Lenten Journey- Sunday 4- Uncompromising

Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things,
as is Christ himself.
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a letter to his brother

To compromise may be a brave thing to do in the right circumstances. But in others, we better not. The possibility might be that we would compromise our soul. Bonhoeffer was a very intense thinker. He did more mental and theological gymnastics to come to terms with things he felt were right- or wrong. As German culture and the German Church was descending into chaos and then the very center of hell itself under the Nazis, Bonhoeffer was shaken to his core by what was happening to the country he loved, the people he loved- and the church he loved. The quote above was made in a letter to his non-Christian brother when Bonhoeffer was organizing an illegal seminary, unapproved by the German Lutheran establishment. Dietrich was moving into dangerous territory and he knew it. Yet he had to do it.

Whether we agree with all his theological conclusions, or even begin to understand them from this perspective 75 years later, is not important. What is important is the challenge and the witness to what was important, essential, to being a Christian. These three could be in any order and make sense. But I think for Bonhoeffer he would put it this way.

As a professing Christian, he would insist on an

• Uncompromising Christocentrism.

Jesus, to Bonhoeffer, had to be at the center of the faith. But this was not in some narrow “What Would Jesus Do?” kind of idea. It was far more radical than that. In Jesus, God was showing that humanity, which God created, was worth the time and effort to save! The Incarnation was essential to the Christian life in the broadest sense possible. It made no sense without it.

Because of this the second thing for a Christian is

• Uncompromising discipleship.

He, of course wrote the classic book on that, Cost of Discipleship, which in its original German was simply Nachfolge, Following. In it he spoke of cheap versus costly grace. He did not see that we had to “pay” more to get grace- it was free. Rather, having received grace, we become willing to pay any price to follow Christ. We can do all kinds of our own theological gymnastics to try to understand, agree with, or argue with this. The point for me is that when I say I have received grace from the Creator, I have at that moment been called to live a particular kind of life. And then to live that life through everything I do. Easier said than done, but still the call!

The result of this in the Christian’s life is then

• Uncompromising compassion.

One of the first things that caused Bonhoeffer so much pain was the treatment the Jews in Germany were beginning to receive. His social justice interest was formed in the United States where he found the deepest and most profound faith among the African-American Churches in the midst of the deeply rooted racism. When he saw the same things happening to the Jews, he stood up.

His was not a narrow Christianity. He did not limit compassion to those who deserve it or those who were like him. He continued to be a pastoral presence in Tegel Prison- to guards as well as to other prisoners. He refused a cell on a cooler floor knowing that meant someone else would be put in his cell. He understood the dangers of narrow compassion and worked against it. His was not a faith that looked to life after death as the purpose of believing. It was far more important than that. It was about how we live each and every day.

Today is the 4th Sunday in Lent. We are nearing the half-way point of the Lenten journey. So far our themes have been:

• Being open to God’s daily interruptions.
• Trusting the Word of God.
• Taking an honest self-inventory.
• Giving the gift of truly listening to others.

I admit that now, after these three weeks, I must go deeper into the mystery of being a person of spirituality and faith. I must take some greater steps to understand how I am to follow the ways and will of my Higher Power. I must move away from my self-centered human ways and ask some tough questions of my self. They all follow from those three uncompromising stands that Bonhoeffer laid out.

1. Is Jesus Christ the center of my faith if I profess to be a follower of his? I can ask this in numerous ways to fit a broader context. Have I truly turned my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand God? Is the spiritual path truly at the center of who I am? I won’t know the answers to these questions unless I am open to that self-challenge of the honest inventory of my actions that speak louder than words what I truly follow.

2. Am I willing to pay the cost of discipleship? How will I know? In Twelve Step programs they ask it a different way- Are you willing to go to any length to get and stay sober?
This is a tough one to deal with. We won’t know how far we are willing to go until faced with the situations. I have absolutely no idea what I would have done in Bonhoeffer’s situation- and I pray I never have to find out. He himself wasn’t sure most of the time, either. He wrestled constantly with what he was doing and often took a step back when he thought it might harm someone else simply by association.

3. How can I live a life of uncompromising compassion in ways I have not done before? Where and how have I been less than compassionate this past week? Maybe I need to ask that question every night in the upcoming week and be ready to make amends as needed for I am sure there will be times and places every day when that will happen.

This week my daily inventory will need to include these three elements of a personal faith, as well as the awareness that this is not a simple tip of the hat to some theological idea. I have to take a close look at how I live this life.

Earlier this week The Contemplative Monk posted a quote from Dallas Willard that makes a perfect beginning to this week's opportunities to be interrupted by God in our daily lives:

The gospel is less about getting into the Kingdom of Heaven after you die and more about how to live in the Kingdom of Heaven before you die.

Lenten Journey- Sunday 5- For the Children

The ultimate test of a moral society is
the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Unknown source

It is always helpful for me to remember that Bonhoeffer grew up in what was considered one of the more civilized countries. Culture, science, theology had all flourished in Germany for decades and decades. They excelled in music- the home of Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach. They gave us Goethe, Schiller, and Remarque; Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Count Zinzendorf, and Martin Luther. He himself was from an aristocratic family. His family pedigree was as good as it gets. His father was a well-respected and honored doctor of psychiatry in Berlin. His brother would become lead attorney for Lufthansa Airlines.

In the early 1930s they all watched with increasing horror as this great heritage was run over by brown-shirted thugs bent on undoing everything German and making it into their empire. For Bonhoeffer seeing Luther become an adjunct to Aryan theology while the church went along was the ultimate degradation. The source of moral direction, the church, was helpless at best and complicit in horrific evil at worst.

Bonhoeffer was not alone in this view of course. Many, even within the German Army (Abwehr) were horrified at what Hitler had done to their proud military heritage through the SA, the SS, and the Gestapo. The plots to undermine and then assassinate Hitler formed from the Abwehr where Bonhoeffer was working as a double agent with them against Hitler. He was convinced, with solid reason and evidence, that Hitler and his supporters were not just bad, but truly evil. Against such evil, victory will be very difficult and costly. It might even be he would have to wish for - and support - the defeat of his own country in war.

In the midst of all these conflicting concerns and feelings, Bonhoeffer worked on what he hoped would be his greatest work. It was started in the early 1940s and was his constant task during his time in prison. He never finished it but it has been cited by David P. Gushee, director of Mercer University's Center for Theology and Public Life as one of the five best books on patriotism. It was simply titled Ethik, Ethics in English.

For Bonhoeffer Christlikeness is at the center of ethics. No greater moral standard would there be but becoming as much like Christ as possible. An online overview describes Bonhoeffer’s thinking in this way:

All separation, fragmentation, and binary thinking must now be overcome. The practice of ethics, therefore, is not the division of the world into good and evil; instead, the goal of ethics is the full reintegration of all humanity into the divine reality revealed in Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer thus sees the merging of secular reality and divine reality as imperative; separate, they, too, form a binary conceptualization to be overcome. ("Ethics - Overview" Literary Essentials: Christian Fiction and Nonfiction Ed. John K. Roth. eNotes.com, Inc. 2007 eNotes.com 30 Mar, 2017 )

Simply put, Bonhoeffer’s ethics was therefore not a list of right and wrong, a code of behavior, or even judgement. It was the living out of one’s Christlikeness thanks to the work of God. It was always based on God’s acceptance of humans and God's love for humanity. Jesus does not love a moral code, but people. Each of us must “create his or her own moral behavior within the frame of his or her own Jesus-Christ consciousness.” (Same citation as above).

It is an over-simplification to say that this is a summary of the basic of his ethics, but without going into great theological and academic depths, it does seem to be a decent summary. It can therefore be our jumping of point for this Fifth Sunday of Lent and the week ahead. Keeping it simple and concise is important or we will end up playing all the old theological games like the number of angels on the head of a pin.


What about the world we leave to our children?


With that in mind here are the themes I am going to work on in my Lenten journey this week.

• Christ-consciousness
• Christ-likeness. 

Then, bringing them together into

• How can my actions, not just my thoughts, help bring about a world where the moral example of God’s love is lived and 
• How can my actions today help make this a more moral, I.e. God-directed world?
• How can my actions help make this a better world, one we are proud to leave to the next generations?
  

We humans tend to be very short-sighted. If it's good for me right now, the long term consequences are not even added into the equation. Hence issues like climate change can be challenged and disbelieved since it isn't imperative TODAY. Why should I care about 50 years from now?  Someone, sometime will find a solution to these long-term problems, is the "optimistic" take on this. The reality is not so rosy.

A number of years ago I asked a confirmation class the then popular question:

What would Jesus do?

The answer was quick and concise.

We know what Jesus would do. We just don't do it.

But most of the time we don't even ask the question to try to figure out how we should act if we are to be Christ-like. We don't spend much more than a nano-second to check in our the Christ-consciousness within us. 

God has been interrupting me these Lenten weeks, getting into my face at times. I must now be prepared to do something with that. This week, then, is a good time to bring all these weeks together and use the Christ-consciousness we have been cultivating during Lent to be more Christ-like in our actions. It is a good time as we prepare for Palm Sunday and Holy Week next week, to put a few more pieces of awareness and spirit into my life.

[Note: This week's quote is one of the most often repeated of all the quotes I found from Bonhoeffer. What is interesting is that I cannot find a source. I did a bunch of searches in many places and the quote has not yet popped up. I have found almost all the other quotes in the Metaxas biography which I have been reading this Lenten season. But not this one. It may very well be in a book of sermons or letters that I have not yet found- or one that is not digitized for easy online searching. Whatever the situation, it is certainly well known- and one that should not be ignored.]

Lenten Journey- Palm Sunday- Stopping the Wheel

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in an essay to theologians and theological students

The question that always hovers around any discussion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is his participation in the surprisingly widespread plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. While he himself was not anywhere near being the assassin, his work with the Abwehr (German Army) as a double agent was connected with the overall plotting and planning. (It also kept him from being drafted and sent to the front.) He was involved in the plans almost from the beginning and gave it his complete support, knowing full well what the consequences would be. Many, myself included, have struggled with that position. Many debates have been held - and will continue to be held - among people who wonder if that was an appropriate thing for a Christian pastor and theologian to do.

His most famous justification for his actions is the example he used of needing to stop a runaway bus from killing many people. If it took shooting the driver, he said, it was appropriate in order to save more lives. Even if it is a sin, he said, he must risk that to stop evil. In an essay for theological students he used the quote above as a description of what he was doing. He was committed to bringing the wheels of injustice and evil to a halt once and for all.

I did not live in that time. I do not live in a place that is anywhere near as awful as Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. We too often throw words like Nazi and the name of Hitler around as if we know what we are talking about. Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived in a time and place that was filled with and governed by evil. There was no apparent human caring in Hitler, Himmler, or Goering. The SS and Gestapo were as inhuman as any army has ever been. The whole direction of the Nazi vision was anti-religion, anti-God, anti-any life but their own. Words like compassion, kindness, or grace have absolutely no meaning in their world. We have seen far too many of such people and situations in the past century. They are still happening in parts of the world. But what we have in our histories of World War II gives us an unprecedented example of how easily and quickly an otherwise civilized society can devolve into hatred, anger, fear, and unrestrained death. That must not be downplayed or overlooked!

In reading Eric Metaxas’s biography of Bonhoeffer I have come to a deeper appreciation of what this deeply faithful and faith-filled man was facing. Metaxas makes it clear that it was not an easy decision for Bonhoeffer. He did not take it lightly. He took his faith very seriously and its role in his life was paramount. At the very end of his life he continued to exhibit a calm and a “presence” that astonished his fellow prisoners and the guards who watched them. He saw death, at the end, as a road to freedom. He was able to combine his deep faith with the needs of those around him and face the situations without any outward fear. He was convinced he was doing what was right and went ahead and did it. All the things I have talked about in the previous weeks of Lent were all combined at the end to propel him forward with certainty in the resurrection of Jesus Christ! His faith was as real as it can be!

There has been much talk in the US in the past three months about resistance and even revolution. Some have pointed to Nazi Germany in the 1930s as someplace to learn from, hence the look to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his faith. We are, at this point, far from that level of extremism. But that only makes it more imperative that those of us who feel strongly need to know what is happening and learn what potential actions we can engage in. It has been and will continue to be a time of contention, disagreement, fear, anger, and a multitude of emotions. In our country we have seen many things challenged that we thought were being taken care of- civil rights, women’s rights, the environment to name a few. We have seen a series of potential scandals and ongoing investigations, the extent of which we have never seen in our lifetimes. We watch as saber-rattling becomes the norm. We argue over walls and immigration, refugees and the Biblical idea of sanctuary cities.

Which brings us to Holy Week- the central activity of Jesus that makes clear why we Christians are to follow him. In Jesus, Bonhoeffer would say, we see God’s view of being human.

• We see in the life of Jesus the life that every Christian should strive for. 
• We see in Holy Week the suffering that Jesus was willing to undergo for humanity. 
• We see on Maundy Thursday the call to servant obedience he gave to his followers. 
• We see on Good Friday the ultimate personal sacrifice of self for others. And, to use Bonhoeffer’s quote, we see how far God in and through Jesus was willing to go to drive a spoke into the wheel of evil and injustice.

Today, Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem to cheers and acclaim. The people are all on his side. They will be so- until it becomes inconvenient. Leaving aside all the theological niceties and sermon themes I have preached and we have all heard, what is there about Palm Sunday and Holy Week to challenge us in the year 2017? What is there to remind us of the direction of God’s will, the power of God’s love, the vision of how we as humans are called to live? As I go through this week I will have shorter posts each day to help me focus on how this week can guide us. In some ways, even though many churches focus on the whole Passion narrative, it is still only Palm Sunday. It is the day of hope and joy, even as we know what is about to happen. That gives us the opportunities to prepare.

In my preparations this week, even as I cheer Jesus, I know that all around are things to pay attention to- the things that Jesus paid attention to, as, for example, he drove the money changers from the Temple before retiring to Bethany.

• Where am I seeing the signs of injustice?

• How do I participate in these acts of injustice and evil, even if it is “only” by my silence?

• What are the ways I can care for the victims of injustice and evil? That is important. But if I do nothing to stand up to the evil we will all continue to be overwhelmed with more victims than we can handle.

• What are the ways I can name these signs of evil?

• How can refuse to go along with the evil

• In the end, how can I help in the actions to stop the evil?

Not easy questions, and the answers are even more difficult. But it is what Jesus did in Holy Week. Can I do anything less?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In Memory:

April 9, 1945

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

was executed by the Nazis at

Flossenburg Concentration Camp.

He was 39 years old.