Barth Journal Entry #10: On Prayer

Karl Barth looked at theology through a Christocentric lens, meaning that Christ is at the center of everything, not humans.  This would mean that communication with Christ, i.e. prayer, would be a central tenet of theological practice, because one cannot study the practices of the Church, or study Christ, without faith and clear communication with Christ himself.  Barth would say also that one can't study theology as an educational discipline only.  Faith is necessary in order to truly study, and vice versa.  It is part of the Christian vocation to have faith, to study, and therefore also to pray.  He addresses this specifically starting on page 882:

As is perhaps fitting, we begin (7) with prayer.  The community works, but it also prays.  More precisely, it prays as it works.  And in praying, it works.  Prayer is not just an occasional breathing of the soul, nor is it merely an individual elevation of the heart.  It is a movement in which Christians jointly and persistently engage.  It is absolutely indispensable in the accomplishment of the action required of the community.  It cannot possibly be separated from this action.
Prayer is a basic element in the whole action of the world community.  "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17).  Hence prayer- we are reminded of the first person plural in Lord's prayer- is a work of the community.  In and with the community all the members can and should also pray individually.
Prayer includes in inseparable union both thanksgiving and intercession: the one in relation to the past for the free grace of God already received in it; the other in relation to the future for the same grace which will be needed in it.  Prayer is, therefore, the acknowledgment that the community which exists in time, as it has performed and does and will perform its ministry, has lived and does and will live by the free grace of God addressed to it rather than by the inner meaningfulness and power of its own action.  If God had not freed it for this action, and were He not to do so again, what freedom or ability would it have?  In praying, it acknowledges that its whole action can only be a ministry of witness which as such is totally referred to its confirmation by the One whom it has to attest, to His good-pleasure to which it has no claim, which it has not deserved and cannot deserve, which in past, present and future can only be His free gift.  Yet both as thanksgiving and as intercession prayer is offered in the certainty of being heard, and therefore in a humble but bold bid for divine good-pleasure which will give meaning and power to its action.  Hence in prayer as its confession of God's free grace we do not have a purely subjective exercise of piety with only subjective significance.  Such an exercise might well lead into the void.  In prayer of the community keeps God to His Word, which is the promise of His faithfulness as the Word which call, gathers, upbuilds and commissions it.  It keeps Him to the fact that its cause is His.  Appealing to His free grace, it expects quite simply that He will let Himself be kept to His Word and therefore that its cause which was His yesterday will be His again to-morrow.  In its thanksgiving and intercession it thus enters without doubt or hesitation, not hypothetically but confidently, into the dealings with which God has initiated between it and Him on a becoming an active partner in the covenant which He has established.  Hence prayer is no mere gesture of elevation.  It creates in the world a fact which has this significance and which speaks for itself, whether it is heard and accepted by the world or not.

Prayer has a big place in the world.  According to this passage, the Church does not acknowledge that its power comes from Jesus without praying.  We have no power without prayer.  We are to be humble but bold we ask for God's good pleasure and assistance.  It is through prayer that we hold God accountable to us; that we claim that God is how God acts, that we claim that it is God's work and God's world, and that it will be forever.  It is through prayer that we claim that we are incorporated as partners and as agents in God's work.  Prayers are significant, and they stand alone as ritual, whether we choose to acknowledge that or not.

This is very important for ministry, both inside the church and for seeking Christians.  First of all, we need to acknowledge the importance of prayer as a discipline.  It is not cultivated in congregations as much as it should be.  Furthermore, most seeking Christians I know, whether they claim to actually be Christians or not, do pray in times of stress and tribulation.  This is important for two reasons: God can work on them through their prayers, and lead them to Himself, and Christians can open a conversation about what prayer means in relationship to being a Christian, for the purposes of showing them Christ's love.  Also, we should remember the importance of praying for each other, and praying for those who are not yet Christian, especially those who are actively seeking God and have not yet met Him. 

Barth Journal Entry #9: Recognizing Our Limitations

Before my math abilities are questioned, let me assure you I can count.  However, as I meant to skip journal entry #7, but misread the page numbers for journal entry #8, a blog post over that section will be coming later.  Onwards and upwards.

Barth discusses something in this section which has fortuitously been on my mind as of late.
It has great consequences in a ministry which is deeply influenced by disability theology and disability advocacy as praxis.  Barth is quite clear about a topic which is the cornerstone of much disability theory, advocacy, and theology: that able-bodied people, particularly able-bodied Christians, should know the scope of their influence on the lives of people with disabilities, and by extension the effects of their ministries.  By this I mean that Christians should realize they do not have the power to shun people with disabilities as unchristian sinners based on their disability, they do not have the power to fix our problems simply by throwing the Bible at us, they cannot help us without being in solidarity with us, and they do not have the authority to heal us.  This last point is especially true, if there is a claim that this can happen under a "healer's" own power; or that this is directly related to the intensity of a person's faith.  I'm not saying that it can't happen, or that it shouldn't happen, but much like Calvin's theory of the elect, it is up to God to decide whom he chooses to heal and whom he doesn't.  When it happens, through what avenue, and in what form and extent the healing takes place is entirely up to God.  In fact, all of our ministry is ultimately up to God; we are just conduits and vessels.  This is what Barth is addressing in my hub text, from page 835:

Again, however, no more is demanded or expected than this definite witness. The reconciliation of the world to God, the divine covenant, the kingdom of God, the new reality of the world, cannot be its work.  Nor can the manifestation of these things.  It is not itself Jesus Christ either acting in the world or speaking to it.  It is only the particular people which on the basis of His gracious self-declaration may know about Him, believe in Him and hope in Him.  It has to confess Him, according to the knowledge granted to it.  It has to attest Him to the world as the work of God accomplished for it and the Word of God going out to it.  What is demanded and expected therewith is glorious enough to render superfluous any grasping at higher possibilities.  It is also serious and difficult enough to claim all its attention, fidelity, courage and resources.  But it is not commanded to represent, introduce, bring into play or even in a sense accomplish again in its being, or action either reconciliation, the covenant, the kingdom or the new world reality.  It is not commanded even in the earthly-historical sphere to take the place of Jesus Christ.  In so doing it would only aggregate to itself something which is absolutely beyond its capacity, in which it would achieve only spurious results, and which would finally involve it in failure.  In so doing it would do despite to Jesus Christ Himself as the one Doer of the work of God and the primary and true Witness of this work, becoming a hindrance to what He Himself wills to do and accomplish.

 This is important because Barth says that the Church and the community has its own specific purpose, and that our purpose is not to be Jesus Christ on the Earth.  Our calling is already enough for us, we should not try to take on the role of God.  We are not commanded to do so, and if we overstep our bounds, we are not only discouraging people from a real relationship with Jesus due to our arrogance, we are hindering the kingdom.  Perhaps it is even through our discouraging and hypocritical behavior that we are hindering the kingdom from coming.  We have to remember that even as we are Christians we are also sinners, and all the power we have comes through Jesus.  We should be welcoming others into the community as newcomers, and as fellow witnesses to the Gospel.  We should work with people, not as higher authorities of the Truth, or acting on their behalf, as if they know nothing, but instead as partners and fellow travelers on the journey of life.  This is similar to our partnership and journey of our Christian vocation with Christ.  During the Passover, Christ states that he treats us as "no longer servants, but friends".  I challenge all of my readers to treat the people they minister to, with disabilities and without, Christians and non-Christians alike, not as servants or as somehow spiritually or intellectually lower than you, but as equal friends to be invited to the Table, just as Jesus would have done.

Barth Journal Entry #7: Christians Are Invisible

I realize my title may be a bit misleading, so here's what I mean.  It is good that Barth is finally talking about the Holy Spirit because I can finally address a problem I see with Christians today, and with most discussions of the Holy Spirit in general.  We talk about it too much.  Now I know that as Western Protestants, we don't talk about it much in our liturgy.  But I'm talking about popularly, not in the ecclesia.  We talk about the Holy Spirit all the time.  And not in a good way!  "I'm filled with the Holy Spirit so I'm better than you", "The Holy Spirit has told me that everyone that disagrees with me is not a Christian", "My public display of overzealous prayer is approved, because I was led by the Holy Spirit", "I can attack people with my belief system, because I was led by the Holy Spirit", etc. Whatever happened to go to an inner room and pray?  Or "love your neighbor as yourself"?  Or "humbly submit to your God"?  When did we get so full of ourselves, that we call our sin of pride our greatest virtue?  Maybe we should start actually listening to where the Spirit leads.
Let's hear what Barth has to say, on page 727:

That which makes it, as one people, this incomparable people; that wherein it is totally from within, and therefore invisible, i.e. not visible to all eyes, is, however, the fact that it is the community of Jesus Christ and therefore as such the people of God in world-occurrence.  It may be granted that without His election and calling, without His will and work and Word, it would exist not even visibly, ad extra, in worldly form and to that extent in likeness with the various elements and factors of the world.  It exists at all, and therefore in this sense, only in the power of the divine decision, act and revelation accomplished and effective in Jesus Christ.  Yet in this power, and therefore as the community of Jesus Christ, it also exists from within, uniquely and therefore invisibly, i.e. in a way which is visible to some, though not all.  At this point we are brought up against the same limit as in our answering the first question concerning the new reality of world history created and revealed in Jesus Christ, namely, who can see, accept and affirm what the Christian community is on the basis of its election and calling, as the work of the divine decision, act and revelation, except by knowledge of this divine work, of the Lord who elects and calls His community, and therefore of Jesus Christ.  It is eyes are open for Him and by Him which see what His community is as grounded in Him.

We are one invisible people, because the Holy Spirit is in us, because we are grounded in Jesus Christ.  We are not special because of anything we have done, but because of Jesus.  Even the world would not exist without him.  The community of Jesus Christ exists within us because of him.  We can't say what the Christian community is without seeing God's work through Jesus.  When we are open to him then we can see the community.  This is important to ministry because it will keep us from getting too self-important, and the more open to new experiences with the world, and people seeking to find new faith.