Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (20)

 

 

“Wherever one member happens to be, whatever one member happens to do, it always takes place ‘within the body,’ within the church-community, ‘in Christ’” (page 216).

 

Bonhoeffer follows the above with brief comments on the following Scriptures: Phil. 4:13; 2 Cor. 13:4; Rom. 16:9, 12; 1 Cor. 15:58; Phil. 4:4; 2 Cor. 2:17; Phil. 2:1; Rom. 16:2; 1 Cor. 7:39; Phil. 1:13, 23; 1 Cor. 7:22. (I hope we see how Scripture is embedded in Bonhoeffer and how Bonhoeffer is embedded in Scripture.)

 

Then he writes, “The whole breath of human relationships among Christians is encompassed by Christ, by the church-community” (page 216).

 

(The more I ponder Part 2 of Discipleship, the more convinced I am of the benefit of reading Bonhoeffer’s Life Together alongside it, for in Life Together Bonhoeffer succinctly lays out the foundational principles and actions for sharing daily life in Christ.)

 

On page 216 Bonhoeffer tells us that all members of the Body of Christ ought to participate in all facets of life together, not just in communal worship. He writes that if we limit the participation of others, the sharing of others in our communal life, that we sin against the body of Christ, we sin against our Lord Jesus. We are to share our daily lives with one another, and sharing our daily lives means sharing our resources.

 

“To deny them [those in need] the provisions necessary for this earthly life, or to leave them knowingly in affliction and distress, is to make a mockery of the gift of salvation and to behave like a liar. When the Holy Spirit has spoken, but we still continue to listen to the voice of our race, our nature, or our sympathies and antipathies, we are profaning the sacrament” (pages 216-217, italics mine).

 

How does Bonhoeffer challenge us? How should he challenge us? How should Scripture challenge us?

 

Let me suggest that sharing our resources entails more than simply material goods and money. While money and material goods are an integral part of our resources, there are other critical resources as well, resources which can only be shared through relationships. These are the resources of life experience and knowledge.

 

Some of us have been exposed to areas of life which are foreign to others, I’ll take banking and financial management as an example. Most of you reading this think nothing of walking into a bank to open an account, yet we have many brothers and sisters in our own land who have never been inside a bank, or are intimated by the thought of going to a bank to open an account or deal with a problem. When they need to pay a bill with other than cash, they often go to a convenience store to purchase a money order.

 

We also have brothers and sisters who fall victim to predatory lending practices because they don’t know any better.

 

When I was in property management, I sadly saw instances of predatory landlords who intimated their tenants, employing unlawful and unenforceable policies which the tenants accepted because they didn’t know any better. Had the tenants been acquainted with the world that many of us live in, they would have known that the policies and practices were likely illegal.

 

We ought to all learn from one another, everyone has something to teach the rest of us; walls of separation stifle the glory of the Body of Christ.

 

Biblical church-community is more than a weekly, or twice weekly, gathering. Also, while it ought to certainly be in the context of a local congregation, it must go beyond the local congregation into the town or city, region, country, and world – we ought to be a “church without borders,” a church without national borders, denominational borders, economic and sociological borders, racial and ethnic borders; in Jesus Christ we are One People, One Church, One Temple; Christ has One Body and only One Body. We ought not to accept anything less…and yet we not only accept it, when pressed we justify it.

 

Living in church-community must be more than what we think of as worship gatherings, it must be a shared way of life in Christ. One toxic result of our failure to live in the community which Christ offers us is that we find our identity elsewhere: in political movements, national movements, economic and social movements, and in so much more. The current situation in the United States bears testimony to this, the church has no distinct testimony, no “space” as Bonhoeffer terms it, we cannot be identified with Jesus Christ as a heavenly people, we are not living in communion with one another. Our brothers and sisters come to us for refuge, and we either politically participate in their violent rejection and expulsion, or we quietly acquiesce. Those of us who do attempt to help the “stranger” according to Biblical commands, are overwhelmed with opposition within and without the professing church.

 

Bonhoeffer writes within the milieu of Christian nationalism, let us not forget that. Are we profaning the sacrament?

 

On pages 217 and 218 Bonhoeffer explores in detail Paul’s letter to Philemon. I am not going to work through Bonhoeffer’s thoughtful analysis of Philemon, I hope you will do that on your own. Here is a quote from that section, “We see each other exclusively as members of the body of Christ, that is, as all being one in him,” (page 218).

 

“The church-community can never consent to any restrictions of its service of love and compassion toward other human beings. For wherever there is a brother or sister, there Christ’s own body is present; and wherever Christ’s body is present, his church-community is always present, which means I must also be present there” (pp. 218 – 219).

 

O dear friends, we must be the Body of Christ before we are anything else. We are, after all, citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20).

 

The Name

 

 

Consider the place the Divine Name holds in the Holy of Holies:

 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me” (John 17:6).

 

“Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me” (17:11).

 

“I was keeping them in You name which You have given Me” (17:12).

 

“I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (17:26).

 

Why does Jesus manifest the Name of the Father to us? So that the love of the Father will be within us, so that Jesus Christ Himself will live within us. One of the reasons it is important that we keep this in mind is that it guards against esoteric and gnostic ideas of the Divine Name. Too often professing Christians get caught up in signs and wonders and so-called special knowledge, these distract us from Jesus, His Cross, and deep relationship within the Trinity.

 

A friend once asked me what I thought about two “blood moons” happening within a short time of each other. It seems that a prophetic snake oil teacher was hyping blood moons. I told him that I wasn’t aware of the impending phenomenon. Actually, the only reasons I might care about blood moons are to admire God’s creation, to note how easily distracted from Jesus we can get, and to marvel how quickly so-called teachers can make a buck in the prophetic teaching industry. The same principle is true when it comes to people seeking hidden meanings in a divine name, our Father is interested in relationship, that is the whole point in Jesus declaring the Father’s Name to us – our dear heavenly Father is not going to give us some secret divine code by which we unlock deep secrets which are hidden from others. Our Father desires relationship, not people who think they are elite, not egotists; as we “see” Jesus we come to know the Divine Name, His Essence, His Name.

 

Now, for sure there are hidden treasures and wisdom, but we find them in Jesus. “In a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2 – 3; see also 1 Corinthians Chapter 2). Life is really a matter of who we know (Jesus Christ), not what we know. If the “what we know” flows from knowing Jesus, it has life; if the “what we know” is learned apart from a relationship with Jesus, it is death. There is much lifeless Christianity, but thankfully, there is also much life in Christ.

 

I will also note that throughout the Bible God uses names to reveal Himself, His Essence, His Character. He uses names to reveal His Name. These names are not magical, they are not given to us so that we can use them in religious incantations; they are meant to draw us into relationship with Him, ever deeper into Him. As we meditate on His names, by His grace, we can see His beauty and glories and love Him ever deeper and fuller, beholding the wonder of His Nature and His incredible love for us.

 

All the names which God uses in the Bible reveal Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ reveals the Name within the names.

 

“For both He who sanctifies [Jesus] and those who are sanctified [us] are all from one Father, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, ‘I will proclaim You name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise” (Hebrews 2:11- 12).

 

From the very beginning of His ministry, in word and deed, Jesus proclaimed the Name of the Father to His brothers and sisters.  Jesus’ teaching revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ care and compassion and mercy revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ healing and deliverance from demons revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ feeding the multitudes revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ touching the untouchable revealed the Father’s Name, Gethsemane and Golgotha revealed the Father’s Name, the Resurrection and Ascension revealed the Father’s Name.

 

Jesus continues to reveal the Father’s Name to us (John 17:26); let us not be distracted by lesser things that pose as the Gospel, as Biblical Christianity. Let us not be distracted by the things of this world.

 

Jesus came to proclaim the Father’s Name to us, His brothers and sisters. We didn’t know who we were, we didn’t know who our Father was, we didn’t know His Name, His Nature, nor the glory of our calling to Him in Jesus Christ, the Father’s only begotten Son and our elder brother (Hebrews 2:9 – 18; Romans 8:12 – 39).

 

But now we know and are coming to know. As Jesus reveals the Father’s Name to us, we in turn are to reveal the Father’s Name to others, as we abide in the Vine.

 

I’m going to close this with some thoughts I sent to a friend this morning on Hebrews 2:12:

 

As I have been pondering Heb 2:12...I have a picture of Jesus and the disciples beneath a canopy of stars...and Jesus singing. Also Zeph. 3:17...and elsewhere.

 

O yes...singing elsewhere...at the Temple, in synagogue...but one who sings, who really sings...sings as a way of life...yes?

 

I think so.

 

Did Jesus teach them new songs?

 

Did He teach them to sing Bible passages they never thought of singing?

 

Did those songs resonate with them until their last breath?

 

O to sing a song, just one song, with Jesus.

 

Shall we do so today?

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (19)

 

 

On page 214 Bonhoeffer asks whether visible physical space for proclamation, worship, and order is enough for the church-community, and the answer is that space is also required for the daily lives of its members – we must have space to live together, what he terms elsewhere, life together. (Bonhoeffer’s little book, Life Together, is highly recommended for individuals, churches, and small groups. Its patterns and principles apply to all times and places for they are rooted in Christ and Scripture.)

 

Jesus’s koinonia with His disciples reaches into “all areas of life” (page 214), and our entire lives are to be lived “within the community of disciples.” Bonhoeffer reminds us that “We belong to Him.” We also belong to one another.

 

In directing our attention to Acts 2:42ff and 4:32ff, Bonhoeffer points to the depth of the visible community.

 

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to koinonia, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). Bonhoeffer notes that community (koinonia) finds its place between teaching/proclamation and sacrament (the breaking of bread, the Lord’s Supper). “The community springs ever anew from the word of proclamation, and continues to find its goal and fulfillment in the Lord’s Supper” (page 214). Community “begins and ends in worship” (page 215).

 

“And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them…For there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:32, 34).

 

Bonhoffer writes, “Even the material things and goods of this life are assigned their proper priority. Here a perfect community is established freely, joyfully, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, a community in which ‘there was not a needy person’” (page 215).

 

This is a hard truth for those of us in the West to absorb, most especially for those in North America. We immediately become defensive and seek to dismantle Bonhoeffer’s call to obedience to koinonia in Christ. We argue that the early chapters of Acts portray a special circumstance in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church and that it is limited to that time and place.

 

Such argument is counter to the Nature of Jesus Christ, the One who lives in His Body; He emptied Himself for us all, and for “our sakes He became poor.” Beyond that, as Paul demonstrates in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9, with his incorporation of the Old Testament, financial and material care for one another is to be found not only in our immediate setting, but is to extend across national, ethnic, and social boundaries.

 

It is a shame that we have Christians struggling for food, health care, housing, and basic necessities in our own land, when minutes away are other Christians who have more than enough, but who live in isolation from their brethren in need. It is a shame that within congregations our so-called Christian family ties are only to be found for an hour or two on Sunday or perhaps an hour or two during the week, beyond that we are strangers…and we certainly want our bank accounts to be strangers.

 

Perhaps the greatest shame is that we are not honest enough to admit our rejection of Scripture, not honest enough to acknowledge our selfishness, and not truthful enough to say, “Yes, the Bible does teach that none of us should be in need, but we choose not to obey that teaching and live in such community in Christ.”

 

I am ashamed of my own life as I read Bonhoeffer, the Bible, and write these words. I am a man under conviction.    

 

Let me point out, with respect to Acts and 2 Corinthians, that while the local expressions of koinonia were different, that the underlying principle was the same. In Acts there was a large community fund from which the needs of those in want were met. Since this fund included proceeds from the sale of land, we might think of it as a “superfund.” In Corinth Paul extends the vision of the local church across the sea to Judea, encouraging the Corinthians to join with the Thessalonians (who were in poverty) in providing for the Christians in Judea. In doing so, Paul invokes Israel’s experience with manna in the Wilderness, all of God’s People are to be provided for – both near and afar. This is what we should expect from the Body of Christ, this is the Nature of Jesus Christ.

 

While our local expressions and methods may be different, the principle and result should be the same, we are to care for, and serve, one another. We are stewards of what God has given us, we are not owners.

 

In the United Sates, we think we are free, but we are actually prisoners of consumption, of “mine, mine, mine,” and of isolation from one another, as individuals and as people groups. When we try to find community we cannot do so, for we have built our own prisons.

 

What to do?

 

It seems to me that we must begin with an admission of individual and collective guilt. Beyond that, what can we do but cry out to Jesus Christ to help us and to show us His Way? Perhaps we could simply ask, “Lord Jesus, teach us Your Way of koinonia, of loving and caring for one another, of truly living as Your Body on this earth for the short time we are here. May we love others more today than we did yesterday, may we give more today – of ourselves and of the resources that You have given us – than we did yesterday. Teach us, dear Lord Jesus, to be faithful to You and to others.”

 

Of course this takes courage. Courage to cry out to Jesus. Courage to respond to Him. Courage to give of ourselves and our resources. Courage to be vulnerable. Courage to reach out to both those we already know, and to those we don’t know. Courage to cross economic, social, ethnic, racial, and geopolitical divides.

 

Well, for sure, in Christ, we can be “strong and very courageous,” trusting in Jesus, always trusting in Jesus (Joshua 1:6 – 9).

Everything from the Father

 

 

“Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You.”

 

In John 17:6 – 8 we see that the disciples realized that what Jesus was giving to them, the Father was giving to Jesus. The disciples received Jesus’ words, they understood that Jesus came from the Father, they believed that the Father sent the Son.

 

Notice the emphasis on their understanding and believing that Jesus came from the Father. As imperfect as their faith was, the disciples had a bedrock recognition of where Jesus came from, and from whom Jesus came from. Even Peter who would shortly deny Jesus, even Thomas who would refuse to believe the Resurrection, had this bedrock recognition which would ensure that the house would stand against the flood about to assail them (Matthew 7:24 – 27).

 

For some 3 ½ years the disciples had been “receiving” the words the Father had given to Jesus. Jesus Himself, His words and His deeds, along with the Holy Spirit, validated these words, the Word, Every day the words of Jesus were validated, every day the words of Jesus grew within the disciples (all but one), with their eyes, their ears, their souls, their hearts and their minds, they received the words of Jesus.

 

No doubt the disciples, even more so than the crowds, “Were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt. 7:29).  

 

As Peter expressed, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68 – 69).

 

We might recall the Parable of the Sower, which might better be termed the Parable of the Soil, for the soil determines the growth of the seed. Seed planted in shallow soil may initially appear good and healthy, but it will soon wither and die. Seed planted on rocky soil will soon be snatched away by birds. Seed planted among thorns sprout but are choked and unfruitful.

 

We see in the good soil of the eleven disciples that the growth process has its challenges; this includes moments of unbelief, even moments of apparently taking the side of the enemy (Mt. 16:23), and moments of desertion and outright denial. We note, for example in the life of Peter, that this process continues after the Resurrection (Acts 10, Galatians 2), as indeed we can expect in all of our lives.

 

Consider Paul’s words to the Thessalonians, “We also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).

 

And then Peter, “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).

 

Then James, “Receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).

 

Can we “see” that the Word is alive and working within those who receive it in good soil? Can we see that the Word is not data, it is not “information,” it is not human knowledge, it is not even moral and ethical wisdom (though it does have ethical and moral wisdom of the highest nature), the Word is mysteriously Divine (John 1:1-5, 14 – 16) and we can no more explain or define the Word than we can the Incarnation, Baptsim, the Eucharist, or the Body of Christ.

 

And here is the difference, the great divide, between the good soil and all other soils, the good soil, as the Thessalonians, receive the Word “not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.”

 

The Word performs its work in those who believe, in those who allow its roots to grow deep (which often occurs in times of drought), in those who allow the Word to live within them and become their Way of Life (see Psalm 1).

 

The Word must be received not as the word of men, but as the very Word of God. Also, as Peter writes, “Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God” (1 Peter 4:11).

 

Sadly, we live in a time in which many false “Christian” teachers speak with authority, and in which many who actually teach the truth speak as the scribes, apologetically, passively, without authority.

 

Too many good men and women do their people a disservice when they fail to decisively proclaim the Word of God. False teachers have no problem speaking with authority, and people follow them, masses of professing Christians are following them as I write this. Yet, good women and good men do not speak or act as if the Word of God is indeed the Word of God…perhaps the reasons are many, perhaps they think things will get better, that people will come to their senses.

 

I doubt the masses of professing Christians will come to their senses. However, if they do, it will not be because of those preachers and teachers and professors who held back and did not proclaim the Word of God. If they don’t, then those who have failed to proclaim the Gospel will be accountable and will have missed the glorious opportunity to follow the Lamb wherever He goes, they will have missed the koinonia of the sufferings of Christ (2 Tim. 4:1 – 5; 2 Cor. 5:9 – 15). As has been pointed out many times over the generations, God has not called us to success, but to faithfulness.

 

But of course this is about all of us, not just about the disciples in the Upper Room, not just about preachers and pastors and teachers and professors, it is about all of us who claim Jesus Christ as Lord, who profess to belong to Him. Are we receiving the words of Jesus as they truly are, the Word of God? If so, are we speaking that Word to those around us, as it truly is, the Word of God?

 

We can hardly blame others if they do not believe us if we speak as the scribes, without authority. We can hardly blame others if we are apologetic about what Jesus says. We can hardly blame others if they see through our religion and see that we do not really believe what we say, if they see that we are not sold out for Jesus.

 

But others can certainly blame us for not sharing with them the life-giving news, the Gospel, of Jesus Christ. For as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus has sent us, He has sent you and me – and our choice is between obedience and disobedience, there is no middle ground, there has never been a middle ground and there will never be a middle ground (Mark 8:34 – 38; John 17:18; 20:21).

 

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we only have warrant to speak His Word, we are not to add to His Word nor detract from it. The Gospel is not Jesus plus this or that, no matter how important we may think “this or that” to be. When we add “this or that” we adulterate the Gospel and we soil our hearts. Jesus only spoke what He heard from the Father, and we are called to only speak that which Jesus Christ has spoken. We are citizens of heaven, dear friends, citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:30).

 

Do we know that everything that Jesus speaks is from the Father? Are we living like we believe this? Is there evidence to convict us of our belief? Does this evidence include our speaking the Word of God to others, with authority and not as the scribes?