Reflecting on Matt 7: 1-13 and Luke 9: 28-36
Passing Through the Cloud
I too hiked up that mountain, following the master,
and I stayed just outside of that thick cloud for too long.
I listened and I was assured.
The father told me to listen.
[Some days it is hard to just listen.
I can’t listen;
words come out of my own mouth too fast.]
Eight years I journeyed from the first words,
and I rejoiced at the mountain.
Here I am Lord; speak only to me.
In the dazzling white, I came to listen.
Moses and Elijah guide me some ways,
But Jesus speaks when I am awake.
Some days I am so afraid in the cloud.
Still, let me enter the cloud each day.
I stay silent and listen.
Let me be prepared. Teach me lord.
I would still be prepared to tell the story!
Here on this Holy ground, I learn,
I listen.
For these moments alone with Jesus, I yearn
to hear him clearly.
On holy ground, I prepare to listen,
I prepare as a disciple.
Some days, I remember to keep silent,
to listen,
preparing to speak his lessons.
On the mountain paths, I become
aware,
gazing on mountain laurel, pink and white,
and on blue-green mosses.
I squint my eyes, and I listen.
I listen.
Today we, disciples, listen,
and we prepare for new Easters,
On that mountain, I listen, prepare.
(c) Tom Bolton, February 2, 2013, West Allis
Our Confirmation Class at West Allis First United Methodist Church led worship for Transfiguration Sunday this year, with Luke’s text on the transfiguration. This led me to think some about the words these past few months.
I love the words from our Confirmands that were recorded their first time through the Scripture as they started to prepare the lesson. Some of their initial comments became this prayer:
Good and gracious God, we give you thanks and praise for the good news we receive in this Gospel account: that we are invited to join Jesus on holy ground; that we see your glory in Jesus; that we receive direction from you in the cloud; that you speak; that when everyone else is gone, Jesus remains and gives us hope. Meet us in our worship, that all we are and do and speak in faithfulness to Jesus will be to your glory. Amen.
I’m looking forward to Confirmation worship on Sunday with our young disciples.
20th anniversary of the assassination against Adolf Hitler on July 20th 1944 :*Graphics by Gerd und E. Aretz :*Ausgabepreis: 20 Pfennig :*First Day of Issue / Erstausgabetag: 20. Juli 1964 :*Michel-Katalog-Nr: 433 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is an excellent posting on key statements by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I’m really happy to post the link here.
Two of my favorite pasages are:
“Cheap grace [false, unBiblical perversions of God’s word translated “Grace”] is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.”
“Where the world despises other members of the Christian family, Christians will love and serve them. If the world does violence to them, Christians will help them and provide them relief. Where the world subjects them to dishonor and insult, Christians will sacrifice their own honor in exchange for their disgrace. Where the world seeks gain, Christians will renounce it; where it exploits, they will let go; where it oppresses, they will stoop down and lift up the oppressed. Where the world denies justice, Christians will practice compassion; where it hides behind lies, they will speak out for those who cannot speak, and testify for the truth. For the sake of brothers or sisters-be they Jew or Greek, slave or free, strong or weak, of noble or common birth-Christians will renounce all community with the world, for they serve the community of the body of Jesus Christ. Being a part of this community, Christians cannot remain hidden from the world. They have been called out of the world and follow Christ.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
But I really appreciate how the publishers organized the totality of the material on the linked page.
As I prepare for our Confirmation Sunday, I am thinking about, and writing about, my faith. Mark 9:24 will be the text for worship this week.
Hand in Hand
My Faith, fragile, Help my Faith
I believe, I believe, I believe,
I believe, and yet:
Help my unbelief today and yesterday and all this week and forever.
How can it be?
Redeemed and healed, I am often filled with joy,
And yet,
Where does this unbelief come from? Where was it hidden?
Was it hidden at all?
When this faith becomes doubtful of itself,
it stands in temptation again,
as it was in the beginning, in the edge of the garden.
Fragile in our faith, we are sorely tested
each day.
But we have not been saved by our faith. It was
God’s love—his grace—in Jesus that saves us.
It is our faith that takes us there to gaze on Jesus,
To grab hold of His grace, His forgiveness, His empowerment;
Lord, I ride my faith to return to your power.
My faith is in a great, great God.
Yet my faith can be so small;
Help me Lord.
© Tom Bolton, December 12, 2012, Milwaukee
I have been going back to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship lately. We sometimes lose the focus in our discipleship. How can we Christian’s lose our focus on Jesus? And yet we do! Bonhoeffer wrote:
“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘Ye were bought at a price’, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
“How would you expect to find community while you intentionally withdraw from it at some point? The disobedient cannot believe; only the obedient believe.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 4
“[Jesus] stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality. Since the whole world was created through him and unto him (John 1:3; 1st Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2), he is the sole Mediator in the world…
The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion. All the time we thought we had enjoyed a direct relation with men and things. This is what had hindered us from faith and obedience. Now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life, in our kinship with father and mother, bothers and sisters, in married
Cover of The Cost of Discipleship
love, and in our duty to the community, direct relationships are impossible. Since the coming of Christ, his followers have no more immediate realities of their own, not in their family relationships nor in the ties with their nation nor in the relationships formed in the process of living. Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator, whether they are able to recognize him or not. We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves.
But since we are bound to abhor any deception which hides the truth from our sight, we must of necessity repudiate any direct relationship with the things of this world–and that for the sake of Christ. Wherever a group, be it large or small, prevents us from standing alone before Christ, wherever such a group raises a claim of immediacy it must be hated for the sake of Christ. For every immediacy, whether we realize it or not, means hatred of Christ, and this is especially true where such relationships claim the sanctions of Christian principles.,,
There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behavior, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through him. That is why intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbors, and corporate prayer, offered in the name of Christ, the purest form of fellowship.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Larry Hollon shared another take on discipleship in his blog earlier this week:
He noted, “While the word “disciple,” (or its equivalent in the language of the day), may have been understood more clearly in Jesus’ time, in the modern day lexicon of faith “discipleship” is less clearly understood and according to research by United Methodist Communications, this lack of clarity leads to confusion, lost communication and a weakening of the connectivity of the United Methodist community of faith.
“Because the word discipleship and the work of making disciples is so central to the mission of the church, lack of clarity about what it means is a crucial issue. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote definitively on the subject of discipleship in 1937, but his work is not widely known today.”
Hollon went on to share a definition of discipleship from Bishop Michael Coyner of the Indiana Episcopal Area, who offered this definition as an excellent overview:
“A DISCIPLE is a person who
experiences the
forgiveness and acceptance of God,
follows the life and teachings of Jesus Christ,
demonstrates the fruit of the Spirit,
AND WHO
shares in the life and witness of a community of disciples,
including Baptism and the Lord’s Supper,
serves in some form of ministry every day,
participates in God’s suffering and transformation of the world,
anticipates a future life in the presence of God,
AND WHO THEREBY
yearns to lead others to become disciples.”
I’m looking forward to sharing some Bonhoeffer at our Confirmation Worship on May 12. Faith!
“I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
Free of Self-Concern
I would be free of my own nothingness.
There is new freedom and everything of God.
Oh, for a relationship intimate and organic,
productive, mature.
Here are my hopes; bless them.
My aspirations are deep in this journal; bless them.
My plans are organized in this ledger; bless them.
My abilities are deep within me; bless me.
My future, so clear, is lost in me; bless me.
All my resources, not really mine, to be blessed again,
take into your hands!
May I be free of my own concerns, or will
they continue to anchor me?
Bless me.
I surrender all this.
Bless me to be a blessing.
Will I stay in prayer today?
Will I be in missions today?
Let my day flow from the love of Christ.
Bless me.
Free me.
Keep me.
(c) Tom Bolton, 28 April 2013, Milwaukee
Manna in My Life
Not so hungry in my belly, I still love
My morning manna.
Some mornings I put nut spread on my matzoh,
and taste and texture combine to thrill me.
And better than hard rolls in the morning,
We are made to be the yeast to raise the bread. 
When the flour is whole and coarse and real,
The yeast works wonders in the bread.
Not so hungry in my belly,
Still I hunger in the morning.
The Word fills me in ways I feel deep in me.
Deep in me, my health surges.
Deep in my gray matter, my thoughts are vital.
Deep in my soul, I am eternal.
I am blessed to be filled each day.
Thank you for my daily bread.
(c) Tom Bolton, April 24, 2012, Milwaukee
On reading John 6
Hopeful 