This month’s plan was originally written in 2019 after finishing Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together. In just a short 122 pages he captures the essence of what it means for us to live life together as the body of Christ, in particular what it means to bear one another’s burdens.
In August of 2019 we were all blissfully ignorant of what was to come, but the political name calling and ugly rhetoric was already showing up plenty on all the media outlets and on social media. We were steadily marching toward being a divided nation and were pretty comfortable kicking people to the curb who didn’t imbibe the same tenets as “us.” Reading Life Together felt like the answer to bridging the divide, especially for us in the church.
Jump ahead one year, I repeated it again in August of 2020 because it frankly didn’t just feel appropriate, it seemed absolutely necessary, especially to us in the church! We were fighting about in person or online church, about masks and vaccinations, about politics, about gathering and how to do that. People were leaving churches because they wouldn’t open and leaving because they did. There was name calling regarding masks and vaccinations and boatloads of blame for who got us into this mess. The scent of anger, sadness, and fear stubbornly hung in the air, even on the brightest days. The other scent in the air was pride, a distinct self-righteousness that indignantly judged what “they” were choosing to do or not do.
And here it is, 2024, five years since this plan was first written and it seems we, as a culture, have learned very little. Sadly, we as a church are still pretty divided too. We are once again in another election year and there’s a new strain of Covid going around and aren’t we all just so sick of this?
I recently deleted my Instagram account, it was a decision of necessity not moral virtue. The feelings and thoughts filling my heart and head were becoming detrimental. My time in the word was distracted and felt often like I was going backwards. I pretty much stopped writing, my brain was changing and it was frightening. I’d read and heard enough podcasts to know that there’s science to back up what I was feeling. The distraction, the anger, the self-righteousness, the impatience… why would I willingly subject myself to this?
So I have to ask, if this is what’s filing our brains, how can that not come out in our treatment of others? I stopped watching the news for the same reason. The same jumble of ugly emotions churns inside me when I watch it, the same pride and self-righteousness wells up in me. And although I’ve never engaged with someone on social media or in person regarding their politics or beliefs, the conversations I’ve had in my head—WOW! Definitely not becoming of a follower of Christ! I mistakenly believed that as long as I wasn’t actually saying it out loud it was okay. As I was writing this Philippians 4:8 came to mind,
“Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy— dwell on theses things.”
It matters what I think, it matters how I think. What I dwell on matters because whether I realize it or not, it will come out in my attitude and eventually my behavior toward others. I can’t compartmentalize my negative thoughts, they will eventually be exposed in my conduct and my speech. I love the NLT version of Psalm 119:37 in regard to all of this, “Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word.”
So how does this relate to “the ministry of bearing” as Bonhoeffer calls it? What does it really mean to “bear with one another?” What does that look like in day to day life? The conclusion I came to is that it means I bear the sin of my brothers and sisters as they move along in their sanctification process. And as I do, I keep in mind that someone is also bearing me and my sin. This does not mean we give sin a pass and that anything goes, it means I love my brother or sister as they wrestle with their sin and I help them to overcome it whenever and however I can. And here’s the kicker, even, and especially, when it bleeds over into my life and effects me. The bottom line is this, we never get to opt out of the Christian Community God has placed us in because it’s a part of his Bride, the Church.
Another crucial aspect of bearing is humility. You will notice that humility and bearing are often paired together in scripture. In bearing with another it is absolutely essential that we start from a place of humble self-examination. We never bear with another with a better than attitude. Think of it like this, what if every time my blood began to boil I stopped and prayed for that person or situation or politician? Not to change and to think just like me, but for God to do in his or her life what would produce His righteousness and allow him or her to live according to His will? Or that I would, in humility, pray for Him to expose whatever bias or wrong attitudes and beliefs are in me? The discipline of "bearing" is an aspect of the Christian life much like holiness, I will never get it perfectly in this life, but I am called to try, to practice it all the same. So the challenge this month is not just to write out the verses but to practice bearing one another in prayer rather than hitting the "unfriend" button.
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