Anyone who has read widely in the Bonhoeffer corpus knows that Bonhoeffer was understandably disheartened and sometimes disgusted by the way in which most of the German Protestant Church—especially its leaders—had abandoned the gospel for Nazi ideology. But as he reflects on Matthew 10, he reminds himself and his readers that if our work is truly shaped by the call of Jesus, then we, like him, feel sadness, weep for the brokenness of those co-opted by Nazi lies, and do acts of mercy out of love—for those sheep without a shepherd.
