The Pointing Finger

What is the significance of proclamation? What is the meaning of scripture?

Karl Barth holds these two means of grace in a very high position. True proclamation and scripture are not mere human work, but God’s revelation. They speak of God’s presence in history and God’s future work.

However, as highly regarded as these gifts are, they are not an ends in themselves. Rather, their fullest function comes in pointing to Christ.

Barth quotes Martin Luther who makes an analogy of the modern day preacher and John the Baptist, “For we have John Baptist’s word and spirit, and we parsons and preachers are in our own time what John Baptist was in his time. We let John Baptist’s finger point and his voice sound: ‘Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.’ We deliver John Baptist’s sermon, point to Christ and say: This is the one true savior whom you should worship and to whom you should cleave."

Perhaps these points seem obvious, but I think they are often lost. Preachers and scripture are often raised to exalted positions, as if they are the end in themselves. While good preaching and the reading of scripture are invaluable gifts of God, they are not the end.

Like John the Baptist’s long finger in the Isenheim altarpiece, all we preachers are called to do is to point to the one and only savior.

Words Fail Me Now

What can we say about God? What words completely and accurately describe God’s grace? None. All human words and understandings fall short.

In his closing paragraphs on dogmatics and proclamation Barth writes:

Even if we have again weighed everything and corrected everything and formulated everything better, as is our duty to the subject-matter of Christianity in respect of human talk about it, and even if our findings have been given the status of Church confession and dogma, we have still to say: We are unprofitable servants, and in no sense are we to imagine that we have become in the very least masters of the subject.

For someone whose life-work centers on preaching and teaching, it could be discouraging to know that I will never get it completely right. However, I find Barth’s words quite liberating. I do not need to strive to become the master of the subject, but to simply and humbly serve God.

Just Add Culture

It seems that nearly every day I receive junk mail and spam emails advertising sermon aids and illustrations. I can’t remember the last time I have used any of them. This is not to brag about my abilities or to criticize those who find these helpful, but simply because I have found that canned illustrations and stories seldom speak to the specific needs of people hearing the proclamation.

I am surprised that in the endless catalogs that fill my recycle bin that I have not yet seen a complete volume of sermons from Genesis to Revelation, bound in leather, from which the preacher could pull a book from the shelf and just speak a perfectly crafted word.

The reason this doesn’t exist (or I hope it doesn’t) is because true proclamation takes place at the intersection of where people live and the power of Christ’s presence.

Barth warns against the extremes of young preachers relying on books and older preachers relying on confidence. Either extreme can detach the preacher from the life of the people. These extremes leave preaching to an academic, instead of a transformative, act.

Proclaiming the Word of God is most effective when content intersects culture and the hope of Christ touches peoples' needs.

Which comes first?

In his writing on preaching and proclamation, Karl Barth frequently quotes from the book of Romans. This is no surprise, as Romans is an important source for Barth throughout his works. However, one area that made me think in a new way was when he quoted Romans 10:14-15,17:

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.


The question this raised within me is which comes first, preaching or faith?

Perhaps the answer seems obvious. We expect that someone hears a powerful sermon and that leads to faith. But Barth and Paul point in both directions. Paul writes that faith comes from what is heard AND what is heard comes through the word of Christ. Barth considers proclamation and faith as means of grace, both given by God, and that all means of grace should be considered equal.

This recalls a familiar story of John Wesley, who when he went through a crisis of faith was advised, “Preach faith till you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”

So which comes first, preaching or faith? Perhaps neither. Maybe it is God’s grace that proceeds them both.

Hope in the Word: Talk about God and Church Proclamation

Over the last several years I have come to understand preaching as an impossible task. No matter how well prepared, designed, and delivered, no sermon can fully proclaim the message of God’s love and grace. Yet, every week I set out to do that which I have understood as impossible.

However, in reading Barth, I now have hope. For Barth, preaching, like all aspects of God, begins with God. True proclamation does not begin with the preacher, the lectionary, or a sermon outline. It begins with God. Barth writes that proclamation is “no such work of man… It is the Word as the enacted divine event.”

If proclamation is a work of God’s grace, and not the preacher’s effort, than there is hope in the Word. Hope that the Good News can be proclaimed and that lives will be transformed. This hope is not placed in my limited ability, but in the limitless love of God.

Exaggerated Death: The Necessity of Dogmatic Prolegomena

Both Mark Twain and Paul McCartney have been quoted as saying, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Today, perhaps, we could add the Church to this list. It seems that everyone from the secular humanist to the church statistician is predicting the death of the church.

However, Barth points out that while these reports of the church’s demise are presented as shocking news, fresh to our time, they are not anything new. Barth writes, “We need not regard the tragedy of modern godlessness as anything out of the ordinary, nor treat it as tragically as is presupposed in this conception of the necessity of dogmatic prolegomena.” In other words, when we speak of the things of God, we don't have to limit ourselves by the fear of unbelief.

Reports of the Church’s demise fail to recognize two important points.

First, that the Church is not about us. The Church does not depend on crafting witty sermons or designing clever advertising campaigns, it is the work of God. The Church is a gift of grace.

Second, and building on that point, to say the church is dying is to say that God’s Holy Spirit is unable to do new things. If we look across the long lens of history, God’s Spirit has moved in new and fresh ways and will always do so.

Might the church look different a century from now? Of course. However, the Church is not dying and will never die because God’s breath continually gives God’s church fresh life.

Prayer like Grace: Dogmatics as an Act of Faith

I am not fast. I don’t have great hand-eye coordination. I am not the smartest person in the room. But I do have terrific endurance. That is why I have been able to withstand difficult times in life. It is why I am a distance runner. It is with this gift of endurance that I walk the first steps of this journey with Karl Barth.

In our dualistic thinking, we may see abilities such as endurance as personal traits, separate from our spiritual lives. We categorize and disconnect our physical, emotional, professional, and spiritual selves. However, Barth says it is all God’s grace. Our ability to reason and understand, to speak of the things of God, does not originate with us, it comes from grace.

Since all is grace, all must be surrounded by prayer. I was surprised to read the following quote at the beginning of what by all appearances is an intellectual volume of work:

“Prayer can be the recognition that we accomplish nothing by our intentions, even
though they be intentions to pray. Prayer can be the human answer to the divine hearing already granted, the epitome of the true faith which we cannot assume of ourselves. We do not speak of true prayer if we say “must” instead of “can.” According to Rom. 8 the way from “can” to “must” is wrapped in the mystery at the gates of which we here stand. With this reference we do not give anyone a means by which he can count on succeeding in his work. It must be said, however, that it is hard to see how else there can be success in this work but on the basis of divine correspondence to this human attitude: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” [024]

How might we see grace and prayer as more than spiritual practices, but as gifts that encompass every area of our lives?

A Dynamic Dogma: Dogmatics as an Enquiry

If the subject of theology sounds stuffy and intellectual, the word dogma can sound repulsive to the modern (and post-modern) person. For many people, dogma is understood as a rigid set of unchanging beliefs, established millennia ago, and enforced with all of the grace and compassion of an anvil.

For Barth, theologies, dogmas, and scripture have meaning as they intersect with contemporary lives. To speak of the things of God can only truly be done while holding beliefs in one hand and the life lived in the other.

This is not only true for individuals, but for the area of Barth’s concern and critique--the Church. Barth challenges the Church to consider how its traditions stand up to “what Christian utterance can and should say to-day.” [016]

In making this statement, Barth is not advocating that all tradition and historic beliefs should be abandoned. Not by any means. However, the question before the Church is how does our rich heritage connect with the modern world? How does our dogma impact the life lived?

It is in asking these types of questions that our dogmas are no longer used as barriers to hide behind or standards for allegiance. Rather, dogma, more fully understood, can be a dynamic way of thinking that leads the Church to explore how it might give voice to the power of Christ in the world today.

Invariably Badly: The Church, Theology, Science

Theologian. This title calls forth images of a bearded scholar slumped over the desk of a cluttered seminary office or an aged pastor droning on about intellectual issues as his congregation catches up on its sleep. However, Karl Barth begins his voluminous “Church Dogmatics” by acknowledging that theology means nothing more than to “talk about God.”

With this definition, it seems that there are a lot of theologians today. Some may be well-informed, grounded, and thought-provoking. Others, well, not so much. Everyone from Stephen Hawking to Stephen Colbert is talking about God. However, for all this talk, no one is getting it right.

Barth’s opening pages acknowledge the impossibility of theology. He writes that the work of theology “would be meaningless without justifying grace, which here too can alone make good what man as such invariably does badly” (004) and that “Theology does not in fact possess special keys to special doors” (005). In other words, everything we say about God is inadequate and falls short.

On one hand, as a professional church person, this could be discouraging to realize that every sermon, song, conversation, and prayer is invariably done badly. Yet, I find this incredibly liberating. From the onset, I know that when I talk about God I am merely attempting to shed a single light on an unfathomable mystery. I don’t have to worry about explaining all that God is, because I can’t. Rather, it is God’s grace that will make up for my short-comings, accept our misstatements, and fully reveal who God is.

Let us talk away my fellow theologians, finding freedom in the fact that our talk of God will always be inadequate.