Last week when I watched the new movie Judy [Garland], I was reminded of how we want our heroes without blemishes and our villains without redemption. But that's wishful thinking. Our stories are too complicated for such binary thinking. Martin Luther famously insisted that believers are at one and the same time "both saint and sinner."

Consider two of my favorite saints.

Even though some people have never heard of the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), many are nonetheless familiar with his famous poetic confession, the exact origins of which remain a mystery:

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

Numerous groups that otherwise have nothing in common have used this prophetic verse to challenge us to speak up for those who have no voice, for those who are crushed by the powerful (Proverbs 31:8-9).

There are many reasons to like Niemöller. He was a loving husband, a devoted father to seven children (two of whom died in World War II), a prominent pastor in Berlin, a prisoner of war, and president of the World Council of Churches (1961–1968). But by his own admission, for much of his life, speaking out for the powerless, resisting Hitler, and defending the Jews is exactly what Niemöller did not do.

Martin Niemöller

The conservative Niemöller was both deeply Christian and fervently nationalist. For him there was a connection between throne and altar, patriotism and spirituality. Serving in the navy for nearly ten years as a submarine commander in World War I fulfilled a childhood dream. After Germany's humiliating defeat, he detested the liberal, democratic Weimar Republic.

He voted for Hitler and the Nazi Party twice (1924, 1933). He longed for the good old days of the traditional monarchy. Even when he was imprisoned, in 1939 he volunteered to rejoin the German military in World War II. And while he did spend eight years in prison as Hitler's "personal prisoner," that was because he objected to Hitler's interference in the Lutheran church; he had little to say about his treatment of Jews (or other minorities), or his economic, domestic, or foreign policies.

Eventually, though, Niemöller did change, even radically so. He repudiated his ultra-nationalist and antisemitic views. He admitted his personal responsibility for not resisting more, along with the collective guilt of the entire nation for the Holocaust.

In 1945 Niemöller took his beloved wife Else back to Dachau to show her the cell where he had been imprisoned. There they saw a simple plaque that read, "Here in the years 1933 to 1945, 238,756 people were cremated." Niemöller later recalled that when he read the plaque "a cold shudder ran down my spine." It wasn't just the number of people murdered that haunted him, he said, it was the dates. Dachau opened in 1933. At that time Niemöller was a free man and a prominent pastor. "My alibi accounted for the years 1937 to 1945," he said, "but God was not asking me where I had been from 1937 to 1945 but from 1933 to 194… and for those [earlier years] I did not have an answer."

In the end, the historian and biographer Matthew Hockenos sees Niemöller as an inspiring example of a conservative nationalist who was willing to change: "Niemöller the U-Boat commander became Niemöller the Lutheran pastor; Niemöller the Nazi voter became Niemöller the Nazi resister; Niemöller the ultra-nationalist became Niemöller the world Christian leader; Niemöller the anti-Semite became Niemöller the critic of racism and apartheid; Niemöller the anti-Communist became Niemöller the left-wing activist."

Then there's the complicated life and work of Niemöller's contemporary, Dorothy Day (1897–1980), who is on a fast track to Catholic sainthood (even though some people think she would object to that as a betrayal of her values). In 2017, Day's grand daughter Kate Hennessy wrote a "warts and all" biography about her "paradoxical grandmother," her many "complexities and contradictions," and in particular the deeply complicated mother-daughter relationship between Day and her only child Tamar (1926–2008).

Dorothy Day

Hennessy, the youngest of Tamar's nine children, strips away the hagiography surrounding Day, and the Catholic Worker movement that she founded with Peter Maurin in 1933. It's a painful story that raises fundamental questions about the means and ends of ministry. Hennessy tells her family stories with a rare mix of candor, compassion, respect and, at the end of the day, genuine gratitude.

Stanley Vishnewski, a close friend of Day who joined the Catholic Worker movement in 1934 and remained with them until his death in 1979, once observed that "people came to the Catholic Worker expecting to find saints, and instead they found human beings." Robert Ellsberg, who transcribed and edited Day's handwritten diaries, calls Hennessy's biography a "stunning work" that reminds us that "holy people are actual human beings." Sometimes, the real martyrs are those who have to live with the saints.

So, we are called to extend mercy and compassion to the complicated lives of everyone we meet. We're also invited to extend this divine mercy to our own selves, for that's what God has already done.             

Much of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) is characterized by darkness and despair, reflecting his lifelong interior struggles. After converting to Catholicism, which estranged him from his Anglican family, Hopkins burned much of the poetry that he had written, and even stopped writing for seven years. After ordination as a Jesuit priest, an assignment in Ireland left him feeling isolated and melancholy, thus giving rise to his so-called "terrible sonnets."

But somewhere in his darkness, Hopkins experienced God's light. He moved beyond self-reproach to divine acceptance. In one of my favorite poems, My Own Heart, he describes an interior conversation about accepting "God's smile" upon his complicated life.

My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforseen times rather — as skies
Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.

On his death bed with typhoid at the age of forty-four, Hopkins' last words were, "I am so happy. I am so happy. I loved my life." That's the sort of perfection of mercy in an imperfect person for which we should all hope.

NOTE: This essay is based upon the books by Matthew Hockenos, Then They Came for Me; Martin Niemöller, The Pastor Who Defied the Nazis (New York: Basic Books, 2018), 322pp; and Kate Hennessy, Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty; An Intimate Portrait of My Grandmother (New York: Scribner, 2017), 372pp.

Dan Clendenin: dan@journeywithjesus.net