Sermon for December 9, 2014
10:00 Healing
Service
Feast Day of Karl Barth (obs)
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson, AZ
For online access to the readings click here
I speak to you in the name of One God:
Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit. Amen
“Don’t
look where you don’t want to go
Look
only where you want to go”
This
was the only advice my mountain biking coach offered
as we turned our bikes
along the steep downhill
single-track path on this Colorado mountain.
The
trouble was, I was constantly looking at either the rock or root that was
sticking up and in the path, that I had to ride over, or
I was
looking at the steep canyon to my left that gave me a fright just considering
how I might fall.
“Look
only where you want to go
Not
where you don’t…
And
your bike will follow
The
wheels will simply roll over whatever it is.”
Look
only where you want to go.
To me,
this example (while relatively benign)
captures
the essence of what Paul was saying
in his
Epistle to the Romans,
I do
the very thing that I hate…
With my
mind I am a slave to the law of God and
with my
flesh a slave to the law of sin…”
And
this is the essence of Karl Barth’s “dialectical theology” – that God’s
relationship to humanity is both grace and judgment. He called this the paradoxical nature of the
Divine truth.
Karl
Barth - a Swiss reformed pastor and professor
of the
early 1900s.
What do
you know about him?
Karl
Barth was a giant of theology…
We hear
that he was
·
Born
in 1886 in Switzerland
·
Studied
in prestigious universities
·
Pastored
in Geneva and Safenwil during WWI
·
The
experience of which
o
informed
him in his writing a commentary on Romans in 1918
o
where
he addressed the doctrines of
§ God’s sovereignty and
§ Human Sin
o
(which
he believed had been excluded from theological discourse of the time)
·
In
1934 he was instrumental in the Confessional Church, the faith leaders who
confessed Christ as Lord, not Hitler (The Barmen declaration)
o
That
the church’s allegiance to God in Christ mean a moral imperative to challenge
the rule and violence of Hitler
o
This
led to his resigning professorship at Univ of Bonn
·
Continued
in his writing until 1968 the 13-volume “Church Dogmatics” which reassessed the
entire Christian Theological Tradition
·
Pope
Pius XII called him the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas
Barth
articulated three main theological notions:
1. God’s Word as the
definite source of revelation
2. Incarnation as the
bridge between God’s revelation and human sin
3. The election of the
creation at God’s great end
Clearly,
Barth was gifted with intellect, a strong sense of justice, a deep faith and
had a way of
doing
theology that comes out of experience.
But
what does that mean, “doing theology”?
Webster
defines theology as :
·
the study of religious faith,
practice, and experience;
·
especially :
the study of God and of God's relation to the world
So
Barth, I believe, modeled a curiosity for God’s relationship to the world. With his gift of articulation, he was able to
influence many people with imaging God’s presence and God’s relationship to
humanity and the world.
And
so, let’s take a moment to consider
the
notion of “doing” theology.
What
does this look like for us, today?
Think
of an experience you had – what was God’s relationship to that experience?
One
of my supervisors while working as a chaplain used to invite us all to consider
WIGIAT. Where Is God In All This? or
In
today’s gospel, Jesus offers that
“everyone
who commits a sin is a slave to sin.”
Is
that what happens when I rely on my own
strength
to push away the temptation
to
look at the rocks and roots in my way?
Today’s
good news is that Jesus makes us free.
Jesus has a permanent place in God’s household. Jesus frees us and empowers us
to look at where we want to go,
not where we don’t.
In
this season of Advent, sometimes “little Lent,”
In
the watching and waiting for WIGIAT,
In
the anticipation of incarnation and joy,
We
give thanks for grace in our lives,
so that we may “do theology” and recognize Love
in
the face of each other. Amen
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