Marriage that sustains your love

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to a young married couple, "It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love" (HT JP).

What did he mean?

He could have meant that you have made these promises to love one another, and by an act of will you will determine to love each other for the rest of your life. After all imagine the shame if you fail to keep your word, or the hurt you'll cause by disappointing your wife. I often hear Christians say something like "love is not a feeling, it is a decision" and admittedly that is better than the "love what you feel like", but ultimately it is self-produced and powered by fear.

Thankfully I think I see something more beautiful in my married friends...

Bonhoeffer could also have meant that with your marriage you have a new identity (something that sadly our culture only recognises in the change of the bride's name). Of course, people do deny that identity and live as if they have another identity even to the point of separating. But to friends of mine their marriage is now so intrinsic to who they are that to decide they no longer love each other is like denying the sky is blue.

That's not to say that the old identity of being two flesh is not constantly trying to reassert itself, but that is the value of the marriage covenant. The ceremony creates the reality as a speech-act, and then echoes down through the rest of life.

By hearing repeatedly in words and actions that you are one flesh, Mr and Mrs, husband and wife, the reality of an identity of love is sustained.

Similarly, but on a grander scale where union is not physical but Spiritual (with a big 'S'), we need the Gospel repeating to us constantly because we continually forget our new identity. Hearing it again and again, or eating it in the Lord's Supper, sustains us in reminding us of who we are, and makes us more like the people we already are.

Out -> inside -> out

Now, our Scholastics and papists have taught an external piety; they would command the eyes not to see, and the ears not to hear, and would put piety into our hearts from the outside. Ah, how far this is from the truth! But it comes in this way: When the heart and conscience cling to the Word in faith, they overflow in works, so that when the heart is holy, all the members become holy, and good works follow naturally.

(Easter Sunday Sermon: Of Christ's Resurrection, on Mark 16:1-8)

Martin Luther criticised an ethics which taught that by doing good things you could develop good habits that would filter down into your heart. He saw this ethics in Medieval Scholastic theology, but originating in Aristotle ("Virtually the entire Ethics of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace. This in opposition to the scholastics" [Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, 1517]).

But that does not mean that he thought that personal change was a simple case of inside->out.

Our hearts are not changed spontaneously but in response to the external word, which could only be understood correctly by prayer, meditation and experience (Or Anfechtung, see his three rules).

Therefore, Bonhoeffer was standing in Luther's line when he explained that:

only the believers obey, and only the obedient believe.

It is really unfaithfulness to the Bible to have the first statement without the second. Only the believer obeys - we think we can understand that. Of course, obedience follows faith, the way good fruit comes from a good tree, we say. First there is faith, then obedience. If this meant only that faith alone justifies us and not deeds of obedience, then it is a firm and necessary precondition for everything else. But if it meant a chronological sequence, that faith would have to come first, to be later followed by obedience, then faith and obedience are torn apart...

space should be kept and had to be kept for that external deed required to enable faith - the step, in this case, to the church, where the word of salvation is preached... You can leave your house on Sunday and go to hear the preaching. If you do not do it, then you willfully exclude yourself from the place where faith is possible...

it is not the works which create faith. Instead, you are given a situation in which you can have faith.

(italics original, pp. 63-67, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship)

[Note that as well as this 'religious work' he also gives examples of an alcoholic giving up alcohol or a rich man giving away his money]

[Note also that Bonhoeffer is not saying that the 'first step' is a 'good work', but that is a work, which allows space for faith, which leads to good works.]

Post-mortum response to the unveiled word

the Word of God is so weak that it suffers to be despised and rejected by people...This weak Word, which suffers contradiction by sinners, is the only strong, merciful Word, that can make sinners repent from the bottom of their hearts. The Word's power is veiled in weakness. If the Word came in full unveiled power, that would be the final judgment day.

(p.173, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship)

It would be an interesting question to ask Rob Bell, whether it makes any difference that post-mortum repentance would be in response to the glorified and strong Word of Christ.

I think that when Paul says that he preached "the word of the cross" (1 Cor 1:18), he wasn't just referring to the content, but the form of Gospel he preached. It was weak and foolish, carried by jars of clay, just as Jesus seemed to so many in first century Judea.

At his second coming the Word will be much more a "word of the resurrection", and will be carried by angels blasting trumpets. Glory will be unveiled and strength exerted.

If Rob Bell sees people repenting, and trusting, in response to that Word then is there something quantitatively different to our repentance and faith?

Seeing only sin

Dietrich Bonhoeffer bluntly states that:

the Lord will judge us each according to our works without partiality. For each person's works will become apparent, and to each the Lord will give "recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil" (2 Cor 5:10; Rom 2:6ff; Matt 16:27). Whatever has not already received its judgment here on earth will not remain hidden on judgment day, but must come to light.

(p. 277, Discipleship)

The editor's footnotes also quote the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) as further support.

[But a] surprising point arises from the fact that in Jesus' story the sheep think they are goats and the goats are sure they are sheep. "When did we see you naked, and not clothe you?" the latter boast. To these goats, who insist on following the law (and think they get perfect marks in so doing), the king replies, "You missed one! As often as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." Try living by the law, and you will be toast. On the contrary, the poor befuddled sheep [...] cannot seem to see their gifts and works at all. "When did we see you naked, etc., and clothe you?" The king answers, "I remember one time." Rather like those poor split-brained disciples of the Sermon on the Mount, whose right hand did not know what the left was doing, these people's good works sneak up on them and remain hidden from to them (but not necessarily to others) their whole life long. The only thing Christians truly sense is their desperate need for a Savior, the Good Shepherd, who seeks the lost.

(italics original, p. 93, Timothy Wengert, A Formula for Parish Practice)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer doesn't disagree. We should not respond to the doctrine of judgement by works by looking at our achievements and trusting in them.

The saints themselves are unaware of the fruit of sanctification they bear. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. If they become curious to know something in this matter, if they decide to engage in self-contemplation, then they would have already torn themselves away from the root and their time of bearing fruit would have passed [...] In their own lives, only the saints see strife, hardship, weakness and sin. And the more maturity they gain in the state of sanctification, the more they recognize themselves as being overcome, as those who are dying according to the flesh.

(p. 266f, Discipleship)

As I once heard Dick Lucas preach on Romans 8: the Spirit witnesses to our adoption by making us aware of the constant presence of the battle with our old nature.

But don't you know people just like that? I do. People who cheerfully give and give, but have no awareness of the good works they are doing. They're just being normal in their own eyes, or perhaps not even doing enough. But sometimes other people see how exceptional the giving is, and give thanks for them.

The 360 degree turnaround

Listening to: Mozart: Piano Trios

1. The turn away from people to Christ

"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" (Luke 14:26) [...]

Jesus' call itself already breaks the ties with the naturally given surroundings in which a person lives. It is not the disciple who breaks them; Christ himself broke them as soon as he called. Christ has untied the person's immediate connections with the world and bound the person immediately to himself.

2. Christ the mediator between person and person

It s true, there is something which comes between persons called by Christ and the given circumstances of their natural lives [...] it is Christ himself. In becoming human, he put himself between me and the given circumstances of the world. I cannot go back. He is in the middle. He has deprived those whom he has called of every immediate connection to those given realities. He wants to be the medium; everything should happen only through him. He stands not only between me and God, he also stands between me and the world, between me and other people and things. He is the mediator, not only between God and human persons, but also between person and person, and between person and reality.

3. The turn back to the world through Christ

There is no genuine love for the world except the love with which God has loved the world in Jesus Christ. "Do not love the world" (1 John 2:15) [for the sake of self, apart from gratitude to God]. But "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16) [for the sake of God (and others), with gratitude to God].

4. Abraham as the role model

Abraham had to learn that the promise did not depend on Isaac, but only on God [...] He brings his son to be sacrificed [...] for the sake of the mediator. At the same time, everything that he had given up is restored to him. Abraham receives his son back. God shows him a better sacrifice which is to take Isaac's place. It is a turnaround of 360 degrees. Abraham received Isaac back, but in a different way than before. He has him through the mediator and for the sake of the mediator. As the one who was prepared to hear and obey God's command literally, he is permitted to have Isaac as though he did not have him; he is permitted to have him through Jesus Christ. No one else knows about it. Abraham comes down from the mountain with Isaac, just as he went up, but everything has changed. Christ had come between the father and the son. Abraham had left everything and followed Christ, and while he was following Christ, he was permitted to go back to live in the same world he had lived in before. Externally everything remained the same. But the old has passed away; see, everything has become new.

(pp.92-98, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship)

I thought this idea of Christ as mediator between people to be really amazing. Not 100% sure that it is the best way to understand things, but its very powerful.

BTW it seems that Bonhoeffer nicked the idea of the 360 degree circle from Barth:

When such a church embarks upon moral exhortation, its exhortation can be naught else but a criticism of all human behavior, a criticism which moves through every one of the 360 degrees of the circle of our ambiguous life

(p. 428, The Epistle to the Romans)

The narrow road

I nearly finished (The Cost of) Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer while on holiday. An incredible, if occasionally frustrating book. Here is a particularly wonderful quote (formating mine):

The road of the disciples is narrow.

  It is easy to go past it;
  it is easy to miss it;
  it is easy to lose it,

even for those who have already walked it.
It is hard to find. The path is narrow indeed; there is a real danger of falling off on both sides.

  To be called to do the extraordinary,
    but not to see and know that one is doing it
      - that is a narrow road.

  To give witness to and to confess the truth of Jesus,
    but to love the enemy of his truth, who is his enemy and our enemy, with the unconditional love of Jesus Christ
      - that is a narrow road.

  To believe in Jesus' promise that those who follow shall possess the earth,
    but to encounter the enemy unarmed, to prefer suffering injustice to doing ill
      - that is a narrow road.

  To perceive other people as being weak and wrong
    but never to judge them;
  to proclaim the good news to them,
    but never to throw pearls before swine
      - that is a narrow road.

It is an unbearable road. The danger of falling off threatens every minute.

  As long as I recognize this road as one I am commanded to walk, and try to walk it in fear of myself, it is truly impossible.
    But if I see Jesus Christ walking ahead of me, step by step,
      then I will be protected on this path.

  If I look at the danger in what I am doing, if I look at the path
    instead of at him who is walking ahead of me,
      then my foot is already slipping.

He himself is the way.
He is the narrow road and the narrow gate.
The only thing that matters is finding him.

If we know that, then we will walk the narrow way to life through the narrow gate of the cross of Jesus Christ, then the narrowness of the way itself will reassure us. How could the road of the Son of God on earth, which we are to walk as citizens of two realms at the boundary between the world and the kingdom of heaven, be a wide one? The narrow way has to be the right way.

(p. 176, Discipleship)

Who do you say I am?

In his lectures, Christology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the plea that in theology we give priority to the question of who over how, and that we always seek answers to the question of how in terms of who.

[...]

We can too readily assume that Christianity is meaningful, useful, relevant, even true, only if it seen to offer solutions to [...] practical problems. We can too readily subsume theology (as Ritschl did in the nineteenth century) under the category of means and ends.

(pp. 69-70, James B Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace)

My prayer as I 'lead' a new round of Christianity Explored from tomorrow that I remember this. Too often recently I have stressed how Christianity meets felt needs, and so missed much of the Gospel which is a person (as Mark says at the beginning of Mark's Gospel; 1:1).

Mark's Gospel, which Christianity Explored looks at, is deeply concerned with Jesus' identity. I didn't really get it at the time but I am sure that that is why the forerunner of UCCF's FREE Gospel Project was named 'Identity'. [I remember that project particularly well as that 'Identity Gospel' was the first time I ever read the bible as an adult.]

Too the end of reminding myself who Mark says Jesus is, I have just quickly read through the Gospel and noted down all the instances of people explicitly saying who they think Jesus is (a very incomplete way of looking at it I know, but hopefully helpful).

• Mark: "Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (1:1)
• God the Father: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased" (1:11)
• Man with an unclean spirit: "Jesus of Nazareth...the Holy One of God" (1:24)
• Unclean spirits: "You are the Son of God" (2:11)
• His family: "He is out of his mind" (2:21)
• The scribes from Jerusalem: "He is possessed by Beelzebul...He has an unclean spirit" (2:22-30)
• Disciples: "Teacher" (4:38, followed by stilling of storm when they ask:"Who then is this", v.41?)
• Man with unclean spirit: "Son of the Most High God" (5:7)
• Those from the ruler's house: "Teacher" (5:35)
• People at the synagogue in his hometown: "the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon" (6:3)
• Some people: "John the Baptist...raised from the dead" (6:14)
• Some others: "He is Elijah" (6:15)
• Some more others: "He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old" (6:15)
• Herod: "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised" (6:16)
• Syrophoenician woman: "Lord" (7:28)
• Some people: "John the Baptist" (8:28)
• Some others: "Elijah" (8:28)
• Some more others: "one of the prophets" (8:28)
• Peter: "You are the Christ" (8:29)
• Peter, James and John: "Rabbi" (9:5)
• God the Father: "This is my beloved Son; listen to him" (9:7)
• Father of a boy with an unclean spirit: "Teacher" (9:17)
• Disciples: "Teacher" (9:38)
• Rich Young Man: "Good Teacher" (10:17) and "Teacher" (10:20)
• James and John: "Teacher" (10:35)
• Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus: "Son of David" (10:48) and "Rabbi" (10:51)
• Crowd: "he who comes in the name of the Lord" (11:9)
• Peter: "Rabbi" (11:21)
• Pharisees and some of the Herodians: "Teacher" (12:14)
• Sadducees: "Teacher" (12:19)
• One of the scribes: "Teacher" (12:32)
• One of his disciples: "Teacher" (13:1)
• Judas: "Rabbi" (14:45)
• Jesus: "I am [the Christ, the Son of the Blessed]" (14:62; in response to the High Priest's question; 14:61)
• Jesus: "You have said [I am the King of the Jews]" (15:2; in response to Pilate's question)
• Pilate: "the King of the Jews" (16:9)
• Soldiers (mockingly): "King of the Jews" (16:18)
• The chief priests with the scribes (mockingly): "the Christ, the King of Israel" (16:32)
• Centurion by the cross: "the Son of God" (15:39)
• Angels: "Jesus of Nazareth" (16:6)

[The different colours represent different groups of people, and the bold words are those that echo Mark's introduction in 1:1]

I glean a few things from this (which are quite obvious, sorry):

1. The book is structured round the key confessions of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. It is clear that both are important.
2. God the Father's declaration at Jesus' Baptism, and the Transfiguration is as important as Peter's in 8:28. The dramatic events around the cross also have the feeling of a voice from heaven.
3. The trial before Pilate and the High Priest is very important, as is the verdict given by the sign above the cross, and the Centurion.
4. The disciples at no point during the Gospel come to a realisation of who Jesus is, with the one possible exception of Peter's confession in 8:28.
5. The outsiders are the people who see the truth; those with unclean spirits, the Syrophoenician woman, Blind Bartimaeus and the Centrurion.