COME AND DIE
‘When Christ
calls a man, he bids him come and die’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship). Bonhoeffer
was one of those who realised the rise of Adolf Hitler meant Germany was entering a time
when law, culture, tradition, religion – every area of life – would be subject
to an all-embracing power, pursued for its own sake. The Nazis followed no rules, were guided by
no moral code, were restrained by no beliefs – beyond their own lust to
dominate and create a reich, a
kingdom, which glorified their own twisted satisfaction.
To a greater
or lesser degree that has been the way of malign dictatorships from the
beginning. To stand up before such a power and protest, as Bonhoeffer and
others in Germany at the time did, took and – even today – takes the kind of
moral courage that I, and many of us, do not have. If the season of Lent is to
have any bite with us we can at least lament its absence in a world that needs
people like Bonhoeffer.
He did
eventually pay the ultimate price when he was hanged as the war was ending but
it was the climax of a long period of preparation. Bonhoeffer prayed and
reflected and wrote over many years. The
words quoted at the beginning of this piece were not those of a man trotting
out platitudes he had just thought up. He knew the words could well apply to
him. He struggled with what his Christian faith might mean when faced with a
political regime that is only motivated by its own power and preservation.
If we ‘are
doing something for Lent’ at the moment it could well include some prayer and
reflection on the theme of moral courage.
When we look at examples of it – Martin Luther King or the Dr Li
Wenliang who, despite opposition, alerted China about the corona virus – we
know these men did not get up in the morning and say, ‘I will make a stand
today’. They were able to do what they did because they had prepared themselves
by the choices they had made over many years.
Still, the
words of Bonhoeffer stop us in our tracks.
We read that Jesus said, ‘Come, follow me’ but the extra bit, ‘and die’,
we do not include even though Jesus implied it when he talked of ‘losing your
life’. Still, we hesitate. Surely he
meant, ‘Come follow me and you will be happy’.
Yes we will be happy, but first we must die. Not in the death that is
inevitable when we part this life but in the death we are called to each
day. If we are faithful to these
‘little’ deaths we will be ready when the big one comes – the one where I find
I have the moral courage to protest.
I often hear
people say, ‘can’t the Church do something about our situation?’ The short
answer is the Church will never do anything unless the members of the Church –
you and I – want it to. This ‘wanting’
is not just a woolly wish but the hard determined ‘wanting’ of which the people
who have their eyes fixed on the benefits of this world give us such a focused
example. This Sunday we have that ‘high’ moment in the life of Jesus when he
allows his friends to have a glimpse of him in glory on the mountain. When they
get carried away by the experience he tells them to ‘tell no one until the Son
of Man has risen for the dead.’ Death is
the way to life here on earth.
8 March 2020
Lent Sunday 2 A Gen
12 1-4 2 Tim 1:8-10 Matt
17 !-9
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