In every office he occupied in his long ecclesial life, right through bishop of Rome, Francis was ever the pastor close to his flock. And like all the best pastors, he was just as much of a teacher as any professor is.
But he taught differently. Many would say he taught by his actions, and that’s true enough. But what I mean is that his denkform—a German word for one’s overall pattern of thinking—was different. Above all, Francis taught using contrast-images. The contrast-image juxtaposes two options faced by believers. This approach has a deeply biblical heritage in the image of “the two ways,” such as the first psalm, which starkly contrasts the way of the righteous—“like a tree planted near streams of water”—with the way of the wicked, who are like “chaff driven by the wind.” Or think of Moses setting the law before the Israelites as a choice between the way of life and the way of death. Jesus’ preaching is filled with such contrasts: building on sand versus building on rock, the prideful wealthy Pharisee and the poor widow, the rich man and Lazarus, the foolish virgins and the wise ones, the sheep and the goats.
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