On the commemoration calendar of the Lutheran church (ELCA), today we remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian. On this date in 1945, he was hanged on Nazi gallows for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
A pastor-teacher in Germany in the 1930s, Bonhoeffer has been my ministry’s inspiration. His writing on grace and baptism in The Cost of Discipleship almost 75 years ago, for example, set me a long and continuing course of lifting up baptismal spirituality, beginning with a master’s thesis at Luther Seminary.
Mindful that Bonhoeffer’s pastoral ministry took place while Hitler consolidated power and went to war, I offer a few of his words that first stirred me (and many others):
Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.
Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacrament; grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without costs….
Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the sinner. Because grace alone does everything, everything can stay in its old ways….
Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance; it is baptism without the discipline of community; it is the Lord’s Supper without confession of sin; it is absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ….
[Costly grace] is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live…. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs the life of God’s Son…. [Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 4, Discipleship, pp. 43-45]
Let that be enough for now, the right note to sound here in Holy Week which is truly about costly grace.
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Holy Week, Lutheran, The Cost of Discipleship
April 9, 2009 at 8:16 pm |
[...] Rembembering Dietrich [...]
April 10, 2009 at 10:12 am |
I don’t think anything is cheap if it’s appreciated… I live my life on the edge of always buying “The Cheapest Kind”… but I appreciate it like it was top shelf.
I live with the appreciation that by the Grace of God there is hope… you and Mary enjoy your first free Easter.
Dave
April 16, 2009 at 10:57 pm |
I read your article in the Lutheran and thought it would be fun to make contact with you again – after the Mauston years.
Peter
April 17, 2009 at 12:22 am |
Thanks. I remember well those times when you came to see your mother – until what was her age? 108 or thereabouts. Quite impressive. And I wonder if you are still traveling the world. Best wishes