Looking back at it, I jumped the gun yesterday when I brought the question of sin into what does it mean to bear one another’s freedom. In that section, Bonhoeffer was talking about a holy freedom that emphasizes our God-written differences and calls us to walk different paths of holiness and to celebrate one another rather than to compare and compete.
In today’s section, he talks about bearing one another’s freedom t osin. By this, I think he means that we can’t force people out of their sinful choices. But not being able to control other people doesn’t mean we stand idly by as fellow Christians commit murder (yes, sadly, according to Jesus, hating your neighbor because she was mean to your son when he was out selling candy for school counts), gossip (telling stories that are not yours to tell to people who have no need of hearing it), adultery (loving anyone or anything more than our Bride Christ)…and so on — any sin that destroys community. I’d love to hear more comments about how you’ve seen this practically work out in your community. What can it look like for a Christian to bear another’s freedom in sin?
Then, along with the other’s freedom comes the abuse of that freedom in sin, which becomes a burden for Christians in their relationship to one another. The sins of the other are even harder to bear than is their freedom; for in sin, community with God and with each other is broken. Here, because of the other, Christians suffer the breaking of the community with the other established in Jesus Christ.
But here, too, it is only in bearing with the other that the great grace of God becomes fully apparent. Not despising sinners, but being privileged to bear with them, means not having to give them up for lost, being able to accept them and able to preserve community with them through forgiveness. “My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness” (Gal. 6:1).
As Christ bore with us and accepted us as sinners, so we in his community may bear with sinners and accept them into the community of Jesus Christ through the forgiveness of sins. We may suffer the sins of one another; we do not need to judge. That is grace for Christians. For what sin ever occurs in the community that does not lead Christians to examine themselves and condemn themselves for their own lack of faithfulness in prayer and in intercession, for their lack of service to one another in mutual admonition and comforting, indeed, for their own personal sin and lack of spiritual discipline by which they have harmed themselves, the community, and one another?
Because each individual’s sin burdens the whole community and indicts it, the community of faith rejoices amid all the pain inflicted on it by the sin of the other and, in spite of the burden placed on it, rejoices in being deemed worthy of bearing with and forgiving sin. “Behold, you bear with them all and likewise all of them bear with you, and all things are in common, both the good and the bad” (Luther).157 The service of forgiveness is done by one to the other on a daily basis. It occurs without words in intercessory prayer for one another. Bonhoeffer, Life Together
A warning about taking this out of context: Bonhoeffer is not encouraging us to stand idly by when sin breaks community. There is a call to action he discusses. I have known too many Christians who felt it was their duty to suffer stoically because Christ suffered. We will suffer because of our own sin and others’, but we also have a call to move toward restoration and reconciliation. It requires prayers, and when the time is right, words. We’ll look at that tomorrow.
