Learning from Bonhoeffer about Preaching
Youth workers want to help students receive and obey the Word of God. That’s the task of preaching, isn’t it? We deliver God’s Word, not our own opinions. But how do we stand before students and do that with confidence and conviction? One of the most helpful books I’ve read on this topic is Worldly Preaching: Lectures on Homiletics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who was killed by the direct order of Adolf Hitler in the final days of World War II, while imprisoned in Flossenburg concentration camp. His faith in Christ led him to take an active role in the resistance movement against Hitler’s reich, and led an underground seminary for two years. During that time, he trained Christian pastors how to lead a church that was submissive to the Scriptures, not to the government. The first half of Worldly Preaching is composed quotations and reflections on Bonhoeffer’s other writings, as they pertain to preaching; the second half contains his seminary lectures.
The following are some of my favorite quotes from Worldly Preaching and my takeaway, as a youth pastor. All quotations are from Crossroads Publishing’s 1991 edition.
On Relevance
“Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic…. Do not defend God’s Word but testify to it…. Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of her capacity.” (p.92)
“The relevant is not where the present age announces its claim before Christ, but where the present age stands before the claims of Christ, for the concept of the present age is determined not by a temporal definition but by the Word of Christ as the Word of God. The relevant has no feeling of time, no interpretation of time, no atmosphere of time, but the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost alone. The relevant is and begins where God himself is in his Word.” (p.31)
I confess to shuddering when I hear the word “relevant,” because it was so over-used for a period of time. Bonhoeffer’s words above are what shook me out of an obsession with relevance and helped me re-discover the freedom of simply preaching the Word. The Bible doesn’t need to be made relevant, but displayed as eminently relevant for each of us. I suspect that most youth workers can think of times when they have warped and twisted Scripture in an effort to make it relevant. Instead, let us prayerfully study God’s Word enough to understand it’s meaning richly enough that we can display its relevance for students.
“The Church must come out of its stagnation. We must move out again into the open air of intellectual discussion with the world, and risk saying controversial things, if we are to get down to the serious problems of life.” (p.46)
Preaching God’s Word will lead you into controversial waters. Remaining silent on such issues may be safer right now, but will prove more costly in the long-run. Churches who remained silent about the plight of the Jews in Bonhoeffer’s day were safe from government shut-downs. But it cost them the integrity of their faith. Bonhoeffer’s reflection about stagnation and controversy is a good reminder for us all to heed: God’s Word must speak to “the serious problems in life,” regardless of how much applause or controversy it will stir.
On Preaching the Gospel
“We can neither understand nor preach the gospel tangibly enough. A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a beautiful red apple or holding out a glass of water to a thirsty man and asking: Wouldn’t you like it?” (p.14)
We’ve all heard sermons that were faithfully biblical, but still left us shrugging with indifference. A sermon should not only be biblical, it should display the relevance of the Word in real life. Engage students’ affections, fears, and concerns. Acknowledge their indifference to the subject of the text. Making your message concrete means you are translating the Word from the realm of ideas into students’ thoughts, concerns, and behaviors - and you’re inviting them to behold Christ who is with them. Too often, Christian preaching talks about the gospel like it’s a good idea, but not real life.
“It is not religion that makes us good in the presence of God, but God alone that makes us good…. Religion and morality are the greatest dangers to the understanding of divine grace.” (p.61)
Obviously, Bonhoeffer isn’t objecting to religion and morality. But if we allow our ministry to permit empty religion and a legalistic morality, then we will never understand God’s grace. No one will be welcomed in the presence of God because they earned it with their religiosity or goodness - that would be the epitome of self-righteousness. Instead, we all come before God as people who are fully dependent on his grace towards us in the person of Jesus Christ.
“Do not use Scripture as a club with which to beat the congregation. That is priestcraft. We are not to preach sins, but to witness to their overcoming: we are not preachers of repentance, but messengers of peace.” (p.150)
I love this quote because it challenges my natural disposition so deeply. Yes, Jesus’ gospel was a message of repentance, for the kingdom of God was at hand. But that was his message because he was a messenger of peace. Many youth workers today tend to (metaphorically) beat their students with a club. Of course, this is done in an effort to be relevant and helpful, in order that students would live in conformity with God’s Word. We preach the Word in order to proclaim Christ and his invitation to find peace. When we receive this invitation, we turn away from sin because Jesus’ invitation is so much more beautiful and appealing and satisfying.
On the Nature and Value of Preaching
“Jesus made authority in the fellowship dependent upon brotherly service. Genuine spiritual authority is to be found only when the ministry of hearing, helping, bearing, and proclaiming is carried out. Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community; indeed, it poisons the Christian community.” (p.27)
This is a timely word, and one I haven’t noticed prior to re-reading Worldly Preaching for the sake of writing this article. But in the midst of so much leadership-abuse in the church, I read this and immediately had to pause. Leaders who do not serve are not spiritual authorities to be trusted. They are poisonous. It’s that simple.
“The Church as a community is not to be separated from the office of proclamation.” (p.43)
“The preacher does not therefore accomplish the application of the word; the preacher is not the one who shapes it and forms it to suit the congregation. With the introduction of the biblical word the text begins moving among the congregation. Likewise the word arises out of the Bible, takes shape as the sermon, and enters into the congregation in order to bear it up.” (102)
Teaching has taken a backseat in some groups within the youth ministry community. Many youth workers today seem to pursue building community through hype and enthusiasm, while viewing the sermon or Bible message as a necessary-evil that students endure. These youth workers believe that students need a community, not more lectures. While that may or may not be true, Bonhoeffer understands that Christian community is established by the proclamation of God’s Word.
It is impossible to establish Christian community without the proclamation of the gospel at its core. Imagine what would happen if youth workers became convinced that students were truly hungry for the Word of God and put that conviction front-and-center? Of course there are students who don’t yet realize what they are actually craving in life is the Word of God. They think they are pursuing popularity or sex or money or self-contentment, but those desires all find themselves most fulfilled in Christ. In this way, Bonhoeffer helps us discern what we should be teaching, and how to lead teenagers to Jesus.
I’m incredibly thankful for Bonhoeffer’s enduring message and example. May he continue to remind youth workers to preach the Word concretely, as an invitation to taste and see the sweetness of Jesus in order that we would draw near in genuine community as we worship God and serve one another.
