WATCHING AND WAITING...
Thursday was a day that brought together many strands of my life. 9 April is my father's birthday. He died in 1997 (The book
Fear or freedom? Why a warring church must change which I edited last year is dedicated to him, and to my mother, who passed away in 1978.) It is also the anniversary of the execution of
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life and work is one of my
inspirations. Though not one that casts me in a particularly good light! There is a family connection, in that I discovered Bonhoeffer through
Eberhard Bethge's classic biography on my father's bookshelf, though I think he rather preferred the cautious
Otto Dibelius. The
new and expanded edition of Bethge is so much better, by the way.
There's no
Holy Thursday night vigil around these parts, so instead I have decided to re-watch
Martin Doblmeier's moving film
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Pacifist, Nazi Resister, about his life and
influence. The theological dimension gets a look in as well, with an interview from South African writer
John de Gruchy - whose stimulating review of
Stanley Hauerwas'
Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence can be found here. Doblmeier gives an
interview about the project on the film website. I must also pick up
Geoffrey Kelly's
reading guide (pictured) to the Fortress Bonhoeffer
works edition at some point. Fresh perspectives are always welcome, and I am far from complete in my reading.
Thinking of the Maundy Thursday vigil: the Eucharist and the stripping off the altar at the
Church of the Annunciation in Brighton, where I lived for five years (in the town, not the church!) was always an extraordinary occasion. The then priest,
David Wostenholme, who is now in Glasgow, would turn the lady chapel into a flowering garden of waiting and remembrance, complete with the Host and the shadow of the tree of betrayal. It generated a tremendous sense of prayer and suspense before the abandonment of Good Friday. Some people who know the
Anabaptist, and especially modern
Mennonite, influence on my theological thinking are sometimes surprised that the liturgical and aesthetic dimension of the Catholic
tradition is important to me. But as far as I am concerned they are wholly congruent. As
Dorothee Soelle once put it, mysticism and resistance are two complementary paths to meeting the Other in the midst.
One final thought, on foot-washing. I was intrigued by
today's news that it has been temporarily reincarnated as shoe-shining. Actually, that's quite a creative idea. I'm delighted that
money is going to
Zimbabwe, too. But in another sense it would be wonderful if church leaders could go out onto the streets and serve for no reward at all. In our commodified culture, "random acts of kindness" are regarded with suspicion, though. Debt rather than grace is the way society is ordered. The church as well, all too often, in contradiction of its calling. So it is worth reflecting again (since I have certainly mentioned it before) that whoever asked: 'what might have happened differently if foot-washing had been the primary Christian sacrament?' posed one of the most important
post-Christendom questions of all. Perhaps it will be picked up more and more in the
'new monasticism' (which of course goes back to Bonhoeffer) and in
'emergent' circles?
"Those who can combine simplicity and intelligence can prevail. But what is simplicity? What is intelligence? Simple is the one who in the transfiguration, confusion and twisting of all concepts keeps the simple truth of God in focus, who is not double-minded, not a person in two minds (James 1.8), but has an undivided heart... Because simple people do not look past God to the world, they are in a position to look freely and naturally at the reality of the world. Thus simplicity becomes intelligence. Intelligent is the one who sees reality as it is, who sees the foundation of things... The perception of reality is not the same thing as knowledge of certain external processes; it is, rather, seeing the essence of things. The most intelligent are not those who are the best informed." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (1940-43), p.67-8. 
