Pastor's Newsletter

To the family and friends of Jerusalem E.S./An Easter/Lenten message:

Due to an unforeseen illness, I missed celebrating the most important church season with you. For that, you must know I'm sincerely sorry. But the Easter season does not end until May 10th, so perhaps you will forgive me for just getting “under the wire” so to speak with a few thoughts and ponderings. One of my Lenten “works”  was to read more of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship” again and I did try, But it did not take me long to get the feeling that I wanted to share some thoughts with you, and hopefully, some of you will be interested in following my thoughts along those lines. I know that I have often used the terms of “cheap grace” vs. “costly grace” in a sermon or two, and I have wondered if you have just glided it through those terms without much thought… the thought they deserve, really. Bonhoeffer Describes cheap grace this way:  “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without Confession, absolution without personal confession. Simply put, cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

Bonhoeffer contrasts cheap grace with costly grace: “It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a person will pluck out his eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. 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 person the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.”

More than 80 years after Bonhoeffer’s book, not much has changed for the people of God. We continue to find ourselves in the same spots, with the same struggles. We are still as guilty as ever of both preaching and practicing a cheap grace period but wait… perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel!

I recently read an article by a college professor teaching his students from Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship” And two reactions stood out. First, it made them angry. They come to my office he says, sometimes with tears, and ask why didn't I know this before? Now, sometimes it is their own ears, despite the faithfulness of their parents or their faith community, and it is only now, in the new autonomy of their precious college years, that they finally have “ears to hear”. The second response, which often follows the first, is radical repentance. Shove the junk food away! Let us get serious about the Jesus of Scripture, let us worship actually lead us to be undone like Isaiah and end up with a “woe is me” so that we can say “here I am” and still go… even if it ends up like the rest of the 6th chapter of Isaiah; with a ministry that no one listens to, no one gets, and ends up with less than one-tenth of what we started with. With ears to hear and eyes to finally see Matthew 7, our young people begin to experience what it means to be the few on the hard path that have entered by the narrow gate. THERE is the good fruit! There is simply obedience to the Word that is heard no matter what! There, Jesus says, is someone I know, someone I recognize. That's the work that truly bears my name. There is the wise one building on a rock. There is wisdom of which the fear of our Lord is the beginning! Obviously, I've gone longer than I meant to in this discipleship note, but I will leave you with a question, the answer to which you may share with me?

Do you think our Gen Z generation suddenly has “ears to hear” and that is why they have returned to the church in such numbers?

Grace and peace to all,

Pastor Kathleen