Well,
here we are at the final installment of our review of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship, and once
again, I find myself overwhelmed at the prospect of summarising it. This work
is so rich, so steeped in the word of God, and so full of relevance for our
church life and our individual walk as Christians...the only word that seems
appropriate to describe it is exhilarating!
It is an exhilarating read, although hard work for the brain, and I hope those
of you who haven't dived into it yet will put it high on your list for 2014.
After the Bible itself, of course. Because once again, the Christ-centric
anchor point of Bonhoeffer's theology holds firm. In the final section of the
book, he moves from looking at what discipleship meant for the first disciples,
in their physical following of Jesus (based on texts from the Gospel
narratives), to teasing out what that means for us in modern times. How do we
experience the 'call' of Jesus? And what does He call us to do?
Bonhoeffer's
answer to these questions is that the call of Jesus is to be heard now in the
Church: in the ministry of Word and Sacrament. By sacrament, he is specifically
referring to baptism and the Lord's Supper. This was a challenge to me.
Bonhoeffer has a really high view of the sacraments and their importance in the
life of the church, which was not quite in accord with my low Anglican
background. Bonhoeffer talked about the Holy Spirit as the 'gift of baptism',
whereas I always understood Him to be the gift of faith. Bonhoeffer gives heaps
of bible references at every point, so there's plenty of scope for further
investigation! What he really
emphasises, though, is the idea that, in baptism, the disciple dies with
Christ, dies to sin and to the world and rises to new life in Christ. That is the
cost of discipleship.
Bonhoeffer's
high view of the sacraments is congruent with his high view of the Church
itself. In fleshing this out (ha ha, no pun intended!), Bonhoeffer points us to
the doctrine of the Body of Christ as it is articulated in Paul's letters.
"Through his Spirit, the crucified and risen Lord exists as the
Church..." It is in the form of the Church that we now have bodily
fellowship with Christ. Thinking about that gives me a strange feeling about
going to church tomorrow morning! It's a phrase I so often glibly employ, the
body of Christ, but to really meditate on what that means... the people I meet
tomorrow are the members of Christ himself; and my attitude towards them and my
treatment of them, that is my treatment of Christ. And not just when I meet
them at church, but in my dealings with my brothers and sisters at every point.
"Everything the disciple does is part of the common life of the church of
which he is a member."
The
logical result of this high view of the church is also a serious view of the
importance of sanctification in the life of the believer, and the holiness of
the church, preserved in church discipline. In the midst of our individualistic
society, the idea of church discipline is a hard word. I know I struggle with
the idea of rebuking a fellow Christian, even when their sin is blatant. Am I
holding the Body of Christ in high enough esteem when I just let it go?
There
is so much more in this final section. I hope you have been as challenged as I
have, and your vision of Christ enlarged. To Him be the glory...
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