March
14, 2024 ~ 5th Thursday in Lent
Dietrich Bonhoeffer*
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer’s date on the U.S. Episcopal Calendar is April 9, but I've brought him here today because his voice is an important one, especially in our today world. He rises regularly in my consciousness
with the strong desire to re-read his writings. Bonhoeffer has long inspired me
through his writing and especially through a biography by American Charles
Marsh entitled Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that
showed the young and privileged arrogance of a brilliant mind grow into a
passionate and compassionate theologian for all of humanity; and, the spiritual
torture of deciding to join the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
He
wrote with a particular passion about living in each day seeking and listening for the spiritual
messages that we often simply miss: We must be ready to allow ourselves
to be interrupted by God. As for all the earth-bound material we chase
after, he said, The way to misuse our possessions is to use them
as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow,
whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day. He also reminds us of another critical lesson that time is the most valuable thing we have, and we only have NOW. What will
I do with my time today....what will you?
Holy
God of Yesterday, Today, and (maybe) Tomorrow,
The manna You give me today will not last
until tomorrow so interrupt and cajole me not to waste it or fritter it away or misuse
it. For today I will give up the
worry about what might come tomorrow. I will take on seeing to the
necessary business of this day, but more importantly, letting those I care about
KNOW, specifically, deliberately, intentionally, definitively, that I
care. I will pray that
we will each be part of each other's lives for much longer and for the gift of
grace to let God, again, interrupt my plans and help me to understand, as Dietrich
Bonhoeffer said also, “There is meaning in every journey that is unknown
to the traveler.” amen.
*Dietrich Bonhoeffer [1906-1945], theologian, Lutheran pastor, dissident anti-Nazi. His book The Cost of Discipleship is considered a modern classic. Polish by birth, he studied at the University of Tubingen and received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees and his Doctor of Theology at the University of Berlin. He completed a second doctorate - all before the age of 25. He did post graduate study at Union Theological Seminary in New York and was introduced to and was profoundly inspired by the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. His teachings and writings continue to inspire generations after his death. With great angst but complete abhorrence of the Nazi dictatorship and violence, he was involved with the German Military Intelligence Office's plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and executed on April 9, 1945, 23 days before the German surrender. His "time is the most valuable thing we have..." comes from his Letters and Papers from Prison. He never justified or excused his action but accepted that he was taking guilt upon himself as he wrote "when a man takes guilt upon himself in responsibility, he imputes his guilt to himself and no one else. He answers for it...Before other men he is justified by dire necessity; before himself he is acquitted by his conscience, but before God he hopes only for grace." There is so much more that can be said about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and all in his own words.
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