit of living in Christ. As was true in the OT, God’s harshest judgments were pronounced against his own people. So, too, Matthew does in his gospel.

So Capon and Stoffregen do not deny that there is judgment in this story.

They do deny that it need be ultimate.

And that’s where I’m at too.

I have never said that one can’t find texts that suggest the possibility/probability/assured existence of eternal damnation.

I have said that a) there are other texts that would dispute that assertion; and b) I think Easter trumps any text that trumpets eternal damnation.

I think God’s ultimate agenda is reconciliation.

It is aphete.

And aphete does not preclude judgement.

Instead, it comes before, during, and after it.

It’s precisely what makes judgement–with the aim of restoring, or refining–possible.

Even to those within the Christian community.

And that’s mysterious grace for sure.

I hope that that aided in your thinking about the text!

And I hope you sign up for our week next year again.

Pax.

So in the spirit of candor, this question really was intended to be a comment on this blog, “Reader Question: God of the OT Really Be God of the New?  Spin it for me.”

But it raises such good questions, that it demands a spin-off blog of its own.

I like that you are wanting a more “practical explanation” of what Christians believe was Jesus’ voluntary death for the sake of others.

Because whatever else you can say about Jesus, his message is not overtly practical.

The thought you have posed above also crossed the mind of the Apostle Paul.  Take a look below at the excerpt from Romans 5.  I know that it’s a large chunk of text.  Best to read through the whole thing, but if you don’t want to, just note the bolded part.

5Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.⁹Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.¹¹But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. ¹²Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— ¹³sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. ¹⁴Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. ¹⁵But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. ¹⁶And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. ¹⁷If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. ¹⁸Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. ¹⁹For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

That’s the text I’m going to use as a reference point for your question.

So let’s have at it.

These feminist theologian’s shoulders get a bit tight when you write that you can’t understand “the meaning of giving up your only son to save a bunch of sinners.”

You come by the idea honestly!  It’s everywhere in Christian theology.

I’m just not so sure that it’s accurate, at least insofar as it goes.

Feminist theologians worry–and let me be clear, male theologians are also feminist theologians!–that such language fosters the idea that God is an abusive father, a being who willingly had his son killed, and just passively and apathetically sat aside as Jesus suffered.

These theologians want to quickly point out that God didn’t stick Jesus up on the cross.

People did.

That is, Jesus’ dedication to God’s agenda of commitment to the poor, and hungry, and powerless, and outcasts, and (per your question) sinners, ticked people off, and got him in a mess of trouble.

So the way we tend to handle those who threaten our level of comfort and privilege and power is to get rid of them.

Which is precisely what happened to Jesus.  (Even if you don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah, you can agree that that’s why he got killed.)

He had friends in low places.

Why did he do it? Why did he live in a way that was sure to get him killed?

Well, lots of ways to consider that.

The Old and New Testaments are pretty darn consistent in telling of a God who strives for reconciliation over judgment, and forgiveness over condemnation.

On paper, this makes no sense, as you point out.

But have you ever loved anybody, in spite of yourself?

Have you ever been loved, in spite of yourself?

Love is not reasonable.

The thing about God is this: God covets wholeness; individual and collective wholeness.

God knows that we are not right unless we are all alright.

Part of our difficulty (because you are in good company: we US Americans have an especially hard time wrapping our minds around this) in imagining God “saving a bunch of sinners” is because we are used to people deserving what they get.

(As an aside, again, I think it fascinating that we here in the good old USA seem yet to believe that health insurance is a right tied to being employed rather than a right tied to being human.  That is, our policies implicitly make clear that those who have jobs–and especially well-paying ones at that–deserve to receive cancer treatments, surgeries, ER care more than those who do not have jobs and are not self-sufficient.)

By definition, grace, as I’ve said before, means that which is given precisely to those who don’t deserve it.  If someone deserved it, they’d be getting something, but it wouldn’t be grace.

A reward, perhaps.

Brownie points.

But not grace.

But this commitment to grace, or to wholeness and reconciliation, does not mean that one’s tragic choices, choices that cause pain to others and to one’s self, don’t matter.

They do matter.

Profoundly, they matter.

A loud and clear “NO,” and manifest (sometimes painful) consequences can also be manifest grace.  Saying, “This is not o.k.  And choices on your part lead to choices on the part of others, on the part of me” is difficult, risky, and can place one in positions of grave vulnerability, isolation, and may well lead to the severance of relationships.

The hope is that the NO is not the final word.

The NO is spoken within the bracket of YES, I love you.  YES, we are striving for wholeness.  YES, we know that you are more than these choices.

Sometimes it even works.

You see, grace does not mean that there is no comeuppance.

Forgiveness does not mean that what occurred was acceptable or forgettable.

And while there are several examples in Scripture where forgiveness is given when no repentance is extended, repentance, confession, humble offering of heart in hand, can be very cleansing.

It might not change the breach, but it can acknowledge it.

And that acknowledgement might even be more beneficial to the perpetrator than to the one harmed.

To boot, it is possible that the one harmed might even discover that what had once seemed so black and white, might not be.  Perhaps she or he even contributed to the grey.

(Makes me think of that Jewish observation that even God needs to be forgiven.  That is, what a set-up!  An imperfect world is created in which there is often no correct answer and we are held liable?  What’s up with that?)

I digress, but only a bit.

The point isn’t that the choice doesn’t matter, is inconsequential, is overlookable.

The point is that the choice is not ultimate.

It is not final.

It is not definitive.

So Christians identify themselves primarily by Easter, an event which makes it clear that God’s agenda is life.  Death is powerful, but is not more powerful than God’s promise of bringing life out of it.

It would be interesting to consider whether Easter is God’s confession and repentance.

Hmmm.  Typing out loud, which is generally a bad idea.

Anyway, let’s get back to Paul, who said in verse 18, “Just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.”

As my mentor Walt Bouman said in his last sermon, “I take it that when Paul said ‘all‘ he meant all!”

So where there is death, God rolls up the divine sleeves and gets to work to bring about life, and new beginnings.

So just as a physician does not treat the well, so God does not offer life to the alive.

In other words, it might be practical after all.

That is, who needs the grace but the sinner, the one who doesn’t deserve it?

Perhaps that’s why Paul writes that God proves God’s love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died, with the end gain being that although we will still die, we will not be ultimately killed.

And again, as Walt wrote, now that you know that death doesn’t win, there is more to do with your life than preserve it.  This in turn frees us to become something new: not out of fear, not out of a disingenuous desire to keep our kiesters out of hell, but because we are loved into a new way of being.

And that’s got some practical traction.

I had been invited to St. Petersburg, to present a few workshops for Presbyterian pastors involved or interested in New Church Development.

Now about the time that I confirmed that agreement, I stumbled upon an email I received seven years ago, when the only dancing that Karlchen was doing was dancing with death in the German ICU.

It was from his physical therapist, and she said, “When Karl is medically stable [a thought that was simultaneously promising and painful, especially because she said when, and not if] you must take him to Island Dolphin Care in Key Largo, FL.  I was an intern there,” she went on, “and I have seen healing and miracles through these people and these dolphins.”

So suddenly, there I was, off to Florida for one gig and lining up another.

The thing of it is, with all due respect to Floridians, I confess that of all the places I have ever ever yearned to visit, Florida was not on the list.

I could couch it and say, not on the top 3, or 10, but no, really, it just wasn’t on my list.

Anywhere.

And now we were off to Key Largo in the South, ending up in St. Petersburg in the West, and in-bewteen visiting a friend and preaching in Jacksonville, in the North.

Two weeks in Florida.

The experiences were so different, in each place, and so good, in each place.  New and renewed connections, and dolphins and injured whales and geckos and iguanas and more dolphins and all of that was good, and very good at that.

But I confess that the entire time, this adventuresome soul, this well-traveled woman, longed for prairie and temperate temps.

In short, my hunch was right.

I do not like Florida.

I tried, and yet realized that when the entire population of South Dakota comprises 1/6 of Miami, well, we aren’t in SD anymore, Toto.

So here I was, albeit enjoying richly time with my children and acquaintances and friends, and yet I had to finally give in to the fact that I was, in point of fact, homesick.

I wanted a buffalo.

And grass.

Frederick Buechner wrote a book some time ago entitled The Longing for Home: Recollections and Reflections.  I’m culling from it and from my first alert to it in Walter Brueggemann’s piece Cadences of Home. In it, Brueggemann refers to Buechner’s following observations:

We carry inside us a vision of wholeness that we sense is our true home and that beckons us (110).

Joy is home…(128).

Woe to us indeed if we forget the homeless ones who have no vote, no power, nobody to lobby for them, and who might as well have no faces even, the way we try to avoid the troubling sight of them in the streets of the cities were they roam like stray cats.  And as we listen each night to the news of what happened in our lives that day, woe to us if we forget our own homelessness (104).

To be homeless the way people like you and me are apt to be homeless is to have homes all over the place but not to be really at home in any of them.  To be really at home is to be really at peace, and our lives are so intricately interwoven that there can be no real peace for any of us until there is peace for all of us.

In another reflection on Buechner’s words, Brueggemann adds this thought:

In times of dislocation the temptation is to become self-preoccupied and self-indulgent…We can see this self-preoccupied individualism in the greed that our society calls ‘opportunity,’ in the demise of public health care because it is ‘too costly,’ and in the decay of public institutions regarded as too expensive to maintain, as though taxation were a penalty rather than a necessary neighborly act.

And then here’s the kicker:

Times of dislocation are particularly apt to foster a permanent underclass. Nervous and anxious people may be tempted to gouge their economically vulnerable neighbors. But the Bible presents dislocation as a motivation for building a more just society. The laws of public life might be very different if all remained aware of their own vulnerability.

My point is that in Florida, by the end of our time there, I realized that my spirit was feeling increasingly dislocated, displaced, and thereby cranky.

In fact, I think a person can be homesick even for themselves, for their center, their home within themselves.

Writ large, I think that Buechner and Brueggemann are on to something.

Our society is anxious, and anxiety is leading to cranky posturing, hostile protectiveness, and a loss of communal connection; in short, manifest symptoms of homesickness.

But then the question becomes, what is our home?  Who owns the home for which we are yearning?  Who is allowed to live in the home?

The word economics comes from the Greek oikos and nomos, namely “rules of the house.”

What are our economics, and who writes those rules, and whom do they benefit most?

And perhaps most critical, why are we not at home?

Truly, when I saw my first cow after getting off that plane on Friday, I wanted to hug it.

If I could have found a way to wrap my arms around those flowing fields of my South Dakota, I would have.

I wanted to roll in its dirt like a pig, I was so happy to be home.

So my mental meanderings come down to this:

I think we are as a society homesick.

Many are in point of fact homeless.

And I think more of us are homeless, figuratively speaking, than we might like to think.

And while we often speak of “going home” to heaven, I’m kind of thinking that there’s a lot of scriptural background for making sure that people have homes here. Now.

So ”Joy is home,” says Buechner.

And I find myself humming:

Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

(For you Floridians out there, feel free to substitute bay, dolphins, and manatee.)

May you find your way home, may you find joy there, and may the door be wide, the rooms many.

May there be food for all, prairie and ocean, kind community, and a rule of the house based on justice and mercy.

May there be no such thing as homelessness, or homesickness.

And on your way, may your vision of home be broad, may it be broadened, and may you find yourself a guest and a host of welcome and peace.

Turns out, nobody has.

Or at least, no one whom anybody has noticed is gone missing.

Which you have to grant would be discouraging even in absentia.

To some, this threatened doomsday of May 21 might be old news.  But I’m still thinking it’s of the newsy sort; even more so now that it appears that we have been given until October until the reckoning.

Be it for libraries or reckonings, I’m all for grace periods.

Look at how the notion that the world could end garnered astonishing media coverage.  Reputable and questionable outlets alike splashed the impending disaster, not to mention faces of those who believed it to be imminent, across their front pages and home pages.

And as a personal aside, the next time I hear REM’s The End of the World as We Know It I will wish for sure that Jesus had come on May 21st.

A lion’s share of the attention, it ought not be missed, made Christians out–implicitly even those of us who did not buy into the May 21 rapture hype–into being righteous doofuses:

Look at these crazy Christians believing in this crazy myth.

Can they even think?

Can we have their abandoned cars?

Let’s admit it: these barbs might not be nuanced, but they are also not always so undeserved.

One could say.

I worry that a fairly healthy number of Christians know that we say that Jesus is coming back, but not why we say that, what we mean when we say that, nor how such a claim is any less crazy than people waiting to hop on a comet.

The only difference between those of us who believe that Jesus will return and those who believe Jesus will return on a certain day is that one group simply makes one additional madcap claim.

One could say.

Not only that, but there are numerous thoughtful questions that could be posed about the validity of the rapture idea alone, even without going so far as to name a date.

Like, when we say, “Thy kingdom come,” what sort of kingdom do we mean?  Come when?

Or like, doesn’t both the Old and New Testament witness of a God who expects–and frees–us to love mercy, feed the poor, forgive our enemies, and, for Christians, the witness of a God who says that life is more powerful than any imaginable death….doesn’t that witness suggest that if Jesus and Jesus’ followers were to be anywhere, it would be precisely with those left behind…assuming any would be left behind at all?

Or like, why is there such fear, such anxiety associated with this promised End Time?  (I heard some time ago a quip: Jesus is coming!  Quick!  Look busy!)

I’m not naive: I know and respect that many religious traditions believe that we need to “accept Jesus” before he comes, or need to repent, need to be clean.  But there are many people who proclaim things such as “we cannot save ourselves” (yes, fellow Lutherans, that part is for you) who find themselves shaking in their shoes and pews at the thought of Jesus coming.

Why is that?  Do we believe in grace, or not, and/or under what circumstances?

And, looming judgment day or not, could it not be said that death is not exactly a particular surprise?  And given that, to use my mentor Walt Bouman’s words, is now there not more to do with our lives than preserve them?

Temporally or eternally?

That is, could it not be said that we really have nothing to lose?

And given that, we have everything to give?

So this one might sneak up on you a bit:

I think that the whole notion of picking a date upon which Jesus will come again–well-calibrated according to scripture and the stars even so–is unhelpful, misguided, and poorly intentioned–let alone the product of multiple grave and unfortunate misinterpretations (not least of all that of the Scripture which states that nobody knows of “that day” except “the Father.” My New Testament prof Mark Allen Powell asserted, whenever anybody says that on such-and-such a day Jesus will come again, you can darn well be sure its not gonna be that day).

However, I do respect the dedication to their faith displayed by those who are willing to live utterly in the trust of their interpretation of God’s action.

There’s much to be gleaned from that.

Many years ago, a friend of mine wrote a paper he shared with me, a deal about the movie Field of Dreams as a mirror for the craziness of claiming Christianity.  I can’t watch it even yet today without seeing it through his eyes.  Ray Kinsella gives up everything to quite publicly do the insane: plow under his field.  Even Patsy Cline makes an appearance, singing “Crazy” in the background.

It made no sense.

Ray Kinsella made no sense.

Until a person got caught up in his alternate reality.

And then they found it astonishing that anybody could not see what they saw, clear as day.

Now.

I’ve got troubles, pretty decent theological troubles, with what these adherents to doomsday predictions put out there, and why they put them out there, and on what bases they put them out there.  And there is dire risk if one believes myopically, with no interest in engaging the possibility that one might be wrong.

Lots of dictators, terrorists, and simply mean-spirited people are awfully passionate.

And one can’t pass over the fact that Harold Camping and many of his followers have caused full-blown panic to rise in easily-swayed, vulnerable people.

So that is not o.k.

But that said, there is something admirable about total commitment, total dedication, and total passion, even when the rest of the world looks at you and says, “You’re crazy.”

Like Terence Mann said to Ray in Field of Dreams: “I wish I had your passion, Ray… Misdirected though it might be, it is still a passion.”

And perhaps that’s another reason that we gawk at those who did the apparently crazy: we wish we had it in us to throw ourselves into our convictions with equal abandon.

Upshot is this: Perhaps rather than focusing on “being raptured” or “being left behind,” Christians could instead focus on what we do with our lives now that that there is more to do than preserve them.

Maybe we could even instead direct our focus toward those who already feel as if they are left behind.

Perhaps we could give some defined flesh and blood to those words, “thy kingdom come,” and do it with passionate abandon.

Crazy.

It is in grey, cream, and charcoal hues.

In large capital letters 5″ tall, a be-shadowed word SHALOM asserts itself on a stripe of black, and nestled between the L and the O flies a dove with a gentle, thin-lined heart drawn in the middle.

Above and below the SHALOM are selected words from my father, passages from a sermon he preached on May 27th, 1984.

My father’s sermons were not for the faint of heart: or rather, not for the faint of intellect and query.  They remind me of how Mark says that after Jesus was baptized, the Spirit “drove him into the wilderness,” in fairly dramatic opposition to Luke who tells that the Spirit “led him there.”

Dad’s pulpit words “drove” people to think.  His adult education classes led them there, but Dad’s sermons drove them there.

He was not exactly reticent about making the case there in that place that the Word of God is, the Gospel declares, that we are called to have solidarity with the oppressed, that power is found not in weapons but in love, and that we are free to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

My delight in theology and my passion for questions and my conviction that faith and life are intertwined and my joy and hope in grace come from my father.

Today is his birthday.

My father’s words from 1984 still reverberate through to today’s tenor of disharmony, of dissonance, of disarray, of disorientation, of distrust, and of disillusionment.

And of yet the possibility that there might just be another way.

And that it might be possible to live out of that other way even now.

As I understand the story, William Benson heard my father preach on that day in May and he was moved to bring some art out of his ear, so to speak.  This lithograph Shalom is what was born.  My father has another copy, as does my sister.

At this very moment, I have the lithograph in my lap to lift some of the particularly fine gems.

And so below, in honor of my father, in gratitude for his wisdom, in thanksgiving that his birth made the world a better place, a few words of proclamation to edify your spirit from the good Rev. Dr. George H.O. Madsen, on his birthday.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  I love you an awful lot.

(And when I told Elsegirl that I planned to write this piece for you, she said, “Well, O.K., but you should probably buy him a bottle of wine too.”  Noted.)

Shalom is a word that is broad in the extreme.  It has to do with wholeness, with fulfillment.

Shalom paints a vision of the way things will one day be with all hands helping.

Shalom knows of a lion lying down with a lamb, of the thirsty having drink, hungry having food, naked being clothed.

Shalom knows of swords being beaten into plowshares, of justice and freedom.

Shalom knows of strangers being welcomed, the sick and imprisoned being visited.

Shalom knows of sorrow and tears disappearing and death being no more.

Shalom has as its agenda liberation and reconciliation.

Shalom has has its agenda love, hope and renewal.

Shalom has as its agenda drought and famine.

Shalom has as its agenda war and hatred.

Shalom has as its agenda prejudice and oppression.

Shalom has as its agenda sickness and suffering.

We are not bound by our own lives, our own deaths, but live within the great parenthesis of Shalom.

Shalom is the shape of the future, the vision of that to which a mysterious power summons us all here and now, in the role of servant, in bringing and establishing justice and freedom, grace and peace.  The servant will be masterfully taught all things.  Shalom is our human legacy, given to us in a state of fearlessness and without a troubled heart.

I was reminded of this on today’s Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor.  We wake up at 6:00 a.m. to classical public radio in my family, and at 6:15 Garrison lulls us right back to sleep with his tales and poetry and voice.

But it’s worth your time to look up Keillor’s superb summary of Bonhoeffer’s life here.

By 6:41, seven-year old Elsegirl and I had had a thoughtful little conversation about Dachau, gas chambers, Hitler’s suicide, pacifism, ambiguity, and grace.

She is so going to need therapy.

I know I’ve linked to this page before as well, a show done on him by the extraordinary Speaking of Faith program.  It’s worth your time on this day too.  53 minutes of stimulating thought, or a lesser amount of time scanning the transcript.

We Lutherans speak a lot about the both/and-ness of life.  The reign of God is already here but not yet, God has given us both Law and Gospel, and we are all saints and sinners.

Bonhoeffer is the poster child for Lutheran ambiguity.

A self-declared pacifist, Bonhoeffer recognized, as the darkness of Hitler’s regime spread over and through Germany’s land, government, church, and spirits, that resistance–even violent resistance–might be the only appropriate, and even faithful, response to his evil agenda.

And so Dietrich Bonhoeffer participated in several plans to assassinate him.

Of course an assassin (wannabe…well, he didn’t really want to be, but felt compelled to be) is the closest thing we Lutherans have to a saint.

Martin Doblmeier (whom Krista Tippett interviewed for the Speaking of Faith segment mentioned above) made an astonishing documentary on Bonhoeffer.  In it, he makes the case that Dietrich was a brilliant theologian, but an assassin?

Not so much.

Bonhoeffer’s ineffectual efforts got him hanged three weeks before his camp was freed.

But his theology?  Wow.

Listen to this observation regarding the connection between faith and life–or, more accurately, the connection between Church and politics:

The church has three possible ways it can act against the state. First, it can ask the state if its actions are legitimate. Second, it can aid the victims of the state action. The church has the unconditional obligation to the victims of any order in society even if they do not belong to the Christian society. The third possibility is not just bandage the victims under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself. No Rusty Swords

Or this thought regarding the possibility that God says different things in different ways to different circumstances:

The will of God is not a system of rules established from the outset. It is something new and different in each different situation in life. And for this reason a man must forever re-examine what the will of God may be. The will of God may lie deeply concealed beneath a great number of possibilities.  Ethics

Or this assertion refuting quietism:

There is no way to peace along the way of safety. Peace is the great adventure. It has to be dared.  (Speech in Fanö, Denmark, 1934)

So today, on Bonhoeffer’s birthday, it seems a good moment to pause and consider the possibility that life is messy.  That things are not always clear.  That God’s call can be ambiguous.  That inaction is itself an action of sorts.  That paralyzed by fear that we might have it wrong–and obsessing that God might just therefore damn us (or at least hate us for a while)–we might be more wrong than we can imagine.

Consider this quintessential observation of Luther’s (found here):

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.

• Letter 99, Paragraph 13. Erika Bullmann Flores, Tr. from:Dr. Martin Luther’s Saemmtliche SchriftenDr. Johann Georg Walch Ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.), Vol. 15, cols. 2585-2590. [3

Bonhoeffer did just that.  He trusted that he would sin, but he trusted in the grace of Jesus Christ more strongly.

So he acted out of trust in grace instead of the stultification of fear.

Of course, he got killed for it.

There’s precedence for that, I suppose.

When he died, however, he said, “This is the end, for me the beginning of life.”

There’s some active freedom in that.

The Gospel for the day, this birthday of Bonhoeffer?

Sin boldly.