Sunday, March 1

Today's Featured Text: Psalm 25:1-10

Here's my reflection/sermon for the day:

On May 10, 1886, a child by the name of Karl Barth was born in Basel, Germany. Karl spent his childhood years in Bern, Germany, and by the time he was 25 – he achieved the goal of being ordained and installed as a pastor in the village of Safenwil.

Like most, Karl went into his first pastorate as an idealist. He had spent years learning about the unlimited capacity human beings had for good. He hoped to help individuals achieve that capacity through his ministry.

In the third year of his pastorate, however, something happened that shook Karl’s assumptions about human nature to the core. At that time – the year 1914 – Karl’s native Germany was reeling as it faced unprecedented challenges that pushed the country to the brink of war: an escalating arms race, a shift in the balance of power, a global economic crisis.

Any of this sound familiar?

Desperate times called for desperate measures, many concluded. So several of the brightest minds of Karl’s day – professors of medicine, chemistry, theology, and psychics – all came together and produced a statement that would get Germany back on course: a statement we know today as “Manifesto of Ninety-Three German Intellectuals to the Civilized World.” That Manifesto suggested that all the answers to Germany’s problems lie in one place: within. The statement issued at the outset of World War I ended with these telling words: “Have faith in us! Believe, that we shall carry on this war to the end as a civilized nation, to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant, is just as sacred as its own hearts and homes.”

Every fiber of Karl’s being told him that their conclusion was dangerous – that one’s hopes should not ultimately be placed in human beings, but somewhere else. The arrogance that saturated those words led the little old country pastor and budding theologian to sit down and articulate a new understanding of sin. Sin, according to Karl, represented those moments in our lives where we made the tragic mistake of confusing the finite (that would be us) with the Infinite (that would be God). That is sin.

I was reminded of Karl’s work – and in particular his understanding of sin – as I read this week’s Psalm that kicks off our Lenten journey. I was reminded of it because the psalmist clearly understands the difference between the two – the finite, and the Infinite.

Now I realize that some folks would take issue both with Karl’s understanding of sin – and the psalmist’s viewpoint – by suggesting that if we start talking about our limited capacity as human beings that we are somehow devaluing or disrespecting the sacred value and worth of a person. I would respectfully disagree. For I believe that the most dangerous and destructive things we could ever do as human being is to expect things of ourselves of which we are not capable.

The psalmist got that. He had no misconceptions about who he has. That’s why in verse 7, he was able to talk about himself and refer to those wild oats he had sown. Nor did the psalmist have any misconceptions the future. That’s why he could speak about the misdirections that lay before him in verse 8. It was that sense of groundedness that allowed him to choose not to the way of the finite – but the way of the Infinite.

Friends, as I look around the walls of the sanctuary this morning and see a listing of some of the challenges we face, I realize our first instinct will be to issue a personal statement that looks a lot like the one of the 93 German Intellectuals. A statement that would cry out: “Have faith in US! Believe in US”.

I can beat that pesky addiction through my own will power…
We can restore our economic vitality through our own efforts…
Darn right I can fix my broken relationships on my own…

In other words, we can travel our own finite path.

Friends this morning, we are confronted by two things that would challenge our decision to choose such a path: the wine and the bread. For the wine and bread that we will receive this morning are expressions not of our own limited, finite paths – but of God’s unlimited, Infinite Path. The wine and bread are vessels that will lead us down the paths – not of brokenness and pain – but of mercy and love. These elements would - to use the words of the psalmist - chart the direction for our lives: if only we would let them.

As we travel further along our Lenten journey this year, my fervent prayer is that we will have the sense to distinguish between the paths before us.

Amen