I feel like I'm kind of cheating on this one. I read this book years ago and remembered that it had a lot of great 'meat' to it but I was vague on what exactly I had dined. This time around in no way felt like I was subjected to leftovers but rather had been served up a fresh off the grill meal. The one thing I did remember was thinking it would be an excellent book to give to people who are joining membership of a church (or current members who might need a bit of a 'review'). I feel that even more strongly now that I've been through it a second time. There are so many wonderful principles throughout Life Together that, if truly implemented within the Body of Christ, would change how the church is viewed by the world as a whole but also how we within the church would view each other and our role within it.
I fear so deeply that I am not going to do this book justice. The treasures that it contains can be attested by the amount of comments I wrote in the margins. A lot of 'YES', 'great explanation' and 'if only we could all do this' litters the pages. There are only five chapters in this small book and I will try to pull out the brightest points just for the sake of sharing but I implore you to read this book and just try not to be challenged about your role within your church.
Community
This first chapter can be summed up as Bonhoeffer's view on how Christians should 'be' together. It's all about being "through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ" (p. 21). If we are living our lives as redeemed people who understand our sinful nature but also our righteousness gained through Christ dying for us, we will live "wholly by God's Word pronounced upon [us], whether that Word declares [us] guilty or innocent" (p. 22). "The Christian is dependent upon the Word of God spoken to him...He is as alert as possible to this Word. Because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he daily desires the redeeming Word. And it can come only from the outside. In himself he is destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside, and it has come and comes daily and anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness" (p. 22). I think what made me love this thought so much is it flies in the face of our current culture where we are told to find the answers and strength inside ourselves, no matter what we are facing. This leaves so many people disappointed in their life - unhappy and unfulfilled - but to know that we have the answer to that should bring us great joy and hope as we share the truth with those around us. This also leads to the idea that "the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth" (p. 23). We cannot be an island. We need each other in fellowship. This will lead to brotherly love in Christ. "He who looks upon his brother should know that he will be eternally united with him in Jesus Christ" (p. 24). This one sentence was extremely convicting for me and it sat on my mind for many days. How can I think that it's okay to be frustrated with or unkind to or judgmental toward another brother or sister in Christ, knowing that they are part of me? That one incredibly powerful link between us that is Jesus Christ should lead me to treat them as if they were part of my own flesh.
Another section that I really appreciated was about when we are in the Christian community we should not be seeking ideals but rather be thankful for our fellow Christians. "A community which cannot bear and cannot survive [the shock of disillusionment], which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial" (p. 27). I think that Bonhoeffer is saying that God has decided beforehand what health in our Christian community should look like and how it should manifest and when we feel that we know better than him how and through whom that health should come about, we are trying to dethrone Him as the head of our community.
One of the most powerful things we can be within our Christian community is thankful. "We do not complain of what God does not give us; rather we thank God for what He does give us daily...Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts...We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?" (p. 28-29). And this was a very powerful point for me: "If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ" (p. 29). The reason that this spoke to me is I made a decision to attend the women's study at my home church and left an amazing group of ladies at my previous church. I have not connected with this new group of women as much as I would like and have not come even close to forming bonds of friendship and trust like I had before. I realized when I read this quote that I was spending my 'thought time' about this new group comparing it to the old group, rather than looking at them as a fresh opportunity for fellowship and new bonds. I had completely neglected to pray for that fellowship to grow but rather was grumbling (aloud and in my heart) about how it was not meeting my expectations. And the result was that I had no fruitful fellowship. Mr. Bonhoeffer told me why.
Within our community we must have love. But we must understand and be able to recognize the difference between human love and spiritual love. "Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake...Human love cannot tolerate the dissolution of fellowship that has become false for the sake of genuine fellowship, and human love cannot love an enemy, that is, one who seriously and stubbornly resists it" (p. 34). Spiritual love takes over where human love can no longer continue because its unfulfilled desire turns into hatred and contempt. "Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and his Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love" (p. 35). Part of this love is realizing that I cannot save anyone, only Christ can do that and I "must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love. The other person needs to retain his independence of me; to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became man, died, and rose again, for whom Christ bought forgiveness of sins and eternal life...I must leave him to his freedom to be Christ's; I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ's eyes" (p. 36, italics mine).
The Day with Others
Deitrich Bonhoeffer spent some of his life in a very unique situation. He was a founding member of the Confessing Church in Germany during the rise of Nazism. The Confessing Church formed an underground seminary at Finkenwalde where he lived in relative isolation with his students. Thus, standards for how they would spend their days together had to be developed and put into effect. It was very important to Bonhoeffer that the morning was not wasted. "For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day's work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening World. All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him. Therefore, 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" (p. 43). He believed that the day should be started with hymns sung and time in the Word of God. He had some wonderful thoughts on the Psalms: "A psalm that we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us falter and horrifies us, is a hint to us that here Someone is praying, not we; that the One who is here protesting his innocence, who is invoking God's judgment, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself" (p. 45) and "Even if a verse or a psalm is not one's own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the fellowship; so it is quite certainly the prayer of the true Man Jesus Christ and his Body on earth" (p. 47). He sets out very clearly some standards for being in the Word every day and has something to say to those who feel that the day's Scripture reading is too long for them: "The Scripture as a whole and every word, every sentence possesses such multiple relationships with the whole that it is impossible always to keep the whole in view when listening to details. It becomes apparent, therefore, that the whole of Scriptures and hence every passage in it as well far surpasses our understanding...So perhaps one may say that every Scripture reading always has to be somewhat "too long" because it is not merely proverbial and practical wisdom but God's revealing Word in Jesus Christ" (p. 52-53). And in order to ward off any feelings that time in the Word is not meaningful he pens, "What we call our life, our troubles, our guilt, is by no means all of reality; there in the Scriptures is our life, our need, our guilty, and our salvation. Because it pleased God to act for us there, it is only there that we shall be saved. Only in the Holy Scriptures do we learn to know our own history" (p. 54). If that doesn't make you want to dive into the Word, I'm not sure what will.
In reading a Bonhoeffer biography I learned that he had quite a great sense of humor so in his section on singing together I wasn't sure in some parts if he was being a bit cheeky or was serious. He was quite an accomplished musician and says that Christians should always sing together "because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time...here they can unite in the Word" (p. 59). What made me giggle was a section where he is quite hard on people who try to sing harmonies and then even harder on the "unmusical who cannot sing" (p. 60). We all have all had that person who we find ourselves beside in worship service who is just belting it out, hands in the air, making what can only be called a 'joyful noise'. I can only imagine what Mr. Bonhoeffer would have to say to that person. It made me smile just thinking about it. Unison singing only for him.
Regarding prayer, Bonhoeffer believed "where Christians want to live together under the Word of God they may and they should pray together to God in their own words" (p. 62). We should be interceding for each other and praying for our fellowship but he felt that it should be very structured with a plan laid out for what to pray and one leader who guides the group and ensures that there is not monotony occurring in the same requests being made day after day. But his concluding thought on praying together is we must "bear with the other in patience. Let nothing be done by force; let everything be done in freedom and love" (p. 66).
Eating together was important as well at Finkenwalde (and in any group of Christians I suppose) as Bonhoeffer saw it as their literal 'daily bread' and a chance to acknowledge the Lord as the giver of all gifts (James 1:17). "Christians, in their wholehearted joy in the good gifts of this physical life, acknowledge their Lord as the true giver of all good gifts; and beyond this, as the true Gift; the true Bread of life itself; and finally, as the One who is calling them to the banquet of the Kingdom of God" (p. 67). And we must eat with joy. "God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day" (p. 68). What a great reminder for me to never take for granted those moments when I can sit and be nourished, especially if I am fortunate enough to be sitting with fellow believers!
I don't 'work' in the sense that I don't leave the house to go to a designated job but I am a stay-at-home mom who considers it one of the greatest blessings of my life that I am able to stay home and be here for my children almost all the time. A portion of this chapter entitled 'The Day's Work' really spoke to me. "In work the Christian learns to allow himself to be limited by the task, and thus for him the work becomes a remedy against the indolence and sloth of the flesh. The passions of the flesh die in the world of things. But this can happen only where the Christian breaks through the "it" to the "Thou," which is God, who bids him work and makes that work a means of liberation from himself" (p. 70). But we must start the day off properly: "The prayer of the morning will determine the day. Wasted time, which we are ashamed of, temptations that beset us, weakness and listlessness in our work, disorder and indiscipline in our thinking and our relations with other people very frequently have their cause in the neglect of the morning prayer" (p. 71). The quick prayer offered up by a mother of young ones before her feet hit the floor at 6am may not be what Bonhoeffer envisioned, but I know for sure the difference in a day when I have pleaded for love, patience and grace before I see those little, smiling faces.
The Day Alone
In this section of the book, Bonhoeffer offers his thoughts on the connection between being in community and the ability to be comfortably alone. "We recognize, then, that only as we are within fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship" (p. 77-78). We must embrace silence as the "stillness of the individual under the Word of God" (p. 79). We wait for God and come from His Word with a blessing. "If we have learned to be silent before the Word, we shall also learn to manage our silence and our speech during the day" (p. 80).
Our alone time should be for three purposes:
1) Meditation on Scripture
Bonhoeffer's thoughts here were very meaningful to me and really gave me a new freedom in my time spent in the Word. "In our mediation we ponder the chosen text on the strength of the promise that it has something utterly personal to say to us for the day and for our Christian life, that it is not only God's Word for the Church, but also God's Word for us individually...we read God's Word as God's Word for us...Often we are so burdened and overwhelmed with other thoughts, images, and concerns that it may take a long time before God's Word has swept all else aside and come through. But it surely will come, just as surely as God Himself has come to men and will come again" (p. 82). We want to spend time in Word so it becomes such a part of stirring us and operating us we are not even conscious of it. "Above all, it is not necessary that we should have any unexpected, extraordinary experiences in mediation. This can happen, but if it does not, it is not a sign that the meditation period has been useless. Not only at the beginning, but repeatedly, there will be times when we feel a great spiritual dryness and apathy, an aversion, even an inability to meditate. We dare not be balked by such experiences. Above all, we must not allow them to keep us from adhering to our mediation period with patience and fidelity" (p. 83-84). What freedom to me to hear that if I don't feel a fresh 'encounter' or 'word' during my devotion time it should not be considered time spent unfruitfully.
2) Prayer
I have noticed, as I'm sure you have as well, that as someone is increasingly a student and lover of the Word of God, so their audible prayers become more and more filled with Scripture. "Prayer means nothing else but the readiness and willingness to receive and appropriate the Word, and, what is more, to accept it in one's personal situation, particular tasks, decisions, sins, and temptations" (p. 84). Meditation and prayer will often begin to naturally flow together. "It is one of the particular difficulties of mediation that our thoughts are likely to wander and go their own way, toward other persons or to some events in our life. Much as this may distress and shame us again and again, we must not lose heart and become anxious, or even conclude that meditation is really not something for us. When this happens it is often a help not to snatch back our thoughts convulsively, but quite calmly to incorporate into our prayers the people and the events to which our thoughts keep straying and thus in all patience return to the starting point of the meditation" (p. 85).
3) Intercession
"A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses...There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned...To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in him mercy" (p. 86).
Ministry
The focus here is our ministry to others in the fellowship. I loved this chapter of the book and wished that each section was its own chapter unto itself. It would make an incredible sermon series for sure! The pages in this part of my book are so marked up and the margins are full of my thoughts but I will try not to copy out the entire chapter here.
Who could not use a strong reminder from time to time to hold their tongue? Bonhoeffer sees holding one's tongue as a form of ministering to others and, although I never thought of it that way as I strive to bridle my tongue, I would definitely agree. Pardon the long quote here but I could not possibly omit any of this wonder thought: "Where the discipline of the tongue is practiced right from the beginning, each individual will make a matchless discovery. He will be able to cease from constantly scrutinizing the other person, judging him, condemning him, putting him in his particular place where he can gain ascendency over him and thus doing violence to him as a person. Now he can allow the brother to exist as a completely free person, as God made him to be. His view expands and, to his amazement, for the first time he sees, shining above his brethren, the richness of God's creative glory. God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the occasion of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction. God does will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image. I can never know beforehand how God's image should appear in others. That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that comes solely from God's free and sovereign creation. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified. After all, even that image certainly looked strange and ungodly to be before I grasped it" (p. 93).
Our ministry of meekness to others comes in considering ourselves the greatest of all sinners. "There can be no genuine acknowledgment of sin that does not lead to this extremity. If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all...Brotherly love will find any number of extenuations for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no apology whatsoever" (p. 96)
Who of us does not know how our heart and mind has been helped by a brother or sister who simply took the time to listen? We must listen with our full ear, not half an ear with presumptions about what the other person is going to say. "He who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either...our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God" (p. 98).
We must always be ready to help ("We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions" p. 99) and bear with others ("It is the fellowship of the Cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian...To bear the burden of the other person means involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept it and affirm it, and, in bearing with it, to break through to the point where we take joy in it" p. 101).
One ministry of which the author spoke and seems to be something that is rare in our churches today is proclaiming the Word. He discusses the fear that arises in the one who feels they have been given the responsibility the speak to another but says "If we cannot bring ourselves to utter it, we shall have to ask ourselves whether we are not still seeing our brother garbed in his human dignity which we are afraid to touch, and thus forgetting the most important thing, that he, too, no matter how old or highly placed or distinguished he may be, is still a man like us, a sinner in crying need of God's grace. He has the same great necessities that we have, and needs help, encouragement, and forgiveness as we do" (p. 105). This is a very challenging portion of the book and I made many notes along the line of knowing that what he was suggesting is right but so tough to put into practice. It requires both the willingness of the person speaking the proclamation to come, with deepest humility, outside of their zone of comfort for the good of their fellow Christian and the receiver of the proclamation being open in their heart and mind to hearing what is being shared with them. "The more we learn to allow others to speak the Word to us, to accept humbly and gratefully even severe reproaches and admonitions, the more free and objective will we be in speaking ourselves...the humble person will stick both to truth and to love...Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the path of sin. It is a ministry of mercy, an ultimate offer of genuine fellowship, when we allow nothing but God's Word to stand between us, judging and succoring" (p. 106-107).
Confession and Communion
One thing that really draws me to Bonhoeffer's theology on fellowship is his focus on us all being equal...as sinners. As I am, admittedly, not part of a fellowship in which there is open and full confession of our sins, I can only imagine the love and understanding and compassion each member would have for the others. "The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners...Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!...This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that; He loves the sinner but He hates the sin" (p. 110-111). The freedom to be released from our sins and grow away from them and closer to God is what makes this so attractive to me. We must bring sin out into the open in our communities. "Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community" (p. 112). We want our confession to bring us closer to the Cross. "We cannot find the Cross of Jesus if we shrink from going to the place where it is to be found, namely, the public death of the sinner" (p. 114). Confession will bring us new life. "What happened to us in baptism is bestowed upon as anew in confession. We are delivered out of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. That is joyful news. Confession is the renewal of the joy of baptism" (p. 115). And here is, to me, a very powerful and sobering thought: "Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness? Self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin; this can be accomplished only by the judging and pardoning Word of God itself...A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person" (p. 115-116). I will confess here of being guilty of this offence. I have to wonder how many sins I have confessed in the past that were not confessed to God but simply to make myself feel better. This is concerning to me but if I move forward in awareness of this possibility I think I will be able to guard well against it. Bonhoeffer says that those who are most aware of their own sinfulness and need for forgiveness are your best choice when looking for someone to whom you can confess.
So, that is my summation and highlights of this wonderful Life Together. Going through it yet again as I composed this (so my third time through) I am even more convinced of the great value of this book to those in fellowship in the church. Read it, absorb it and put it into practice!
Yours is the day, yours is also the night - Psalm 74:16
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins - James 5:19-20
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words - Romans 8:26
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