“God hates visionary dreaming.”
Those words seem odd to those of us who value creative thinking. Hard words to read if you have spent half your life sharing the life-giving visions of people like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Jesus.
“God hates visionary dreaming.”
That disturbing statement was written by a pastor who was executed by the Nazis near the end of World War II. Those, in fact, are the words of a hero of the Christian Faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The quote above is from his book “Life Together,” where he gives faith-based encouragement on how to form an authentic Christian community.
But what did Bonhoeffer mean by that?
He was talking about what psychologists have called “the danger of ideal images.”
An “ideal image” is an image of what we would like ourselves or others to become. An ideal image can be the “dream” we have for what a society or a church can become. Why might that be harmful?
An ideal image, (our dream of what could be) can be harmful because it might hinder us from accepting “what is.” The ideal can keep us from facing and accepting “the real.” And let’s face it! The real is not always such a bad thing.
There was a film titled “Mass Appeal” where Jack Lemmon plays a Catholic priest who is asked to supervise a young man who is training to be a pastor. The young seminary student often preaches harsh sermons to the people. He frequently shouts his convictions from his bully pulpit.
One day the supervising priest asks his young charge: “Why do you talk to people the way you do?”
The young trainee answers: “I talk the way I do because I know what they could be.” Lemmon’s character responds: “What they could be? Why can’t you see them as they are? Who are they?”
It seems to be the better part of wisdom to love people as they are, before you seek to bring change to them. I can remember being “the angry young pastor.” I was in my first parish, and I was getting into the habit of complaining about the congregation. One day I complained to an older, retired pastor about the need for the congregation to accept change.
The retired pastor said something I shall never forget. He said: “Larry, eventually you will learn to love people as they are, instead of for what you want them to be.” After more than 30 years, I look back and realize how wise that old colleague was. As I look over the years, I can see that as pretty good advice for parents, too.
It is not wise to see individuals and groups only in terms of what you want them to become. We are called to love people as they are. We could benefit from taking a cue from what we sing about how God approaches us: “Just as I am, without one plea … .”. And as Paul wrote: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
What would happen to us if God treated us with “the holy impatience” of which we are so fond? In my experience, impatience is seldom holy.
Think about how one person pushing a well intended vision upon others can have mixed results. In Genesis chapter 29, we read that Jacob loved Rachel but he was “stuck” with Leah. He never treated Leah very well because he approached her through his obsession with Rachel.
I will paraphrase something Christian novelist, Walter Wangerin Jr. said: “The trouble was not that (biblical) Jacob failed to see (wife) Leah. The problem was that when Jacob looked at Leah, he saw ‘not Rachel’ (whom he wanted).’”
It can be harmful to make another person fit our dream of what she should be. I can cause more harm than good if I look at my congregation and only see “not Willow Creek Community Church” or “not Saddleback Church”, or “not Saint Michael’s By The Junkyard.”
I think of the widow who was married to Sam, a wonderful man. Sam dies and she marries Phil, another wonderful man. This widow would very wise to overcome the temptation to see Phil only in terms of what Sam was like. It would be bad news if she were to look at Phil and only see “not Sam.”
I recently heard a wise man say: “Expectations are the shackles that will not permit something to be what it actually is.”
And so Pastor Bonhoeffer wrote: “God hates visionary dreaming.” He more fully explains what he means by that startling statement: “God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly… . He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together.”
The danger of ideal images became an issue while I was recently preparing for the celebration of what we call “The Protestant Reformation.” That Reformation has roots in Martin Luther’s actions in October of 1517. It dawned on me that a big part of what the Reformation was about was the problem of “ideal images.”
The Church of Luther’s time had set up expectations of perfection. The expectation of perfection came in the ways that Luther experienced “the Law” in the Old Testament and various “laws” developed by the Church over the centuries since the death and resurrection of Jesus.
One example of “church laws” that drove Luther’s feeling of “perfectionism” is the fact that he felt he had to literally name every one of his sins, in private Confession, before he could receive God’s forgiveness. Even his “confessor” thought Luther was being too much the perfectionist; but that is what “ideal images” will do to a person. You feel that you “never measure up.”
That feeling is a formula for spiritual and physical burnout. It can certainly be argued that it was Luther’s personal reaction to church rubrics that caused his anxiety; but that’s the way ideal images work.
Dreams are fine and vision can be very helpful. But Bonhoeffer’s thoughts expressed in “Life Together” are meant to make us stop and think. It is good to have a Godly dream in your heart. But it is wise to proceed with caution as you share that vision with others.
The Rev. Larry Isbell is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Columbus. He can reached at janetti600@comcast.net. The opinions expressed here are his own.
