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My copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship
belonged to my dad. He read it when he was about my age now. His
writing is in the margins, sentences underlined, passages
marked—including Bonhoeffer’s famous words about cheap grace and costly grace.
Reading those same pages decades
later is both meaningful and complicated.
A few years ago, my dad had an
affair. I don’t share that to air dirty laundry, but because holding
this book—his book—has reminded me that following Jesus is never a
decision made in the past. Discipleship is a continual invitation, a
daily decision. We can deeply believe, sincerely follow, underline all
the right words—and, over time, still settle for what Bonhoeffer calls cheap grace.
That is not just true of my dad. It is true of me. It is true
of all of us. Not one of us graduates from the regular
invitation of Jesus: Follow
me.
Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount
with a series of stark contrasts: a narrow and wide road, good and bad
fruit, true and false disciples, a house built on rock and one built on
sand. Again and again, Jesus puts two ways before us.
Bonhoeffer’s language of cheap grace and costly grace
echoes that same choice. Cheap grace can hear the words of Jesus,
believe them, appreciate them, without following where they lead.
Costly grace hears the words of Jesus and builds one's whole life upon
them.
And yet, costly grace is still grace. Jesus
does not call us to follow in order to take life from us, but to lead
us into the life found in Him—life built on the Rock—life of the
Kingdom of God.
As we begin this journey through
the Sermon on the Mount, I invite you to reflect on Bonhoeffer’s words,
underlined in my copy years ago:
“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline,
Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross,
grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly
grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man
will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy
which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of
Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to
stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves
his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be
sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at
which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us
to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it
costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only
true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it
justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the
life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much
cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not
reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him
up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Cost of
Discipleship
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