Series: Dare to Dream Part III: God s Dream for Us C. Gray Norsworthy Johns Creek Presbyterian Church February 4, 2018 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian. In the grey dawn in April of 1945, Bonhoeffer was taken from the prison cell in the concentration camp at Flossenberg where he had been since being arrested by the Nazis. Shortly before the concentration camp was liberated by the allied forces, by special order of Nazi leader Heinirch Himmler, Bonhoeffer was executed. What made him such a threat to the Nazis that they would want to end his life just days before the allies would have set him free? Why would he become one the most famous Christian martyrs of the twentieth century? It probably has to do with what had happened before all of that. Bonhoeffer grew up in Berlin. Smart and athletic, at sixteen he entered the university to study theology with many of the best German professors, including Karl Barth. He presented his doctoral thesis at age twenty-one. He was later admitted to the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1930. There he taught alongside Reinhold Niebuhr. While here in the states, he also developed a love for the music of the spirituals. He would later teach them to his students back in Germany years before they became popular in this country. Back in Germany he gave a lecture that was broadcast on German radio. In it he admonished the German people for longing after a leader who would later become a misleader. However, the broadcast was cut off before he had finished by those who realized he was talking about the rise of Hitler. He went to teach in London for a while, but was asked to come back to Germany and start an underground seminary for some pastors opposed to Hitler and the Nazis. It was that kind of resistance that led to him being thrown into prison and later executed. While he was teaching pastors in the underground seminary, he wrote a classic book called Life Together about what real, genuine Christian community looked like. Reading it was my first exposure to Bonhoeffer. In one section he wrote these words: God hates visionary dreaming... (Life Together, 1954:27) Now some of you might be thinking that these words seem to fly in the face of all we are doing here today. Aren t we daring to dream as we seek to discern God s next vision for Johns Creek Presbyterian Church? Well, I want to ask you to hold that thought because I believe the words of scripture we are about to read will help us understand what Bonhoeffer is saying, and how it ties in with what we are doing here today in a good way. Our scripture today is from John s gospel and is printed on the insert in your worship bulletin. So please follow along as we read these words of Jesus. Here Jesus is praying for all of those believers who would later respond after they heard the good news message of his disciples. Jesus prays, 1
20 My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one 23 I in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. -- John 17:20-23, NIV These words we have just read are part of what is called the High Priestly Prayer. It takes up all of chapter seventeen. It is one of the few places in the Bible where we get to listen in on Jesus, the Son of God, praying to God the Father. This takes place right after the Last Supper and right before Jesus is arrested and soon crucified. In this prayer which is not for only his disciples, but for all who would later follow him (which includes those of us who are Christians) what would Jesus pray for? Courage and strength? Success in completing their mission? No. What Jesus prays for instead is this: that all of his followers would be one as Jesus and God the Father are one. Jesus prays for unity for those who will become his church. Jesus could have prayed for anything. What he prays for is unity -- so it must be important. As we continue our series of messages called Dare to Dream we are talking today about God s Dream for Us. The us I am talking about here is the church, and in particular this church Johns Creek Presbyterian Church. What is God s dream for us as a church? That is what we are trying to discern with our Dare to Dream process. But I believe Jesus points to our oneness and our unity as a church as being of first importance. So, what is this oneness or unity Jesus prays for? Jesus tells us that it somehow resembles or grows out of the oneness Jesus shares with God the Father. Here we are pointed to that perplexing idea of the trinity. There is a threeness and a oneness to God. Traditionally we talk about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We don t worship three different gods or just one god but a triune God who is both three and one. Sometimes we try to explain this by focusing on the different roles of each person in the trinity: God the Father creates. Jesus the Son redeems us by dying on the cross and later being resurrected. The Holy Spirit sustains us and continues to fill us with spiritual life. But at some point we need to acknowledge that the idea of the trinity is much more complex than that. There is a real mystery here that is beyond our human understanding. Also, in a similar way that the three persons of the trinity are different yet the same we, too, as followers of Jesus who are the church in this place are different, yet somehow the same and one in Christ. We each are different people with different gifts and life experiences. Yet, we are also one because of our connection with God through Jesus the Christ. Living out his oneness is so important that it is what Jesus prays for right before he dies on a Roman cross that we might be one. However, the very fact that Jesus prays for this implies that living out this oneness and unity is not easy. If it were, then why pray for it and for us? 2
Now getting along with others, even in the church, is not easy. And I think that is what Bonhoeffer was writing about. Bonhoeffer knew that real Christian community was more than just a pie-in-the-sky ideal. It was real something we live out every moment of every day. In teaching those in that underground seminary and actually living with Christians in close quarters, he writes about what life together really looks like. So as we dare to dream listen to what he says about the dream of community we each bring and how that ideal must end before real community can begin: By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream.... Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter.... God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious.... He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together.... When the morning mists of the dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship. (From Life Together, 1954:27-29) What Bonhoeffer describes is what often happens to us when we create our own dream of what Christian fellowship should be like. We bring it with us, but when others don t conform to our dream of how things should be, we may get angry and even judgmental. This kind of behavior does not just happen in church groups, but almost any time a group of people come together for a purpose. Some of you have seen in the business world when people talk of forming, storming, norming, and performing. The idea is that when we begin by forming a group, the trust level is often low because we do not know others. We bring our own expectations or dreams of how things should go. Soon we begin to encounter others with different expectations or dreams and conflict or storming begins. This is the place where some choose to leave. But, if you stick with it and work through the differences, because there is a greater purpose to fulfill, you can move to the next stage. This is norming where you begin to create new norms -- shared understandings who you are, how you will get along with one another, and what the new dream might be for your group. And it is only then that you can begin to perform and fulfill your dream or your mission. I think Bonhoeffer was talking about something like this in our life together as the church. We only get to the real community or the oneness that Jesus prays for when we stick it out. As the church we can do this because there is a oneness already connecting us through our relationship with Christ. What we have to do as the church, is to learn to live that out. And being in the church gives us lots of practice to do that. However that unity as Christ followers is different is different from other kinds of unity. It is not a unity built around being with people who are like us. It is not a socio-economic unity. It is not simply a unity of similar interests. It is not a unity of people who look like us and come from the same background as we do. Instead it is a unity based on our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. 3
In our Presbyterian church, we have questions that we ask of those who serve as pastors and elders. You hear them when we install and ordain new elders as we did not too long ago. One of the questions we ask is this: Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church. (Book of Order, W-4.4003f) It is actually a brilliant question. It talks about unity, but not just any kind of unity. It is unity that also includes peace and purity. You can have unity without real peace. The Nazi Germany of Bonhoeffer s time had unity there was a single purpose -- but there was not a real peace only a forced lack of opposition. There was also unity, but not purity. Here the idea of purity has to do with things that are true and right. Again the Nazis had unity of purpose, but it was around a belief system that was simply evil. It is possible to be unified, but around a terrible cause. But in the church, we ask our leaders to further peace, unity, and purity. It is a oneness that reflects God s way of genuine peace. It is a oneness that is focused on the pure beliefs of God s love and God s grace. That is the oneness Jesus prays for. It is the genuine community that Bonhoeffer says goes beyond our incomplete and individual dreams. Bonhoeffer wrote, When the morning mists of the dreams vanish, then dawns the bright light of Christian fellowship. That is what God s dream of genuine, Christian fellowship looks like for us. When Jesus prays his prayer, he gives the reason for why this oneness and unity are important. It goes beyond simply allowing his followers to come together. Jesus says it has to do with sharing God s love with the world. Jesus prays that when this unity is completed, Then the world will know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:23b, NIV) Jesus is saying that when we live out this unity, the world will take notice. Why? Because the world rarely sees genuine oneness and unity anywhere. Maybe we are already tired of hearing about the polarization in our nation or the lack of real unity in our world. Or maybe we are tired of the lack of unity and we are frustrated that it is still so polarized. Whatever the case, one of the ways we can be witnesses of the good news of God's love is by showing the world what it looks like to live as Christians in genuine unity. This does not mean we stay together because we are all the same or we are comfortable only being with people just like us. No, it means that we are one because of our connection with God through Jesus the Christ. We choose to stay together even when we disagree with one another -- even when we storm. We do that because we believe that is the only way we grow into norming and performing the work of God in this world. That is why we Dare to Dream but it takes work and perseverance. It is not easy, but it is good! And I believe that when others see this in us, they will say as those outside the church have said for ages, See how they love one another. Or as the song says, They will know we are Christians by our love. What does this oneness look like? I think it looks like us at our best, when we gather with one another to bless our graduates when they prepare to head off to college. And it looks like us when we gather in this place to lift high the light of Christ on Christmas Eve, as we shine the light of hope into the dark places of our world. 4
In the strong name of the triune God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. 5