CHRIST CHURCH
Sunday 14 September, 2003
8 and 10am

John 12:24-32
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In the latest issue of 'Prophecy Today' magazine, the editorial article is under the title "Faith for hard times". The editor says this:

Peter declares that our faith is more precious than gold even though it is refined by fire. We live in the priviledged free West and we know nothing of torture for our faith in Jeus. What resources could we draw on- gold, or something more precious and enduring?

He goes on:

The question I admit is theoretical against what our brothers and sisters are facing at the hands of their toremntors

I remember some years ago saying ot June Larken, when that dear lady was still alive and active that I wondered how many years it would be before persecution came to this country. June nodded very knowingly, in clear agreement. Well, it hasn't happened yet. It does seem theoretical, until you take note of some recent European law. The day WILL come. Are we prepared for when that day comes?

Now that's not a road I want to go down for its own sake. But it is a question which is prompted from John's gospel this morning, where Jesus says I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. Otherwise it produces many seeds. Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me. Where I am, my servant will also be.

The issue is also very relevant as we look this morning at Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was one of the leading German saints of the 20th century. In fact, when Fred asked me to preach one of the sermons in  this series, and which person I would preach on I chose Bonhoeffer and the theme title 'Cost of Discpleship' was chosen because that was one of Bonhoeffer's books. Bonhoeffer didn't just write a book about the cost of being a disciple of Jesus: his very life exemplified and illuminated it.
  When, at the beginning of this series, Fred led our thoughts throught the life of Martin Luther, we were reminded of his saying, "Here I stand, I can be no other." Luther had taken his stand when in protest at Catholick malpractice he nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg. As we shall see, Bonhoeffer took his stand as well, when he had to choose either the easy choice of going along with the ways of the Nazis or the hard route of standing by his Christian confession.

Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau in Germany in 1906 and studied at Berlin University. He was awarded a doctorate with honours in 1927. In the following years he managed to combine lecturing at the university there with minstries abroad, including in this country as pastor of a German evangelical church in Sydenham, and also the Reformed church of St Paul in London. During this stay he developed a close friendship with Bishop George Bell. It was at this time that Hitler was seizing power in Germany and Bonhoeffer became increasingly disquieted by what was happening there.

It's worth going briefly into that. It gives us the background to the stand which, along with other leaders such as Niemöller, Bonhoeffer made in response to the increasing evil that was grwoing under Hitler's regime. It's an object lesson of the sort of pressures Christians can be put under and of how Christian discipleship can go astray when we are not ready to pay the price, but go along with the status quo. It's a warning which is particularly to the point where a church is closely bound up with a state.
  The Nazi pary programme promulgated in 1932 said this:

We require the freedom of religious belief in the State, as long as the belief does not endanger or work against the moral feelings of the German race. The party will support as such a positive Christianity, with being bound to any particular creed. It will fight against the materialistic Jewish spirit within and around us.

Pastor Hossenfelder publicly put forward a German-Christian programme, in full agreement with the party programme. A German church council declared "God has made me German, to be German is God's gift. His will is that I fight for Germany" Things went even further in a German Christian congress in Berlin in November 1933 called for the freeing of church services from anything un-German, and freedom from the Old Testament, one of the most dubious books in world literature!

Niemöller called on his Christian brothers to withdraw from the German-Christian movement, and soon after Bonhoeffer felt he had to return to Germany to lend support to Niemöller. He went to support the setting up of the Confessing Church which openly declared adherence to basic Christain beliefs.
  Bonhoeffer could equally well have stayed in this country at a comfortable arms' length from this controversy. He could have gone back to Germany, still lecturing in Berlin and toeing the party line. He chose rather to take his stand, to say that the Nazis, and, for that matter, the German-Christians were wrong, to say that he stood for true biblical Christian beliefs

Further, he became the leader of one of the few seminaries that the Confessing Church was able to set up. He took his position very responsibly, very seriously. Before long the seminary was required to remove to a more remote location. It was during the years at Finkenwalde, where the seminary now was, that Bonhoeffer wrote many of his books, including "The Cost of Discipleship". Bonhoeffer in taking his stand was one of the grains of wheat which would fall into the ground and die. The popular church. It's members thought more of their own life and of the life in this world.
  Bonhoeffer showed that he truly hated his life in this world- hate in the sense of loving more the life Jesus gives and promises for eternity. The point then came when all German pastors were required to take an oath of alliegance to Hitler. Bonhoeffer and all members of the Finkenwalde community refused this vow of loyalty. Eventually all the seminaries of the Confessing Church were closed down, and the young men there given the choice of enlisting in the German army or being sent to prison. Many of Bonhoeffer's students chose to enlist.

When a stand must be taken against a regime such as the Nazi one, it was clear some could not stay the course. Bonhoeffer was now faced with a new choice He wsa now eligible for military service, whihc went right against his conscience, and against his stand against Nazism. It was his brother in law, Dohnanyi  who suggested there was an alternative way. He was working for the Abwehr, the military intelligence, but working secretly inside it with survivors of the resistance, working inside the government against Hitler, to contact the Allies. Bonhoeffer with his connections abroad, including in this country seemed to be the man for the job. He was able to travel outside Germany, meeting some of his old contacts, including Bishop Bell. It was a difficult time for him, but he knew Jesus never offers his disciple am easy life.
  He had to try and rationalise his job as a spy with being a man of God, remaining true to his convictions. Bonhoeffer himself said, "It is better to do evil than be evil". One may sometimes question some of the choices and actions he took, especially his involvement in an abortive plan to assasinate Hitler. He was in an incredibly difficult position. His involvement in the assasination plot, as well as secret work to help the Jews, led to his imprisonment.
  It was while working to help Jews escape from Germany that he met Maria von Wedemeyer, with whom he became engaged. At the request of Maria's mother he agreed to postpone the marriage for several months, during which he was imprisoned.

In prison, Bonhoeffer gained the trust of the guards, and because of family connections he enjoyed privileges denied to most others. Inside his cell he could continue to write, to send letters to families and friends A letter Bonhoeffer smuggled out of prison showed how much he had travelled the way of discipleship; what its hidden cost was; the cost of denying his life in the world. He wrote this:

In the resistance we have learned to see the great events of history from below, from the perspective of the excluded, the ill-treated, the powerless, the oppressed and the despised, so that suffering has become a more useful key for understanding the world than personal happiness.

Understanding the suffering of others was more important to Bonhoeffer than personal happiness. Another letter from prison shows just how much the difficult circumstances there had tested his faith, making him uncertain of himself at times; also how much his faith held fast, that he was in God's hands. A poem, "Who am I?" shows this

Who am I? They often tell me I could step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country house;
Who am I? They tell me I could talk to my warden freely, friendly, as if it were mine to command.
They also tell me I should bear the days of misfortune equably, smiling proudly like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that other men tell of? Or am I only what I know of myself?
Retsless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath as though hands were compressing my throat.
Yearning for colours, for flowers, thirsting for words of kindness, of neighbourliness
Trembling with anger at despotism, petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events.
Powerless, trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making
Ready to say 'farewle' to it all.
Who am I? This or the other? One person today, and another tomorrow, or both at once?
Hypocrite before others, often a contemptibly woe-begone weakling.
Or is it something within me? Still like a beaten army, in disorder from victory already achieved.
Who am I? They mock me, those lonely questions. Who am I? Whoever I am thou knowest, O God, for I am thine.

Just before Christmas 1944 he wrote to his fiancée, speaking about an old children's song named after the angels "the good who cover me, the good who waken me, of such is the protection in the evening and the morning which comes from these good, invisible powers and which we adults need no less than the children".

As the war came to an end and Hitler became more threatened, it became clear that Bonhoeffer's stand would be tested to the uttermost; that Hitler was determined Bonhoeffer should not survive the war. Moved to Flossenburg, he preached in the prison camp on Easter Day, procaliming conviction in the resurrection. He was executed in the prison camp on 9 April 1945. As Bonhoeffer was led before the firing squad, a witness wrote:

Bonhoeffer went quietly to his death. This morning as he was led out of his cell, still in prison clothes, he knelt in fervent prayer to the Lord his God. The devotion and evident conviction of being heard of this intensively captivating man moved me to the depths. Five minutes later he was dead.

Before he went to his death he asked that his English friend, Bishop Bell, be told, "This is the end, and for me the beginning of life"

but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.

If and when persecution may come we don't know. What we do know is that Bonhoeffer was one who hated his life in the world, but who kept it to eternal life. He was ready to take a stand. And that in smaller things we are all asked to do. It may seem trivial. But it's the stuff of discipleship; its cost; a reward