Saji Mathew Kanayankal CST

QUESTION: Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Reality is the sacrament of command.” He is relating liturgy to ethics, or liturgy to politics. Where sacramental acts which are liturgical must be applied or made relevant to ethical or political life every day. Bonhoeffer was facing a situation of Nazism and totalitarian authority. Reality presents the signs of the times, who are the people who read reality? – Paul Raj

ANSWER: Bonhoeffer’s theological investigations are done in one of the most difficult times in the history of humanity. Despite the influence of Christianity, he has witnessed the atrocities of totalitarianism most cruelly and for him, Christianity, in general, was keeping a kind of ‘intelligent silence’ at the face of brutalities and exploitations. In the election of July 1932, the Nazi Party won 230 seats and six months later Adolf Hitler was appointed as the Chancellor of the country. It is in this context, on 26 July 1932, that Bonhoeffer was invited to give a lecture to a youth conference on peace in the forum of the ‘World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches.’
The focusing point of this lecture was ‘God’s preservation of the order of creation after the fall.’ For him, the original unity of reality consists in preserving the divine will by humanity’s simple obedience. In such orders, to use phraseology from the Ethics, humanity is able to live in one undivided reality rather than in its fallen state of life in two spheres. The original unity from the fallen state can be reconciled only through the sacraments. Thus, he summarises; “the guarantee of the validity of the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins is the sacrament. Here the general saying ‘Your sins are forgiven’ is bound up with water, wine and bread; here it comes to its particular form of concreteness, which is only understood as the concrete here and now of the word of God by those who hear it in faith. What the sacrament is for the preaching of the Gospel, the knowledge of firm reality is for the preaching of the command. Reality is the sacrament of command.”
In this short passage Bonhoeffer makes three claims: First is a theological premise; the proclamation of the forgiveness of sin is made concrete in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which validates it. Second, the aim of a sacrament is preaching the Gospel, knowledge of reality is for the preaching of the command. Third, the reality is the sacrament of ethical command. Through these claims, Bonhoeffer reminds the members of the Church of its authenticity and he offers a self-consciously provisional account of the sacramental foundation of Church’s public ethics, an account he sums up in the dense phrase: ‘reality is the sacrament of command.

AUTHENTICITY, AUTHORITY AND THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHURCH
The specific invitation of Bonhoeffer is ‘to be attentive to the reality’ of the time. However, this ‘attentiveness’ of churches was confronted with another important question, on the authority of churches with the pertaining question, what authority the churches have in their common address to the world. Bonhoeffer’s response was that the ecumenical Church speaks with the only authority the Church ever speaks with, namely ‘the authority of the Christ living and present within it.’ According to him, without a coherent theology of the Church’s public role, the ecumenical movement risked being at the whim of political trends. No single church is capable to be authentic because of its perversion. To be attentive to reality means addressing the world around us more concretely with its entire situation without any duplicity or hypocrisy or corruption. Sacraments become authentic when their essence is actualised in the everyday life of the people. For him, the church is not simply an aggregation of its members, or ‘the body of Christ’ in some representative or metaphorical sense, but it is Christ, ‘present in bodily form in the world today.’ “The Church, in the book’s most arresting phrase, is ‘Christ existing as church community’ and the word of the Church to the world is the word of Christ spoken with the same authority as words he has spoken during his earthly life.” Here the Church is viewed to be a community of moral discourse in which there is a call for the public discussion of different positions. The theology should not be a mere reflection of certain dogmas or revealed truths, rather it should be the words of God ‘in the midst of life,’ not at its borders. It is a theology that asks believers to live ‘life in the world’ without reservations and without the escape into what Bonhoeffer called, “religion.” This deeper understanding of the religion gives authenticity to the existence of the Church, which constrains its members to hold a more serious task in the present society. As a member of the Church, one cannot simply evade away from the responsibilities he or she shoulders and responds to the realities of the time.
In fact, Bonhoeffer raises a set of fundamental questions concerning the integrity of the Church’s life of reconciliation and the consequences of it for its public action and witness. Can the Church preach the commandment of God with the same certainty with which it preaches the Gospel of Christ? Can we separate the liturgical life or prayer life from ethical life? For an authentically authoritative proclamation of God’s command, it is simply not enough to say something very vaguely or ideally or without touching the core of the problem. For Bonhoeffer, the Church should speak God’s command authoritatively, concretely by taking reality seriously.
In a broader frame, it is an invitation to the Christians to make a critical reflection about their life and existence in the presence of a totalitarian regime. The fundamental question concerning the integrity of Christian life is related to public action and witness. What is this Christianity which we always hear mentioned? Is it merely some cultic practices, or certain articulation of ‘religious practices’ like some liturgical or sacramental celebrations? How can Christians be attentive to the realities of their time? What is the significance of the Christian message when we confront the present-day reality? What relationship do the forms of our modern life have to the Christian proclamation? For the enlightened thinkers, politics and religion were separate realities and the Church had to be away from politics in a total way. To enter into politics is to leave liturgical. However, this radical separation between liturgy and public ethics is challenged here. To be religious is to be liturgical and being liturgical is not merely practising certain cultic and ritualistic systems or spiritual exercises, rather, it is simply being ethical. Being ethical is being open to the realities of the time and to respond to them authentically.
“By following Jesus through the narrative of the liturgical seasons … we become formed as disciples who discover- not in the abstract, but on the ground – what the content of the good news is, for us and for those now suffering under oppressive and unjust forces.” For him, those who bear witness to the truths of justice, liberation and peace are, indeed, martyrs. A virtuous act in itself, by its ontic structure, contains a reference to the principle of all virtue which is God. Objectively, that means, anything can consciously be referred to God. To overcome the cultic ritualistic traits, Boff convincingly avoids the expression the church, and he prefers to use the terms like ‘the kingdom of God’ or ‘mystery of salvation’.
For the sacramental theologian, Louis-Marie Chauvet, sacraments do not function as operative means of salvation, but rather as revelatory signs. Chauvet challenges understandings of the sacraments as an instrument or remedy or channel through which God’s presence and grace is conferred. For him, grace is not a thing. Grace refuses or explodes the logic of the marketplace and production, for it is a ‘non-value.’ God’s “graciousness” cannot be calculated or measured. Grace cannot be treated as a finished product, not even a spiritual one. Grace is neither a thing nor a being, but a way of being. Grace is a “that by which,” not a “that which.” He describes Christ’s activity as one of “influencing,” “transmitting,” and “pouring out grace,” For Chauvet, there is a “dynamic relation of exchange between God and believers in the sacraments.” Chauvet defines the symbolic exchange of gift as mutual. His idea of ‘theology of gift’ presents a view of God’s gift of grace as invaluable, as well as beyond reciprocity. The receiver of the gift cannot be a silent spectator or cannot be away from what s/he has received. Rather, the receiver participates in the exchange by providing a gift to another in return and this mutuality is the key to ethical action. A sacrament is “the symbolic expression of an ethical duty. Grace is always given as a task to be performed.” The sacraments allow us to receive and perceive his spiritual activity. The corporeal application of Christ’s power through the sacraments seems to be for the sake of our perception of Jesus’ activity.
The body-both the physical body and that broader body, the symbolic order, that constitutes human existence- mediates God’s presence in the world. The bodies wandering thousands of kilometres on foot because of the imprudent and inappropriate decisions of the authorities, the bodies voyaging to find a peaceful settlement, the bodies scattering under the clutches of carnal pleasure, the bodies waiting at the footsteps of the power expecting to listen their voice, and the bodies on the street demanding justice and protesting against totalitarianism are revealing the grace and inviting others to receive the grace. These living martyrs celebrate the liturgy of protest so that the world might be sanctified into a life of racial, political, economic and social justice. Here true sacramental gift enables one to function as a site not only for social change but of protest and resistance to oppression and totalitarianism.
The ethical flavour of liturgical activities or the expression of faith becomes evident in the encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti. While reflecting on ‘fraternity and social friendship,’ Pope Francis emphasises the themes of difference, belonging, and the common good and all these various themes are condensed in the parable of ‘Good Samaritan’. “The parable shows us how a community can be rebuilt by men and women who identify with the vulnerability of others, who reject the creation of a society of exclusion, and act instead as neighbours, lifting up and rehabilitating the fallen for the sake of the common good. At the same time, it warns us about the attitude of those who think only of themselves and fail to shoulder the inevitable responsibilities of life as it is.” He urges his readers to take up the role of the Good Samaritan in their lives. After analysing the parable, the Pope raises a serious question: “Which of these persons do you identify with? This question, blunt as it is, is direct and incisive. Which of these characters do you resemble?” Francis offers the Good Samaritan as an example for us, of how our love might work in the same way to transcend barriers. And he says; “Belief in God and the worship of God are not enough to ensure that we are actually living in a way pleasing to God. A believer may be untrue to everything that his faith demands of him, and yet think he is close to God and better than others. The guarantee of an authentic openness to God, on the other hand, is a way of practising the faith that helps open our hearts to our brothers and sisters.”