Gracious powers - Bonhoeffer's idea of discipleship

*** Den deutsche Originaltext habe ich gestern hier eingestellt:  einfach im Blog weiter unten nachlesen. Mehr Information zur Studientagung für Theologiestudierende in Breslau findet Ihr auf der Homepage der Evangelischen Akademie zu Berlin.

I. Discipleship in Bonhoeffer’s theology can be best expressed with Jesus* words, when he prayed at Gethsemane: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26,39) And we think of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done.” At a glance, Bonhoeffer’s idea of discipleship looks simple and true at all times: letting God’s will happen in my life and devoting my life to God.
The essence of discipleship the forever valid attitude of Christians.

II. There can be no doubt that the past year has diminished our lives very much. One might say that the pandemic diminished us all. For me, the greatest challenge of our time ist to discover God in our lived that have become so much more narrow. For God is able, as the psalmist writes: You but have set my feet in a spacious place. (Ps. 31,8b). God’s work in our lives cannot be diminished.

III. But it isn’t always easy to detect or sense God’s work in our lives. There are times in our lives, when we need to struggle to taste even a little bit of God’s presence. When our dreams in life are diminished, we can only see by tunnel vision. Whether our tunnel vision is caused by fear or impatience or insecurity, it prevents us from seeing and acknowledging how God affects our lives. Our tunnel vision makes us see life as never getting better. Things will always be like they are now… this is one way to see our diminished lives today. But is that true? Is it really true?
We cannot see wide enough, the vastness where God clearly affects the spheres of our lives, and I haven even looked at the idea that God’s workings are always wider and vaster, that there is always a step further, that there is no end in sight.

IV. Faith in Bonhoeffer’s idea of discipleship also means to be allowed and able acknowledge my own weakness. The knowledge that there isn’t just restriction but there is a thereafter: there is a vastness, even if I cannot see it yet. This faith will not lie to us and pretend that there is nothing to worry about, nothing insecure in our lives. On the contrary: we recognize our limitations, our blindness… and from there one can say with certainty that without a doubt, God works in my life, even if there are moments when I cannot feel this, when it is difficult to feel it… it is so very human to feel insecure in this diminished space. But our faith allows us to feel this way.

V. I think, Bonhoeffer’s life is a good example for this Christian mentality. In his life, the political circumstances and his prison were not seen as limitations, rather the contrary. His theology could flourish, and he put into words by God’s working in his life. We need faith to be sure of the vastness, to be sure that situations will change. Our hope is in that the light of god will shill into the gaps in our soul like the sun shining though the gaps between the bar in from t of his prison cell window. That this is still true today and that God sets our feet in a spacious place and so we are “wonderfully surrounded by gracious powers…”

Annamaria Seres

Thank you, Anna, for this thoughtful text.