Bonhoeffer speaks to the church today...

It is remarkable that the Scriptures speak so often about "forbearance". They are capable of expressing the whole work of Jesus Christ in this one word...

the Bible can characterize the whole life of the Christian as carrying the cross. It is the community of the body of Christ that is here realized, the community of the cross in which one must experience the burden of the other. If one were not to experience this, it would not be a Christian community....

First of all, it is the freedom of the other....that is a burden to Christians. ....when Christians allow God to create God's image in others, they allow others their own freedom....

bearing the burden of the other means tolerating the reality of the other's creation by God-affirming it, and in bearing it, breaking through to delight in it.

This will be especially difficult where both the strong and the weak in faith are bound together in one community. The weak must not judge the strong; the strong must not despise the weak. The weak must guard against pride, the strong against indifference.

Neither must seek their rights. If the strong person fall, the weak ones must keep their hearts from gloating over the misfortune. If the weak fall, the strong must help them up again, in a friendly manner. The one needs as much patience as the other. - Life Together p101-102

Have we gotten to that

point when we

cannot be friendly,

when we have

no patience,

when we can

no longer bear

one anther's

burden?