Tag Archives: bonhoeffer

New Year’s Resolutions Are Not Bad

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A new year is very nearly upon us. For the record, I’m with Tennyson, who said, “The year is going. Let him go.” From there, as I do every year, I ask myself, “How can I improve? What can I do differently?” The answer is always the same. “Plenty.” And so, I make New Year’s resolutions.

I know some folks think it’s a ridiculous practice. I don’t, which is why I tell you as much each year at this time. I make New Year’s resolutions not on the whim of wise words from guys like Benjamin Franklin, who encouraged his friends, “Be always at war with your vices… and let each year find you a better man.” I do it because there’s something I know about myself.

I know I’ll end this year infected with the sin-nature. I know I’ll begin the new year with the same infection. For me, this is an essential concern.

Thankfully, there’s something else I know. I am a forgiven sinner. God loves me, and I live in His grace. This Gospel of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for my dreadful transgressions changes my trajectory entirely. By the power of the Holy Spirit through that Gospel for faith, I have a new inclination.

“You are not welcome here,” the inclination says to the sin-nature.

I suppose, reminiscent of Franklin’s words, to speak this way to the sin-nature is to coax it to war. If you’re wondering what that war might look like, take a quick moment to read Romans 7:14-25. Fully aware of sin’s dreadful grip, Saint Paul wrote in verse 23, “But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”

And yet, the Apostle was prepared to face the deeply rooted inclinations of the flesh, having already written in the previous verse, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being…” (v. 22). Paul writes in this way only as the cross remains his strictest heading, adding rhetorically in verses 24 and 25: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Paul rejoices that his wrestling with the sinful nature is entirely possible as it emerges from the Gospel deliverance won by Christ. In other words, because Christ has defeated death, sin has no rightful claim on the believer. It just doesn’t belong. And so, Christ has equipped us with a better nature, one equipped to wrestle and pin it.

From there, I think it’s interesting how Saint Paul sees God’s Law in an entirely new light. He doesn’t speak of it as burdensome, but instead, as good—as a preeminently useful weapon in the struggle against sin. From this perspective, he appears to lean in a direction that disinterests popular Christianity.

Essentially, mainstream Christianity is opposed to traditions, liturgies, rites, ceremonies, and other historical helps. But Paul appears to delight in the strictness of these things (1 Corinthians 11:1-2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6, and others), counting it all joy to observe boundaries that keep him fixed to the Gospel.

I just watched the film Bonhoeffer. Well, I didn’t watch all of it. I only managed about forty-five minutes before I turned it off. The filmmakers framed Dietrich Bonhoeffer as someone who despised Christian tradition. They even wrote into his character syrupy, near-heretical phrases I’ve heard 21st-century mega-church pastors use concerning the faith. But Bonhoeffer didn’t write or speak this way. I studied Bonhoeffer extensively for my doctoral work and half of what so many claim to know about him and his theology is just not true. They often associate him with certain things without knowing what he actually believed. Concerning tradition, he was openly bothered by cultural influences on the Church and her historic practices, which is one reason why he was capably attuned to the Nazi dangers. Bonhoeffer didn’t see the Church’s traditions as humdrum things that needed to be jettisoned. They were protective things—Christocentric things. Their very point was to keep Christian hearts and minds fixed on Jesus. The Nazis brought their own rites and ceremonies—gestures, creeds, attire—all things that steered away from Christ to Hitler. The more they influenced the German Church’s leadership and clergy to massage these practices into the lives of the Deutsche Christen (the German Christians), the more the nation slipped into darkness.

I could go on and on about this, but I won’t. I’d rather return to Saint Paul. The Apostle to the Gentiles insisted that traditions, even though they might appear to some to have a Law sense about them, are quite useful in the spiritual battle. With this in mind, it’s interesting then how Paul insists still more in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

Mindful of the benefits of such discipline, first, Paul understands its nature and activities. He uses a very strange verb—ὑπωπιάζω—translated as “discipline.” It’s a visceral word that quite literally means to “strike beneath the eye,” thereby implying its visible nature. In other words, Paul doesn’t fight the flesh only in private with prayer, devotionals, quiet meditation, or whatever. His practices are activities—behaviors that others can see. He does these things to “keep [the flesh] under control,” that is, to enslave it to something better, something godly. That something is Christ.

These public behaviors are designed to keep him set on Christ.

I suppose that leads me to something else relative to New Year’s resolutions and why I think they’re good.

Essentially, Paul engages in self-discipline, viewable or unviewable, knowing it is not aimless but purposeful. That purpose matters for himself and others. If it’s visible, then Paul must know it has corporate effects. And so, he says as much in verse 27 when he writes, “I myself should be disqualified.” Disqualified from what? He already said what it was. His role as an Apostle who preaches. Paul knows that if he does not continue to practice visible or invisible discipline—keeping his body under control for the sake of godliness—his work as an Apostle could very easily become of little use not only to himself but also to the body of believers to whom God has sent him.

I practice self-discipline. One of my practices is to make New Year’s resolutions. It’s not just for me but also for you—for my family, friends, parishioners, people who know and see me. I know my sinful tendencies, and so, as a pastor, I fight them for the sake of remaining faithful to my calling.

As for you, consider your own vocation. As you do, take a chance at making your own New Year’s resolutions. Keep your eyes on the cross, and from there, try adding a routine to your life, some rites (words) and/or ceremonies (actions) that help keep your eyes fixed on Christ. For example, start off small. Maybe begin each day by making the sign of the cross and praying before you even get out of bed. If you already do this, maybe add something else. Maybe try something as simple as hugging your spouse and children daily and telling them how thankful to Christ you are for them.

You know you. You know what needs betterment. Give it a try. Be encouraged in the war against the flesh. And when you fail, don’t worry. Dust yourself off and get back in the fray. God is with you. He loves you. Steadied by His Gospel, He’s given you everything you need to maintain the course.

Bridging the Gap

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You should know there are plenty of reasons behind me taking the time to write and send out something like this every Sunday morning for the past eight years.

Admittedly, one of the chief reasons is my near-mental-illness type urge to write. I’ve shared with you before that sometimes I feel as though my head will split open and spray words all over the wall if I don’t open the valve of my fingers and release the words into and through my keyboard. Still, I have better reasons than this.

Another of my reasons is to break down certain barriers between me and the people I serve. It’s far too easy for the relationship between the pastor and the parishioners to become sterile, almost hygienically distant, especially if the parishioner is relatively uninvolved. Folks know I’m married. They know I have children. They know my style of preaching and teaching. They know lots of different things about me. However, it’s one thing to know about someone and something altogether different to be a part of that someone’s life. I write these things to welcome you in. When I become more open to you, revealing my real humanness—what marriage is like for me, what parenting is like for me, what happens to me during the week, the things I’m thinking about, the substance of things that make me smile, frown, laugh, or cry—the distance between us is bridged, even if only a little.

As I said, it’s one thing to know about someone. It’s something altogether different when you are introduced to that person and a friendship is allowed to bloom. Perhaps better, this can happen in spades when I unpack my own walk with the Lord in relation to all that is “me.” It steps past the casual conversation to the substance of a person and his or her role. In other words, you get a better sense of my integrity—that is, whether I, a man called to stand in the stead and by the command of Christ to administer Word and Sacrament, really believe what I’m preaching and teaching. By our time together here, my hope is you’ll get a better sense that I do.

Now, I sense two ways forward in this conversation. The first is the nagging urge to encourage you to give this same exercise a try in your own home. I’m not saying you need to write as much as I might, but what I am saying is to put something into words—a few sentences sharing a thought, concern, or something worth relaying in relation to your faith in Christ. Do it as regularly as possible for those closest to you. See what happens. My guess is that the results will be good.

The second is for me to continue doing the same with you right now. This morning I crossed paths with and was intrigued by the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

“Only he who cries out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants.”

Perhaps you already know Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Germany who participated in the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot was eventually discovered, and Bonhoeffer was hung by the Nazis. Still, does the knowledge of these things serve to interpret Bonhoeffer’s words? Maybe a little. But we need more. And we get it, not only from his writings but from those who were closest to him. Eberhard Bethge, a friend to Bonhoeffer, helps us greatly:

“Bonhoeffer introduced us in 1935 to the problem of what we today call political resistance. The levels of confession and of resistance could no longer be kept neatly apart. The escalating persecution of the Jews generated an increasingly intolerable situation, especially for Bonhoeffer himself. We now realized that mere confession, no matter how courageous, inescapably meant complicity with the murderers, even though there would always be new acts of refusing to be co-opted and even though we would preach ‘Christ alone’ Sunday after Sunday. During the whole time the Nazi state never considered it necessary to prohibit such preaching. Why should it? Thus, we were approaching the borderline between confession and resistance; and if we did not cross this border, our confession was going to be no better than cooperation with the criminals. And so, it became clear where the problem lay for the Confessing Church: we were resisting by way of confession, but we were not confessing by way of resistance.”

Bethge points to something worth our consideration, in particular, the Nazi’s disinterest in tangling with churches that devoutly preached Christ and yet were hardly inclined to live as Christ’s people in the world around them. The Nazis saw no need for concern, knowing all too well that words without deeds remained a toothless beast, one leaving them to continue with their agenda unhindered.

I spoke at the beginning about bridging a particular gap between people. Bonhoeffer made it a point to highlight the strange dissonance that sometimes exists in the lives of Christians, revealing how the gap between what we believe and how we live so often needs to be bridged. This was clearly the case in Germany, and so he was right to do this. Plenty of pastors talked about Christ but did not introduce the people to what it means to be His follower. Of course, Bonhoeffer was more aggressive in his language, implying that one only has the right to sing along with the Church in faith when the fruits of that faith are being worked in the world beyond the Church’s doors. Again, it sounds harsh, but what he’s saying is that faith and works are never divided. In truth, he’s saying exactly what Saint James says in James 2:14-26. And if you take a moment with the text, you’ll notice James’ tenor of encouragement to grow in this behavior. When it comes to talking about this stuff—that is, the keeping of God’s Law as a fruit of faith—I like how Philip Melancthon describes it in Article IV of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Among many so many great portions there, he wrote rather crisply in lines 136 and 140-141:

“Therefore, we also hold that the keeping of the law should begin in us and increase more and more. But we mean to include both elements, namely, the inward spiritual impulses and the outward good works…. We teach, furthermore, not only how the law can be kept, but also that God is pleased when we keep it—not because we live up to it, but because we are in Christ…. So it is clear that we require good works. In fact, we add that it is impossible to separate faith from love for God, be it ever so small.”

Did you notice what Melancthon said at the beginning about “both elements”? What he meant by this was the bridging of the spiritual with the physical. Bonhoeffer called this being “fully human.” As a Christian, it translates into the understanding that both are in submission to Christ, and one cannot be in motion while leaving the other behind. They do—and must—go together.

You know as well as I do that the challenges before us are ever-increasing. In the middle of it all, not only is a right confession of Christ a necessity but so also is a willingness to be God’s people in a way that results in action. Rewording Bonhoeffer’s words, and as they meet with this generation, we might hear, “Only he who cries out for the unborn may sing Gregorian chants.”

My prayer for you today is that you’ll at least consider these things. I’m hoping you’ll know I’m your servant in all of it. I suppose lastly, I’m counting on you to know that together we can be God’s confessing people who act, having trust in one another, not only as members of a church but as members of Christ’s family.