Claimed, gathered and sent

This morning I was doing lectio divina with a reading from Colossians. There is so much in this passage for me personally, for us as a community of faith. I can see numerous blog posts emanating from this. But for today, I got stopped at the first few words of the first verse , " 12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved ..." Who am/are I/we? In those times when some may call us fat, forgetful, stupid, whatever...God calls us chosen, holy, beloved. Does it matter what others call us when God calls us chosen and beloved? It can be difficult to keep criticisms in perspective, particularly when they are painful ones. We can take heart with the encouragement of scripture. Paul told the Colossians this and God has this word for us as well, chosen and beloved. Who am I? Everyone has struggled/struggles with this question, particularly in times of uncertainty. Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer expresses this sentiment in his poem entitled "Who Am I?" Bonhoeffer's conclusion t...

It's been crazy lately with school. I've ready so much good stuff lately that I've wanted to share it all. But though a bit behind, I'm going to post some recent Bonhoeffer devotions that are powerful. Enjoy! Community Prayer The prayer of the Psalms teaches us to pray as a community. The body of Christ is praying, and I as an individual recognize that my prayer is only a tiny fraction of the whole prayer of the church. I learn to join the body of Christ in its prayer. That lifts me above my personal concerns and allows me to pray selflessly. Many of the Psalms were very probably prayed antiphonally by the Old Testament congregation. The so-called parallelism of the verses, that remarkable repetition of the same idea in different words in the second line of the verse, is not merely a literary form. It also has meaning for the church and theology....One night read, as a particularly clear example, Psalm 5. Repeatedly there are two voices, bringing the same prayer requ...

Some relish the sound of the alarm in the morning, but I am not one of those people. But what about the sound of the Lord's voice through the word calling us to awake? Once again, I was challenged by the words of Bonh0effer. Awake! For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and haunted by the various kinds of concerns they face during the working day. The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it. All the darkness and confusion of the night with its dreams gives way to the clear light of Jesus Christ and his awakening Word. All restlessness, all impurity, all worry and anxiety flee before him. Therefore, in the early morning hours of the day may our many thoughts and our many idle words be silent, and may the first thought and the first word belong to the one to whom our whole life belongs. "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Eph. 5:14). - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - from Life Together 51-52 from A Year with Dietri...

Not being a morning person, I was challenged by this writing of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. See if you too aren't stirred. Joy in the Morning What do we, who today no longer have any fear or awe of the darkness or night, know about the great joy that our forebears and the early Christians felt every morning at the return of the light? If we were to learn again something of the praise and adoration that is due the triune God early in the morning, then we would also begin to sense something of the joy that comes when night is past and those who dwell with one another come together early in the morning to praise their God and hear the Word and pray together. We would learn again of God the Father and Creator who has preserved our life through the dark night and awakened us to a new day; God the Son and Savior of the World, who vanquished death and hell for us, and dwells in our midst as Victor; God the Holy Spirit who pours the bright light of God's Word into our hearts early in the mor...

Unholy Sinners The grace of the gospel, which is so hard for the pious to comprehend, confronts us with the truth. It says to us, you are a sinner, a great, unholy sinner. Now come, as the sinner that you are, to your God who loves you. For God wants you as you are, not desiring anything from you - a sacrifice, a good deed - but rather desiring you alone. "My child, give me your heart" (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to make the sinner blessed. Rejoice! This message is liberation through truth. You cannot hide from God. The mask you wear in the presence of other people won't get you anywhere in the presence of God. God wants to see you as you are, wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and to other Christians as if you were without sin. You are allowed to be a sinner. Thank God for that. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - from Life Together 108 from A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer Carla Barnhill, Ed., HarperSan Francisco, 2005

Easter is not just one day for the Christian or the church. In the Lutheran tradition, Easter is 50 days, until Pentecost. He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Take a look at this meditation from Bonhoeffer. This is how we live the life, realizing we are all simultaneously saints and sinners. The Pious Community "Confess your sins to one another" (James 5:16). Those who remain alone with their evil are left utterly alone. It is possible that Christians may remain lonely in spite of daily worship together, prayer together, and all their community through service - that the final breakthrough to community does not occur precisely because they enjoy community with one another as pious believers, but not with one another as those lacking piety, as sinners. For the pious community permits no one to be a sinner. Hence all have to conceal their sins from themselves and from the community. We are not allowed to be sinners. Many Christians would be unimaginably horrified if...

This thought could make a real difference in how we treat all we come in contact with at work, school, wherever. BONHOEFFER for MONDAY March 19, 2007 Love versus Hate How then does love conquer? By asking not how the enemy treats love but only how Jesus treated it. The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into the community with the crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy's hatred. For then it is not the disciple's own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there. In the face of the cross the disciples realized that they too were his enemies and that he had overcome them by his love. It is this that opens the disciples' eyes and enables them to see their enemy as a brother or sister. They know that they owe their very life to One who, though he was their enemy, accepted them, who made them his neighb...

Good Work In this process work does not cease to be work; but the severity and rigor of labor is sought all the more by those who know what good it does them. The continuing conflict with the It remains. But at the same time the breakthrough has been made. The unity of prayer and work, the unity of the day, is found because finding the You of God behind the It of the day's work is what Paul means by his admonition to "pray without ceasing" (I Thess. 5:17). The prayer of the Christian reaches, therefore, beyond the time allocated to it and extends into the midst of the work. It surrounds the whole day, and in so doing it does not hinder work; it promotes work, affirms work, gives work great significance and joyfulness. Thus every word, every deed, every piece of work of the Christian becomes a prayer.... - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - from Life Together 75-76 from A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer Carla Barnhill, Ed., HarperSan Francisco, 2005

Strength for the Day Prayer offered in early morning is decisive for the day. The wasted time we are ashamed of, the temptations we succumb to, the weakness and discouragement in our work, the disorder and lack of discipline in our thinking and in our dealings with other people - all these very frequently have their cause in our neglect of morning prayer. The ordering and scheduling of our time will become more secure when it comes from prayer. The temptations of the working day will be overcome by this breakthrough to God. The decisions that are demanded by our work will become simpler and easier when they are made not in fear of other people, but solely before the face of God. "Whatever you do, do it from your hearts, as done for the Lord and not done for human beings" (Col. 3:23). Even routine mechanical work will be performed more patiently when it comes from the knowledge of God and God's command. Our strength and energy for work increase when we have asked God t...

Hope you are challenged by Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings. BONHOEFFER for THURSDAY February 22, 2007 Stepping into Faith Jesus says to anyone who uses their faith or lack of faith to excuse their acts of disobedience to his call: First obey, do the external works, let go of what binds you, give up what is separating you from God's will! Do not say; I do not have the faith for that. You will not have it so long as you remain disobedient, so long as you will not take the first step. Do not say, I have faith, so I do not have to take the first step. You do not have faith, because and so long as you will not take that first step. Instead, you have hardened yourself in disbelief under the appearance of humble faith. It is an evil excuse to point from inadequate obedience to inadequate faith, and from inadequate faith to inadequate obedience. It is the disobedience of the "faithful" if they confess their unbelief where their obedience is required and if they play games with...

Evil in Disguise The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for Christians who base their lives on the Bible it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil....Who stands fast? Only those whose final standards are not their reason, their principle, their conscience, their freedom, or their virtue, but who are ready to sacrifice all this when they are called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God - the responsible ones, who try to make their whole life an answer to the question and call to God. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - from Letters and Papers from Prison 2,4 from A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer Carla Barnhill, Ed., HarperSan Francisco, 2005 On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler is made chancellor of Germany

All Christians have their own circle of those who have requested them to intercede on their behalf, or people for whom for various reasons they know they have been called upon to pray. First of all, this circle will include those with whom they must live every day. With this we have advanced to the point at which we hear the heartbeat of all Christian life together. A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is a blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others. As far as we are concerned, there in no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife, that cannot be overcome by...

The Worst of Sinners One extreme statement must still be made, without any platitudes and in all soberness. Not considering oneself wise, but associating with the lowly, means considering oneself the worst of sinners. This arouses total opposition not only from those who live at the level of nature, but also from Christians who are self-aware. It sounds like an exaggeration, an untruth. Yet even Paul said of himself that he was the foremost, i.e., the worst of sinners (I Tim. I:15). He said this at the very place in Scripture where he was speaking of his ministry as an apostle. There can be no genuine knowledge of sin that does not lead me down to this depth. If my sin appears to me to be in any way smaller or less reprehensible in comparison with the sins of others, then I am not yet recognizing my sin at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most serious, the most objectionable. Christian love will find any number of excuses for the sins of others; not only for my sin is there n...

Here's a piece written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the importance of listening. This is an area of my life that God is really working on lately--being a better listener to people and to God. Enjoy! Listen Just as our love for God begins with listening to God's Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God's love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God's Word, but also lends us God's ear. We do God's work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to "offer" something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening. But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longe...

BONHOEFFER for MONDAY - JANUARY 8, 2007 God's Image God does not want me to model others into the image that seems good to me, that is, into my own image. Instead, in their freedom from me God made other people in God's own image. I can never know in advance how God's image should appear in others. That image always takes on a completely new and unique form whose origin is found solely in God's free and sovereign act of creation. To me that form may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every person in the image of God's Son, the Crucified, and this image, likewise, certainly looked strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it. Strong and weak, wise or foolish, talented or untalented, pious or less pious, the complete diversity of individuals in the community is no longer a pretext for self-justification. Rather this diversity is a reason for rejoicing in one another and serving one another. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - from Life Together 90 from A Year with Dietr...