Quote: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is not necessary that we should discover new ideas in our meditation. It is sufficient if the word as we read and understand it penetrates and dwells within us. As Mary pondered in her heart the tidings that were told by the shepherds, as what we have casually heard follows us for a long time, sticks in our mind, occupies, disturbs of delights us, without our ability to do anything about it, so in meditation God's word seeks to enter in and remain with us. It strives to stir us to work and to operate in us so that we shall not get away from it the whole day long. Then it will do its work in us without our being aware of it.

Quote: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Optimism

It is wiser to be pessimistic; it is a way of avoiding dissappointment and ridicule, and so wise people condemn optimism. The essence of optimism is not its view of the present, but the fact that it is the inspiration of life, and hope when others give in; it enables a man to hold his head high when everything seems to be going wrong; it gives him strength to sustain reverses and yet to claim the future for himself instead of abandoning it to his opponent. It is true that there is a silly, cowardly kind of optimism, which we must condemn. But the optimism that is will for the future should never be despised, even if it is proved wrong a hundred times; it is health and vitality, and the sick man has no business to impugn it. There are people who regard it as frivolous, and some Christians think it impious for anyone to hope and prepare for a better earthly future. they think that the meaning of present events is chaos, disorder, and catastrophe; and in resignation or pious escapism they surrender all responsibility for reconstruction and for future generations. It may be that the day of judgement will dawn tomorrow; and in that case, though not before, we shall gladly stop working for a better future.

Letters and Papers from Prison

The Call to Discipleship

Bonhoeffer begins his look at the call to be a disciple by examining a number of the stories of Jesus' early ministry recorded in the Gospels. He first points out the peremptory nature of that call — that in each case there is no "explanation" as to why someone responds toJesus's call. The call asks for a complete and immediatecommitmentt simply to follow. It is not a matter of calculation or evaluation but of obedience personally to Jesus himself.

While it would be rather conventional to say that such obedience is a result of belief, Bonhoeffer asserts that the converse is true as well. Neither is prior to the other: only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.

Since then we cannot adequately speak of obedience as the consequence of faith, and since we must never forget the indissolubleunity off the two, we must place the one proposition that only he who believes is obedient alongside the other, that only he who is obedient believes. In the one case faith is the condition of obedience, and in the other obedience is the condition of faith. In exactly the same way in which obedience is called the consequence of faith, it must also be called the presupposition of faith.

Only the obedient believe. If we believe we must follow a concrete command. Without this preliminary step of obedience, our faith will only be pious humbug, and lead us to the grace which is not costly. Everything depends on the first step. It has a unique quality of its own. The first step of obedience makes Peter leave his nets, and later get out of the ship. It calls upon the young man to leave his riches. Only this new existence, created through obedience, can make faith possible. (pp. 69-70)

Nothing easy about this, but I can understand it from my own life. There have been changes to my internal spiritual life that have lead to changes in behavior, to reconsidering decisions made and directions aimed at. But just as, or perhaps more often, it is the change in behavior, the decision to obey as best I understood in some area of my life, that has changed me internally and spiritually. It has never been a matter of becoming perfect, but of being willing to take the one step visible to me, then stepping out. I have been longer on belief than obedience, and Bonhoeffer points out that may not be really believing at all.

How much of what we see as faith really is empty, or as Bonhoeffer puts it, cheap?

Later: Bonhoeffer stresses that there is nothing in the Gospel text to indicate that any of the disciples knew Jesus personally at all before they were called. There are current scholars (such as John Pilch at Georgetown) that would disagree, saying that based on an understanding of First century CE Mediterranean culture and the environment in a place like Capernaum or Nazareth, we can assume that Jesus was well known to the disciples, and the call was just the end of one process and the beginning of another. And I think this may be true, for as far as it goes.

But I think Bonhoeffers basic point here still stands. This culural analysis is what we bring to examining this story. But we must remember that the one thing that the Gospel writers and the early church found important to record and remember in this story is simply that Jesus called, and the disciples obeyed, nothing more.

Cheap Grace (2)

So, how did the church in Germany (and many other Christians as well) go off the tracks so badly? Bonhoeffer says that one reason was making grace "the data for our calculations" instead of the sum:

At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess:

"I now do see that we can nothing know"

That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his own indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception. For acquired knowledge cannot be divorced from the experience in which it is acquired. The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves.(p.55)

Bonhoeffer is a theologian himself — he is unlikely to think proper theology a minor thing. But there is a key difference between knowing about Jesus, even in a most detailed way, and following him. Bonhoeffer states that while the church he belongs to is quite orthodox, he cannot be sure if it is still following Jesus. There is a point in the Christian life where experience does trump knowledge. And this points us to the basis of what valid Christian religious experience is. It must be rooted in discipleship, in obedience to God.

From here, Bonhoeffer wants to outline just what real discipleship is, by looking first in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and moving through the next few chapters.

Cheap Grace (1)

The first chapter of The Cost of Discipleship is it's best known, "Cheap Grace". To Bonhoeffer, the cause of the church's ills in Germany, if not everywhere is that while we can do nothing to earn or buy God's favor and grace, that grace is not without cost. If grace alone does everything, everything can remain as it is, we can live just like the rest of the world. It is a grace that is cheap instead of costly, and justifies sin instead of the sinner.

Cheap grace is

the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,
baptism without church discipline,
Communion without confession,
absolution without personal confession.

Cheap grace is

grace without discipleship,
grace without the Cross,
grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye that causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives man his only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. (pp. 47-48, reformatting mine)

It would be possible for a Catholic to be a little snarky at this point. (I originally wrote "easy" instead of "possible", but no comment can be made easily against such words, from such a speaker.) Such a comment would include some reference to the idea that works really are important after all. But that would be in error -- this is not a matter of faith vs. works. It is a matter, as we shall see, of who is in charge of your life, you or God? And it is clear that there is no shortage of cheap grace in the lives of many Catholics. This particularly includes myself.

Part of the challenge, or even adventure, of reading this book this Lent is finally getting past this chapter. In fact, I wonder if many readers have ever read past this chapter — such words from such a man better bring you up short, make you assess your own life. I have tried to read this book three times before, and each time was, to be honest, scared off. What could be waiting further in, with this beginning? It is not that I am any better Christian at this point in my life, but that the call to ministry drives me to confront many of these questions now. Bonhoeffer worked hard to make sure that his reader understood the consequence of ignoring these issues.

(Note: page numbers are from The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Collier Books paperback, 1963)

An Introduction

Just getting started, this first day of Lent, with my Lenten reading, The Cost of Discipleship (Nachfolge, auf Deutsch) by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (And yes, I am reading it in translation — even when I lived in Wiesbaden my German was never up to this.) Just to start off, I think that there are a couple of points to consider.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor and theologian in Germany between the two World Wars. Then, as well as now, both the Lutheran and Catholic Churches recieve the bulk of the so called church tax collected by the state. Bonhoeffer was dealing with an established church facing Hitler. In 1933, the Nazi government started to alter or combine many institutions, in order to take control of them. One of them was the so-called Protestant Reich Church, which was intended to swallow up all non-Catholic Christians. (The Nazi Party was always much more explicitly anti-Catholic, but many Nazi's tried to keep their ties to churches where they could, if these churches could be cleansed of so-called "foreign" or "non-ayran" elements.) Bonhoeffer was a leader in the Confessing Church movement, that attempted to keep an independent Protestant church alive in Germany. As I will bring up some other time, his oppostion to the Nazism took other forms as well. But it is true that the issue of how a Christian could work out the sometimes competing calls of Scripture and the institutional church, especially an established one. His answer was radical discipleship:

When the Bible speaks of following Jesus, it is proclaiming a discipleship which will liberate mankind from man-made dogmas, from every burden and opression, from every anxiety and torture that afflicts the conscience. If they follow Jesus, men escape from the hard yoke of their own laws, and submit to the kindly yoke of Jesus Christ. But does this mean that we ignore the seriousness of the demands? Far from it. We can only achieve perfect liberty and enjoy fellowship with Jesus when his command, his call to absolute discipleship, is appreciated in its entirety. Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest upon him, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, to those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. "His commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3). The commandment of Jesus is not some sort of spiritual shock treatment. Jesus asks nothing of us whithout giving us the strength to perform it. His commandment never seeks to destroy life, but to foster, strengthen, and heal it.

The nature of true discipleship is a fundamental topic of this book, which makes it perfect for Lent, when we try to return to a closer relationship with Jesus.

For Lent

And in these days of Lent they shall each receive a book from the library, which they shall read straight through from the beginning. These books are to be given out at the beginning of Lent.

The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 48

Well, while I have not finalized my choice on what to give up for Lent (I think it will be coffee again -- always a challenge) I do know what book I will try to work through. I think it's time to work straigt through Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. I have picked at this one on and off over the years, and backed off from it every time. It's more than a little challenging, in fact so forthright it's frightening. But with some of the things I am considering these days, I don't think I can put it off any longer. You can look forward to comments and excerpts in this space as Lent progresses. From Chapter 49 of the Rule, On the Observance of Lent:

During these days, therefore,
let us increase somewhat the usual burden of our service,
as by private prayers and by abstinence in food and drink.
Thus everyone of his own will may offer God
"with joy of the Holy Spirit" (1 Thess. 1:6)
something above the measure required of him.
From his body, that is
he may withold some food, drink, sleep, talking and jesting;
and with the joy of spiritual desire
he may look forward to holy Easter.

I wish you all a holy Lent.

He bids us to come and die

I was born almost 10 years after the end of the Second World War, and as I grew up, consciousness of the Shoah as a central moral issue grew -- I barely remember coverage of the trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann. By the time I was in high school, I was living in (then West) Germany while my father was stationed at Wiesbaden. While there, I visited Berlin, and as part of that trip, went to Plötzensee Prison, now maintained as a memorial. This is where many member of the German resistance to Hitler were executed. In my teens, as I started to become a more active Christian, and began to wonder about the role of our faith in that time. And then one day at the Fresno Bible House, I found Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Or, at least his Nachfolge, or The Cost of Discipleship. I moved on to some of his other works, then read about his own story as a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who opposed Hitler. Even though he had a job away from danger in England and other offers there and in the US, he chose to return to Germany to help start an underground seminary. He was a pacifist, but became involved in the plot against Hitler, unwilling to be a bystander. He was arrested, and just a few weeks before the end of the war, was executed by the SS at Flossenburg concentration camp.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of Bonhoeffer's death, and there is a brief discussion. along with the text of his April 30th, 1945 letter to Eberhard Bethge at Allelon. One section made a particular impression on me:

. . . I've come to be doubtful of talking about any human boundaries (is even death, which people now hardly fear, and is sin, which they now hardly understand, still a genuine boundary today?). It always seems to me that we are trying anxiously in this way to reserve some space for God; I should like to speak of God not on the boundaries but at the center, not in weaknesses but in strength; and therefore not in death and guilt but in man's life and goodness. As to the boundaries, it seems to me better to be silent and leave the insoluble unsolved. Belief in the resurrection is not the 'solution' of the problem of death. God's 'beyond' is not the beyond of our cognitive faculties. The transcendence of epistemological theory has nothing to do with the transcendence of God. God is beyond in the midst of our life. The church stands, not at the boundaries where human powers give out, but in the middle of the village. That is how it is in the Old Testament, and in this sense we still read the New Testament far too little in the light of the Old. . .

This letter includes a reference to one of Bonhoeffers more intriguing speculations, what he called "religionless Christianity." His reflection on that idea was cut off by his death.