I loved reading this book. I’ve never read Bonhoeffer, and I feel like I’ve discovered this great new treasure. I also kinda felt like I was drinking out of a fire hose – as if there was too much to process at once, too many ideas and truths to understand and apply. I think I could re-read this book countless times and still continue to learn.
In the first chapter I was struck over and over by the difference between the truth of community between brothers and sisters in Christ and the human ideas of community that we bring to the table. This was good for me to hear – I think cause in lots of ways I don’t fully know what to expect in terms of living in community with others. I know that its something I long for – and that I’m terrified by. It was good for me to hear and understand that community between believers exisits, not because of my ideals but because of Jesus. It is a “divine reality.” At the same time the first chapter served as a “warning” to me, that even with the best intentions my own personal ideas of community can be destructive.
I also loved the sections on living a day together in community, with the different “parts” of worship/life together. One idea that has stuck in my brain is, “At he threshold of a new days stands the Lord who made it.” I am not a morning person. Far from it – but this little phrase has become a prayer to me, a reminder that while I may not be thrilled to be dragging myself out of bed, there is a deeper truth at work.
Bonhoeffer’s discourse on scripture was beautiful. The way he explains the sanctity of Scripture, and its place in the life of a believer was good. I guess really he just took some “floaty ideas” and made them incredibly “tangible” for me. Like this framework to hang other ideas on. For example, his description of corporate readings – how we read not only for ourselves, but also for the greater community. This idea that at any given moment someone in my faith community will be identifying with any given psalm, and I read and pray those not only for my own benefit, but also as a member of something much bigger than myself.
Further, I loved how he said, “Holy Scriptures is more than a watchword. It is also more than “light for today.” It is the revealed word for all men, for all times” and then , “Only in the infiniteness of its inner relationships, in the connection of the Old and New Testaments, of promise and fulfillment, sacrifice and law, law and gospel, cross and resurrection, faith and obedience, having and hoping, will the full witness to Jesus Christ the Lord be perceived.”
“The Scripture is 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. It is good for us to be daily reminded of this fact, which again points to Jesus Christ himself.” What release this reminder is. I don’t have to get it. I’m not supposed to make complete sense of it all. But slowly layer after layer it comes more and more clear to me.
And then the section on singing together – how when we sing together it allows us to all pray and worship at the same time, that the church is singing, and I get to join in as a part of it. “Why do Christians sing when they are together? The reason is quite simply, because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time; in other words, because here they can unite in the Word.”
Bonhoeffer says later, that “a Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses” and then a bit later, “There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be over come by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned.” Even these two statements leave me so much to chew on. How often have I let tension remain and grow because my response has been to talk with others, or “stew” over something instead of interceding for that person. It seems so simple as I type, but so much harder to put into practice, especially when I have been hurt by another person. What I want (humanly) is to be angry and get even…not to intercede for that person. But I feel the Lord calling me to this.
The last idea that grabbed me is, “We are members of a body, not only when we choose to be, but in our whole existence. Every member serves the whole body, either to its health or to its destruction. This is no mere theory; it is a spiritual reality. And the Christian community has often experiences it effects with disturbing clarity, sometimes destructively and sometimes fortunately.” This flies in the face of the individualism that marks me and the American church. We tend to think that community is something of a buffet – I can take it or leave it depending on how I feel – but the truth is that in deep ways we are connected whether we like it or not.
Perhaps what I really loved about this book was the understanding of how so much of this isn’t really about me. I am a part of the whole. The way I relate to other believers and God is all part of a bigger whole. Its not about me. When I pray, I pray with and for other believers. When I read scripture it is not only for me. When I worship its as part of a greater whole. When I celebrate, grieve, sin, repent, struggle – its all bigger and deeper than me. This truth flies in the face of my individualistic American Christian upbringing where I’m used to asking and answering questions about “my relationship with Christ” (which is important…it just isn’t the whole picture). Its like I’ve just finished hearing a description of something bigger and different and more than I lived. This beautiful community of believers that I am a part of, and that I’m being drawn into.
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