25 July 2006

Pressing on with Douglas John Hall as he looks at "The Church and the Cross."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, especially his first major book, The Cost of Discipleship, were a poignant and searing cry to his fellow Christians in both Europe and the West in general to realize at last that the discipleship of Jesus Christ is a serious business; it is not all the sweetness and light of Sunday morning ritual, confirmation at age twelve, pretty weddings, solemn funerals, the pageantry of state occasions. It is a quest for and a witness to truth in the midst of societies that lie, for authentic goodness in the midst of societies that reward duplicity, for true beauty in the midst of societies that celebrate kitsch and sentimentality. Above all, it is a call to obedience in the midst of a society and church that offer "cheap grace." For many of us it was Bonhoeffer's work more than any other that caused us to consider anew - or for the first time, really - this unmistakable claim of the New Testament that the discipleship of Jesus Christ entailed suffering.

When "special interests" demand allegiance lies begin. When those special interests find a more dominant place in the life of a community of people, the best of what a people can be is easily lost. Such things as common goodness are easily dismissed. The excuse is often that there is a greater good that is needed. What was that greater good in Nazi Germany...a return of land...a return of respect...a return to moral integrity...Hum...and that came through such a process of annihilation called the holocaust?!? As we all know, as this was taking place...as things were being made "better" in Germany, the churches did not stand up against this form of self-centered interests that were willing to remove a whole people from the face of the world simply to have the world as they wanted it - not as it actually was. To speak up in such a time as this was not something done without costs. To speak up within the radical love and justice and mercy of the Reign of Jesus was to live contrary to the powers who wanted to maintain and increase control. For the Reign of peace to be established among any country means that those who claim to be followers of Jesus need to be blessed with voices that will cry out in resistance. This will mean the church that likes to simply go along with the powers that be and the world they would build will become a part of those powers and the followers of Jesus will have to speak out against the powers in all forms.

Connection: Today, return to the one who calls us beloved - all of us. In the middle of that journey, watch to see how many times we will see how the powers of our world act quite contrary to that reality and attempt to win our hearts and minds and lives.

Lord be for us the power of life that will give us insight and then courage and then the life that will indeed live contrary to the powers of our day so that there will be a living presence of your love available and willing to be vulnerable for the sake of all. Amen.