Karl BarthBy Mike Hale
Notice our keynote scripture today is a very short verse indeed. It is Luke 15:2, spoken by Jesus’ enemies the scribes and Pharisees. Their accusation was, “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2).
Little did Jesus’ critics know their statement of judgment against him was an accidental proclamation of Gospel truth. Yes thank heavens, Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, receives sinners and eats with them.
As we read in 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Sinners are the reason Jesus was born, lived, died, was resurrected, ascended and now lives for us and will return for us. Micah 7 had spoken of the compassionate and merciful God who had cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
We may try to put people into various categories but we are all in the same boat as far as sin is concerned. We are all cut from the same cloth – all formed from the same dust of the earth. I want to speak about that today and ask if we accept people the way Jesus did.
This June 6 I had to think of my own father who was sent ashore at Normandy during World War Two. You remember that June 6, 1944 was the invasion of Normandy. Dad went in later than the first wave for which I am thankful…or I might not be here. But he soldiered on, seeing enough death and devastation for 1000 lifetimes.
World War two was a horrific tragedy – some say it took the lives of 60 to 80 million people. The numbers vary because many were exterminated without records being kept.
We have a fairly good idea how all this started, that a whole nation in the middle of Europe got led astray by a maniac leader and ended up doing horrendous things, things that the world still hasn’t recovered from in some ways.
Karl BarthThere was a Christian teacher and a professor named Karl Barth living in Germany during the 1930s. He refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the Hitler regime so he left Germany to return to his native Switzerland. Some of his students stayed in Germany and paid the ultimate price.
After this most destructive war was over the German people as a whole were brought to zero, They had nothing. Their cities lay in ruins. The worst of it was they didn’t know what to think about all this – to think about their history or themselves.
The parallel here is that today a similar thing happens to individuals. Through sin, bad choices or becoming entrapped by events that spin out of control, a person is brought to zero and no longer even knows what to think about themselves or how they even got there. They’re stuck, sort of like the apostle Paul was when you read Romans 7.
Barth knew the Swiss had decided to stay neutral during this awful carnage. After 1945 they were living next door to the defeated Germans who had no hope for the future and were weighed down by a great sadness. Barth began to speak and write to this situation. In essence he said, This is neither a time for victors to gloat, nor for those who have been neutral to refrain from helping. This is a time for a fresh start for those brought so low.
This was a courageous thing for Barth to say, but as a leader of the resistance to Hitler he could say it more forcefully than most.
Sometimes today Christians gloat. We see people in terrible trouble and sad situations and say, I told you so, or, You brought this trouble on yourself.
Barth the theologian knew that all of us were equal as sinners at the foot of the cross. He knew the German people needed friends, someone who is with them at the zero point.
Barth cautioned Swiss Christians not to approach the Germans as a Teacher would. A teacher is a corrector, someone who stands above the students. Job’s so-called friends wanted to be his teachers. They reprimanded him as he sat on his ash heap. But Barth knew that Jesus said I have not called you servants, but friends. A friend is someone who is unconditionally for you, not putting you on probation.
We are reminded that lost, defeated people carrying the weight of shame and guilt may have little grasp of forgiveness, and have a hard time believing that God and other people would forgive them. Yet Jesus said, Come to me you who are heavily laden or burdened and I will give you rest. And Barth taught it was the time for that rest to be offered to those lost individuals who had been Hitler followers, collaborators and compromisers.
Receiving sinners. Our theme. You know it makes it a lot easier when we realize that we have all been to Zero. As the grieving father told Jesus in the Gospels, Lord I believe, help my unbelief. Too often we are too weak to admit our weakness and we end up resisting God. But...1 Peter 5:6 says we find healing when we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that he can lift us up…in due time.
Today Germany is a loyal part of the Atlantic Alliance and a bulwark of the European economy – in large part because people back then had to sense to receive those who felt like the chief of sinners and didn’t know where to turn. Our job is to go and do likewise.
Yes, Jesus still receives sinners, and welcomes us all at the Lord’s Table.
Big Beak, aka Mike Hale.(Mike Hale of 1980s Big Beak fame, is the father of four and has been a Christian journalist, musician and composer across five decades. He and his wife, Janet, visit Glendora regularly.)