Christians and Pagans

Christians and Pagans
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

People go to God in their time of need,
pray for help, ask for fortune and bread,
for being delivered from sickness, guilt and death.
All of them do so, Christians and pagans.

People go to God in God's time of need,
they find him poor, scorned, without shelter and bread,
they see him involved with sin, weakness and death,
Christians stand with their God in God's suffering.

God goes to all people in their time of need,
satisfies body and soul with his bread,
God dies for Christians and pagans alike on the cross,
and forgives them both.

Probably written July, 1944.

Letters and Papers from Prison (originally in 1953)
The Enlarged edition, 1977.
Edited by Eberhard Bethe