Summer with Bonhoeffer: More Central Than We Think, Part 2

More Central Than We Think. Part 2: Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5

The Disciples

This series on Bonhoeffer’s exposition of the Sermon on the Mount began with establishing what Bonhoeffer understands discipleship to be. Discipleship is that which draws us toward ‘costly grace’, that is grace that draws us to the cross of Christ. The modern church has been overtaken by a gospel of ‘cheap grace’ that is in fact a Christianity without Christ, a human-driven endeavor. Upon that foundation Bonhoeffer moves into a closer look at the Sermon on the Mount and its centrality for Jesus’s disciples. It is within this lengthy chapter that Bonhoeffer lays the foundation for an ethic that is Christocentric, dependent upon grace, and applicable. The Sermon on the Mount did not deal in philosophical abstractions, but with the real world.

The disciple of Jesus are different. “They followed the voice of the good shepherd, because they knew his voice.” ¹ This does not mean however that they are isolated from their social contexts. “Disciples and the people belong together.”² This proximity will cause Jesus’s disciples to suffer, “everyone’s rage at God, and God’s word will fall on his disciples, and they will be rejected with him.” ³ It is precisely in the rejection of the world that Christ’s disciple find their greatest calling, to be peacemakers. “They renounce violence and strife… they encounter evil people in peace and are willing to suffer from them. Peacemakers will bear the cross with their Lord, for peace was made at the cross.” ⁴ Jesus refers to those that have heard his call and followed as ‘blessed’. The danger comes when the disciples of Christ view this distinctiveness as a means by which they are to be closed off to the world. Bonhoeffer rejects a ghettoized faith:

“No one understands people better than Jesus’ community. No one loves people more than Jesus’ disciples—that is why they stand apart, why they mourn… The community of disciples does not shake off suffering, as if they had nothing to do with it. Instead, they bear it. In doing so, they give witness to their connection with the people around them.” [4]

The community of Jesus’s disciples is intertwined with the people of the world, but because of Christ they are no longer natives to the world, but instead, “strangers in the world.” ⁵ The disciples belong in the world because, “the earth belongs to these who are without rights and power… when the realm of heaven will descend, then the form of the earth will be renewed, and it will be the earth of the community of Jesus.”⁶ It is precisely because of this redemption that Christ’s disciples, “seek out all those who have fallen into sin and guilt… the merciful give their own honor to those who have fallen into shame and take that shame unto themselves.” ⁷ The essence of the beatitudes then is Christ’s work in the disciple that allows them to, “renounce their own good and evil… and depend solely on Jesus… undivided to Christ.” ⁸

There seems to be a fundamental disconnect between Bonhoeffer’s understanding of who Jesus is addressing in this passage as ‘blessed’ and the common evangelical mind. Namely we have externalized the concept of poverty, poor in spirit, the rejects of the world. Those who are distasteful to the world are surely not us, the body of Christ, but instead merely those less fortunate souls to which we must condescend our benevolence and service. We forget that we are not the physician but the patient, and at most the tool within the hands of the physician. Discipleship does not mean we are better than the world, it simply means that Jesus called and we heard and were obedient to the call.

The Church

The job of the disciples of Christ is to be a visible and vibrant part of the communities and contexts in which they live. Jesus’ allusions to salt and light within the sermon call us to, “penetrate the entire earth.” ⁹ Bonhoeffer notes that Jesus’s words in this passage do not relegate the tasks of being salt and light to the realm of suggestion, “‘You are the salt’–not ‘you should be the salt’!” ¹⁰ Because of this affirmative work of Jesus within his church we, “can stay hidden no longer,” and, “It means following Christ–or the call itself will destroy the one called. There is no second opportunity to be saved.” ¹¹ Surely the words of Christ are not to be taken so indiscrimanately as we have taken them within our protestant post-reformation reality of a public/private schism of faith. Being a disciple of Christ within the life of our community does not mean however that we should look to be noticed, at least not us personally. Bonhoeffer reminds us of Jesus’s admonishment that in our collective work of bearing Christ’s cross together it is, “Not you, but your good works [that should be seen].” ¹²

The call of Christ leaves the one who hears it two options; follow, or as the salt that has lost it’s saltiness, be trampled under foot. There is a ferocity within Jesus’s call that makes it a dangerous proposition; this is in Bonhoeffer’s words ‘costly grace’. The modern protestant movement, along with the comforts of modern existence, have moved faith decisions out of the public realm and into the realm of a private conviction that is at best a half-answer to Jesus’ call. That Jesus is truly Lord of all; including the public as well as the private, the workplace as well as the home, the stores and streets as well as the churches, is today a counter-cultural claim, and one that if observed by the Christian bound to cause them to suffer. It is this resistance to suffering that Bonhoeffer condemns as being unworthy of the title disciple.

The Righteousness of Christ

There has been much made of the covenant made between God and men within Jesus Christ as opposed to the old covenental law established between God and the Hebrew people. Surely the old law no longer has meaning for the one saved in Christ? Bonhoeffer points to Jesus’ words within the Sermon on the Mount, “‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets…’ Christ puts the law of the Old Covenant into force.” ¹³ The work of Jesus is not the abolishment of the law, but the fulfilment of it. “His concern is not for a ‘better law’… His concern really is for a ‘better righteousness.’” ¹⁴ In this way Jesus is confirming the legitimacy of God’s covenant in the law, and in his fulfillment of it proves it valid. As Christians then we are not bound to the law itself, but instead the covenant is mediated by Christ. “Because Jesus points the disciples to the law, which he alone fulfills, he thus binds them anew to himself.” ¹⁵

It is Jesus’ concern for better righteousness that distinguishes his disciples above the pharisees. While the pharisees knew the letter of the law they had long ago lost an embodied understanding of the spirit of the law, namely greater love for God and others. Bonhoeffer concludes this section:

“The disciples’ righteousness is ‘better’ than that of the Pharisees in that it rests solely on the call into the community of Jesus, who alone has fulfilled the law… The righteousness of Christ should not just be taught, but done. Otherwise, it is no better than the law which is merely taught, but not obeyed.” ¹⁶

We must understand that for Bonhoeffer tying together the ‘Old Covenant’ and it’s fulfilment in Christ, with Christian discipleship is not merely a theological statement but a deeply political one as well. His ardent case of the apparent ‘Jewishness’ of Jesus’s work stands in opposition to the de-judaization efforts of the church under Hitler. While Bonhoeffer’s first intention in this affirmation of Christianity’s Hebrew origins was not to make a political statement, but to state an orthodox theology of discipleship, authentically following Christ often puts the disciple at odds with the political establishment. This is because the commandment of Christ supercedes any earthly affiliations the disciple might be subject to.

Kindred

We are now entering some of the most dangerous territory for the modern-day protestant, namely Jesus’ admonition against revenge and murder within the life of his disciples. The physical act of destroying another, of removing from them their life, could almost universely be agreed upon as a forbidden act. “The life of one’s brothers and sisters was granted by God and is in God’s hand. Only God has power over life and death.” ¹⁷ Jesus compels his disciples to an even higher understanding of what ‘death’ means for his disciples. Bonhoeffer writes, “Every anger attacks the life of the other person; it begrudges their lives; it craves the other’s destruction.” In our anger we attempt to live our lives as though the other no longer existed, as if they were dead; however, “Alienating oneself from another person causes alienation from God… Contempt for others makes worship dishonest.” ¹⁸ The reason for this is that the other has also been made in God’s image, and as such must be honored. “God does not want to be honored if a sister of brother is dishonored.” ¹⁹

While we constantly hear of rivalries and ill-intentions in the realms of politics, corporations, or sports teams, there is no sadder event than when it occurs within the disicples of Jesus Christ, or between a disciple and a non-believer. To truly wish our enemies well, to love unconditionally, “is a difficult path Jesus imposes on his disciples… But it is the path to him.” ²⁰ This is a truly counter-cultural commandment, and one too often and too publicly transgressed Christ’s disciples. There can be only harm that comes when we hold others in contempt, no healing can take place.

---

What’s Next

The next entry will cover Bonhoeffer’s exposition on the Sermon the Mount from Woman to the end of Matthew 5.

---

1. Discipleship, p. 100 ↩

2. ibid, p. 101 ↩

3. ibid, p. 101 ↩

4. ibid, p. 108 ↩

5. ibid, p. 105 ↩

6. ibid, p. 105 ↩

7. ibid, pp. 106–107 ↩

8. ibid, p. 107 ↩

9. ibid, p. 111 ↩

10. ibid, p. 111 ↩

11. ibid, p. 112 ↩

12. ibid, p. 114 ↩

13. ibid, p. 116 ↩

14. ibid, p. 116 ↩

15. ibid, p. 118 ↩

16. ibid, p. 120 ↩

17. ibid, p. 121 ↩

18. ibid, p. 123 ↩

19. ibid, p. 123 ↩

20. ibid, p. 124 ↩