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Showing posts with label Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Show all posts
Friday, January 17, 2025
Unpacking Bonhoeffer's Legacy Today: resource list
Sunday, December 29, 2024
hope beyond hope
A long time ago a friend of mine from the church we attended in Manhattan, St Clement's off Broadway, developed a one-man show he called The Reverend Billy Show. It later developed into a full choir revival tour style revue, in which his character, cracked street preacher Reverend Billy, would deliver two or three raving sermons - that were actually pretty good.
But at first it was a one man show with just his character, Reverend Billy, in a clerical dicky, a white suit, fabulous hair, a bull horn, and an imaginary online congregation. He would stand at the pulpit and rave about commercialism, egregious bombing of innocents, and other apparently Quixotic concerns of the time. And he had a creed, which we repeated:
We believe in the god that people that don't believe in god believe in. Chant that.
Reverend Billy's creed came to mind as Sarah and I read about mid-century German theologians, including Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, and especially Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
At that time the world was plunging into despair, desperation, cynicism: no hope. There was no hope, but as some of those brave theologians put it, there was hope beyond hope. Beyond despair.
It sounds absurd. But this is a time when absurdities are not unfamiliar, either. Hope beyond hope.
The times of the mid-twentieth century in places like Germany were times of extreme, of government unleashed upon the innocent, of babies born in the face of fear. Of families torn apart by arbitrary detention. Of executions personally authorized by the head of state. Of exile. Of famine. Of despair.
And of hope beyond hope.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, her cousin Elizabeth, her husband-to-be Joseph, and the children that came to them, lived also in a time of uncertainty, despair, and precarious hope.
The world hinged upon a word. "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb," the angel greeted Mary. She could have said no. Angels held their breath. And then she said, "yes."
Yes, to the improbably babyish salvation of the world. An innocent, among many born that year, was to survive the massacre of its age-mates - ordered by the king - and become ... the hope of the world.
It seems impossible but it was so. Is so. In the small room at the back of a home in Bethlehem, and in the small home the family returned to in Nazareth - but not yet - a child arrived, was welcomed, and grew.
But not yet: first the child and his parents fled by night from Palestine through Gaza into Egypt, there to remain until the implacable search blew over and it appeared to be safe to return home.
We here may not know, or may not have known, what it meant to be nearly hopeless, in a village surrounded by an imperial enemy, with disciplined troops nearby, always vigilant for signs of resistance.
We may know, through our own experience or that of family members or refugees we have encountered, or aid workers we have known, just exactly what that was like.
There is fear. But there is always hope. There is darkness. And-- there is light.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not - cannot - put it out. For in him was life, and this life is the light of all people. Merry Christmas, once again.
December 29, 2024. Lessons & Carols. Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson. 8 & 10:30am
Sunday, December 8, 2024
modern prophets
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)
Preachers tell us we need prophets. Prophets tell us what is really going on. They are not primarily people who predict the future. They tell us what is going on right now in our present situation and what it means in the light of the sovereignty of God. Sometimes what they have to say lasts beyond their own time. Isaiah and Baruch, for example. John the Baptist, for another. And Zechariah, John's father.
A more modern prophet lived in the last century. He was a German Lutheran theologian, and he spent most of his life in Berlin. Most of his life. He visited Spain, New York City, England, and Sweden. And at the end of his life he was not in Berlin, he was in a concentration camp.
What had he done to earn that? From the beginning of his country's turn to national socialism, he had spoken out to his fellow Christians about what it meant. What it ultimately meant.
To some of them, it meant good times ahead. What could be better than a strong leader who would clean house and bring church and state together to strengthen the nation?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for that was his name, saw differently. He was not alone, but he did not, at the end, have many friends. There were family members who were much more, or much less, implicated in resistance to the national socialist regime that took over their country.
What he did at first and for many years was simply to point out what it meant for the church to merge its identity into a national project. What it meant for the church not to be an independent voice, for justice, for the poor, for the person on the edge of society, and for the person pushed there by politics. What it would mean if it was. And so he was among those who raised that voice.
During the war he became involved in working for military intelligence, but while he worked there he was also a courier for the resistance movement, trying to build bridges for democracy with people in other countries. And his clandestine work, for awhile, included raising money to help Jews seek safe haven in Switzerland.
He was famously involved, but only peripherally, in a plot to kill Hitler. That plot failed in July 1944 and gradually the conspirators were rounded up. Eventually they came for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
But that is not the end of the story. In prison he was able to write to friends and family, and continue to develop his understanding of what was going on. He continued to be a prophet.
One thing he said that I have been thinking about puts a different spin on this season of Advent.
Advent we rightly hold to be a time of preparation, of repentance and renewal, in anticipation of the arrival of Christ at Christmas.
It is a time of hope, hope that bridges the distance between faith and love, between what we hold to be true and how we put it into action.
That bridge of hope is what got Dietrich Bonhoeffer into trouble. Most pastors just went along with what was going on - or took quieter ways to resist.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taught something important to think about. God is already active in the world. From the beginning of the world through Christ to the consummation of time, God is at work. Responding to God’s love by placing our trust and primary allegiance in his hands, and faithfully participating in God’s work of redemptive love, will carry us through the toughest time.
Want to know more? I’d start with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s own writings, especially Discipleship, Life Together, Ethics, and Letters and Papers from Prison.
The Rev. Dr. John Leech is a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.
Previous version submitted to the Arizona Daily Star, December 8th 2024, as a Guest Opinion. Slight corrections made here 7 Jan 2025, after reading Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945, Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. T&T Clark/Continuum, London, 2010. Original edition Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945 Eine Biographie. München, 2006.
P.S.
Unpacking Bonhoeffer's Legacy, a conversation with Victoria J. Barnett, Wednesday 15 January 2025, spnosored by the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies (https://youtu.be/KPiT9fUON3A?feature=shared) yielded this list...
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Beginning of Life
The Beginning of Life: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945)
“Hitler executed almost five thousand people after the failure of Operation Valkyrie, the July 20, 1944, assassination plot led by Claus von Stauffenberg.” (The New Yorker, March 14, 2011, p. 71)
Among them was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a gentle, patient, pious martyr to his faith. What set him apart among his fellow prisoners was his continued good cheer and faithful patience, his ongoing witness to the truth and love of Christ, and his willingness to serve.
In his last known words, he sent a message: “This is the end – for me, the beginning of life.”
At that moment of so frequent desperation he claimed for himself the promise of eternity, the hope of the resurrection. “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Even in the extremity of his last days he was calm, a prayerful pastor with a peaceful voice. That voice had not always been peaceable: he had called on his fellow Christians to live the truth of the Gospel even when it required of them the sacrifice of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
His sacrifices included his own ideal of pacifism – for he had come to believe it was necessary for some, in that extreme crisis, to give up even that integrity of morals, for the sake of those who would be saved – and so he joined the conspirators who plotted to kill the Führer (Leader) of their own nation.
In Life Together (1939) he asked what it meant to be called into life together under the Word – the word that was in the beginning, the word that was with God, the word that is divine: Jesus, in other words. How do we live under him, under his mercy, his grace, and his sovereignty?
How do we live our lives individually, communally, socially, and globally, under that word? And what can we do, practically, to live as Jesus’ people?
Who is Christ for us today? How are we to live, now, knowing of the infinite mercy of God? Can we give up everything but life in God?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a teacher and pastor. Most of his life, except for brief sojourns in Barcelona, New York, London, he spent – spent fully – in his native Germany. He grew up in a gentle, aristocratic world, but as he reached full adulthood the political landscape in his home country changed. One would be tempted to say it changed unrecognizably – except that Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others came to see in it the face of evil. So they sought more fervently for the face of Christ.
They found it in service – and they found it in each other. Some of them found it, briefly, in the extraordinary gift of community.
In the Confessing Church seminary he led at Finkenwalde, Bonhoeffer gathered a group of dedicated young men, who prepared together, through prayer and study, for service to a beleaguered world. (Life Together was a product of that experiment in intentional community.) It was a seminary ‘on the run’. As it had to be, the seminary community was both settled into place and ready to move – the seminarian was monk and pilgrim at once.
The government shut it down in one place and it popped up in another, for awhile. (My friend and seminary neighbor Beni Witbooi taught in a similarly nomadic – and prophetic – school of theology under the apartheid regime in South Africa.)
Being a people of God on the move essentially is not a new idea.
Look at Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt. A fugitive from Pharaoh, he fetched up at a well in Midian, became a shepherd, learned to find pathways and waterholes in the wilderness, and then returned to the place of danger to lead his people to a life of freedom. He went to the mountaintop and he saw the Promised Land. He did not get there with them, but he saw where it awaited them.
So it was for Bonhoeffer; so it is for many. We may be blessed to see the whole journey, the soul’s progress from exile to freedom; we may only see a part. But we know in Christ’s mercy that the Liberator, the Shepherd good and true, will at last and always, as he already has, break through the bonds of sin and lead us to grace.
May we, whatever we do together to live under that Word which is love and light and life, act in the name of Christ and dwell in the security of knowing we are know by him whose name is above all other names and who calls each of us by our true names into our true identity: Beloved, children of God.
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:21)
The Lessons Appointed for Use on April 9, the Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theologian and Martyr, 1945: Proverbs 3:1-7, Psalm 119:89-96, Matthew 13:47-52
The Collect
Gracious God, the Beyond in the midst of our life, you gave grace to your servant Dietrich Bonhoeffer to know and to teach the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and to bear the cost of following him; Grant that we, strengthened by his teaching and example, may receive your word and embrace its call with an undivided heart; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
JRL+
For the Gospel Grapevine (April 2011), parish newsletter of St Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, Wash.
http://stalbansedmonds.org
+
“Hitler executed almost five thousand people after the failure of Operation Valkyrie, the July 20, 1944, assassination plot led by Claus von Stauffenberg.” (The New Yorker, March 14, 2011, p. 71)
Among them was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a gentle, patient, pious martyr to his faith. What set him apart among his fellow prisoners was his continued good cheer and faithful patience, his ongoing witness to the truth and love of Christ, and his willingness to serve.
In his last known words, he sent a message: “This is the end – for me, the beginning of life.”
At that moment of so frequent desperation he claimed for himself the promise of eternity, the hope of the resurrection. “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Even in the extremity of his last days he was calm, a prayerful pastor with a peaceful voice. That voice had not always been peaceable: he had called on his fellow Christians to live the truth of the Gospel even when it required of them the sacrifice of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
His sacrifices included his own ideal of pacifism – for he had come to believe it was necessary for some, in that extreme crisis, to give up even that integrity of morals, for the sake of those who would be saved – and so he joined the conspirators who plotted to kill the Führer (Leader) of their own nation.
In Life Together (1939) he asked what it meant to be called into life together under the Word – the word that was in the beginning, the word that was with God, the word that is divine: Jesus, in other words. How do we live under him, under his mercy, his grace, and his sovereignty?
How do we live our lives individually, communally, socially, and globally, under that word? And what can we do, practically, to live as Jesus’ people?
Who is Christ for us today? How are we to live, now, knowing of the infinite mercy of God? Can we give up everything but life in God?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a teacher and pastor. Most of his life, except for brief sojourns in Barcelona, New York, London, he spent – spent fully – in his native Germany. He grew up in a gentle, aristocratic world, but as he reached full adulthood the political landscape in his home country changed. One would be tempted to say it changed unrecognizably – except that Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others came to see in it the face of evil. So they sought more fervently for the face of Christ.
They found it in service – and they found it in each other. Some of them found it, briefly, in the extraordinary gift of community.
In the Confessing Church seminary he led at Finkenwalde, Bonhoeffer gathered a group of dedicated young men, who prepared together, through prayer and study, for service to a beleaguered world. (Life Together was a product of that experiment in intentional community.) It was a seminary ‘on the run’. As it had to be, the seminary community was both settled into place and ready to move – the seminarian was monk and pilgrim at once.
The government shut it down in one place and it popped up in another, for awhile. (My friend and seminary neighbor Beni Witbooi taught in a similarly nomadic – and prophetic – school of theology under the apartheid regime in South Africa.)
Being a people of God on the move essentially is not a new idea.
Look at Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt. A fugitive from Pharaoh, he fetched up at a well in Midian, became a shepherd, learned to find pathways and waterholes in the wilderness, and then returned to the place of danger to lead his people to a life of freedom. He went to the mountaintop and he saw the Promised Land. He did not get there with them, but he saw where it awaited them.
So it was for Bonhoeffer; so it is for many. We may be blessed to see the whole journey, the soul’s progress from exile to freedom; we may only see a part. But we know in Christ’s mercy that the Liberator, the Shepherd good and true, will at last and always, as he already has, break through the bonds of sin and lead us to grace.
May we, whatever we do together to live under that Word which is love and light and life, act in the name of Christ and dwell in the security of knowing we are know by him whose name is above all other names and who calls each of us by our true names into our true identity: Beloved, children of God.
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:21)
The Lessons Appointed for Use on April 9, the Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theologian and Martyr, 1945: Proverbs 3:1-7, Psalm 119:89-96, Matthew 13:47-52
The Collect
Gracious God, the Beyond in the midst of our life, you gave grace to your servant Dietrich Bonhoeffer to know and to teach the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and to bear the cost of following him; Grant that we, strengthened by his teaching and example, may receive your word and embrace its call with an undivided heart; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
JRL+
For the Gospel Grapevine (April 2011), parish newsletter of St Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, Wash.
http://stalbansedmonds.org
+
Saturday, February 5, 2011
There is no peace along the way of safety.
There is no peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Peace Speech", Ecumenical Christian Council for Life and Work, Fanø, Denmark, 28 August 1934.
Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2010) p. 241.
Renate Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Brief Life (Fortress Press, 2004) p. 33-35.
http://bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/
+
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Peace Speech", Ecumenical Christian Council for Life and Work, Fanø, Denmark, 28 August 1934.
Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2010) p. 241.
Renate Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Brief Life (Fortress Press, 2004) p. 33-35.
http://bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com/
+
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Whose service is perfect freedom: (Costing not less than everything)
Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
When it came time to sign the marriage license for two of my college friends, the minister gave as his title, “Slave of Jesus Christ”. In his letter to the Christians at Rome, Paul introduced himself as “doulon christou iesu” – a servant of Jesus Christ, not distinguishing between bondservant and freedman.
In his letter to Philemon, a brother in Christ and a slave owner, Paul makes distinct the difference between enslavement in the world’s system and free service offered to the Lord. He greets Philemon as a “dear friend and co-worker”, telling him he remembers him in his prayers always thankful because of Philemon’s love for all the saints – all the saints – and his faith toward the Lord Jesus. This love Philemon shows is a source of encouragement and joy. “The hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother,” Paul writes.
Therefore, Paul continues, I appeal to you – rather than making a command. “Refresh my heart in Christ”, he asks. Back to you I am sending Onesimus, whom you held as a slave. He has become a Christian, and hence my brother – and yours. Meanwhile I myself am held as a prisoner, for the love of Christ. Do something extraordinary, Philemon: receive him back but do not punish him; embrace him as a brother, and further than that, do not hold him accountable for anything you might hold against him. Charge it to my account.
It was not unusual, scholars like Richard Horsley tell us, in those days for one person to own another. Even for Christians, to be a slave or a slave owner was a simple matter of economics. But not to Paul: he is challenging Philemon to break free from the economic system the world has enthralled him in, and to do something that will strike its own blow against the empire.
Set him free. Furthermore, flying in the face of the practice of the time — slaves could buy their freedom for a price but would always owe their former master a share of their income — do not charge him for his freedom, or require him to pay you royalties on his future earnings. And you shall be made free yourself.
Slaves are compelled; to serve in Christ is an act of freedom. Paul asks, implicitly, for Philemon to free Onesimus, and so to free himself.
Paul does happen to mention a little debt, and a small requirement for obedience. Not to himself, not really, not to anyone on earth: but to God in Christ Jesus. You owe him everything, Onesimus: even your life.
And here we are back at the cross, with Jesus, who reminds the crowds who were following him – up to this point anyway – that to follow him means giving up all you have. Family, possessions, even life itself, all are to be counted as loss, compared to the one thing left to them, the service of Christ.
Philemon is not being asked to give up a little. Paul reminds him he owes everything in obedience. It is being asked of him now. To give up – “I know my rights!” – he might protest – to give up what he has in the world’s terms in order to take his place in the kingdom of God. Like the rich young ruler who went away sorrowing, Philemon might have thought of what he had to lose – but perhaps, since after all he did save the letter, he thought of what he had to gain.
All this may sound symbolic, to modern ears… until we think of the cost of discipleship we might be asked to pay.
Imagine a world in which one person might presume to own another, a world in which people are bought and sold like possessions. Imagine, indeed, millions trafficked this way across the globe today. And then imagine someone taking some small step to redeem, or set free, someone who is being held hostage to wage slavery or debt, or through physical or other coercion.
That is a world we live in, even now. Organizations of Christians across the world – World Concern among them – are working to help people out of this system, and to challenge the system that enslaves. We might or might not be called to take direct action on this front, but we all will be called at some point to estimate the cost, of carrying the cross, of discipleship.
"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.… So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."
Our God, whose service is perfect freedom (costing not less than everything) – how are we to serve? Whom would we consider a saint?
If a man were give up a good job in a prestigious institution, leave his fiancée behind, and join a conspiracy to assassinate the duly elected leader of his country, would we consider him a good Christian? If, then, caught, convicted, and imprisoned, he wrote that girl, telling her we now live in a world without God, would we praise his faith? We might acknowledge his contribution to Death of God theology, but would we call him a saint?
And yet there he is, on the calendar in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, for April 9th: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pastor & Theologian, 1945. Bonhoeffer left Union Theological Seminary to return to Germany at the beginning of the Second World War, and who subsequently was involved in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler that failed on 20 July 1944, is widely held as an exemplar of faith in the 20th Century.
If a nun were to talk her way out of her vow of stability, and go live on the streets of a big city, would we consider her a model of obedience? If then, and from then on, she felt – and wrote in her letters – that she too felt the absence of God, would we consider her a model of faith? If she carried on like that for fifty years, would we call her a saint?
And yet Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who confessed that she had experienced the dark night of the soul over a period of fifty years of serving the “poorest of the poor”, is widely acclaimed as a model, an extreme model, of faith.
To give up family, friends, possessions, life itself – even to experience existence bereft of a sense of God’s presence – indeed our Lord cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – and yet somehow from this total loss, to experience the life of Resurrection, this is the cost, and the glory, of discipleship.
Sources:
Readings for Year C, Proper 18 [RCL]: Philemon 1-21. Psalm 139:1-5, 13-18. Luke 14:25-33.
T. S. Eliot, ‘Little Gidding’ (1942); Four Quartets (1943) [http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/gidding.html]
Richard A. Horsley and Neil Asher Silberman, The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World (Grosset/Putnam, 1997), p. 182-183.
http://www.worldconcern.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=527&srcid=429
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/b/bonhoeff.htm
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/calendar/holydays.html
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20031019_index_madre-teresa_en.html
Lesser Feasts and Fasts (Church Publishing, 2006) [http://www.io.com/~kellywp/CalndrsIndexes/TxtIndexLFF.html]
My Life with the Saints by James Martin, S.J. (Loyola Press Chicago, 2006)
http://www.nimblespirit.com/html/my_life_with_the_saints_review.html
September 9, 2007, Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento.
When it came time to sign the marriage license for two of my college friends, the minister gave as his title, “Slave of Jesus Christ”. In his letter to the Christians at Rome, Paul introduced himself as “doulon christou iesu” – a servant of Jesus Christ, not distinguishing between bondservant and freedman.
In his letter to Philemon, a brother in Christ and a slave owner, Paul makes distinct the difference between enslavement in the world’s system and free service offered to the Lord. He greets Philemon as a “dear friend and co-worker”, telling him he remembers him in his prayers always thankful because of Philemon’s love for all the saints – all the saints – and his faith toward the Lord Jesus. This love Philemon shows is a source of encouragement and joy. “The hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother,” Paul writes.
Therefore, Paul continues, I appeal to you – rather than making a command. “Refresh my heart in Christ”, he asks. Back to you I am sending Onesimus, whom you held as a slave. He has become a Christian, and hence my brother – and yours. Meanwhile I myself am held as a prisoner, for the love of Christ. Do something extraordinary, Philemon: receive him back but do not punish him; embrace him as a brother, and further than that, do not hold him accountable for anything you might hold against him. Charge it to my account.
It was not unusual, scholars like Richard Horsley tell us, in those days for one person to own another. Even for Christians, to be a slave or a slave owner was a simple matter of economics. But not to Paul: he is challenging Philemon to break free from the economic system the world has enthralled him in, and to do something that will strike its own blow against the empire.
Set him free. Furthermore, flying in the face of the practice of the time — slaves could buy their freedom for a price but would always owe their former master a share of their income — do not charge him for his freedom, or require him to pay you royalties on his future earnings. And you shall be made free yourself.
Slaves are compelled; to serve in Christ is an act of freedom. Paul asks, implicitly, for Philemon to free Onesimus, and so to free himself.
Paul does happen to mention a little debt, and a small requirement for obedience. Not to himself, not really, not to anyone on earth: but to God in Christ Jesus. You owe him everything, Onesimus: even your life.
And here we are back at the cross, with Jesus, who reminds the crowds who were following him – up to this point anyway – that to follow him means giving up all you have. Family, possessions, even life itself, all are to be counted as loss, compared to the one thing left to them, the service of Christ.
Philemon is not being asked to give up a little. Paul reminds him he owes everything in obedience. It is being asked of him now. To give up – “I know my rights!” – he might protest – to give up what he has in the world’s terms in order to take his place in the kingdom of God. Like the rich young ruler who went away sorrowing, Philemon might have thought of what he had to lose – but perhaps, since after all he did save the letter, he thought of what he had to gain.
All this may sound symbolic, to modern ears… until we think of the cost of discipleship we might be asked to pay.
Imagine a world in which one person might presume to own another, a world in which people are bought and sold like possessions. Imagine, indeed, millions trafficked this way across the globe today. And then imagine someone taking some small step to redeem, or set free, someone who is being held hostage to wage slavery or debt, or through physical or other coercion.
That is a world we live in, even now. Organizations of Christians across the world – World Concern among them – are working to help people out of this system, and to challenge the system that enslaves. We might or might not be called to take direct action on this front, but we all will be called at some point to estimate the cost, of carrying the cross, of discipleship.
"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.… So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."
Our God, whose service is perfect freedom (costing not less than everything) – how are we to serve? Whom would we consider a saint?
If a man were give up a good job in a prestigious institution, leave his fiancée behind, and join a conspiracy to assassinate the duly elected leader of his country, would we consider him a good Christian? If, then, caught, convicted, and imprisoned, he wrote that girl, telling her we now live in a world without God, would we praise his faith? We might acknowledge his contribution to Death of God theology, but would we call him a saint?
And yet there he is, on the calendar in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, for April 9th: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pastor & Theologian, 1945. Bonhoeffer left Union Theological Seminary to return to Germany at the beginning of the Second World War, and who subsequently was involved in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler that failed on 20 July 1944, is widely held as an exemplar of faith in the 20th Century.
If a nun were to talk her way out of her vow of stability, and go live on the streets of a big city, would we consider her a model of obedience? If then, and from then on, she felt – and wrote in her letters – that she too felt the absence of God, would we consider her a model of faith? If she carried on like that for fifty years, would we call her a saint?
And yet Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who confessed that she had experienced the dark night of the soul over a period of fifty years of serving the “poorest of the poor”, is widely acclaimed as a model, an extreme model, of faith.
To give up family, friends, possessions, life itself – even to experience existence bereft of a sense of God’s presence – indeed our Lord cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – and yet somehow from this total loss, to experience the life of Resurrection, this is the cost, and the glory, of discipleship.
Sources:
Readings for Year C, Proper 18 [RCL]: Philemon 1-21. Psalm 139:1-5, 13-18. Luke 14:25-33.
T. S. Eliot, ‘Little Gidding’ (1942); Four Quartets (1943) [http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/gidding.html]
Richard A. Horsley and Neil Asher Silberman, The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World (Grosset/Putnam, 1997), p. 182-183.
http://www.worldconcern.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=527&srcid=429
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/b/bonhoeff.htm
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/calendar/holydays.html
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20031019_index_madre-teresa_en.html
Lesser Feasts and Fasts (Church Publishing, 2006) [http://www.io.com/~kellywp/CalndrsIndexes/TxtIndexLFF.html]
My Life with the Saints by James Martin, S.J. (Loyola Press Chicago, 2006)
http://www.nimblespirit.com/html/my_life_with_the_saints_review.html
September 9, 2007, Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento.
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