4th Sunday After Pentecost
Matthew 10:24-39:
The Rev. Josh Stromberg-Wojcik, Priest-in-Charge
This gospel today has a pretty harsh tone, echoing some of the harsh sayings about family being turned against family from last Sunday’s gospel reading too. It seems to me that Jesus is teaching his disciples that true, committed discipleship is in fact quite costly. He is not saying that we should seek out suffering or pain. But, he does seem to be saying, when we are firmly committed to God’s ways of peace, justice, and love, we will attract enemies, who will get angry at us and may even try to harm us. And, Jesus offers a promise of hope: when we do stay committed to Jesus’ ways of love and justice, and our adversaries try to harm us, Jesus teaches us not to fear, for, he says, nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Whatever evil people do against us, because we stood up for God’s vision of love and peace, will be exposed before God. And Jesus will be our advocate, telling God the truth of what really happened. God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And, God judges justly. Whoever denies Jesus before others, in word or deed, Jesus will also deny before God in heaven. And we will all know the truth, and the truth will set us free.
Today I’m going to ask your patience to bear with me as I share a bit about one of my personal heroes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who happens to have been a Lutheran. He was one of the key founders of the Confessing Church movement in Nazi Germany, the small minority of clergy in Germany who stood against Nazi interference in Protestant churches in Germany, opposed the regime’s totalitarianism, and advocated for humane treatment of the Jews. In 1933, working in German-speaking churches in London, he tried to organize an ecumenical movement to support the Confessing Church. In May 1934, the Barmen declaration drafted by Karl Barth and adopted by the Confessing Church, declared that Christ, not Hitler, was their Fuhrer. In 1935, Bonhoeffer was the head of an underground seminary in Finkenwalde for training Confessing Church pastors. Nazi suppression of the Confessing Church intensified, and in Sept 1937 the Gestapo closed the seminary at Finkenwalde, and by November 27 pastors and former students were arrested. Around this time he wrote the book “The Cost of Discipleship.” Over the next 2 years, Bonhoeffer conducted an underground “seminary on the run.” In 1938, the Gestapo banned Bonhoeffer from Berlin, so they moved the seminary to the outskirts in Sigurdshof, which the Gestapo shut down in March 1940 with the start of WWII. Learning that war was imminent and fearing conscription as a pacifist, he left to teach at Union Theological Seminary in New York in June 1939. After much inner turmoil, despite protests from Union colleagues, he returned to Germany after only two weeks. In 1941, he joined the Abwehr, members of the German resistance seeking Hitler’s overthrow. Through their cover, he acted as a courier, trying to garner international ecumenical support for the Confessing Church. But the British government considered all Germans enemies and refused to help.
In January 1943 Bonhoeffer was engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer, the granddaughter of Ruth, his close friend and supporter. Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943, initially on minor charges. On July 20, 1944, while Bonhoeffer was still imprisoned, the Abwehr attempted to assassinate Hitler with a bomb. The assassination attempt failed, as the bomb exploded too far from him, and Hitler considered this further evidence that God was on his side. Bonhoeffer did not defend himself, but said “ ‘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." On April 4, 1945, the diary of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, was discovered by the Nazis, and in a rage, Hitler ordered all the other Abwehr members to be executed, including Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was sentenced to death and hanged on April 8, 1945, just a mere 6 days before the camp was evacuated due to the oncoming Ally troops. He left a powerful personal and theological legacy.
I think, if there were someone who could teach us about the cost of discipleship, Bonhoeffer would certainly be a good one. In his book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” he reflects on our gospel reading for today:
“Human beings should not be feared. They cannot do much to the disciples of Jesus. Their power stops with the disciples’ physical death. The disciples are to overcome fear of death with fear of God. Disciples are in danger, not from human judgment, but from God’s judgment, not from the decay of their bodies but from the eternal decay of their bodies and souls. Anyone who is still afraid of people is not afraid of God. Anyone who fears God is no longer afraid of people...if we fall into human hands, if we suffer and die by human violence, we may be sure that everything comes from God. God, who lets no sparrow fall to the ground without the divine will and knowledge, will not permit anything to happen to God’s own people except what is good and useful for them and their cause. We are in God’s hands. Therefore, ‘be not afraid!’ ”
In my opinion, Bonhoeffer became so full of faith and respect for God that he overcame fear of death by human hands. And in so doing, though assassinated with no trial by Hitler, Bonhoeffer left a powerful theological legacy of resistance to the Nazi movement.
In authoritarian times such as these today, it seems to me that God is inviting us to be courageous disciples like Bonhoeffer. We are invited to take a stand. Like the barmen declared that Christ, not Hitler, is their fuhrer, God is inviting us to declare that Christ, not Trump, not any political leader, is our president. Like the Confessing Church stood against authoritarianism and Nazi meddling in the church, God is inviting us to stand against authoritarianism today, against Christian Nationalism which is not Christian and uses Christianity to further a particular ideology and political agenda. And like Bonhoeffer and the Confessing church, God is inviting us to stand against all kinds of oppression, whether against Jews, Gypsies, immigrants, BIPOC folks, the LGBTQIA+ community, or any other oppressed community. When we do so, we will make some people angry. And, Jesus reassures us, that’s a good sign we’re on the right track. We will be in good company with the saints through the ages. And we will be on the right side of history. When judgment day comes, we can say, yes, God, we stood against bigotry and stood up for your reign of justice and love. And God will say, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the pleasure of your master.
May we be filled with such powerful faith and respect for God, that we overcome our own fears, and step courageously into the lives of discipleship that God has planned for us, that your kin-dom come, your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
