Words for Worship

Ministry Today

This close to Burn’s night,

I do believe it is Ok

to quote the bard.

 

For today’s sermon’s writing

epitomises his famous words –

the best laid plans

of mice and men

gang aft te gla.

 

Because you see

my original intention

was to feature 3 Christians

who had been prophetic

over the last 2000 years.

 

Three brave souls

who saw the world

as God saw it

and articulated

his better vision for it

in the light of Christ.

 

Well, all that was before

I started to reread

Dietrich Bonheoffer’s

letters and papers from prison.

 

It was then gang aft gla-dom set in.

 

And the reason is quite simple.

 

For there are few recent Christian thinkers

who have so eloquently expressed

the why and how

of a being prophet in trying times;

no one in fact

has more courageously shown

the price of true prophecy

in this modern age’s darker episodes.

 

But let me start

with a bit of background.

 

For as you know Hitler

rose to power

in Germany in 1933.

 

The people of that nation,

in desperate need

of effective government

and stability

chose expediency

over social morality.

 

As a result National Socialist

was the required tag

to every grouping in life

from the rural stamp club

to the mighty sporting organisations.

 

Needless to say,

the churches were not excluded

and the national church

was formed

complete with Reich bishops.

 

Bonheoffer and other prophets

saw before most

where this was going

and started the Confessing Church

which opposed the national socialists –

as did the Roman Catholics.

 

The outcome was

the Barmen Declaration.

 

 In it,

the true Christians of Germany

stated that

the foundation of the church

was the revelation of God

in Jesus Christ

and not any subsidiary revelation

in History.

 

In other words,

they rejected

the claims of the Nazis

that God

had said more than Jesus Christ

in their odious racial teachings

and their perverted reading

of their country's problems.  

 

After many lesser persecutions,

Bonheoffer was imprisoned

in 1942

yet remained the moral backbone

of those wrestling

with their consciences

as to the removal of Hitler

and his gang.  

 

It was at around this time

he wrote his textbook essay

worth a read

by any would be modern prophet.

 

It was called - 10 years on.

 

 

So let’s look at that work

which survived hidden

in Bonheoffer’s parents’ attic

in Berlin

and is the prologue

to his writings

from a Gestapo prison.

 

For it lays out

how any Christian

should cope with the pressures

of perverse times

and be a prophetic voice.  

 

And it start by tells us

who are the only ones

likely to stand fast.

 

Take, for example,

reasonable people.

 

Now they feel

that if everyone is reasonable

the problem is solved.

 

But when they come across

those who are determined

to be unreasonable,

their reasonableness

becomes disappointment

and they stand aside

from a fight

they cannot understand.

 

So it is the fanatic.

 

Because they rush

with single minded principle

at the evil

but get entangled

in its clock of detail.

 

The net result is

they become utterly bound up

in non-essentials

and fall into the trap set

by cleverer people.

 

The person of conscience

agonises over badness

and vacillates

to the point of despair.

 

Or as Bonheoffer says –

they fail to realise

that a bad conscience

can be more wholesome

than a deluded one.

 

The man of duty is

similarly doomed.

 

Because duty prevents him

taking the action

that will allow

a direct hit on evil

 

And as a result

he ends up doing duty

to the devil himself.

 

Of the upholder of freedom,

Bonheoffer says that

he or she is steered always

into the barrenness

of the middle course

and when all-out evil

is being confronted –

there is the raw material of tragedy.

 

Finally, there are the virtuous.

 

But as the evil mounts

they find that to retain

their stainless character

they must close their eyes

to the downright awful

and become the worse sort of hypocrites.

 

What then is the personality

of the one

who will see evil, speak

against evil

and do for evil?  

 

Who will stand fast?  

 

Well for Bonheoffer

it is in the responsible person.

 

Here if you will permit me

I will quote him directly.

 

The person who will stand fast

is the one willing to sacrifice all

for the responsible action in faith

and in exclusive allegiance to God.

 

The one who stands fast

is he or she

who makes their whole lives

the answer to the call of God.

 

Or as the psalmist has it –

the fear of God

is the beginning of wisdom.

 

Now I know we do not live

in a nation faced

with the evil of totalitarian government

or an overarching inhuman ideology.

 

In truth, in the west

we live in the complete opposite.

 

We live in a social environment

which is a perplexing mix

of fundamentalisms

that demonises others

and a political correctness

that gives moral equivalence

to every point of view.

 

And it is this supermarket

of incompatible and muddled ideals

that perplexes everyone

including those

who are reasonable, principled,

vitreous and freedom loving.

 

For this lack of consensus

as to what is right or wrong,

misleads the young

into following the unwholesome,

it discourages adults

from life beyond work and family

and disenfranchises

the old’s wisdom as outmode.

 

As a result, folly stalks

the streets of 21st Century Europe

as much as it did 1930’s Europe.  

 

The need of speakers of God’s view

is in as much demand today

as it was in Bonheoffer.

 

The test of allegiance

to the call of Jesus Christ

is as loud now

as ever it has been.

 

It is for that reason then

the prophetic voice

of Bonheoffer

is as supremely relevant

to us his students

some 60 years later.

 

For in his essay

he went on to give a wisdom

that is

indeed

an eternal wisdom.  

 

Because he went on to distil

the wisdom of all the prophets

not least those

who have lived since Christ.  

 

Indeed, it is with the prospect

of all history as God’s canvas

that he offers us

a key part of our message

to today.

 

For he said –

that all wrong doing

and thinking defeats itself –

sometimes very quickly.

 

Moreover, there are certain divine rules

for society

that are more powerful

than the human ones

that seem to predominate

from time to time.

 

And because God’s rule

will eventually overcome

then is not only wrong

to oppose it is also unwise;

unwise because history

shows that

the work of evil men and women

is very often punished

in this world.

 

It is also unwise

for our faith tells us

God judges

not just our works

but our intentions as well.  

 

More to this moment,

it is unwise

for as Bonheoffer claims –

the world is so ordered

that the respect

for both divine laws and human life

is the best form of self-protection.

 

J G Ballard in a recent radio interview

talked about his childhood experiences

in a Japanese Internment camp.

 

The experiences

that were depicted

in the Spielberg epic film –

empire of the sun.

 

He said that it never failed

to surprise him

how humans

would through up

any principle

they had

just to live half an hour longer.

 

Now that may be true

for people of reasonableness,

of virtue,

of conscience and for freedom.

 

But what of those

who are prophets

of responsibility?

 

Those who are answering

their call from God?

 

 

Well, Bonheoffer

had many opportunities

to avoid the threats to his life.

 

Most notable,

he was in the USA

when war broke out.

 

He could have stayed

seeking asylum.

 

But he chose to return

to his native land

knowing the dangers

he faced

yet determined

to be a prophet for Jesus Christ.

 

And it would be nice to say,

he survived those risks

to reach a ripe old age.

 

But he did not

for he was hung

by the Gestapo

in flossenburg concentration camp

on the 19 April 1945 –

almost insight of the liberating allies.

 

And so died

not just the most promising theologian

of his generation

but also a true prophet of God.

 

A prophet

whose last lines written

were to his fiancée

which read;

you must no think of me as unhappy.

What is happiness or unhappiness?

It depends so little on circumstances;

it depends really on only

what is happening inside you.

 

Well mercifully,

it is highly unlikely

even in this unpredictable age

that we will be asked

for the prophet’s sacrifice

paid by Bonheoffer.

 

Nor should we aspire to –

for the world

has enough so called martyrs

to be going on with.

 

But let his example

at least

encourage us

in being modern day prophets

who take a risk;

risk of speaking out

and appearing a fool.

 

For, to be the voice of God’s law

in a mixed up society,

does require us

to foolishly affirm their immutability.

 

It does require us

to commit the folly

of not being reasonable

or virtuous;

dutiful or a free-thinker.

 

Instead it requires us

to the sort of

divinely inspired twit

that says –

read your histories

and see that God

is not mocked;

see that right triumphs

in the end

and see that

true happiness in life

is not to be had

in the compromise

or the expedient

nor the fundamentalist dogma

or the political dictate

but only in

the daily companionship of Jesus Christ.

 

Because if we do

give this risky witness –

will not just be responsible prophets

but also the happiest

and wisest fools

in all of Christendom.

 

Amen

 

Our offering will be received as we sing

Seated

HYMN……………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prophets Today