Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship
"Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is no inner discord between private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all. Am I asked how this love is to behave? Jesus gives the answer: bless, do good, and pray for your enemies without reserve and without respect for persons."
2013, Kirk Bartha
9 comments
9 Comments:
great quote, kirk!
more easily said than done,
as Bonhoeffer lived this and then died at the hands of his enemies.
only a heart devoid of the "the selfishness of self", can know this kind of love enpowerment.
Some are enemies, and some we think to be enemies may not truly be.
So,
being wise as a serpent,
BUT as gentle as a dove, we take care, and make no hasty moves.
There needs to be victory, not just battle.
I have been meditating on Jesus, in his last hours, calling Judas "friend". And I've been imagining Jesus looking into those demonized eyes and naming more than one presence "friend"... I can imagine Jesus naming Satan "friend". Not that he was being chummy, but rather, disarming the facade of the usurper, the pomp, jello power and styrofoam authority of a fake king with a tinsel crown.
Almost like, "Hi there bud! So, we finally meet again. I've been watching your movements since our time on that little mountain. Remember? After my time in the desert? Ya, I was tired then too. I know this isn't really funny now, I'm tired and lonely and don't really like what you're doing, but I know you... I mean really know you... and you know that I know you. I knew you then. I know you now. I knew you when you were pure. I know you now in the midst of this darkness. I'm sorry that my knowing you bugs you so much. Do you see this fire in my bloodshot eyes... You can't take this passion from me. I am in love. It's too bad that you fell out."
Maybe, in that one moment, Jesus saw through Judas and loved Satan...
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, and our battle is in other times and spaces... most often, within ourselves.
When is it appropriate to call out your greatest supporter and command them to get behind you (Satan)... and when do you call out the deviant one as friend.
I guess the answer rests within the voice the one who loves from a pure heart.
I love Bonhoeffer's question, "Am I asked how this love is to behave?"
beautiful post, I'm with you man.
hey dude,
wasn't aware that Jesus
really thought of Judas as a close friend.
Shed some light.
HOW COULD JESUS CALL THE SATAN FRIEND?
HE WAS ABOUT TO CRUSH HIS HEAD.
I CAN SEE HIM THINKING JUDAS
WAS TO BE PITIED.
Read the Bonhoeffer quote again! It's about loving enemies and praying for those who are crushing in... when we love our enemies we heap burning coals on their heads (Proverbs 25:22, Ezekiel 10:2, Romans 12:20)... that is an image of the altar, of fire bred purification.... Jesus calling Judas/Satan friend was heaping the whole altar onto the head and into the lap of his enemy. Purifying a dark disgusting thing. An ugly beast does not want to be beautified or related to. Its instinct is to foam at the mouth alone... embrace its abandonment... When Jesus reaches into that dead space and loved the most beastly and unlovely, He recreated something completely impossible... It would be like a huge waterfall washing in and steaming / purifying Mount Doom in Mordor back into Eden - mountain of God.
Psalm 41:9, "Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me."
Psalm 122 is very interesting in this discussion.
Jeremiah 3:3-5 Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
you refuse to blush with shame.
4 Have you not just called to me:
'My Father, my friend from my youth,
5 will you always be angry?
Will your wrath continue forever?'
This is how you talk,
but you do all the evil you can."
Matthew 22:12 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.
Matthew 26:50 Jesus replied, "Friend, do what you came for."
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?strongs=2083
I think it is a mistake to think that when Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who spitefully use us he lumped into that statement the enemies of the entire universe. The context of his statement is how believers are to relate to their human enemies and ultimately how he would demonstrate that love on the cross for all his human enemies(all of us). The cross does not provide redemption for Satan and his angels but only absolute defeat. Jesus never taught us to do good to our spiritual enemies but rather to follow in his footsteps(of selfless death)in order to destroy the works of the devil and his angels. I believe he only loves Satan and his demons in the sense that they are a part of his beloved creation (fallen as they are) and that perfect love also provided perfect power to cast out all fear and provide perfect justice for all such betrayals as Satan and his angels have performed against God and his created order.
There are all kinds of systematic theological presuppositions. I agree with you to a point... and the point of departure for me is when thinkers create such distinct lines of "thought" that they miss the "relational heart". How does one respond at a heart level when a principality or power makes themselves known? I recently reread the Gospels looking for Jesus' engagements with demons and found the exchanges to be deeply relational. It was like the only ones who truly knew what was going on was Jesus and the demons. Everybody else was called to learn from those exchanges about the supremacy of Jesus in all things, and the extent to which the powers have locked down control in so many areas, and subsequently give up control when Jesus is present.
If I presuppose that I have no human enemies (when I forgive all others their sins against me because I truly understand that they have no clue what they are doing... because they are under another's influence) then I begin to see and hear quite clearly that the only way to defeat "the enemy" is to proclaim the majesty, dominion, glory, and reign of God in the world - and any situation in this world where I happen to be invited in. Taking the airwaves back! Not giving any attention "to" or mention "of" them... but when they do show up to take us on, toe-to-toe as it were, our response should be to invoke Spirit parousia, to welcome angels, counterbalance... to speak only to Jesus about the situation! And to speak more to him about himself than anything else.
Ever since I was a kid I've seen and recognized and conversed with many spirits. All the more these days I only speak to Jesus about himself in the presence of his enemies. And occasionally there might be a place to declare something into the cosmos "in his name" - into the ears of all those created things within the sound of my voice - about the supremacy of God and his reign in that particular place and time.
I am learning how to love my enemies. And sometimes love isn't what I think it is. I'll put it this way: Once, during a very important time of transition in our lives as a family, while I was sitting in the kitchen at midnight writing an important spiritual document, a demon came through the front of our house, behind my back, and raced upstairs into my eldest son's room. I wheeled around and looked upstais and said out loud, "How did you get in here!?" As I got up to head upstairs my son cried out in his sleep. I walked carefully into his room in the dark, stooped down and prayed over him that he would sleep peacefully and have no memory of what he had just seen. Then I stood and turned noticing that I was now standing between my son and this thing in his room. I told the thing that I knew it was there and I was going to talk to Jesus about it. And for the next 45 minutes I stood there in one spot, unmoveable, and prayed and waited for the Holy Spirit - I'd have stood there all night if that's what it would have taken. After 45 minutes of me standing between a demon and my son an angel walked into the room, much bigger than the demon... I put out my hands and the angel put something into my hands... I won't mention what that was because it would take too long to decode it all... suffice it to say, the "enemy" left and never returned... and I went back downstairs to finish writing the important document I was working on.
Jude 1:9-11
The Archangel Michael, who went to the mat with the Devil as they fought over the body of Moses, wouldn't have dared level him with a blasphemous curse, but said simply, "No you don't. God will take care of you!" But these people sneer at anything they can't understand, and by doing whatever they feel like doing—living by animal instinct only—they participate in their own destruction. I'm fed up with them! They've gone down Cain's road; they've been sucked into Balaam's error by greed; they're canceled out in Korah's rebellion.
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