During his time in a Nazi prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge that he was neither a pessimist (expecting things to get worse) nor an optimist (expecting things to get better). He said that he was living by hope.
Hope! One of three foundational forces—faith, hope, and love—that St. Paul said “remains” when everything else goes belly-up.
I find Bonheoffer’s allusion to hope as an alternative to optimism or pessimism to be insightful and inspirational. He has identified a biblical idea that I think sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.
Bonhoeffer provokes me to take a new look at how I am evaluating things during this economic crisis as a Christ-follower and as an organizational leader.
Bonheoffer was writing about hope in a moment when his life was on the line. My (our) problems pale in comparison with his. In these days of financial meltdown, most of us have, at best, lost financially. Bonhoeffer lost his life … life on earth, anyway. But to the very end he defined reality in the context of hope.
In The New York Times this week is the story of one retired couple who have lost their life savings in the Bernie Madoff investment scandal. The husband says, “My whole life was wrapped up around that money. I thought I could pay the bills for the next ten years.” One wonders what Bonheoffer’s reaction to a quote like that would have been.
Like everyone else, I am aware of the financial precariousness of our nation and of our world. In no way do I blow it off.
I find myself unusually attentive to the up-tick or down-tick of economic indicators that I never cared about or understood a year ago. I am tempted to feel a bit better if the Dow is up and a little disappointed if the Dow is down. Like others I keep looking for the so-called “bottom” after which there is supposed to be a return to economic stability.
The comments of fiscal wizards (i.e. Bernanke, Greenspan, and Paulson) usually get my attention. What do they think? Shouldn’t they have the answers? Can’t they solve this problem? Nevertheless, it has not escaped me that they seem as confounded as the rest of us. Could it be that they are even more scared than we are because they know too much?
Hardly a day passes that I do not get caught up in conversations about the personal impact these economic conditions are having. I meet people who have lost their jobs, their homes, and their retirement savings. While attempting to care for them, I find myself tempted to wonder if their situation could become mine.
As the interim president of a seminary, I am highly aware that these economic ups and downs affect the lives of our students and our supporters. They determine whether my colleagues can follow through on strategies and plans in which we passionately believe. It’s a spiritual battle some times. I have to continuously remind myself that my eye must first be upon God’s purposes, not on the progress of stimulus packages.
Occasionally I assess my own financial situation. I muse on questions like: Will I be able to continue to generate income into the foreseeable future? How should I spend, save, and give away what I do earn? Will I be able to help our grandchildren pay their college expenses? What happens if there are unexpected medical costs down the road?
Who of us hasn’t run the table with questions such as these?
I mention these things merely to illustrate that, in times like these, fear (the antithesis of hope) is not far from any of us. It is a fear that can eat away at one’s soul and render us powerless to be a source of courage for others. If you want to see this fear in action, reread the story of the disciples in the storm-scene as they rant at Jesus for sleeping through the crisis.
It is the hope of which Bonheoffer wrote that dispels such fear. Not optimism. Not pessimism. But hope!
Hope becomes operational through the daily-refreshed conviction that nothing that happens escapes the gaze of God. Which, of course, births the question: If he is aware of a situation in which so many people and so many organizations are struggling, what are his intentions? I imagine that this question is often asked in other parts of the world also. Places like Darfur, the Congo, and Zimbabwe.
When I thumb through the Scriptures to retune my thoughts about hope, I try to locate times when there was the equivalent of an economic meltdown (the days of Elisha come to mind). And this is what I learn.
In such times God distills the faith of hopeful people. He means to squeeze some of the craziness that has entered the world of organized religion and return us to the simplicity of following Jesus and growing in his character.
God intends to reduce the attachment of hopeful people to material wealth, to the tendency to think that everything rises and falls on being prosperous and financially secure. God intends to make hopeful people rethink their attraction to bigness, to slickness, to a show-business approach to ministry.
God intends to remind hopeful people that loving, serving, and generous giving are the primary markers of genuine faith.
God intends to awaken hopeful people to the suffering of a larger part of the world’s population that we have all too easily ignored.
In short, God intends that hopeful people put everything on the table and ask once again: What is at the core of the real Christian gospel that we may have forgotten during the days of prosperity?
One more thing. I’m betting that God intends that hopeful people relearn how to differentiate between the “city” of today and the “enduring city … that is to come.”
Such hope—liberally spread—could have revival proportions.
Economists are calling this financial mess a time for serious reappraisal of the way we do our business. Seems obvious. But here’s a thought. For some of us, these days will generate a massive reappraisal in faith-issues. Out of these times, we may get some new spiritual leaders. We may get some fresh, innovative thinking about what it means to be truly converted people. We may regain our credibility as having a word from God.
Perhaps down the line the economic pressure we face today will let up. If that day comes, one wonders, will we who claim loyalty to Jesus be a better disciplined, a more generous, a more focused, and humbler people?
That is my hope.
Gordon MacDonald is editor at large of Leadership journal and interim president of Denver Seminary.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
