Dear Pope Francis,
Maybe
you have heard: 2017 is a big year for Lutherans. Many are giddy with
excitement as we commemorate the audacity of a certain 16th-century
Augustinian monk, who on Oct. 31, 1517, nailed his 95 theses to a church
door in Wittenberg. Fingers flutter across keyboards feverishly
extolling or disputing Martin Luther’s contributions and flaws. But
I—one who has marinated in American Lutheranism most of her life—find
myself writing to you, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
Perhaps
it is an odd moment for Lutheran fan mail. Yet, ever since you became
the Bishop of Rome in 2013, I have become increasingly convinced that
you are the pope that Luther was looking for 500 years ago. Here are
four reasons why.
1. You help us to see Christ in our neighbor.
Luther
continually emphasized “neighbor love” as a crucial way to love Christ
and to respond to a hurting world. He identified the neighbor as the one
suffering, whoever that may be. He railed against the neglect of the
poor and hungry. He called for the creation of a community welfare
chest. He abhorred the practices of usury and the selling of
indulgences.
You once said: “How I would like a church that is poor and
for the poor!”—and you have given the world countless examples of what
such a church looks like. Your first pastoral trip as pope outside of
Rome was to visit migrants fleeing poverty and violence. You have washed
the feet of Muslims, of women, of prisoners. You installed bathrooms
and showers at the Vatican for those living on the streets of Rome.
After your historic 2015 address to a joint session of the U.S.
Congress, you had lunch not with Washington elites but with people
living in a homeless shelter.
2. You help us to see God in creation.
Luther
was in love with life in its varied and dazzling forms—its life-giving
waters, its creatures and landscapes. He continuously referenced
creation and everyday life in his writings. He relished sharing food,
drink and conversation—connecting this kind of communing with the
sacrament. In short, Luther saw the divine present “in, with and under”
all creation.
You chose the name of St. Francis of
Assisi, a lover of the earth and all of its creatures. Your first
encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” lays bare how climate change exacerbates
every other social ill and the cruel irony that those who contribute the
least to the degradation of our common home are paying the highest
price for it. It asks us to confront not only harsh planetary realities
but also the parts of ourselves that we would rather not
see—selfishness, complacency and willful ignorance.
But “Laudato Si’” also expresses profound hope. You write,
“For all our limitations, gestures of generosity, solidarity and care
cannot but well up within us, since we were made for love” (No. 58). The
heart of the Christian story centers upon a prophetic claim to new
life. This resurrection is not merely about saving souls but about
practicing acts that restore and renew life here and now. It means
unfreezing our hearts and turning them outward to authentic love of
self, neighbor, planet and God.
3. You combine humility with audacity.
Luther
charged the church of Pope Leo X as being “puffed up” with opulent
pride and avarice. It infuriated him to see anointed clerics abusing the
trust, financial resources, faith and fears of their flock. He deeply
wanted Christians, ordained and lay, to understand that we are
paradoxically free in Christ and yet called to be “servants of all.”
Your
witness on the world stage has been one of great humility—starting with
the decision to live in the simple papal apartment instead of the
apostolic palace. You are not afraid to apologize. You understand
Luther’s insight that we are paradoxically both saint and sinner—that
every person is always both beloved and broken, capable of expressing
grace and healing and yet always in need of healing and forgiveness.
At the same time, you are a rockstar. You have been on the
cover of Rolling Stone and have been named Time’s “Person of the Year.”
Like Luther, you have risen to international prominence in a visual
culture and astutely employ its technologies. Luther used the Facebook
and Snapchat of his day: woodcuts, the printing press, public displays
of treatises. Through unscripted interviews and press conferences,
Twitter and TED Talks, you use your elevated position to focus our
attention on issues we often wish to avoid: obscene inequality, chronic
hunger, human rights abuses, the ravages of war.
4. You inspire creative hope and action.
You also inspire millions across the planet. In word and deed, you
make it abundantly clear that everyone has something to contribute.
Together, there is much that all of us—scientists, religious leaders,
business executives, artists, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs,
lawyers, theologians, politicians—can do. Now is our moment to be, as
Luther might put it, “the priesthood of all believers” (and, I would
add, nonbelievers).
You inspire me, Pope Francis. You
help me find the grit to live with intention. So I boldly close this
love letter with a fervent request: that you pray for the United States
and the world in these tumultuous and confounding times, that we will
stumble our way through with minimal injury to ourselves and to others. I
ask you to pray without ceasing that humanity wakes up to creation’s
myriad cries in time to do something meaningful about them.
God bless you, Holy Father. Know that I pray with and for you.
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