Again, discipleship

Thanks to brother Hilarius for these quotes from Bonhoeffer's ‘other book’ Life Together…

It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. “The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?” (Luther).
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God' people must dwell in far countries among the unbelievers, but it will be the seed of the Kingdom of God in all the world.
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…it [the gathering together] will finally occur visibly at the end of time when the angels of God "shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. 24:31). Until then, God's people have remained scattered, held together solely in Jesus Christ, having become one in the fact that, dispersed among unbelievers, they remember Him in the far countries.

So between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God's Word and sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing… Yet what is denied them as an actual experience they seize upon more fervently in faith…