Chapter 5 Confession and Communion

Chapter 5: Confession and Communion
It would seem by this chapter that Bonhoeffer would assert that if you still aren’t experiencing fellowship in your spiritual community, then Confession will finally achieve that end. Even after prayer, worship, reflection, and ministry, the Christian can at times still feel utterly alone in the world. However, in public confession (confessing specific sins aloud to a fellow believer and then receiving forgiveness from that brother or sister) we can’t help but to be united in fellowship with Christ and the Body of believers.
“Confess your faults one to another” (James 5:16) He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. … The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.
129. Are you a sinner? Does your fellow believer sin? How do you know? What is his or her sin?
130. Why do we, who so freely espouse the benefits of grace, not do that which assures us of that grace? (111-112)
131. When we keep our sins private, is it easier to ignore them?
132. By keeping our sins private we put on a type of pious mask. How opaque is the mask we wear, i.e., who sees through it?
133. What does God want to do for sinners? Why does he do that? “God _________ the sinner, but he _______ sin.” (111)
“Christ became our Brother in the flesh in order that we might believe in him. In him the love of God came to the sinner. Through him men could be sinners and only so could they be helped. All sham was ended in the presence of Christ. The misery of the sinner and the mercy of God—this was the truth of the Gospel in Jesus Christ.”
134. Before Christ, who could enter heaven? After Christ?
135. So, if sinners who believe in Jesus are welcome in heaven, why do we pretend to be righteous?
136. Bonhoeffer says, “All sham was ended in the presence of Christ.” Yet, we sometimes carry the shame that leads to the sham with us for a long time. What reasons might there be to explain this?
“When he did that [gave the power to forgive and retain sins] Christ made the Church, and in it our brother, a blessing to us.”
137. Who has the power to forgive?
138. Who forgives sin? In whose stead?
139. When our brother or sister forgives, who is there forgiving us?
140. As confessors (the ones who hear confession) what responsibilities do we have?
Breaking Through to Community
“In confession the breakthrough to community takes place.”
Conventional wisdom would say that if you really knew everything about your neighbor you wouldn’t really like them as well—that we all have skeletons in our closets which make us undesirable to others. For this reason we keep our sins secret; we don’t “air out our dirty laundry in public.”
141. Why, then, does Bonhoeffer assert that confession encourages community, rather than stifling it? That is, why do we grow closer, the more we know about each others faults and failings?
142. What is the key to this breakthrough? (112)
143. Believing that the fellowship is, in reality, the Body of Christ, where, then, is the sin confessed now borne? (113) Where is the weight of sin cast?
144. Why does confessing specific sins to one another bring us closer in fellowship than corporate confession and absolution?
145. If we confess to one we confess to all the fellowship. (113) How is this possible?
146. So, then, is a believer ever alone in their sin if they have confessed that sin?
Breaking Through to the Cross
The root of all sin is pride, superbia. I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desire, my life and my death.”
147. What is the root of all sin?
The biblical, Old Testament, notion of repentance comes from the Hebrew word shuve. Repentance is different from confession in that it implies future action. If one were called to repent, they were being asked to cease from doing what they were doing, promise to not do it again, and then turn and go in the opposite direction of where they were headed. And so in this meaning of the word, the KJV actually says that upon hearing the prayers of Moses, God did not destroy Israel, but instead repented and preserved Israel. That is, he stopped his planned course of action, promised he would never do so, and then went out of his way to do just the opposite; he made them flourish as a nation.
148. So, then, in our repentance of the sin of pride, what is its opposite toward which we will move?
149. What is the most profound kind of humiliation? (114)
150. Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Where do we sinners find our cross?
151. If we are not willing to share in the Cross, in what else will we not share?
Breaking Through to New Life
“Where sin is hated, admitted, and forgiven, there the break with the past is made.”
152. What happens when this break with the past is made? (115) (II Corinth. 5:17)
153. Bonheoffer ties confession to the call of the 12 disciples. How are they similar? Different?
154. Was the call to discipleship a one-time event for the 12? For us?
155. Discuss this calling in the light of baptism, confession and fellowship.
Breaking Through to Certainty
“Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother?
156. Isn’t this quotation counterintuitive? How does Bonhoeffer say we have been deceiving ourselves?
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:8-9
157. If we are living in “self-forgiveness” instead of “real-forgiveness” what is the result? (116)
158. Who gives us the certainty that our forgiveness is “real forgiveness”?
159. How does confession lessen the terrors of Judgment Day?
160. Are specific sins satisfied with general (corporate) confession? Why, then, shall we confess specific, concrete, sins? (117)
161. So, how should one prepare for confession?
162. Can one be a hypocrite, even when making public confession to a brother or sister? What question does Jesus ask us at confession? (middle 117)
163. Is confession a divine law? Who does Luther assert should go to confession? To whom should confession be especially commended? (118)
To Whom to Confess?
According to Jesus’ promise, every Christian brother (and sister) can hear the confession of another.”
164. So, to whom MAY we confess?
165. Who is the specific Christian to whom we can confess? Bonhoeffer calls this person a “brother (sister) under the cross”. (118)
“It is not experience of life, but experience of the Cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confessions.”
166. What do we lack when we are poor and inefficient in confession?(119)
Two Dangers
167. What are the two dangers of confession? (120)
The Joyful Sacrament
168. Confession serves as preparation for which sacrament?
169. What is Christ’s command regarding our approach to the altar?
170. Since we commune in the early hours of the first day of the week, when should we make this preparation?
171. What is one of the results of this preparation?
We often have the impression that all that is necessary in confession is to “say you are sorry” (just as we might tell our kids). But Bonhoeffer says that is not confession; that we rob ourselves of the joy of Holy Communion when we stop there.
“But to beg a brother’s pardon is still not confession, and only the latter is subject to the express command of Jesus”
172. What must follow and be included in order for confession to occur?
173. What assurance comes with confession? In who is that assurance based?
174. To what extent do the confessions of a repentant sinner have an impact on creation? (121-122)
175. Having then been prepared through confession, admonition, absolution and encouragement, the Lord’s Supper is then an occasion for what? Why? What happens at communion that brings this about? (122)