Bonhoeffer might have done with the same phrases, if he had lived. In some ways, the power of these phrases derives from their epigrammatic nature. Yet these phrases have been fertile, shifting the thoughts of many of us away from established lines of thought into new paths.
Among Bonhoeffer’s most provocative suggestions were thoughts about God’s powerlessness. Bonhoeffer wrote, “God allows himself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us. . .. (I)t is not by his omnipotence that Christ helps us, but by his weakness and suffering.” Often, he writes, a person wants a deus ex machina, a powerful, problem-solving God. “The Bible however directs him to the powerlessness and suffering of God; only a suffering God can help.” Otherwise, Bonhoeffer wrote, we end up with a God of the gaps, a God who prevents humans from coming of age, from taking full responsibility for their lives.10
The fundamental biblical text for this approach might be Paul’s claim that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27).
“The foolishness of God” is a critique (perhaps influenced by Paul’s time in Athens) of the “wisdom” of the philosophers of Paul’s time, those deemed to be wise by the world. It is parallel to God’s odd choice of the weak of the world, those of no account, in order to accomplish “weak” purposes, to shame the strong. God’s foolish love of the unlovable, modeled by Jesus’ choice of conspicuous sinners for his companions, is the basic theme of this approach.
My own focus has not been on the foolishness or weakness of God, though I rejoice in those images, but rather on the homelessness of God. As John D. Caputo writes, “Suppose God most especially pitches his tent among the homeless, so that God has no place to lay his head?”11
In this book, as in my life, I want to focus on the homelessness of God as a theme that parallels the weakness and the foolishness of God. My approach to this theme might be considered as a form of theological graffiti, working outside accepted theological themes, making unauthorized approaches that are grounded in a crucified Jesus. This is a deliberate attempt to complete a graffiti-like response to those theologians who thrive on discussing the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God. This kind of graffiti is somewhat like the fragmentary, provocative nature of Bonhoeffer’s letters.
When I speak of doing theology as a kind of graffiti, I follow in what might be called the “wordsteps” of John Caputo. In writing of his weak theology, Caputo describes it as that “which is composed of graffiti that defaces standard theological writing, like a body that is scratched, scarred, and defaced, marred by lines of hunger or persecution, wounded and bleeding. . .. (W)e imagine weak theology as a meditation upon God crossed out, cut and bruised, bleeding and bent in pain. . ..”12 This explicit comparison of graffiti with the crucified body of Jesus suggests a very different sort of theology is needed, if one begins with a “crossed out” God.
Influenced by the thought of such thinkers as Bonhoeffer and Caputo, I suggest that we speak in our theological graffiti of God’s weakness, God’s foolishness, and God’s homelessness (as distinguished from the ideas of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence).
Language about a “homeless God” does not imply that God is only to be found by homeless people or among homeless people. It does imply that God’s presence is unpredictable. God is known in surprising times and surprising places. God’s presence cannot be controlled or managed. There is no reliable place or context for looking for God. It is not necessarily a fault of humans when God’s presence is not experienced. God’s absence is part of the mystery of God. Rather than being the fault of humans, the absence of God sometimes becomes an accusation against God, an accusation taken seriously in biblical writings. Speaking of a “homeless God” may help us to recognize God when God is, in fact, present, since such language as “weakness,” “foolishness,” and “homelessness” redirects our attention and our awareness. We would not want to miss the presence of God just because a theology of superlatives blinds us to the humility and homelessness of God.
To speak of the homeless God has moral and political implications. It transforms any hierarchical scale of values. But this has already always been a theme within some strands of Christian thought. Christians place a special value on marginalized people. Christian ethics has what Catholic thought describes as an “option for the poor,” a preference for the poor and weak. The impact of Jesus’ teaching and example has built this attention to the poor into the basic Christian vision.
My insistence on the homelessness of God is not designed to plead for the special place of the poor in Christian ethics, which is already well argued for by many theologians. Rather, my concern is to shift what we mean by God, by God’s presence, and to redefine what we can learn to recognize when it is right there before us.
Gillian Rose has pointed out that, according to Halachah, Jewish law, the soil of death camps “is cursed not consecrated ground.”13
The absence of God from some places is integral to understanding God’s presence in other places. To think of God as homeless is to begin to notice such things.
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