BONHOEFFER’S GHOST

This little fantasy was written decades ago and never made it into a book. It’s relevance to now is obvious. Since writing this I have more than sensed the reality of Heaven as the realm where all end up at varying levels of awareness. I have added a statement acknowledging this to the original text

Dietrich Bonhoeffer”s Ghost pursued him through time.

“Why”, asked the Ghost, “did one drawn to the Sermon on the Mount and to nonviolence, retaliate?”

We guess the answer:

The very enormity of Hitler’s evil. Even pacifists said, “We must fight!” Bonhoeffer offers an explanation, but Bonhoeffer knows the Ghost has more to say. Bonhoeffer himself knows more. Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity builds on the Sermon on the Mount. So too Bonhoeffer’s world come of age. And his famous notion of cheap grace most certainly attaches a cost to discipleship. But for doing what? There’s the rub.

Painfully, Bonhoeffer knows there is a lasting contradiction between his actions then and what he might have done if he had had the time.

So he is not surprised to hear the Ghost explain, “Evil for evil merely breeds more evil … Jesus knows a better way; he is more canny. Negotiation is his style and parable his sword. He shakes the very props of Empire with a word. Why did he die? It was to show the power and shape of Abba’s love. To vindicate and demonstrate the truth of Abba’s Way..”

The Ghost continues. “Dietrich, it is not too late. Inspire those who come after to speak what you would have spoken. Instead of creeds, obedience. Instead of a set of beliefs, a way of life. Instead of ‘church’, a practiced faith. Instead of assent to war and its ways, a removal of the sword from Caesar and the final coming of age which is Abba’s Way.

“This way confronts but does not kill. This way puts on no airs and claims no truths. It simply acts and values Abba-like. That’s all.

“You knew it then: The old way will not work. Do not allow your legacy to venerate you for the wrong thing.”

Bonhoeffer, like Hamlet, talks back. And, as the poet in Isaiah 6, says: “I am a man of unclean lips. Living in a world of unclean lips.”

The Ghost replies, “You are indeed. But Abba sets you free. Then, Dietrich, if they kill you, it will be for the right reason. And of course you will not die. No one does. Make strait the way of Abba, Dietrich. Make it strait.”

Then on the parapet, the ghostly figure disappears. And now we hear a rising Angels’ song.

Abba whose home in heaven is

Hallowed and holy is your name

Let your realm come your will be done

Till earth and heaven are the same

Give us this day our daily bread

Forgive the wrongs that we have done

As we forgive those who do wrong

Lead us not into temptation

Deliver us from evil lord

And guide us safely to your shore

Yours is the power to heal and mend

Yours is the glory ever more