Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sundays 7:15-8:00pm - The Storehouse (H201)

8/10/14 Introduction Chapter 1 – Community

8/17/14 Chapter 2 – The Day with Others

8/24/14 Chapter 3 – The Day Alone Chapter 4 – Ministry

8/31/14 Chapter 5 – Confession and Communion

Contact Info: Ted Amey - ted.amey@asburyumcmadison.com 256-684-4942 Susan Taylor - susan.taylor@asburyumcmadison.com 256-656-4353

Life Together – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Introduction

:: Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed in April of 1945; a tablet in his memory was placed in the church of Flossenburg that read:

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a witness of Jesus Christ among his brethren. Born February 4, 1906, in Breslau. Died April 9, 1945 in Flossenburg.”

:: What would you want your epitaph to read?

:: His life, death and writings exemplify simple, downright faith and are still a living witness.

:: He wrote in terms of “insistent realism” and believed that Christianity is responsible, obedient action with the discipleship of Christ in every situation of concrete everyday life.

:: When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

:: At 16, he knew he wanted to study theology and studied under great Berlin scholars.

:: At 21, he presented his doctoral thesis, a study of the communion of the saints and in a later dissertation he defined the position and significance of dialectical theology (which basically means we can’t know God through our own reasoning, but only through His word).

:: Came to New York in 1930 serving on theological faculty and was fascinated by Negro spirituals, later introducing them to his students in Germany.

:: When he returned to Berlin, he wrote his first book, Creation and the Fall, about the first 3 chapters of Genesis, and served as a pastor.

:: In 1933 he delivered a lecture broadcast flaying the German public for hankering after a leader who would become a misleader, Hitler.

:: In 1935 he shared a common life with 25 vicars, which was life together, the life of the Christian community.

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:: Bonhoeffer authored the following books: o Life Together o The Cost of Discipleship o Ethics o The Prayer Book of the Bible: An Introduction to the Psalms

:: He learned of secret plans to overthrow Hitler and made the decision to continue on as part of the resistance movement to make this happen, “a Christian must accept his responsibility as a citizen of this world where God has placed him.”

:: On April 5, 1943 Bonhoeffer was put in prison and on April 9, 1945 he was hanged.

:: He is still remembered for his profound theological and Biblical insight and yet still close to the contemporary life and sensitivity to reality.

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Life Together – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Chapter 1 Community

:: This is about life together under the Word.

:: We, as Christians, belong not in cloistered seclusion but in the thick of foes.

:: I will sow them among the people and they will remember me in far countries. Zechariah 10:9

:: We are a scattered people who must dwell among nonbelievers until God gathers His elect at the end of time.

:: It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather together visibly in the world to share God’s Word and sacrament.

:: Christian exiles share in the heavenly fellowship through God’s word.

:: The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.

:: At Asbury, one reason we are called to go to the ends of the earth is to encourage and strengthen our brothers and sisters in far away places.

:: The fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace which is bestowed in various forms:

o A brief visit of a Christian brother to one in exile o Greetings in letters o Common worship on Sundays o Families o Seminarians

:: Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ: o We need others because of Jesus Christ o A Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ o In Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time,

united for eternity

:: Our righteousness is an “alien righteousness” that comes from outside of us, through the Word of God in Jesus Christ.

:: We need our brothers and sisters to speak the Word of God to us.

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:: Jesus Christ, as our Brother, is our instruction in divine love.

:: The more we received, the more we were able to give; the more meager our brotherly love, the less were we living by God’s mercy and love.

:: Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us.

:: Christian life together is a life of grace and forgiveness.

:: We must give thanks daily for the fellowship in which we have been placed.

:: Rather than accusing the congregation before God we must pray to God for an understanding of our own failure and our own particular sin.

:: Christian brotherhood is a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.

:: Because Christian community is based on Jesus Christ, it is different than any other community.

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Human Reality (Community) (comes from natural urges, powers and capacities of the human spirit)

Spiritual Reality (Community) (created by the Holy Spirit who puts Jesus Christ into our hearts as Lord and Savior)

Basis is dark, turbid urges and desires of the human mind - DESIRE

Basis is the Word of God in Jesus Christ - TRUTH

Essence is darkness Essence is light

Human community is the fellowship of devout souls

Spiritual community is the fellowship of those called by Christ

Eros, dark love of good and evil desire; disordered desire for pleasure

Agape, ordered brotherly service

Humble yet haughty subjection of a brother to one’s own desire

Humble subjection to the brethren

Man with exceptional powers, experience and magical, suggestive capacities

Word of God alone rules

Men bind others to themselves God’s Word alone is binding

Spheres of power and influence of a personal nature are sought and cultivated

All power, honor and dominion are surrendered to the Holy Spirit

Psychological techniques and methods govern

Holy Spirit governs

Psychological analysis and construction is extended

Helping love is extended toward one’s brother

Service consists of a searching, calculating analysis of a stranger

Service of one’s brother is simple and humble

“Immediate” relationship, forcing of another person into one’s sphere of power and influence

Knows it has no immediate access to other persons

Human absorption - Human ties, suggestions and bonds are everything

Other person retains his independence of me to be loved for what he is, as one whom Christ bought his forgiveness of sins and eternal life

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Humanly converted person breaks down since it was not effected by the Holy Spirit

Human Reality (Community) (comes from natural urges, powers and capacities of the human spirit)

Spiritual Reality (Community) (created by the Holy Spirit who puts Jesus Christ into our hearts as Lord and Savior)

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Human Love Spiritual Love

May far surpass genuine Christian love in fervent devotion and visible results

Is from above, something completely strange, new and incomprehensible to earthly love

Speaks the Christian language Jesus Christ tells us what this love toward the brethren really is

Directed at the other person for his own sake, to rule over that person

Loves the other person for Christ’s sake

Has little regard for the truth Is bound solely to the Word of Jesus Christ

Desires the other person for his company, his answering love but does not serve him

Desires to serve

Cannot tolerate the dissolution of a fellowship that has become false

Where Christ’s truth enjoins me to dissolve a fellowship for love’s sake, it will be dissolved (despite all the protests of our human love)

Cannot love an enemy; desires human community but in the face of an enemy turns into hatred, contempt and calumny (slander)

Where Christ bids us to maintain fellowship for the sake of love, it will be maintained; loves an enemy as a brother since it originates in neither the brother nor the enemy

Makes itself an end in itself (an idol) Comes from Jesus Christ and serves Him alone

Constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become, taking the life of the other person into its own hands

Leaves him his freedom to be Christ’s and meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ’s eyes

Moves others by too personal, direct influence and interference in the life of another

Proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ

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:: We must be able to distinguish as soon as possible between a human ideal and God’s reality, between spiritual and human community for Christian life together to succeed.

:: Every principle of selection and separation is a threat to the Christian community.

:: The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ.

:: A marriage, a family, a friendship is quite conscious of the limitations of its community-building power, such relationship know very well, if they are sound, where the human element stops and the spiritual begins.

:: A purely spiritual relationship is not only dangerous but an altogether abnormal thing.

:: Relationships from everyday life with all its claims upon people who are working together, are not projected into the spiritual community, then we must be especially careful.

:: It is not the experience of Christian brotherhood, but solid and certain faith in brotherhood that holds us together.

Takes pleasure in pious, human fervor and excitement

Meets the other person with the clear Word of God and is ready to leave him alone with this Word for a long time, willing to release him again in order that Christ may deal with him

Speaks about a brother more than praying for him

Speaks to Christ about a brother more than to a brother through prayer

Lives by uncontrolled and uncontrollable dark desires

Knows that love of others is wholly dependent on Christ and lives in the light of service ordered by truth

Produces human subjection, dependence, constraint

Creates freedom

Breeds hothouse flowers Creates fruits that grow healthily in accord with God’s good will

Human Love Spiritual Love

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:: We are bound together by faith and not by experience.

:: Through Jesus Christ alone do we have access to one another, joy in one another, and fellowship with one another.

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Life Together – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Chapter 2 The Day with Others

:: Old Testament day begins and ends at evening – it is the time of expectation.

:: New Testament begins and ends with the break of day – it is the time of fulfillment.

:: The early morning belongs to the church of the risen Christ.

:: There is great joy when brethren come together in unity in the early morning for common praise of their God, common hearing of the Word and common prayer.

:: The Scriptures tell us that the first thought and the first word of the day belong to God.

:: At the beginning of the day, let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whom our whole life belongs.

:: Common devotions in the morning should include Scripture reading, song, and prayer, ie, word of Scripture, the hymns of the Church, and the prayer of the fellowship.

:: The Psalter (Book of Psalms) is God’s Word and the prayer of men as well.

:: Jesus Christ is praying the Psalter through the mouth of His Church and belongs to the fellowship.

:: The Psalter teaches us prayer in that we learn: To pray God’s Word What we should pray To pray as a fellowship (Psalms prayed antiphonally)

:: The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become.

:: Brief verses of Scripture should not take the place of reading the Scripture as a whole, both Old and New Testament.

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:: Consecutive reading of Scripture allows us to become part of what once took place for our salvation.

:: How can we ever attain certainty and confidence in our personal and church activity if we do not stand on solid Biblical ground?

:: He who can speak out of the abundance of God’s Word, the wealth of directions, admonitions, and consolations of the Scriptures, will be able through God’s Word to drive out demons and help his brother.

:: The hymn is sung by the whole Church of God on earth and in heaven which we are summoned to join.

:: Our new song is an earthly simple song, bound to God’s revealing Word in Jesus Christ and sung from the heart.

:: In singing together, Christians speak and pray the same Word at the same time as they unite in the Word in the hymn.

:: There should be singing at regular times of the day or week, not just during devotions, because the more we sing the more joy we have.

:: Our prayers belong together and this is our time to begin to speak, after having heard God’s Word and joined in hymns singing.

:: When we pray, all fear of one another, all timidity about praying freely in one’s own words in the presence of others may be put aside.

:: All comment and criticism must cease whenever words of prayer howsoever haltingly are offered in the name of Jesus Christ.

:: It is the most normal thing in common Christian life to pray together.

:: In order to pray for the fellowship, we must know the cares, needs, joys and thanksgivings, petitions and hopes of the others.

:: At the table of fellowship we are blessed by the presence of Jesus.

:: There are three kinds of table fellowship where we come to know Jesus Christ more and more: daily fellowship at the table; the Lord’s Supper; final table fellowship in the Kingdom of God.

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:: Table Fellowship prayer includes a blessing of God’s gifts to us (divinity of Jesus), all early gifts are given for Christ’s sake, an invitation for Jesus to be our guest.

:: Daily table fellowship binds the Christians to their Lord and to one another.

:: Our daily meals are a time to rejoice and be refreshed in the midst of the working day.

:: Through table fellowship, it is a sharing of our daily bread (not yours or mine) so that no one dares go hungry as long as another has bread.

:: We separate for the duration of the working day, however prayer and work go hand in hand.

:: Every word, every work, every labor of the Christian becomes a prayer.

:: Our strength and energy for work increase when we have prayed God to give us the strength we need for our daily work.

:: Noon day is another time for the Christian family to come together for brief rest, prayers of thanks and protection.

:: The receiving of bread is strictly dependent upon working for it.

:: Noon is one of the seven prayer hours of the Church and the Psalmist.

:: The family unites together in the evening for intercessory prayer and forgiveness and preservation, fellowship and last devotion.

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Life Together – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Chapter 3 The Day Alone

:: Many people seek fellowship because they cannot stand to be alone.

:: There are Christians who have had bad experiences with themselves, who hope they will gain some help in association with others but end up blaming the community.

:: Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.

:: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.

:: If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, an thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you.

:: Only in the fellowship do we learn to live rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in fellowship.

:: The mark of solitude is silence and the mark of speech is community.

:: There is a time for silence and a time to speak. Ecclesiastes 3:7

:: Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word and coming from God’s Word with a blessing.

:: But silence before the Word leads to right hearing and thus also to the right speaking of the Word at the right time.

:: There are three purposes for the Christian to find time to be alone during the day:

o Scripture meditation (on a brief selected text, possibly for a whole week) o Prayer o Intercession

:: In Scripture meditation, we ponder the chosen text for what it has to say to us personally.

:: We read God’s Word as God’s Word for us and begin meditation asking for the Holy Spirit to enlighten us.

:: Scripture meditation inevitably leads to prayer.

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:: According to a word of Scripture we pray: o For clarification of our day o For preservation from sin o For growth in sanctification (becoming more like Christ) o For faithfulness o For strength in our work

:: A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.

:: To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in his mercy.

:: Intercession is a daily service that we owe to God and our brother.

:: Set apart an hour for meditation, prayer, intercession early in the morning.

:: Going out into the unchristian environment is a time of testing to see if we are free, strong and mature or weak and dependent; walking by ourselves or uneasy and unsure.

:: Every act of self-control of the Christian is also a service to the fellowship.

:: Every member serves the body either to its health or to its destruction.

:: A community should be growing, thriving and multiplying like a living organism. – S. Taylor

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Life Together – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Chapter 4 Ministry

:: At the very beginning of Christian fellowship there is engendered an invisible, often unconscious, life-and-death contest which can destroy the fellowship.

:: It is the struggle of natural man for self-justification.

:: Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.

:: We combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words and this is only by the Spirit of grace.

:: He who holds his tongue in check controls both mind and body. James 3:2

:: If we practice discipline of the tongue, we will cease from constantly scrutinizing the other person, judging him condemning him and thus doing violence to him as a person.

:: In a Christian community, everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain.

:: He who would learn to serve must first learn to think little of himself.

:: Always think well and highly of others; this is great wisdom and perfection.

:: Only he who lives by the forgiveness of his sin in Jesus Christ will rightly think little of himself.

:: One who seeks his own honor is no longer seeking God and his neighbor.

:: The beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them; listening can be a greater service to others than speaking to them.

:: The beginning of the death of spiritual life is when we no longer listen to others which leads to no longer listening to God.

:: We should listen with the ears of God so that we may speak the Word of God.

:: The service of helpfulness is assistance in trivial matters.

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:: God will constantly be crossing our paths and cancelling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.

:: We need to allow God to arrange our schedule.

:: We must bear with, suffer and endure our brothers.

:: Think of someone who “gets on your nerves”, that is the very person that you must bear with in joy and love unconditionally.

:: Since every sin of every member burdens and indicts the whole community, the congregration rejoices, in the midst of all the pain and the burden the brother’s sin inflicts, that it has the privilege of bearing and forgiving.

:: The ministry of proclaiming is the free communication of the Word from person to person.

:: It is unchristian consciously to deprive another of the one decisive service we can render to him.

:: If we hinder His Word, the blood of the sinning brother will be upon us. If we carry out His Word, God will save our brother through us.

:: Authority in the fellowship is dependent upon brotherly service.

:: Geniune authority realizes that is can exist only in the service of Him [Jesus Christ] who alone has authority.

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Practicing the Ministry of:

o Holding One’s Tongue (thinking before speaking): • Start with a prayer in the morning: "Dear Lord, please help me today

to use my tongue in your service by uttering words of love, kindness, praise, and encouragement. Help me to take custody of my tongue so I do not utter words of hate, disrespect, criticism, gossip, or slander."

• Check in with each other at meal times to see how we are doing. • Sometimes when we catch ourselves in an act of verbal misconduct,

we use a gesture to signify that we are zipping up our mouths.

o Meekness (moderating anger by keeping our cool and controlling resentment in the midst of adversity) • Find your peace verse. In other words, learn one of the many Scripture

verses that bring you peace (the Psalms are a great place to look) and recite it to yourself when you are faced with a situation that could lead you to anger. This short prayerful reminder can work wonders in keeping you calm.

• Be quick to forgive. Practice resisting the urge to hold grudges by being quick to forgive those who hurt you. Learning how to quickly forgive those in your own home can be a great way to grow in meekness, since sometimes it is hardest to forgive those closest to us.

• Confess your sins regularly.

o Listening • Face the speaker, maintain eye contact. • Focus solely on what the speaker is saying and paraphrase or

summarize what the person has said. • Let the speaker talk instead of asserting your thoughts, ideas or

opinions.

o Helpfulness • Notice when someone needs help and do a service without being

asked • Give people what they need, not always what they want • Care for your own needs but ask for help when you need it

o Bearing – “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2) If you are humble, you will remember that you are far from perfect. “Humility” = “the lowliness of mind which springs from a true estimate of ourselves” If you are gentle, you will be considerate of the feelings of others. “Completely” = in all situations, whoever the person is, never be without it. If you are patient, you will be

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slow to react when others annoy or anger you. • Think of one person who sometimes annoys or angers you. Ask

God to give you more humility, gentleness, and patience so that you may bear with that person in a loving way.

o Proclaiming, in humility: • Avoid thinking more highly of yourself than you ought and count

others more significant than yourself. • Listen first, and speak last. • Deal with the matter as privately as possible. • Be honest about your own struggles and limitations. • Be honest about the graces of others. • Speak the truth.

o Authority • Know our place of authority, that we are in authority and under

authority and remember Whose authority we are serving under. • Serve in authority under the authority of the Word • Learn to follow in the way of Christ and set His example for others. • Worship the Lord wholeheartedly in unity with the body of Christ. • Bear witness to others by sharing our personal testimony and the

gospel. • Practice unconditional love of our neighbor, the stranger and the

outcast and be quick to forgive others. • Set an example by being generous with the resources God has

entrusted to us and good stewards of the same.

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Life Together – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Chapter 5 Confession and Communion

:: He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.

:: The final breakthrough in our fellowship is that we are a fellowship of sinners, not the devout.

:: The mask we wear before men will do us no good before God.

:: Christ has given his followers the authority to hear he confession of sin and to forgive sin in his name which makes the church and our brother a blessing to us.

:: When I go to my brother to confess, I am going to God.

:: Sin withdraws us from community, isolates us and wants to remain unknown.

:: In confession, the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.

:: Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned.

:: The root of all sin is pride, I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death; I want to be as God.

:: Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation, a dreadful blow to pride.

:: We refuse to bear the Cross when we are ashamed to take upon ourselves the shameful death of the sinner in confession.

:: Where sin is hated, admitted and forgiven, there the break with the past is made.

:: Confession is discipleship; life with Jesus Christ and his community has begun.

:: Why is it easier to confess our sin to God rather than a brother? o Maybe we have been deceiving ourselves by confessing our sin to

ourselves and granting ourselves absolution o Maybe that’s why we have countless relapses and feebleness

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:: Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception.

:: The assurance of forgiveness comes to us as it is spoken from God through a brother.

:: Mutual brotherly confession is given to us by God in order that we may be sure of divine forgiveness.

:: Confession should deal with concrete sins, not general ones.

:: We can confess to any Christian brother since anybody who lives beneath the Cross and who has discerned in the Cross of Jesus the utter wickedness of all men and of his own heart will find there is no sin that can ever be alien to him.

:: Two dangers when practicing confession to guard against: o Refrain from listening to a confession unless you are practicing it o Guard against making your confession a pious work

:: Confession serves the Christian community as a preparation for the common reception of Holy Communion.

:: Reconciled in their hearts with God and the brethren, the congregation receives the gift of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and, receiving that, it receives forgiveness, new life and salvation.

Practicing Confession:

o Find a Christian brother or sister, an accountability partner, to confess your sins.

o Make your confession specific. The more specific we are, the more we show to God that we have thought about our sins and that we are truly sorry for them. A vague admission of sin shows that we are only vaguely repentant.

o Confess the consequences. a process of soul-searching to see where sin has taken root in our lives, how it has affected us.

o Ask for forgiveness. o If your sin has harmed someone, confess before that person. o If you are receiving someone’s confession, it must be kept confidential.

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