Saints

May God protect me from gloomy saints.
-Saint Theresa of Avila

Today’s devotion consists of another extended quotation, this time from the Lutheran theologian and anti-Nazi Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was part of the Confessing Church, a protestant movement in 1930’s Germany which publicly and actively resisted Nazi policies and ideology. Faced with persecution and even threats on his life, Bonhoeffer was offered refuge in the United States, sponsored by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Bonhoeffer chose to stay in his homeland, knowing what it might cost him. He wrote to Niebuhr, “I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”

As we witness and participate in the current coming apart of the world, and hear God’s call to be builders and participants in its eventual reconstruction, we do well to heed Brother Dietrich’s witness, and hear his words about the community of saints, of which we are members:  

“The community of the saints is not an "ideal" community consisting of perfect and sinless men and women, where there is no need of further repentance. No, it is a community which proves that it is worthy of the gospel of forgiveness by constantly and sincerely proclaiming God's forgiveness...Sanctification means driving out the world from the Church as well as separating the Church from the world. But the purpose of such discipline is not to establish a community of the perfect, but a community consisting of men [and women] who really live under the forgiving mercy of God.”

As part of his commitment to take the part of those who suffer most in society, and willing to incur guilt for the sake of his neighbors, Bonhoeffer participated in a conspiracy against the life of Adolf Hitler. He was imprisoned in the spring of 1943 and executed by the Nazis just a month before the Allied victory in 1945.

To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Romans 1.7