The fellowship of the blessed

The middle section of The Cost of Discipleship is a section by section exposition of Matthew 5-7 a/k/a The Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer refuses to sentimentalize or take the sharp edges off these hard sayings of Jesus. The chapter on The Beatitudes is a classic. He sets the scene and then provides several paragraphs of commentary on each beatitude. He doesn't play off a spiritualized reading of the language against a more literal reading. "Poor" can have a spiritual and a temporal meaning, "mourn" doesn't mean occasionally bummed out, etc. Jesus is describing a community, the community of those who "have publicly left the crowd to join him." The community of those who "have renounced everything at his call." This is the doorway to blessing as defined by Jesus, which definition is so different from the world's, or my own. I wonder where the signs of this kind of blessedness are to be found today.

Bonhoeffer concludes on a marvelous note. Here are two samples.

Having reached the end of the beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross of Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all. From the cross there comes the call "blessed, blessed." (pp. 113-114)

. . . while Jesus calls them blessed, the world cries: "Away with them, away with them!" Yes, but whither? To the kingdom of heaven. "Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven." There shall the poor be seen in the halls of joy. With his own hand God wipes away the tears from the eyes of those who had mourned upon earth. He feeds the hungry at his Banquet. There stand the scarred bodies of the martyrs, now glorified and clothed in white robes of eternal righteousness instead of the rags of sin and repentance. The echoes of this joy reach the little flock below as it stands beneath the cross, and they hear Jesus saying: "Blessed are ye!" (p. 114)

Quotes from The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1995)