Paring Down

This week I've been on garage sale duty. Actually, it is garage sale prep. Our family moved into our present home 27 years ago and since then, we have accumulated an amazing amount of stuff. This house has reached capacity, so it is time to clean out closets, empty cabinets, and ask the critical question: does this go or stay? It is time to pare down, and pass on before we qualify for an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive.


So far, I've filled two large crates with miscellaneous books and home decor items marked for Saturday's sale. I hope to fill at least two more before I run out of time. Consigning various items to the sale has been relatively painless and it is a good feeling to open a closet or cabinet door and see empty spaces instead of clutter and chaos.

It is more difficult to pare down in other areas of my life. I can accumulate commitments in the same way I accumulate china (I have seven or eight sets). If I'm not careful, I find my life feeling cluttered and chaotic. When I "retired" last month I made a promise, to myself and to God, that I would not make any long-term ministry commitments for the next year. Instead, I will spend that time cleaning out my "spiritual closets" and listening to hear how God wants me to serve.

Walmart and Karl Barth

     I loved this Walmart commercial as soon as I saw it. As the mother of two boys (men now), I was immediately captivated by the "star" of this commercial. I couldn't help but laugh at the seriousness with which he denied his use of the towel, even in the face of irrefutable evidence. There he stands, covered in mud, carrying a bucket of mud, with his muddy face clearly stamped on the towel and still he proclaims his innocence: "I never seen that guy in my life." 
     I wonder how many times God has shown me the evidence of my disobedience and I have refused to acknowledge my guilt? How often do I refuse to honestly look at myself--covered in  mud, carrying it around in a bucket? There I am, my likeness reproduced in mud-- sin and disobedience--and I deny my guilt. How can I dismiss the vanity, selfishness, and arrogance that is so clearly evident? How can I reject God's call for repentance? I can't, so I offer this prayer (based on Karl Barth's prayer number 43).
     Lord God, you know just what sort of person I am, and I know it too. Before you, I cannot deny it anyway: my hard heart, impure thoughts, disordered desires, and everything that has come of this and still comes of it -- my errors and transgressions, and so many words and deeds that do not please you and by which I can only disturb and destroy peace on earth. 
     Things do not work out without your speaking and working in me. I hold to your promise of grace and mercy, that Jesus Christ, your dear Son, has come to bring good news to me as one of the poor, to proclaim release to me a captive, and recovery from my blindness--to rescue me a sinner. You can do what I cannot. I believe and trust that you will do it--not because I am good and strong, but because you are. Amen.

More from Fifty Prayers by Karl Barth.

Prayer number 39:

Dear heavenly Father, we thank you that today is Sunday. You now allow us to rest from our work, that you may be able to speak to us and rightly work in us. You have gathered us here through your living Word, our Lord, Jesus Christ. So remain with us and draw us in the Spirit to your Son, that he may draw us in that same Spirit to you.We cannot build ourselves into his community; only you can do that. To that end, hallow, enlighten and bless our human action, our praying and singing, our speaking and hearing. To that end, reign in our midst. Amen.

For several years I have attempted to "keep the Sabbath." This practice of intentional rest is considered unnecessary by many of my friends. For them, it is a discipline that belongs to the old law and has no place in the arena of Christian freedom.

Yet, Karl Barth has a different perspective. Barth sees rest (the cessation of work) as necessary if God is to speak to us and work in us. Just as physical rest is essential for maintaining physical health, the cessation of striving and accomplishing promotes our spiritual well-being. In our rest God speaks words of renewal, reflection, and refreshment to us.  It is in our stillness that we can hear what God has to say and the sanctifying work of the Spirit takes place. In our shared rest, times of Sunday worship, God builds us into a community, the church. 

Your Choice

Frequently, almost every day, my inbox includes an e-mail from my uncle. Inevitably, this is a forwarded complaint about some aspect of life in the US: "reported threats" to Social Security, Medicare, and/or religious freedom; the dangers of the "liberal media"; the problems in our public schools. While these may be legitimate concerns, I wonder if mass e-mail is the most effective means for Christians deal with these issues. 


Consider the following excerpt from Karl Barth's prayer number twenty-two.


Bless what comes to pass in this church and in the other churches and communities that are now still separated from us, that it may be a testimony to your name, your kingdom and your will! Reign also over all of the various concerns of the government authorities, administrations, and courts here and all over the world! Strengthen the teachers in consideration of their high task for the growing generation; the people who write newspapers, conscious of their grave responsibility for the public opinion they influence; the doctors and nurses, for genuine attentiveness to the needs of those in their care! Substitute your comfort, your counsel, and your help for all that would accuse the many lonely, poor, sick, and confused among us! And let your mercy be apparent and powerful to all who are here in this house, along with their families!


We place ourselves and all that we lack and that the world requires in your hands. Our hope is in you. We trust in you. You have never let your people be put to shame, whenever they earnestly called on you. What you have begun, you will surely finish. Amen.


Personally, I'll go with the power of prayer over the power of e-mail complaint every time. How about you; which do you choose? 

The following is Barth's prayer entitled You Know Who We Are.

Lord, our God, you know who we are: People with good and bad consciences; satisfied and dissatisfied, sure and unsure people; Christians out of conviction and Christians out of habit; believers, half-believers, and unbelievers.

You know where we come from: from our circle of relatives, friends, and acquaintances, or from great loneliness; from lives of quiet leisure, or from all manner of embarrassment and distress; from ordered, tense, or destroyed family relationships; from the inner circle, or from the fringes of the Christian community.

But now we all stand before you: in all our inequality equal in this, that we are all in the wrong before you and among each other; that we all must die some day; that we all would be lost without your grace; but also in that your grace is promised to and turned toward all of us through your beloved Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

We are here together in order to praise you by allowing you to speak to us. We ask that this might happen in this hour in the name of your Son, our Lord. Amen.

There are several things I like about this prayer: I like the way Barth speaks not only to God but also to those gathered for worship. I like the way he acknowledges, without judgment, the diversity of spiritual maturity and/or commitment among those present and the way he reminds the congregation that some come to this time of worship in deep distress.

I especially like the way Barth draws the hearers to a common place: a place of communal confession and hope. In my faith tradition, we encourage personal confession but we seldom acknowledge the universality of our sins against God and each other. Here Barth not only leads the congregation in communal confession, but reminds them of forgiveness that is theirs through Christ.

I like the way Barth reminds the congregation of the purpose of the assembly.They are present to praise God. Not by singing or by speaking but by listening. Isn't that interesting? Listening to God is praise. I wonder why I've never thought of that; it only seems logical. If we honor our family and friends when we respectfully listen to what they say, then of course we honor God when we listen to his instruction.

In his statements, "You know who we are" and "You know where we come from," Barth reminds the congregation that God is aware of each one of them. God knows them and what they bring with them to this time of worship. So Barth has only one request of God: speak to your people at this time through me.

This is a powerful prayer expressing human diversity and similarity, the grace of God, and the nature of worship. I can't help but think it would change my worship experience and my attitude toward my fellow worshipers if I prayed this prayer each Sunday. I think I'll try it; how about you?

Holding Fast to the Works of God

A year or so ago I bought a small book containing fifty prayers of Karl Barth. Barth is not only an acclaimed theologian, he is an exceptional man of prayer. It was Barth's vision that these prayers from the 1950s and 1960s, organized around the liturgical calendar, might stimulate reflection in both personal and corporate worship. Today, prayer number nine, is the stimulus for my reflection.

Lord our God, you wanted to live not only in heaven, but also with us, here on earth; not only to be high and great, but also to be small and lowly, as we are; not only to rule, but also to serve us; not only to be God in eternity, but also to be born as a person, to live and to die. In your dear Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, you have given us none other than yourself, that we may wholly belong to you. This affects all of us, and none of us has deserved this. What remains for us to do but to wonder, to rejoice, to be thankful, and to hold fast to what you have done for us? We ask you to let this be the case in this hour, among us and in all of us! Let us become a proper Christmas community in honest, open, and willing praying and singing, speaking and hearing, and let us in great hunger be a proper Communion community! Amen.

God, in his relationship with Israel, repeatedly called them to remember his work of salvation in the exodus. He called them to remember with wonder the parting of the Red Sea, to rejoice in his faithful provision during their wilderness experience and to live with gratitude.

It was Barth's prayer that the church would be a community that gathered in unity around the Lord's table in remembrance of God's ultimate and gracious work of salvation. Knowing that nothing makes us deserving of God's grace, Barth asked God to ignite, in the church, amazement, joy, gratitude, and confidence in God's steadfast love.

What would our congregations look like if we prayed as Barth did? What if we prayed for clear and constant reminders of God's work in our lives? What if the preaching in our churches focused not on what is required of us but on what God has done in the lives of his people through the ages? Imagine the impact on our relationship with God, if we knew the Old Testament narratives as well as we know the Pauline letters. Imagine a congregation where the members openly and honestly speak about the work of God in their individual lives. Imagine the intimacy of community that is unleashed when Christians listen to one another with hearts softened by the grace of God.

I will never see all that God does, or understand why he does all that he does. That's okay, he is God and I am not. But I do know that I see and understand more when I ask God to reveal himself and I stand, quietly and humbly, in the shadow of the cross watching and rejoicing at what I see him doing in the lives of his people.

So, today I pray that all of us will hold fast to what God has done in the past and ask with great expectations for him to show us what he is doing today.