Archives For Karl Barth

Barth and Prayer

samuel kee —  February 7, 2012 — Leave a comment

Our noble calling as humans, is to participate in God's cause.

I’m reading Karl Barth’s little book on prayer; I came across this provoking thought:

In Jesus Christ, God has manifested himself as a God who, while being perfectly free and self-sufficient, yet does not wish to be alone.  He does not wish to act, exist, live, labor, work, strive, vanquish, reign, and triumph without the human race.  God does not wish, then, for his cause to be his alone; he wishes it to be ours as well.  

Barth agrees that God is self-sufficient; God did not create humans because of a lack in himself, in order to quench his divine distress or loneliness.  Neither was God somehow forced to created humans, by a greater power.  God is completely free and has no needs, neither does he have superiors.  When he created humans, he did so out of complete fullness, rather than lack.

He created us out of love, in other words.  He created beings to share his cause with, because he did not wish to be alone in it.  What is God’s cause?  God’s cause is the spread of his name, his kingdom, and his will, as Barth deduces from the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.  God did not wish to be alone in his cause; he wished it to be ours, as well.

Our noble calling as humans is to participate in God’s cause.  Within his cause, we find fulfillment.  As we cherish his name, acknowledging his presence and our dependence, his cause abounds.  As we sculpt this world into shape, turning wrongs into rights, and making the ugly bits beautiful, his cause abounds. As we give living performance to his heart’s will for justice and mercy and righteousness, his cause abounds.  And when his cause abounds, our satisfaction with life abounds, for we’re functioning in the ways that our Maker intended.

Living for our own name, our own kingdom, and our own will, is self-destructive.  Putting the human cause at the center causes us to implode.

But Barth goes on to acknowledge the rest of the Lord’s Prayer, which includes petitions for the “human” cause: daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil.  The Lord’s Prayer, while champing God’s cause first as foremost, does not hesitate joining it to the human cause.  We first are called to participate in God’s cause; then he participates in ours.  God and humans live life together.  Humans are not to live atheistically; God does not live humanlessly.

Today, my job is simple: I am to live for God’s cause.  Today, God’s job is simple: take care of me.  My cause becomes utterly glorious, his cause utterly loving.

© Samuel Kee, 2012

In Knowing God , , , ,
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My Father’s Garage

samuel kee —  October 11, 2011 — Leave a comment

Do not make any verdicts on your life before placing it in his healing hands

“No one can be saved—in virtue of what he can do.  Everyone can be saved—in virtue of what God can do” (Karl Barth).

When I was growing up, my dad rebuilt wrecked cars.  He’d go to the junkyard or auction, bid on a real wreck, and then have it delivered to our home.  Some of these cars just had fender benders, but most were totaled.  For insurance purposes, to be totaled means to be beyond repair.  And that’s the way these cars looked to me when they arrived at our home.  When I looked at the car, it looked beyond hope, but when my dad looked at it, he saw the finished product.

After all, I was not the mechanic.  If left up to me, the car would remain in the junkyard and eventually hauled off to the scrap yard.  I did not have the creativity, perseverance, know-how, technology, or desire to rebuild such broken things.

But my dad had all of these in spades.  Junk didn’t scare him, nor did hard work.  To him, these cars were worth it.

I know it’s a crude analogy, but it seems to fit the way God sets his special eye on us when we’re junking away with the rest of the wrecks.  God has no taste for the cars that shine, but for those who are at their worst.  The ones the world rejects.  The ones that are beyond repair.

Totaled.  That’s a good word to describe us cars; and if left to ourselves, there is no way that we could ever be roadworthy again.  We are twisted and caved, with flat tires and broken glass, our engine is cracked and axels pulled.  There is no way that we should ever be driven again.

But God has his special eye on us; he loves to bring home the unwanted.  He loves giving second chances to those in the junkyard.

“No one can be saved—in virtue of what he can do.  Everyone can be saved—in virtue of what God can do.”  The salvage yard is not a place of potential, but a place of condemnation.  Salvation does not start with a working engine, but with the word “totaled” written on your title.  Salvation begins in the salvage yard.

God can save you.  He is the master mechanic who loves putting wrecks back on the road.  You are never beyond his repair, unless you try to fix yourself.  When we try to fix ourselves, we resist his tender garage.

We cannot fix ourselves, our only option is surrender.  No one has the ability to fix himself, on the one hand, but absolutely everyone can be fixed by God, on the other.  Salvation is both narrow and broad at the same time.

Do not make any verdicts on your life before placing it in his healing hands.  Do not say, “I am junk,” before hearing Him say, “You are loved.”

© Samuel Kee, 2011

In Finding Hope, Knowing God , , , , , , , , ,
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