Often I have been profoundly encouraged and yet equally sobered by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s question:
“Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning [brother/sister] still a [sister/brother] with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ?”*
His question reminds me that the Church, the Bride of Christ, consists of those, like me, who are less than perfect (τελέω), or, as this Greek word and its opposite connote, who are incomplete. Of course, to think of believers in Christ as “less than perfect” or as “incomplete” is to think euphemistically. As I have aged (whether or not I have gained in wisdom is another question), I am increasingly inclined to view myself as “broken” or “crippled,” and those about me as much the same—albeit, perhaps not as severely crippled as I am.
If such is my view, namely, that others are crippled or broken, it behooves me consistently and constantly to recall that my brokenness, my sin, is no less offensive than theirs. But therein lies the rub; for my brokenness, like myopia, often is the failure to employ the same standard to others as I apply to myself. I am far too inclined to excuse my blunders, my calculated deceit, my lack of love as permissible because of “extenuating circumstances,” whereas they are without excuse. If others really knew what I was feeling and thinking; if they really knew of those long-concealed wounds; if they really knew of what I had endured—then they’d understand my words and actions.
Ah, it is true: they might understand, and so too might God, but that is not the point; for the standard is perfection or being absolutely complete—nothing broken, crippled, marred or tainted. And so, Bonhoeffer’s insight directs us to look beyond ourselves; to eschew comparing ourselves one with the other (another sign of my brokenness, for instance), but rather to hear afresh the “Word of Christ,” who is the Word. In the face of undenied sin, He said: “Does no one [who is without sin] condemn you? … Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on no longer sin.” (John 8:10-11). This same One also said: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”, many of whom are maimed, wounded, sightless and/or lost. (John 10:11).
I do not rejoice in my brokenness or that of any other; but I do give thanks for and to the One, who has chosen to forgive us both.
*Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, tr. John W. Doberstein (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954), p.28.