Life Together: The Day Together
Pastor Holly Johnson
Spirit Garage
Mark 6:7-13, 30; Life Together “The Day Together” (chapter 2)
September 8, 2024
During these fall months we are exploring a theme of Life Together This series is inspired by a book from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that is an exploration of Christian community; there are five chapters that we’re covering in our first weeks of this series. You heard Michelle tackle “Community” last week; this week we talk about “The Day Together,” and next week, “The Day Alone.” The fourth week is on “Ministry” or “Service”, and we wrap up with “Confession and Communion.”
If you were here last week, you know that Bonhoeffer wrote this book in Germany in the late 1930’s, which was before the war was something we (USA) were a part of, but Hitler was certainly doing the damage he started when he began his rhetoric of hatred in about 1918. Bonhoeffer was addressing life at a seminary, so they were all men thinking about how to be in community together as they prepared for ministry in the world. But this book is also addressed to families.
Not all of us live in families, and some of us live in families or households that don’t share a faith with us, so that all gets a little complicated for what Bonhoeffer has to teach us, but today we reflect on his wisdom for our lives, and what we agree and disagree with.
The day together talks about how days ought to be structured, and it begins with common worship, with praise and thanks; reading scripture, and prayer.
The purpose of that is this: that the deep stillness of morning is broken first by prayer and song. That is kind of a beautiful idea. This kind of instruction appears many times in the psalms, like in Psalm 119, which says in part: “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I put my hope in your words. My eyes awake before each watch of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.”
What if that were true? What if we rose each day with prayer on our minds, and on our lips, and if we are in community with other people who share our faith, what if we began together in this way? It would be a spiritual practice that would shape life in a certain way.
As part of the Faith Practices and Neighboring Practices Team, we’ve been tasked with this kind of practice—or finding some kind of daily practice to hold onto. For me, I do wake early, and I try for the first part of my day, as I’m taking my first sips of coffee to be a litany of the day ahead. I think through the people I will see that day, and pray for each conversation. That does change how I encounter the world, (on the days I remember to do it).
Bonhoeffer says that all the first words in worship will vary according to who is there; they should fit the setting. I don’t know if he ever could have imagined a place like Spirit Garage, but what he says is “every common devotion should include the word of scripture, the hymns of the church, and prayer of the fellowship.”
Spirit Garage does that! our songs vary quite a bit from the hymns of the church, so I don’t know what he’d think of that…
He also encourages reading the psalms. We don’t do that very often here, unless we are preaching them. Sometimes I think they are hard. Bonhoeffer has some words for why they are hard and what to do about that.
The Psalms are a collection of prayers and poems and songs that are individual or communal but just might include words we don’t really feel, or which don’t have anything to do with us. There’s a lot in there about enemies and sometimes bashing their heads, or delivering us from the hands of the enemies; all these things. And sometimes it’s the other way: the Psalm is naming innocence we can’t claim, because that hasn’t been our life. They don’t feel personal to us.
Here are Bonhoeffer’s words on that:
A psalm that we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us farther and horrifies us, is a hint to us that here someone else is praying, not we; that the one who is here protesting his innocence, who is invoking God’s judgement, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He is praying here.
These were words that Jesus prayed, because this is also his book of poems and prayers; sacred scripture for him. And there may be others around the world living in different situations than we are who may have good reason to pray these things. And so we can pray with Christ, and pray with people around the world.
Let’s try it now. one of these tricky prayers. This is the one Christ prayed from the cross, and we pray all these things because they were real and actual to Jesus. And they are real and actual to others who feel forsaken by God:
Psalm 22
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night but find no rest.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm and not human,
scorned by others and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they sneer at me; they shake their heads;
8 “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”
9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
11 Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls encircle me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my mouth is dried up like a pot shard,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 For dogs are all around me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they bound my hands and feet.
17 I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.
19 But you, O Lord, do not be far away!
O my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters and siblings;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the Lord, praise the Lord!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Lord;
stand in awe of God, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For God did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
The Lord did not hide their face from me
but heard when I cried to God.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear the Lord.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek God shall praise the Lord.
May your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before the Lord.
28 For dominion belongs to the Lord,
and God rules over the nations.
29 To the Lord, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for the Lord.
30 Posterity will serve God;
future generations will be told about the Lord
31 and proclaim the Lord’s deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that God has done it.
Next, we’re supposed to read the scriptures. And this is the reason for our repetitive reading of this ancient text, according to Bonhoeffer: “Reading of Biblical books forces everyone who wants to hear to put themselves, or to allow themselves to be found, where God has acted once and for all of the salvation of everyone. We become part of what once took place for our salvation. Forgetting and losing ourselves, we, too pass through the red sea, through the desert, across the jordan into the promised land. With israel we fall into doubt and unbelief and through punishment and repentance experience again God’s help and faithfulness. We are torn out of our own existence and set down in this midst of this holy history of God on earth.”
Now onto singing. Bonhoeffer has some weird ideas about singing, (IMHO). He wants us to sing the songs–the same songs—in unison so that there is no self-praise, no honor of our own selves or making the performance into an idol.
As one who regularly breaks into harmonies from just off to the side, I just can’t agree with him. But he does have a point about singing together. He says, “in singing together it is possible for us to speak and pray the same word at the same time. Here, we unite in the word.” We breathe the same, we sing the same note, we say the same word. We are at one in prayer. That’s a powerful thing to try every once and awhile.
Next he has words on prayer. In our prayers, it is OUR word and our prayer for the day: for our work, for our time together, for the particular needs and brokenness that affect our community, and for the persons who are committed to our care.
What comes after prayer? The breaking of bread. Sharing a meal together is meant to be a daily celebration, so that our lives move between the rhythms of work and labor and joy and fellowship, and we are bound together in the food that we eat, especially as we hear the words Jesus first shared with his disciples on the night he was betrayed, when he said, “This is my body, given for you.”
Last, Bonhoeffer, like Jesus, sends people out for their day's work, for everyone has work to do.
But there’s also a mid-day. And at mid-day we pause to be fed and also rest! If possible, more prayer and song. Then it’s back to work, and in the evening the community gathers again, and has one more devotion—a vespers prayer service helps close the day.
At vespers, the prayers focus is on reflecting on the day and forgiveness. Whatever happened during that day, we can ask for forgiveness, and we can offer forgiveness, so that we go to sleep assured that we have been forgiven for our faults and defaults, and we have offered forgiveness so that every conflict has been healed by evening. When we lay down, we lay down with a reconciled heart.
How many times have each of us lain awake with thoughts of what has been left unhealed during a day? If forgiveness can happen, it is a good thing to do.
There is wisdom here, in how to structure a day. I can’t quite imagine a family gathering for prayer and singing three different times in a day.
What if your day began with a prayer?
What if it ended that same way?
What if we remembered to thank God for the food we receive and invite God’s presence into our fellowship at the table each time?
What if we learn to breathe and sing the same words together to feel united?
What if we ended each day having forgiven, and receiving forgiveness, and asking protection over the night?
How might it change our day to live with just a little intentionality around our spiritual life with each other, and with God?
Take what you can from this. Consider one practice you can put in place in your own daily life that helps connect you to a community of faith, and to God.
I’ll end the way Bonhoeffer closes this chapter, with a quote from psalm 74: “The day is thine; the night also is thine.” Amen