Ok, so maybe this is merely the thoughts of a kid destined to think too much about such things. Maybe it was some Lutheran guilt (though I can’t say I’ve noticed Lutherans overall feeling much more guilt than other denominations). But here’s a story that came to my mind as I was reading my Martin Luther’s Theology text this week.
Have you ever compared yourself to the Sermon on the Mount? I remember really struggling with these texts as I was growing up. In particular for some reason I remember a time in Middle School. The angst of adolesence combined with burgeoning Biblical knowledge. I guess we’d been studying the Sermon on the Mount and concepts like “turn the other cheeck”, “love your enemy”, and “lend without expecting repayment” were floating in my head. What’s that look like for a middle schooler? I remember wondering if that meant I needed to keep giving money to the kid who would always ask in the cafeteria so he could buy another bag of chips? He never paid anyone back, but did I need to keep lending anyway? Would about bullies. As the kid dumped my books, should I be speaking some kind of blessing to him? It seemed I definitely shouldn’t report such incidents.
Those were real struggles for meI don’t think I ever quite resolved them in my head. I’m not sure if they were unique to me or not. And I’m not sure I’ve completely resolved them yet, but Martin Luther’s theology of the two realms does help some. To put it quite simply, Luther says that God rules over both the spiritual and the temporal, but he does so in different ways. He rules the temporal with the law and authority. He rules over the Spiritual with grace and the Word. The Christian lives in both simultaneously. He is a Christian and called to live in the world as a Christian, sacrificing, but he is also a person who holds offices and roles, in which he may have to use authority and law.
So what’s this have to do with lending money? Well, the Christian is in a difficult situation there. On one end, my adolescent self should be willing to sacrifice for others, forgive them their sins, etc. To conquer evil with good. At the same time, my adolscent self did have a role in that world. I was a student in a school and had a responsibility within that school toward my fellow students and even the authorities in that school to report misdeeds or prevent students from being cruel or taking advantage of others.
So what should I have done? Well, walk the tight rope I guess. There are places there for being somewhat of a martyr, and letting your grace and forgiveness be a witness. But at the same time, my responsibilty toward others needed to move me at some point to stand up and not allow the misdeeds or irreponsibility to continue into perpetuity. That wouldn’t be good for any of my neighbors. So I suppose lending once or twice without repayment isn’t so bad, but letting that person continue to do so isn’t fair to them or others they might try to take advantage of. Letting one book dumping go with silence and forgiveness maybe, but not allowing the person to become a bully emboldened to hurt others.
Now that’s 13 year old Dan. Obviously our problems today are even more complicated. From how we individually deal with pan handlers to how we deal with poverty as a society. From how we deal with misdeeds within our places of work to how we as a society deal with criminals and even foreign countries. It all escalates in level of difficulty but essentially the same principles apply.
Hopefully an interesting thing to get you thinking as we approach National Day of Prayer tomorrow. Please pray for our country and our leaders as they seek to apply this wisdom.
