Sunday, October 06, 2013

Life Together

We are focusing on community in our congregation this fall, and Dietrich Bonhoefer's Life Together is one of the supplemental texts for those who wish to pursue the subject with vigor.  This quote opened the sermon today:
It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s Word and sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing.
I see such words and am nearly overcome.  A congregation is permitted to gather...How enormously different that is from our usual way of viewing things. Reading the other quotable quotes from the book that are pasted up on various sites, I don't know if I can bear to read the book again, it is so different from my usual thought. I fear what it will demand.

I thought I still had the book, but I must have lent it out at some point. I found the full quote here.  (I did not explore the website and don't know if it is any good or not.)

1 comment:

Texan99 said...

I think of that sometimes, when I'm attending services, wondering what I'd do if there were people outside ready to shoot at us or bomb us. There certainly are worse countries to live in.