Like Christ, we are to involve ourselsves in and with people in their characteristic sinfulness and brokenness. We are called to serve as He served – and this cannot be done from a position of moral superiority or a stance of detached judgment. Believers do not stand over against sinners as antagonists, but among them as companions. The church exists for the world’s sake. As God gave His Son for the world, so the Son gives His Body for it. So we must, as Bonhoeffer said, learn to live a fully “secular” life.
Man is summoned to share in God’s sufferings at the hands of a godless world. He must therefore really live in the godless world, without attempting to gloss over or explain its ungodliness in some religious way or other. He must live a ‘secular’ life, and thereby share in God’s sufferings. He may live a ‘secular’ life (as one who has been freed from false religious obligations and inhibitions)… It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.”
Only when the believer lives a “secular life” (as Bonhoeffer calls it) is his word of conviction valid. Why should a believer’s neighbors listen to him if he is detached from them? What right does a believer have to speak into his neighbors’ lives if he has not demonstrated a willingness to suffer for and with them?Barth says the church is the “society in which it is given to men to know and practice their solidarity with the world.” Christ shares His love through believers only as they are meaningfully joined to their fellow humans, whether they are believers or not.
If [the church] is to share [Christ’s] love, where can it find itself set, or try to set itself, but at the side and indeed in the midst of this world which God has loved?
We Christians cannot stand on the margins, at the periphery of the world, crying out against it, and only helping where our paths happen to cross theirs. Jesus Christ stood – and died – in the midst, and the Christian must stand and die there with Him.What does this “being in the midst” look like in practice? Where does it touch everyday life? It means involving oneself in normal human activity (e.g., labor and recreation). It means involving oneself in meaningful relationships (e.g., marriage, parenthood, friendship, and citizenship). It means opening oneself warmly and honestly to others of different ethnicity and different religious and political persuasions, learning from them, appreciating them – without any ulterior motives. It means to listen attentively, to judge mercifully, to speak gracefully, to serve energetically – and to do this for everyone simply because they are themselves, and for no other reason. It means thinking critically about one’s faith, about one’s place within that faith, about one’s relationship to other faiths. It means speaking the language, working the jobs, associating oneself with the everyday problems and tragedies of one’s neighbors.Consider Jesus’ “first” miracle, the turning of water to wine. That is nothing if it is not a Yes to humanity! What is more human than marriage and sexuality – and partying? In this miracle, Jesus seals these human activities with a divine Yes. A theology of ministry that doesn’t make place for this kind of affirming service is not worthy of the name.Jesus was not easy on sin or sinners. He didn’t glibly pass over the evils of His generation. He didn’t let things lie. But He spoke against sin while standing in the midst of sinners. And, as has been said again and again, He spoke truth to power and exposed the hypocrisy of those claiming righteousness. He knew the spiritual sin of pride (hybris) needs naming even more than the sins of passion or appetite.I think we should do as Naaman did (2 Kg 5.17-19). We should find a way to remain servants of our unbelieving employers, friends, and neighbors without bowing our hearts to their “idols.” It is possible for us to live in and with that tension, honoring God even while honoring those who do not (yet?) believe in Him. In fact, we must live in that tension. If we were to dishonor unbelievers, we would dishonor our God. He doesn’t wish to be represented by oppressors.
