Hypocrisy, meaning, and the special calling of Lutherans

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Mark 10:35-45. In March, I discussed this passage under the title A Good Leader Spends Himself. Then, I focused on servant leadership. Now, I’ll focus on suffering.

Recently I heard the Canadian historian Dr Henry Abramson say that at the end of the last century, a Japanese newspaper asked its readers to name a book which must continue to be read into this century.

It published a list of the top 10 titles they named.

One of the titles was a book first published in German in 1946 and translated into Japanese 39 years later, in 1985. The author was Viktor Frankl.[1] The title was Man’s Search for Meaning.

By now, it’s probably sold over 20 million copies in dozens of languages. It’s probably been read by hundreds of millions of people. It’s probably been the subject of hundreds of thousands of reviews.

The book’s only about 100 pages. It’s Frankl’s account of three years he spent as a slave-prisoner in four German concentration or death camps.[2]

His wife, parents, brother and many relatives were killed in the camps.

Frankl was a doctor. A psychiatrist. A psychotherapist. A teacher.

So, while imprisoned, he made observations as a professional. Mainly to keep alive. But also because he cared about people. He was, as Christians put it, devoted to being a good neighbour.

Frankl was a Jew. And therefore, a target of the Nazis, under Hitler.

Hitler needed glue to bind people together to support his government. He amplified their hatred for Jews and used it to glue them together.

I’ve often wondered why I’m in a Lutheran church. A church rooted in Germany. A church whose founder said some of the most awful things about Jews.[3] Things the Nazis used to make and spread their hate-glue.

Never forget that most Nazis were church goers. They celebrated Christian festivals. They got married in churches, took communion often. Had their babies baptized, sent their children to confirmation classes.

I often think God has ordained Lutherans to constantly remind the world of things about human nature which many either don’t see or don’t accept. I often think it’s a special calling of Lutherans.

Humans may preach grand beliefs. But they’re often hypocrites.

Jesus said it like only a carpenter could. He said it in the Sermon on the Mount, which you can find in the gospel of Matthew, in chapters 5 to 7.

In Matthew 7:5, we read,

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

In today’s passage, Mark tells us about something which happened while Jesus was on the road to Jerusalem. He’d just told his closest disciples, the Twelve apostles, for the third time, that he was going to Jerusalem to die. I discussed this before under the title Living on the Road to Death.

You can click the link to read or hear what I said.

Among his disciples, Jesus had three favourites: Peter, James and John. In today’s passage, we read that James and John cozied up to him. And made a special request. They asked him to make them his top deputies.

They were lowly fishermen. They’d been on the road with Jesus for many months. They’d endured much hardship, much suffering. They’d come across many rich people. Powerful people. Honoured people.

The disciples had dreams. They wanted to be freed from suffering. They wanted to be rich, powerful, honoured.

They were blind to what Jesus had told them three times.

The road to Jerusalem, the road to honour, to power, to pleasing God, is a road of suffering.

The disciples had logs in their eyes. The logs of prosperity. Because of it, they couldn’t see the centrality of suffering in life. And the need for a Suffering Servant.

It’s no surprise that the lectionary invites us to ponder today’s passage together with Isaiah’s prediction of the Suffering Servant, in chapter 53 of his book.

Now I return to Frankl.

Frankl’s every breath, like that of every camp prisoner, was suffering.

When Frankl reflected on the three years he’d spent breathing nothing but the air of suffering, he wondered how he and other prisoners had survived.

He found the answer. He wrote,

We had to learn … that … We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life …

Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. (Page 98.)

In the midst of the hardships, he and his fellow prisoners suffered, a conviction Frankl had had for a very long time remained with him. The conviction grew in him. It was the conviction that suicide is wrong.

He found the reason for his conviction.

The reason is that suicide is a wrong response to suffering. Because suicide is what makes the enemy happy.

Frankl concluded that people committed suicide because they felt life wasn’t going to give them what they expected.

Frankl concluded that people were asking the wrong question.

Frankl concluded that people should ask instead, what life asks of them, what God asks of them.

Frankl began to appreciate the philosopher Nietzsche, who said anyone who knows the “why” of his existence will be able to bear almost any “how” (Page 101).

John and James didn’t get it on the day which Mark wrote about, the day we read about in today’s passage. But they did become deputies of Jesus, the King. They suffered much, just as Jesus did.

Some letters written by the apostles to the early churches are included in the Bible.

In their letters, the apostles speak of how suffering is both normal and productive for Christians. And they give advice on how to handle suffering.

Finally, James, John and the other apostles got it.

We need to get it too. Christians don’t escape suffering. The mark of the Christian is his response to suffering and death. The mark of a Christian is a purposeful life, a certainty about what God expects from us.

What’s the meaning, the purpose of life? Martin Luther put it sharply. He said God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbour does. He wrote,

… each one ought to live, speak, act, hear, suffer, and die in love and service for another, even for one’s enemies, … so that one’s hand, mouth, eye, foot, heart, and desire is for others: these are the Christian works, good in nature.[4]

We need to remove from our eyes the logs which prevent us from seeing as Jesus does. Frankl coined a name, a label, for the efforts of professionals like himself to help people improve their vision.

The name is logotherapy. Logotherapy helps people find meaning in their lives.

We find meaning when the truth of this remark by Jesus dwells in us:

Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

I think it’s helpful to think of logotherapy as log-removal therapy.

Peace be with you.

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[1] Here’s a link to a 16-minute video biography of Frankl on Biographics. Here’s 52-minute Jewish biography of Frankl by the Canadian historian Dr Henry Abramson.

[2] Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Dachau, and Türkheim.

[3] I’ve written about the Juden sow before. It’s a sculpture reproduced across Germany over 500 years go. A Juden sow “graced” the church in which Martin Luther preached over two thousand sermons. It shows a Jewish Rabbi lifting the tail of a sow and two Jewish children suckling on the teats. Luther spoke approvingly of it. It’s been preserved, accompanied by a statement of remorse. The Jewish Virtual Library has choice quotes from Luther’s writings about Jews. Not pleasant reading.

[4] I’m relying on Martin Luther on Vocation and Serving Others, Gene Edward Veith, 30 March 2016, Acton Institute.