Thinking we are being unkind, we do not speak. Fearing we are being judgmental, we remain silent. Back to the question of several days ago, “How do we love a fellow sinner well when we see them on a path of destruction,” we should ask ourselves why we would remain silent. Today, the last in a series on community from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.
It is a good time to ask ourselves and to bring before God this matter of Christian community. Where am I? Longing for community. Graced with rich community but on the outer fringes? Enjoying giving and receiving love of all kinds?
If we cannot bring ourselves to say the necessary word, we will have to ask ourselves whether we are not still seeing other Christians clothed in a human dignity that we think we dare not touch, and thus whether we are not forgetting the most important thing—that they, too, no matter how old or high ranking or distinguished they may be, are still persons like us, sinners crying out for God’s grace.
They have the same great troubles that we have, and need help, comfort, and forgiveness as we do. The basis on which Christians can speak to one another is that each knows the other as a sinner who, even given all one’s human renown, is forlorn and lost if not given help. This does not mean that the others are being disparaged or dishonored. Rather, we are paying them the only real honor a human being has, namely, that as sinners they share in God’s grace and glory, that they are children of God.
This realization gives our mutual speech the freedom and openness it needs. We talk to one another about the help we both need. We admonish one another to go the way Christ bids us to go. We warn one another against the disobedience that is our undoing. We are gentle and we are firm with one another, for we know both God’s kindness and God’s firmness.
Why should we be afraid of one another since both of us have only God to fear? Why should we think that another Christian would not understand us when we understood very well what was meant when somebody spoke God’s comfort or God’s admonition to us, even in words that were inept and awkward? Or do we really believe there is a single person in this world who does not need either comfort or admonition? If so, then why has God given us the gift of Christian community?
