Bonhoeffer on being practical

As I've been saying here and here, Jesus was a realist. Which is to say, God is practical.

Yes, we are on a journey to eternity. But it is a journey to eternity. This means you can't expect the rewards of eternity to be available now.

As for now, as for this journey, take along some money if you can; sell a thing or two to buy a thing or two. Be sensible with the sense God gave you, and protect yourselves from obvious danger.

Don't look at life through rose-colored glasses; which is to say, don't think of the Gospel as imbuing everything in this life with the value of eternal life. As a matter of fact, the Gospel is what makes clear that nothing in this life equals the joy of eternal life.

That there is no eternal joy here is the Good News, not the bad news.

Happy is the person who does not try to squeeze the eternal weight of joy out of every two-pound piece of land, or bank account, or house, or career, or relationship, or whatever, this life offers.

Here is how Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it:

... wherever it is recognized that the power of death is illumined by the miracle of the resurrection and of the new life, there no eternities are demanded of life, but one takes of life what it offers, not all or nothing, but good and evil, the important and the unimportant, joy and sorrow; one neither clings convulsively to life nor casts it frivolously away. One is content with the allotted span and one does not invest earthly things with the title of eternity; one allows to death the limited rights which it still possesses. It is from beyond death that one expects the coming of the new man and of the new world, from the power by which death has been vanquished...

So take along a sword or two. Oh, you already have two swords? That's enough ...

Logos2Go

D. Bonhoeffer, Ethics, quoted by Richard John Neuhaus in First Things, No. 163, May, 2006, p64. (Neuhaus does not give the pagination in Ethics).

Luke 22.35-39a And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take [it], and likewise [his] scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough. And he came out, and went, as he was wont ...