HOW LONG, O GOD, SHALL I BE A BYSTANDER?
by Rev. Dr. H. Stephen Shoemaker
In face of the denigration of many Americans from the highest office in the land—people of color, women, immigrants—God, give us courage to resist the policies and language of all in public office who demean the dignity of human persons made in the image of God.
On November 9, 1938 in Germany, the mostly hidden and unofficial violence against the Jewish people turned open and official. Throughout Germany Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses were ransacked, holy books burned, sacred objects destroyed. It is called Krystallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass.
That night, the young theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who would later be executed for his defense of the Jews and opposition to Hitler, read these words from Psalm 74, verses 1–10:
- O God, why have You rejected us forever?
Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? - Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old,
Which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance;
And this Mount Zion, where You have dwelt. - Turn Your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins;
The enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary. - Your adversaries have roared in the midst of Your meeting place;
They have set up their own standards for signs. - It seems as if one had lifted up His axe in a forest of trees.
- And now all its carved work
They smash with hatchet and hammers. - They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground;
They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name. - They said in their heart, “Let us completely subdue them.”
They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land. - We do not see our signs;
There is no longer any prophet,
Nor is there any among us who knows how long. - How long, O God, will the adversary revile,
And the enemy spurn Your name forever? (NRSV)
Echoing the question in verse 10, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in the margin of his Bible:
“How long, O God, shall I be a bystander?”
Here is one of the deepest meanings of the cross we take up as we follow Jesus: we will no longer be bystanders.
– H. Stephen Shoemaker
H. Stephen Shoemaker is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Statesville, North Carolina. He has served churches in Louisville, Kentucky; Ft. Worth, Texas; and Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. Shoemaker has taught preaching and religion on the university and seminary levels, most recently at Johnson C. Smith University, an historically black university in Charlotte. He is also the author of eight books.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
