Appalling Strangeness

You can't conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.

-Graham Greene

Several conversations around this 40-Day Journey with Bonhoeffer have centered around a very familiar theme: This whole discipleship business that he is talking about seems like an impossibly high ideal. And, what is further, it seems like he lifted the ideal so high that he himself was not able to live up to it, what with the whole story of his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Doesn't his own biography counter the ideal for which he was striving?

I have to say that the timing of these conversations and questions is rather appropriate. Here we are at Day 18, almost halfway in our 40-Day Lenten Journey. We are getting to know Bonhoeffer a little more, and balancing that with, possibly, a few insights about our own lives and how we live. And what is emerging for several of us is this idea that, try as I might, I won't ever be able to live up to what a follower of Jesus ought to do, or ought to be.

Now, if we take a step back for a moment and just ponder this conundrum, we can notice a few things. 1) For some reason we think that there is a perfect ideal out there, and that it is our business to pile up the entire resources of our human experience and reach it. 2) For some reason the effort we expend "trying to be good and reach the ideal" often makes us blind to the presence of Christ in our lives; only looking to Christ when we need some tips on how to live better to achieve the ideal. 3) Doesn't this cheapen the actual grade, and, our word for the day, appalling strangeness of the mercy of God? Because the fact is, try as we might, that ideal will never be reached, and, just as in the best and healthiest of human relationships, God's abundant love can never be earned. It is given. It is given. It is given. It is grace.

The cost of that grace was of utmost concern for Bonhoeffer. He thought of it as worthy of our best attention; our deepest reflection; and the basis of our convictions out of which our most passionate actions arise.

Question for the day:

In what ways do we cheapen the grace and mercy of God?

"The word of cheap grace has ruined more Christians than any other commandment about works...

For integrity's sake someone has to speak up for those among us who confess that cheap grace has made them give up following Christ, and that ceasing to follow Christ has made them lose the knowledge of costly grace. Because we cannot deny that we no longer stand in tru discipleship to Christ, while being members of a true-believing church with a pure doctrine of grace, but are no longer members of a church which follows Christ, we therefore have to try to understand grace and discipleship again in correct relationship to each other."

-from his book Discipleship

Scripture to consider:

What then are we to say? Should we continue to sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

-Romans 6:1-4

Prayer for the day:

Lord Jesus Christ, I would follow you, no matter what the cost; lead me in the way of true discipleship.

Amen

he is close

... So many nights the angel of my house

has fed such urgent comfort through a dream,

whispered, "your lord is coming, he is close"

that I have drowsed half-faithful for a time

bathed in pure tones of promise and remorse:

"tomorrow I shall wake to welcome him."

-excerpt from Geoffrey Hill, Lachrimae Amantis

The treasure of these last handful of days here in Chicago has been the fact that the sun has been out. After weeks of tentative light and persistent cold, the sun has begun to carve an arc in the sky just a little higher, just a little warmer, and just a little brighter. It's a wonderful thing to experience even a little bit of warmth on your back after so long. Walking back from campus yesterday, I even saw a crocus peeking out from behind the base of a shrub. Premature and ill-fated though it was, it was still a crocus. Spring, dare I say, is close.

That said, such bright days set the evening darkness into starker relief. It's not at all a sense that the nights are darker. It's rather a sense that life is beginning to once again rev up the fullness of its contrasts. Rather than the continuous dull grayscale of Chicago winter, my body and soul must once again be ready to take in both glorious brightness and vast darkness, all within 24 hours.

How do we balance and receive such stunning contrasts? Because if we step back even just a little, that's what we're surrounded by. Contrasts. In the Geoffrey Hill's poem above, that's part of what he's talking about in the mingling of "promise and remorse." Sometimes the best we can do is "drowse half-faithful" in anticipation of what Christ, in his coming, will renew and redeem. The contrasts of life can be all too overwhelming. That's why the whisper of the angel, "your lord is coming, he is close..." can penetrate so deeply into our souls: we want so badly for the contrasts and tensions to be set aright, for resolution to come. Because, so often in the evening hours, in moments when we are really honest about our lives, our world, and our selves, we long for that peace most of all.

Peace, deep peace, is not merely a social ideal to pursue. It's the deepest reality of all creation, as God breathed it into life. We draw our understanding of peace from incredibly deep wells: Shalom, that wonderful Hebraic word, has a depth of meaning, ranging from inner peace and wholeness for the individual, all the way to the healing of the brokenness of the entire world--the cosmos.

What a fitting passage from Bonhoeffer, then:

"Jesus' followers are called to peace. When Jesus called them they found their peace. Jesus is their peace. Now they are not only to have peace, but they are to make peace. To do this they renounce violence and strife. Those things never help the cause of Christ. Christ's kingdom is a realm of peace, and those in Christ's community greet each other with a greeting of peace."

- from his book, Discipleship

Scripture to consider:

Which of you desires life,

and covets many days to enjoy good?

Keep your tongue from evil,

and your lips from speaking deceit.

Depart from evil, and do good;

seek peace, and pursue it.

Psalm 34:12-14

Prayer for the day:

God of peace, you give me peace, now teach me to be a peacemaker.

Amen

Hiatus and Healing

Greetings after a few days of hiatus. This weekend, into Monday, marked the one-year anniversary of a momentous tragedy at our church, so it was fitting to just let the pen, or the keys rather, rest.

Earlier in the blog I mentioned having a good companions along the way. Well, one huge example of companionship for me has been the representatives of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance who are trauma specialists who have been walking with our staff and our congregation for this whole year. They have really modeled "Christ with us" in ways that have been full of comfort, healing, and peace. They have helped us all live into the motto that is the banner of their organization: "Out of Chaos, Hope." I am, we are, so thankful their presence.

Proximity is an ongoing theme in Lent: getting close to things that, in ordinary time, we wouldn't necessarily be getting close to. Borrowing from a phrase that some of us were working through this weekend, if we picture our lives and our selves in terms of houses with rooms, in Lent, the question becomes "What rooms haven't we gone into lately?" Getting in there, "cleaning house," opening the doors to those dark closets; it gets us in touch with what we are, what we are not, and how amazing it is that Christ walks with us into every space of our lives.

There is simply something about Christ's life that is constantly drawing us into closer proximity with God. What is more, that movement of God closer to us actually loops us back into our own lives and, even further, our world. And as a result, we get to know ourselves and our world in deeper, sometimes uncomfortable, and nearly always more truthful ways. In Lent, it feels like Christ presses in even closer than usual. In this state of proximity, one of Kierkegaard's questions comes to us: Well, are you 'just' an admirer of Jesus? Or are you a follower? Kierkegaard says, "A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him." The proximity of Lent, I think, literally 'presses' the question. "Christ's life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it," says Kierkegaard.

No wonder the heightened awareness of proximity in Lent goes hand-in-hand with a longing both for forgiveness of sins and complete renewal. The "Light of Christ" literally shines into those rooms of our lives and we start to see some things as they are. No matter what we can do or try, re-newing that room can't happen on our own.

Bonhoeffer, in our reading for Day 11, puts it in terms of righteousness:

"Disciples live with not only renouncing their own rights, but even renouncing their own righteousness. They get no credit themselves for what they do and sacrifice.

The only righteousness they can have is in hungering and thirsting for it. They will have neither their own righteousness nor God's righteousness on earth. At all times they look forward to God's future righteousness, but they cannot bring it about by themselves. Those who follow Jesus will be hungry and thirsty along the way. They are filled with longing for forgiveness of all sins and for complete renewal; they long for the renewal of the earth and for God's perfect justice."

Question to ponder:

In what ways do you experience the proximity of Christ in Lent? In what ways does what you hunger and thirst for change as a result of that proximity? What do you do to alleviate that hunger and thirst?

Psalm to consider:

For the word of the Lord is upright,

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

-Psalm 33:4-5

Prayer for today:

Lord, may your righteous kingdom come into all the rooms of my life, and into all the world.

Amen

D. N. W.

Today we are met with three simple, yet for me and I am guessing many others, terribly consternating words. Ironically, I worry about these words. I worry that I am not absenting myself enough from worry. Worry has this terrible tendency to double-back on me, and then I either get stuck, or out of desperation try and run away. These three words are some of the hardest that I hear Jesus speaking to me. When I think about what I posted on Monday about words and rocks, these three words are among the bigger of those rocks that roll over me.

Do not worry!

"Easy for YOU to say!!!" certainly echoes in my head from time to time when I come across these three words. The troubles of my day can seem all too overwhelming. No, they don't just seem that way. Often times they are. Troubles encroach, and I tremble with worry.

Bonhoeffer starts us down this road by highlighting the fact that we need to work on appropriately detaching from what we normally cling to for security: material goods and treasures. And we detach from them not just for the sake of detaching, but because in their absence we are faced with the truth of who we really are today. And it is in that moment, "now," that we learn to receive what God has for us: which is always exactly enough for us.

I am on the road of trying to figure out what this means and how I live into it.

What does it look like for you?

"Do not worry! Earthly goods deceive the human heart into believing that they give it security and freedom from worry. But in truth, they are what cause anxiety. The heart which clings to goods receives with them the choking burden of worry. Worry collects treasures, and treasures produce more worries...

Abuse of earthly goods consists of using them as a security for the next day. Worry is always directed towards tomorrow. But the goods are intended only for today in the strictest sense. It is our securing things for tomorrow which makes us so insecure today. It is enough that each day should have its own troubles. Only those who put tomorrow completely into God's hand and receive fully today what they need for their lives are really secure. Receiving daily liberates me from tomorrow."

- from his book Discipleship

Scripture to consider:

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house,

and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light.

Psalm 36:7-9

Prayer for today:

Lord, I place my worries in your gracious hand and live this day trusting that you are with me and that what I have is more than I need.

Amen

Tuesdays with Dietrich

Day 6 of Lent, and Bonhoeffer's question before us is one that I have frequently puzzled over, whether it's me asking the question of myself, or someone else trying to figure out this delicate balance. "Where is the boundary between the goods I am supposed to use and the treasure I am not supposed to have?" 401k's? Savings accounts? The expensive hobby? The beloved but unnecessary car? The lake house? What is it that I'm not supposed to have? And how in the world am I supposed to figure that out? I really do trust God, but I know that I'm also called to exhibit a high level of financial responsibility. Where do I rely on God? And where is it okay to rely on the things that are relatively trustworthy in this world?

Where Bonhoeffer lands is central: Everything depends on the heart, on you. I could be a person who has very little, materially speaking, and yet still be completely worried about and preoccupied with even the little that I have. On the other hand, I could be a person of enormous resources and means, and simply see all that I have as an extension of my heart and my life of faith -- stewarding the resources in my purview with the right levels of trust, gratitude, and responsibility. "It's not a matter of size."

Hopefully the point is clear: It's about the heart, and those things that we predispose ourselves to look to and draw from in situations of both need and gratitude. In Lent, we are trying our best to look inward, so that when we look out, we see God rightly as the only thing, the only One, worthy of our greatest trust.

"Goods are given to us to be used, but not to be stored away. Just as Israel in the desert received manna daily from God and did not have to worry about food and drink, and just as the manna which was stored from one day for another rotted, so should Jesus' disciples receive their share daily from God. But if they store it up as lasting treasure, they will spoil both the gift and themselves. The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.

But where is the boundary between the goods I am supposed to use and the treasure I am not supposed to have? If we turn the statement around and say, What your heart clings to is your treasure, then we have the answer. It can be a very modest treasure; it is not a question of size. Everything depends on the heart, on you. If I continue to ask how can I recognize what my heart clings to, again there is a clear and simple answer: everything which keeps you from loving God above all things, everything which gets between you and your obedience to Jesus is the treasure to which your heart clings."

- from his book Discipleship

Scripture to consider:

The eyes of all look to you,

and you give them their food in due season.

You open your hand,

satisfying the desire of every living thing.

The Lord is just in all his ways,

and kind in all his doings.

The Lord is near to all who call on him,

to all who call on him in truth.

-Psalm 145:18

Prayer for today:

Lord, may my true treasure be knowing you and following you. May nothing stand in the way of your love for me and my love for you.

Amen

First Full Week Begins

The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of millstones; and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them.

- G. K. Chesterton

I don't know about you all, but when I have a sense that a huge rock is about to roll on top of me, my fight or flight instinct kicks in and, assessing in an instant that I can't possibly fight the rock, I flee. My guess is that, funny as the rock metaphor is, there is much of this instinctual activity at play in our Lenten journey, and probably the journey of discipleship writ large. There is a deep propensity to step out of the way of the rock coming towards us--to squirm out from in between those circulating millstones--to someplace a little more manageable. It's just natural to want to get out of situations that are uncomfortable for us, not to mention the situations that challenge the ways of life or practices we hold dear.

Lent is about banishing lies and self-deception. It's not about experiencing discomfort just for the sake of being uncomfortable. Not at all. The reason Lent has more than its share of uncomfortable associations is that we are seeking a raw encounter with the truth: and truth does not result in everyday comfort. We are trying to strengthen our ability to NOT run away from the rocks that will soften and tenderize us. And it is in that place of having been softened and humbled that we are most likely to encounter the deeper truth of ourselves and God.

Lest we think this happens all at once, though, we are reminded that there's a reason why Lent is so long! The path to the truth of oneself, and finally to the truth of God's sacrificial and redemptive love, is long and filled with unexpected turns. And here on Day 5, Bonhoeffer gives us a refreshing reminder that we need to start small, and start in a spirit of thanksgiving.

Question for the day:

What are the "small gifts" we receive from God each day?

"Thankfulness works in the Christian community as it usually does in the Christian life. Only those who give thanks for the little things receive the great things as well. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts prepared for us because we do not give thanks for the daily gifts. We think that we should not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be seeking the great gifts. Then we complain that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experiences that God has given to other Christians, and we consider these complaints to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the small (and yet really not so small!) gifts we receive daily. How can God entrust great things to those who will not gracefully receive the little things from God's hand?"

- from his book Life Together

Psalm to consider:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and do not forget all his benefits --

who forgives all your iniquity,

who heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the Pit,

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

who satisfies you with good as long as you live

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

- Psalm 103:1-5

Prayer for today:

Lord, open my eyes that I may see the giftedness of my life and let my life be a hymn of praise and thanksgiving.

Amen

10%, Minus Sundays

Four days down, and a reminder that, technically speaking, Sundays don't count in the 40 days of Lent. Part of it is just the way the calendar works, and part of it is tradition that has really deep roots in our Christian life of discipleship. Since it began, Lent has been marked by a very stringent and strident manner of observance: daily fasting, prayer, penitence, confession. All of these practices lead towards the goal of strengthening our resolution to follow Christ and take up our cross (Mark 8:34). And yet, some group back in the beginning of things was wise enough to realize that yes, indeed, we are human and can't possibly keep up this enormous effort for 7 out of 7 days. We need a break. And what is more, the theology of the Lord's Day was robust enough, building off of the even more ancient practice of Sabbath, that to be sullen and gloomy on a day in which the Children of God gathered to Celebrate the Lord's Supper in Holy Communion and Worship God with an Outpouring of Praise... well, that simply was not acceptable. Indeed, Luke 5:34 states: "You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?" And what stronger affirmation do we have of Christ's enduring and steadfast presence with us in all things than the celebration of the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion?

All this to say that, well, I'm a little off-base posting on Sunday (okay, late Sunday), but since I fell a day behind on Friday, we'll make it a clean slate by revving into the actual Day 5 tomorrow, Monday.

For those of us who received our *official* copies of Ron Klug's "40-Day Journey with Deitrich Bonhoeffer" today after worshipping at the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette, it will be great to have that resource and begin digging into it in the days and weeks to come.

There has been a swelling of interest in the 40-Day Journey, so even more copies of the book have been ordered, and will be available in the next two or three days for anyone interested in getting their own copy. Again, just shoot me an email: erik.wiebe@gmail.com

Our question of the day: (A good one to start off the week...)

In what ways are prayer and work related to each other?

"After the first morning hour [of prayer], the Christian's day until evening belongs to work. 'People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening' (Psalm 104:23). In most cases a community of Christians living together will separate for the duration of the working hours. Praying and working are two different things. Prayer should not be hindered by work, but neither should work be hindered by prayer. Just as it was God's will that human beings should work six days and rest and celebrate before the face of God on the seventh, so it is also God's will that every day should be marked for the Christian both by prayer and work. Prayer also requires its own time. But the longest part of the day belongs to work. The inseparable unity of both will become clear when work and prayer each receives its own undivided due."

- from his book Life Together

Consider these words from Scripture:

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,

and prosper for us the work of our hands --

O prosper the work of our hands!

-Psalm 90:17

Prayer for the day

Lord, when I go out to work may I go joyfully and with enthusiasm for the tasks at hand. May my work be good for me and good for others.

Amen