Left: Bonhoeffer

As I read A Testament to Freedom, Essential Writings of Bonhoeffer, I think I’ll wrestle with what I read here. I’ve completed the introductory life, and am struck again as I was when reading Bethge’s biography of the congruence of Dietrich’s life. He seemed to see clearly and earlier than many in the run up to the Nazi era that Christ called him to die. In the warlock’s cauldron of Nazi Germany,  his life was unified in the love of Christ.

What possible connection to such a life could there be with an ordinary life like mine? If he could have, Dietrich would have lived an ordinary life in the love of Christ; martyrdom was nothing he aspired to, the cult of personality he cosidered anathema.

I’ve read the selections from his dissertations. They’ll take several reads before I can grasp what he’s saying. In “The Communion of Saints” his 1930 dissertation he sees the church in Christ, not a socio-political entity, as the community of those who are in Christ, who live for Christ and for others in the world. I don’t think his views coincide with the emphasis on personal salvation that characterizes my primary faith tradition, Southern Baptists.

 (I no longer consider myself Baptist or Christian—the latter indicating the traditions and attachments to faith in the past two millennia; I aspire to be a “Christ-follower” for lack of a better term. I suppose the biblical name would simply be “in Christ.”)

“Act and Being” his 1931 dissertation requires more than one read. In the intro I highlighted this:

 “God’s Word becomes God’s revelation for us only in community.” (p. 65)

This is true. The word “solidarity” has become more common since the Polish labor union Solidarity successfully opposed the Communist regime. Most in the US, however, still pursue the individualistic capitalistic golden idol, and see no problem with individuals controlling vast wealth, while millions go without work, health care, food, shelter, personal safety, not to speak of the opportunity for self-realization that the middle class and well to do think of as a human right.

I also decided to jump around in the book, to avoid getting swamped in the super difficult sections like “Act and Being.” Therefore, I read

• “The Church is Dead” and
• “Learning to Die.”

But not all the dead are blessed; rather “those which die in the Lord,” those who learned how to die in time, who kept faith, who clung to Jesus up to the last hour, whether amidst the sufferings of the first martyrs, or in the martyrdom of a silent loneliness. (p. 267).

Back to the question of Dietrich’s relevance to ordinary life. I don’t think we live in ordinary times. Since Sept 11, 2001, the nation has been preoccupied with national security. Under Bush Cheney we violated some of our most cherished principles: at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, we imprison nameless people without trial indefinitely. We torture. In the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe the CIA (just like the Communists) set up a gulag where human rights were extinct. 

Now with the economic downturn, millions around the world have no work. The prosperity which cushioned many from the inequities of globalization has evaporated. Huge banks which oppose welfare for individuals accept tens, hundreds of billions of dollars from a government which simply prints more when needed. Some scientists wonder if we’re headed for another mass extinction event.

We view our circumstances as normal, whereas in World War II we realized we were in crisis. The church for the most part today has gone silent on all these  and many other issues, in relation to which being “in Christ” ought to bring about a beloved community where Christ is incarnate today through the metanoia and newness of life, not merely of the individual, but of the whole as one body in Christ.

I guess you could say this is about the guys who keep the light and power on.

When people are reading the Bible through, I tell them, “Don’t be surprised if you bog down about Exodus 21 through Leviticus to Numbers 8 or so.” This is the most mind numbing material I can imagine, instructions for building the tabernacle in the wilderness and for carrying it about from place to place. There are detailed descriptions of items in the tabernacle and long lists of offerings.

My advice: skim it or skip it until later.

It baffles me to read in my study Bible notes that Jewish children are often introduced to their faith beginning with Leviticus.

Today, for example, my read through passage was Numbers 1-8: the census, the order of march, the Levites broken down into the Kohathites, the Gershonites, and the Merarites.

YAWN

If you’re Moses or Aaron, you get good parts in the play:

The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four. The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things, so that he and his sons forever should make offerings before the LORD, and minister to him and pronounce blessings in his name forever.

1 Chron 23:12-13 (NRSV)

The Aaronites pack up every item: the altar, the firepans, the snuffers, the bowls, and so on, placing everything in its covering of fine leather. Then the Levites get to carry it.

But here’s where it gets dicey: if they happen to look at it or touch it, ZAP! They’re dead meat.

Most of Raiders of the Lost Ark is Hollywood CGI. But in depicting the holy (that which is contained within the ark) as more deadly than an A bomb, the movie is true to the Old Testament.

The ark is properly transported by poles run through rings at its corners. When David brought the ark to Jerusalem, however, he brought it on a cart. The result:

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.

2 Sam 6:6-7 (NRSV)

So, here you are, roaming the desert, listening to stories of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, Rachel and their brood. Your job in the salvation history of your people?

Carry some leather packets around on poles. But never touch or look at what’s inside or die instantly.

BORING DANGEROUS

How’d you like your resume to read: I carried a leather packet around the desert for 20 years, period.

But, in fact, they saw it differently.

Those packets, carried about on poles, represented for the people the presence of God, leading the march.

[God] said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And [Moses] said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”

Ex 33:14-16 (NRSV)

Psalm 16 is often considered the testimony of the Levites, who had no land in Israel; the Lord was their inheritance:

5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
     you hold my lot.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
     I have a goodly heritage.
7 I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
     in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I keep the LORD always before me;
     because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
     my body also rests secure.
10 For you do not give me up to Sheol,
     or let your faithful one see the Pit.
11 You show me the path of life.
     In your presence there is fullness of joy;
     in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalms 16:5-11 (NRSV)

I’m a full decade past the retirement age of the Levite (Num 4.47). I gave my working life to the church. And I can tell you, there is no place on earth more haunted by demons. It collects stinkers and hum dingers by the bushel.

So I’ve done a bit of reframing. I did my time in the church. It often felt like Leviticus reads, lugging people’s baggage around the wilderness.

But I gave my heart to the Lord and to the good souls I always found here and there, inside and just as often outside the camp.

Let me tell you: it’s enough, way more than enough.