Discipleship and the Church

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...

Discipleship in mission

You know it's a good book when you find yourself reassessing aspects of your daily life and your church life, measuring them against what it says in the book. Have you found that to be the case with Bonhoeffer? I certainly have. At this time of the year it would have been so easy to just let it all flow over me, like water off a duck's back. But not so easy when it's this book! Each of the Christmas events we went to at church, and in mentally preparing to spend our Christmas celebrations with our completely non-Christian family, I found Bonhoeffer's insights to have substantially changed my own perspective.

The shortest section of the book is sub-titled 'The Messengers', and deals with one passage in the book of Matthew in which Jesus speaks of the harvest, and then instructs, empowers and sends out theTwelve. I'm pretty sure that Bonhoeffer means us to understand that if we are called to be disciples of Christ, then we are called to be messengers to the world. Jesus didn't call his followers to "withdraw ...from the vulgar crowd" in order to be initiated into an "esoteric system of religion and ethics". Jesus had His Father's heart of compassion for the lost, as he looked around and saw them, like sheep without a shepherd. And He also had God's vision, that this multitude of wretched souls actually constituted a harvest that was ripe. The first thing he instructs the disciples to do, however, is to pray for God to raise up labourers.

That jars with us a bit. When Jesus is talking about the harvest being ripe, we think he's going to say something like 'so get out there and start work!' But instead He says to pray that God raises someone up to go out. It may well be me who God raises up! But I need to be sure that I am going in obedience to God, and not for any agenda of my own. As Bonhoeffer points out again and again, it is God's work, and it is His call. So often we get caught up with our own agenda, in mission just as much as anywhere. Do you ever find yourself praying mostly or totally about what you are doing, instead of praying to God about what He is doing? I've noticed that a lot lately...it sounds like this "Dear God, I pray that we will..."etc. I think when we pray like this, we are not leaving a lot of space for an awareness of God's ownership over our mission and the action of His Spirit to change people's hearts.

I'm still grappling with the application of Jesus' words to the disciples about "shaking the dust off your feet". As Bonhoeffer discusses this, he seems to be making the same point as earlier in the book, when he referred to the idea of 'cheap grace' as 'taking what is precious and throwing it to the dogs'. The point is that if a group of people are hardened to the gospel, we don't keep on preaching it to them, but move on to those who will have open ears. What does this mean, however, for mission in your average Australian suburban church? What does it mean for my witness to my non-Christian family? Still chewing it over...

Discipleship in action

Last week, I mentioned feeling uncomfortable as I read what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to say about obedience to Christ in The Cost of Discipleship. Multiply that by ten, and you'll get the gist of how it feels reading through his discussion of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7! There is no philosophising or over-spiritualising of Jesus' words; Bonhoeffer simply lays bare the call of Christ - what it means for us in every facet of our lives, and the different ways in which we can fall out of 'the narrow way' and into seeking a 'reward' other than in fellowship with Him.

In discussing the picture of discipleship that Jesus paints, Bonhoeffer gives us a helpful dichotomy: there is the 'extraordinary' nature of the 'visible community' and then there is the 'hidden character of the Christian life'. What challenged some of my preconceptions was Bonhoeffer's insight into Jesus' statement "You are the salt of the earth...you are the light of the world". Jesus doesn't say, "you must be the salt/light" - as though somehow we were able to make ourselves that. It is only through fellowship with Christ that we can possibly be that, and since he has called us the decision has already been made! Neither does he say, "you have the salt/light" - I can't dissociate myself from the gospel and pretend my mediocrity doesn't impinge on it. No - I am the salt/light in my total existence. There is no place in my life to run away and hide from what Christ has called me to be.

Our complete surrender to Christ is lived out in a visible way - in our dedication to being at peace with our brothers and sisters, our commitment to absolute purity of heart and mind, to truthfulness in every word no matter what, to reaching out to our enemies in love. We are called to live this 'extraordinary' life...in contemplating this I could think of countless ways in which I had compromised. What does this standard of truthfulness mean for what we tell our kids about Santa Claus? Or for how we represent ourselves and our struggles to others?

It gets a little tricky as Bonhoeffer moves into talking about the hidden character of the Christian life. Jesus' words are not to "do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them". How are we to be the visible community of Christ to the world if we are also trying to hide our righteous acts? In explaining this paradox, Bonhoeffer says that at the deepest level, we need to hide the visibility of our righteousness from ourselves. I'm not sure that I've even fully grasped the implications of this...but I think he is saying that we have this 'voluntary blindness' to ourselves because we are only concerned with looking to Jesus and following him. When we start looking at ourselves, appreciating our own righteousness, we have fallen out of the way of Christ. We receive a reward of self-approbation but miss the reward of fellowship with Christ.

This was a packed section of the book. I don't really feel like I've been able to digest it fully yet...but one thing is emerging clearly: the words I say need to be fulfilled in obedience. As I frequently say to my girls...a little less talk, a little more action.

Christian Classics Month: Bonhoeffer's 'The Cost of Discipleship'

Wow...I'm almost overwhelmed as I try to sum up the first section of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. It is challenging me on just about every level imaginable. Many of you will know that Bonhoeffer was a Christian martyr of the Second World War: he did his theological work in 1930s Nazi Germany, worked as part of the underground Resistance, was taken prisoner by the SS, then finally executed for treason shortly before the end of the war. This book was written in the context of a national Lutheran church which had liberalised the doctrine of grace to such an extent that true repentance and obedience to Christ were able to be evaded; in Bonhoeffer's words, they 'gave what was holy to the scornful and unbelieving'.

Knowing that the church fell tragically short of obedience to Christ when it came to resisting the prevalent evil of Hitler's government helps me to understand the seriousness of Bonhoeffer's argument. But, to be honest, I think the context is not absolutely necessary - the voice of Christ speaks so strongly from these pages that it transcends that particular situation. That is what Bonhoeffer is about, after all, getting away from man-made doctrines and back to the call of Jesus Christ. He starts off contrasting cheap grace - which assumes forgiveness can be had while still clinging to our "bourgeois secular existence" - with costly grace: the grace that cost Jesus his life and costs us our lives when we take up his call..."When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

One of the things I'm loving most about this book is that it is engaging deeply with the gospel narratives and words of Jesus. It's the sort of writing that makes you uncomfortable, in a good way, as you can feel the Holy Spirit prodding you to examine your own life. Do we often get so caught up with the idea of justification by faith that we squirm out of real, costly obedience? Do you detect in yourself the 'vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price'? It is very confronting to read what Bonhoeffer has to say about obedience. We are so used to talking about the obedience that comes from faith...but what about the faith that comes from obedience? The external act of obedience in response to the gracious call of Jesus, eg Peter leaving his nets, that leads a person into the place where faith becomes a possibility...like I said, it's challenging stuff.

I have some friends who are struggling with issues of faith and assurance at the moment. What Bonhoeffer might say to them is something like this: you haven't got the faith you want because you are holding something back from Christ. Let go of your old life and follow him single-mindedly and your faith will mature. Not sure if I'm brave enough to actually say that to my friends though!

More to come next week as Bonhoeffer discusses the Sermon on the Mount.

About our contributor:

Kristen is wife to Pete and mum to three little girls, Eleni, Tessa and Freya. She grew up in a non-Christian family, but Jesus took hold of her in her early teenage years through a youth group ministry. She has been a member of St Aidan's Hurstville Grove for about 13 years, where she has been privileged to be involved in Bible Study groups, pastoral ministry, music ministry and Scripture teaching. She is also a singer and choral conductor. She is a dog person, not a cat person, although the right cat could possibly win her grudging affection.