Bonhoeffer: "Life together"

In November of 2009, a group of about eight people from my local church community attended a continuing education conference which was sponsored by our Conference (the larger jurisdiction of which our local church community is associated with). The focus of the conference was asking people to take a closer look at the book "The Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation" by Bishop Robert Schnase. After the conference, this group of eight made a commitment to one another to begin to discern what we think God is calling our church community to do and be in light of these practices. So we decided the best place to begin is to pray together.

So each Sunday (give or take a few) we have met to pray together. We have read a couple of books together which inform our conversation and we have even had a half day retreat for which we discussed what we felt God was telling us. It has been a wonderful group for one I cherish. They hold me accountable to different disciplines which I embark upon (such as my Lenten discipline).

One of our members, Reverend Nancy Allen, suggested that we read Bonhoeffer's book "Life Together". It is not a quick read despite not being very long. He uses several things in the book which the group found to be helpful as we discussed our life together in the church community we share.

Of the many things which spoke to me in this book, one thing sparked me to write out a 'T-chart' to help me see the difference between what he calls the "Community of Spirit" verse the "Human Community of spirit".

Here is the chart I made.

I was most struck by how my local church community works very hard and much of what we do is with good intentions but, I think, it is still located in the superficial (not bad, but more like "not deep") Community of the Human spirit.

I invite you to take a look at what Bonhoeffer is sharing with us and I wonder what you glean from this. Where do you find yourself living? What do you think your community strives to be in light of what it does as a church community? What steps can the UMC take to embody more of the Community of the Spirit and less of the Human Community of spirit?

William Sloane Coffin sermon quotes

Last week my senior minister shared with me a sermon dated January 23, 1983 (Palm Sunday) written by William Sloane Coffin. The title of the sermon is "Alex's Death" and it comes on the heals of Rev. Coffin's son, Alex, tragic death in an automobile accident. While I believe the sermon is great on the whole and one should probably read the sermon in its entirety in order to 'get all the goodness out of it', I wanted to share some of the lines on this post which I though were examples of great use of language.

"My 24 year old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave."

"Among the healing flood of letters..." (It is provocative to me that he would use the image of a flood because from what I can tell in the sermon, Alex died by drowning. That Coffin would take this image and twist it a bit to accent Grace is quite profound.)

"love not only begets love, it transmits strength."

"The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, "It is the will of God." Never do we know enough to say that."

"While words of the Bible are true, grief renders them unreal. The reality of grief is that absence of God - "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The reality of grief is the solitude of pain, the feeling that your heart's in pieces, your mind's blank and that "there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away" (Lord Byron)"

"I felt some of my fellow reverends were using comforting words of Scripture for self protection, to pretty up a situation whose bleakness they simply couldn't face. But like God Herself, Scripture is not around for anyone's protection, just for everyone's unending support."

"When parents die, as did my mother last month, they take with them a large portion of the past. But when children die, they take away the future as well. That is what makes the valley of the shadow of death seem so incredibly dark and unending. In a prideful way it would be easier to walk the valley alone, nobly, head high, instead of - as we must - marching as the latest recruit in the world's army of the bereaved."

"interestingly enough, when I mourn Alex least I see him best."

"But it's a face: few of us are naturally profound; we have to be forced down."

"So I shall - so let us all - seek consolation in that love which never dies, and find peace in the dazzling grace that always is."

It is my hope that I too might learn how to be profound, but it is my prayer that I do not have to do through what William Sloane Coffin had to in order to arrive there.

Shared Moments of Trust

A few years ago, my wife gave me a collection of essays from the "This I Believe" project from NPR. If you are not aware of this project, I highly recommend you check it out. In a nutshell, the project invites people of all sorts to write their credo in about 300 words. What a discipline to begin to practice, and not just about what we believe about God or Jesus or the Church.

Here is one of my favorites from Warren Christopher who believes in "A Shared Moment of Trust". You can read or listen to Mr. Christopher's thoughts.

I invite you to poke around and see if you find a submission that speaks to you and share that in a comment to this post.

Grace and Peace.