Sermon preached by The Reverend Eric Kimball Hinds at Saint Peter's
Church, Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.
War
and the Church
With
the declaration of war against terrorism, followed by military attacks
directed against Afghanistan this past week, I would like to spend a
little time this morning reflecting upon the Church's stance towards
armed conflict and war by examining the life and witness of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer.
I will hear what God the Lord will speak. For he will speak peace
unto his people, and to his saints (Psalm 85:8).
"Our task as theologians," writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer in comment
upon this verse from Psalm 85, "consists only in accepting this
commandment as a binding one, not as a question open to discussion.
Peace on earth is not a problem, but a commandment given at Christ's
coming."
Under gathering storm clouds, before the outbreak of the second World
War, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer offered these reflections
to an ecumenical conference held in Denmark in August of 1934. Bonhoeffer
was clear in his insistence that God did not allow that we should work
for peace on the one hand, yet on the other make ready tanks and poison
gas in the name of security. Bonhoeffer insisted that God's command
is that there be peace on earth — and that we are to obey without
further question—and anyone who even questions this commandment
of God before obeying has already denied God.
In another work titled The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer articulates
a faith that ever places before the individual Christian and the Church
the challenge of following Christ even to uncomfortable places. In The
Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer begins by saying that "Cheap grace
is the deadly enemy of our Church [and that] we are fighting today for
a costly grace." He goes on to say that "Cheap grace means
grace without price, [and] grace without cost!. . . Cheap grace is the
preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without
church discipline, communion without confession. . . Cheap grace is
grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus
Christ, living and incarnate."
By contrast Bonhoeffer wrote that "Costly grace is the treasure
hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell
all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant
will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose
sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is
the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows
him. . . Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again,
the gift must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock."
Writing in the wake of the experience of the First World War, Bonhoeffer
counts one of the high costs of discipleship as remaining steadfastly
in the camp of the pacifists — standing for peace and peace alone.
By the summer of 1939, continued Nazi militarization, the annexations
of Austria and Poland, and the possibility of military service all contributed
to Bonhoeffer's decision to leave Germany and to join his American colleagues
in the United States — where he could lecture and study out of
harms way. Out of necessity Bonhoeffer retreated from conflict to a
place where he had time to think.
Through
the summer of 1939, Dietrich wrestled with the decision of whether
to return to Germany. Many of his American friends urged him to stay
and to take up some suitable ecumenical task at a safe distance from
Germany. At the end of the Summer, however, Bonhoeffer left Union
Theological Seminary on the Upper West Side of New York City and made
his way down to the docks of Chelsea where he boarded one of the last
ships headed back to Germany before war broke out in September.
In Germany, Bonhoeffer had increasing contact with the political and
military leaders of the resistance movement, and he came to see pacifism
as an illegitimate escape into a shell of religious piety. Upon his
return to Germany, Bonhoeffer was soon forbidden by the Gestapo to
lecture or to write or to make speeches of any kind; yet under the
guise of the ecumenical movement, he now actively participated in
the resistance movement — where Bonhoeffer made extensive high
level contacts both in and outside of Germany. In 1942, Bonhoeffer
made a decision that parallels our current situation. In 1942, Bonhoeffer
became an active conspirator in the resistance plot to kill Hitler.
At this time in our Nations history we may well ask the questions:
How do we individually and as a Church stand up and bear witness to
Jesus Christ in the midst of the current darkness of Terrorism? and,
How do we honor and remain faithful to the Gospel demands of peace
and compassion and turning the other cheek in the face of determined
and deliberate acts of violence directed at innocent people? These
are difficult questions.
In his life and death, Jesus gives us God's response to this question.
In his actions Jesus stands by every word of the Gospel. He refuses
all violence and he forever demonstrates God's love for a broken world.
Jesus in his life embraced all who came to him and he continued to
love the world, including even his enemies — from the cross.
How I wish along with the young Bonhoeffer that we could embrace such
a pure and straightforward example. As Bonhoeffer discovered the confrontation
of evil becomes an immensely more difficult matter to contemplate
when one is faced with escalating terror and a capacity for mass destruction.
Upon his return to Germany Bonhoeffer deeply committed himself to
the resistance movement until his actions came to an abrupt halt when
a motor car pulled up in front of his house and he was arrested by
the Gestapo and then taken to prison. Bonhoeffer wrote extensively
while in prison, and after 18 months he was executed, only eight days
before the Fall of Germany. In his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer affirmed
his belief that the only way to be a disciple was not to retreat from
the world, but to listen to the call that he heard from Jesus —
and follow him even into the ugliness and evil of the world. The decision
by Bonhoeffer to take up arms against evil did not come easily. They
were carried out painfully with much deliberation — cautioning
us in our day never to take such action lightly, or without understanding
the enormous costs.
From his unique experience and outlook Bonhoeffer articulated three
points with regard to how the Church should relate to the State that
I believe are worth our attention this morning. First of all he said
that the Church must ever remind the State of its responsibilities.
This is the Church as a prophet in our day reminding the State of
the moral obligation to protect innocent life and to carefully weigh
the consequences of all our actions. This is the duty of both the
Church and of all Christians.
The second point made by Bonhoeffer was that the Church must aid the
victims of State action. Since Bonhoeffer was speaking about the German
state, here we should properly restate this as: "The Church's
responsibility is to aid all the victims of terrorism and all the
victims or casualties of war that follow. In our day, this means extending
support to the people of our communities, and of our Nation, and of
the world — to everyone who suffers as a result of this war.
All victims deserve our nurture, care and assistance and the Church
is called to play a role in this.
In his third point, Bonhoeffer envisioned that it is not enough to
merely bandage the victims crushed under the wheel. Rather the Church
must find a way to fashion new spokes for a broken wheel. For Bonhoeffer
this is a thought and an idea that comes to us still as a kind of
mystical challenge, to somehow find a way to proclaim the Gospel of
compassion, love and hope in the midst of a broken world.
In the week before his execution, a felIow prisoner described Bonhoeffer
as ". . . all humility and sweetness. . .he was one of the very
few men that I have ever met to whom his God was real close to him."
In his life, and in the very midst of war, Bonhoeffer found the courage
and the strength to confront great evil — and he is an example
of one who found Christ even in the midst of great suffering. In a
strange way Bonhoeffer was free for he had not taken a quick or easy
path — a cheap means for confronting evil in the world. In an
attempt to prevent further unspeakable acts of destruction and brutality,
Bonhoeffer searched in the shadows of the cross of Jesus to find a
response worthy of the call of Jesus. And there Dietrich found a God
who loves the world still and calls the entire world to embrace the
love and peace that the world can not give — that we may know
God's love in the midst of suffering, and in the midst of grace; in
the midst of war, or in the midst of peace; in our midst right now
and forever.
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