All Lit Up

I recently flew from Los Angeles to Spokane to visit family.  As I flew up the coast in the window seat passing over Oregon and then Washington, I looked down at the frozen lakes and snow capped mountains below. The puddle-jumper plane that took me from Seattle to Spokane flew relatively low so I had what felt like a close-up view of the rugged winter wonderland.  For the most part, it was barren. Occasionally, I could see a small house or structure on a mountaintop.  I couldn't tell exactly what it was - a house - a cell tower - a barn - I could just see that there was something there that wasn't snow and wasn't a tree and since it was early morning, sometimes a flicker of light would emanate from the structure to confirm life.  It reminded me of the verse in the gospel of Matthew where Jesus says to his disciples they are "The light of the world--like a city on a mountain - glowing in the night for all to see." (5:14 NLT)  Instead, I thought to myself as the plane buzzed along, we Christians tend to be other kinds of lights, don't we? A few came to mind...

SPOTLIGHTS
Well, well, well - will you look at that guy?  Quick, honey! Shine a light on that sinner so he knows he is wrong and will see the light and turn from his ways!  Point it right there on that dark spot! Whoa! Careful darlin'!  Don't let it shine on us for goodness sake!  Keep it pointed on him. Ah, yeah. Will you look at that  _______(Fill in the blank with your choice:  cheater, homo, tree-hugger, druggie, sinner, fool, drinker, liberal...) Maybe now he will see the light and turn from his evil ways?

BUG LIGHTS
(You know the yellow light that we can see, but bugs can't?)

It's 9 p.m. and Craig and Cathy Christian are sitting on their back porch sipping tea.  The crickets have begun to chirp as the sun creeps behind the mountains.
This is nice, isn't it?
What?
All this light without all the "bugs."
Yes, it ia nice to be able to see the porch clearly and even out on to the lawn, but not have the hassle of all those "bugs" coming around.
Yeah.
It's amazing they are not drawn to this light.
It is, isn't it?  How is it they are unable to see the light like we can?
You mean the yellow light of truth as we see it?
Yeah.
Hmmm. Don't know. 
Do you think we should change the bulb so they can see it? You know, put it one of those bulbs that attracts them to our porch?
You mean one of those ECU-bulbs?
Don't you mean ECO-bulbs?
No ECU-bulb.  The ECU-menical bulb.
Oh, that one. No, I don't think so.  It's really bright, honey. Makes my eyes uncomfortable. And plus, isn't that bulb only for the Universalists? The Evangelical Lutherans? The United Church of Christ folks? And some of those pew-hopping Charismatics?  You know, the liberals.  Not to mention all the regular folk.  The ones who don't even bother to darken a church door.
Yeah, I think you're right. I'd have to look at the package the bulb comes in. Hold on, I'll go get it.
Don't bother.  Let's just enjoy our light.  Maybe tomorrow night we'll have the neighbors over for tea.
Which neighbors?
The Johnsons.
Oh, thank God.  I thought you meant the Levines.
Oh, heavens no.  They definitely can't see the light.  They don't even believe light bulbs exist! I mean the Johnsons, honey, the Johnsons!  They complemented our bulb the other day.
Really? Sounds good then. We'll invite them. Want some more tea?
OK.
Sip. Slurp. Sigh.
Honey?
What.
Do you think the homeless can see this bulb?

"BIG SALE" SEARCH LIGHTS
Two huge beams of light shine up into the night sky like giant flashlights, crossing each other at a various intervals, big round circles bouncing off the dark, low hanging clouds.  They attract all kinds of attention.  The lights do their job. They shout: Come here!  Check this out! Look at what we got!  Something is happening here!  Something BIG is for sale! You gotta see this!
So people come.  They can't resist.  They're curious.
The big circus lights draw them like zombie shoppers to our Easter and Christmas revelries, our 10-course potlucks, our picnics and pageants, our craft shows, merry musicals, coordinated VBS camps, and Awana Olympics.  We stack park and take tickets. They comment on how wonderful the casserole is, how much they love the singer with the Whitney Houston voice, how the handmade creche would look absolutely wonderful on their mantle as we pack it in tissue paper for safe carrying.  Our Sunday morning band includes Fender electric guitars, Remo drum sets and a bass player who's as nimble as Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.They plop down in our pews for a few moments, and if we're lucky, their plop down their money.  Then they hurry back to their cars and head home with a full stomach and a creased glossy program.  We clean up, de-brief and plan for next year.
Hey, Mary did you catch the name of that nice fella in the blue shirt who sat in the third row with his wife and kids? And what about the lady with the messy hair?  You know, the one who came to the craft show and asked if we had a pantry?  What's her name?  Anyway, how many we get this time at SpiritFest? Maybe we should do a raffle next time?
They're gone now, but they'll keep an eye out for the lights. They wouldn't want to miss our NEXT BIG THING.  We'll be sure to use the lights to let them know when we are at it again - to let them know our smiles and signs and volunteers are all ready.

Instead of a spotlight, bug light or a search light, I want to be a night light.  A city on a hill.
Because if I hear one more person say that they would be a Christian if it weren't for all the Christians, I'm going to scream.
Or cry.
The problem is, we are not very good at confessing.  We are better at professing.  We like to be right more than righteous. We'd rather preach, than listen. We prefer to shine our own glaring light of preference and opinion at the expense of the souls around us.  We're comfortable in our own light.  We'd rather perform than serve, talk than listen. We forget we are being watched.  Constantly.  We are that city on the hill, whether we want to be or not.  You can't miss us up there on the mountain-top, all lit up in the darkness, shining like a beacon.  My hope is to send less folks screaming back down the mountain or walking away wondering why they even bothered to come all this way.


-Hope A. Horner, 2013
www.HopeHorner.com
Follow on Twitter @HopeNote

The Rightousness of God

I picked up a small, dusty paperback at a bookstore in Simi Valley, and I am now working my way though it.  OK, let me rephrase that. I am not "working" through this book. It is not "work" to read this book. It is pure pleasure. But I must admit the book is definitely working ME over.  Here it is:
The Word of God & The Word of Man by Karl Barth (pronounced Bart) Click Here for The Book on Amazon (Evidently it is a rare find!) The book is made up of several addresses by Barth.  Read More About Karl Barth Here

The first address, or essay, in the book, "The Righteousness of God" literally made me cry. I know I am sensitive. I am not ashamed to say I am a sucker for words. I am especially sensitive to the words of the Gospel when I hear it beautifully and powerfully explained in a way that is eloquent or convicting.  This essay by Barth is so profound and moving I decided to put some of his words here this blog.  I actually recorded it, too, because I tend to learn better by listening and I really wanted this to soak in.  (You can listen in too, by clicking on Part One / Part Two at the top of my blog or by going to my "Realistic Mystic" podcast on iTunes.) 
So here it is - a few excerpts. I could literally quote the whole, short essay; it is THAT remarkable, but I'll put some of the highlights below: (Any EMPHASIS below is mine as are the questions which I inserted for clarity.)

The Righteousness of God by Karl Barth

WHAT IS THE DEEPEST FACT OF LIFE?
The deepest surest face of life is that GOD IS RIGHTEOUS.  Our only question is what attitude toward that fact we ought to take.

HOW DO WE APPROACH THIS FACT?
We shall not approach that fact with our "critical reason."  "Reason" sees the small and the larger, but not the large. It sees the preliminary but not the final, the derived but not the original, the complex, but not the simple.  It sees what is human but not what is divine.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE RECOGNIZE THIS WILL?
There is above this warped and weakened will of yours and mine, above this absurd and senseless will of the world, another which is straight and pure, and which, when it prevails, must have other, wholly other issues than these we see today.  Out of this will, when it is recognized, ANOTHER LIFE MUST GROW.  Out of this will, when it emerges, A NEW WORLD WILL RISE.  Our home is where this will prevails; we have wandered away, but we can return.  There is a will of God which is righteous.
If only we might stand in the shining presence of this will, not doubtfully, but with assurance!  If only instead of merely guessing at it as men who can only hope and wish in in it, we might contemplate it quietly and take enjoyment in it!  If only we might approach it, come to know it and HAVE IT FOR OUR OWN!  The deepest longing is born of the deepest need: "Oh that You would rend the heavens, that You would come down!"

WHY DO WE RESIST THIS WILL?
Pride. We are inwardly resentful that the righteousness we pant after is God's and can only come to us from God. We come to our own rescue and build ourselves a tower of Babel.
We are (also) apprehensive of the righteousness of God because we feel much too small and too human for anything different and new to begin in us and among us.  This is our despair.
...because we are so PROUD and DESPAIRING we build a tower of Babel.  The righteousness of God which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, changes under our awkward touch into all kinds of human righteousness.

WHAT DOES HUMAN "RIGHTEOUSNESS" LOOK LIKE?
Morality (thrift, patriotism, charity, goodwill, efficiency at work, care of family...)
State and Law (institutions, capitalism...)
And Religion: 
There seem to be no surer means of rescuing us from the alarm cry of conscience than religion and Christianity.  Religion gives us the chance, beside and above the vexations of business, politics, private and social life, to celebrate solemn hours of devotion--to take flight to Christianity as to an eternally green island in the gray sea of the everyday.  There comes over us a wonderful sense of safety and security...It is a wonderful illusion, if we can comfort ourselves with it...in the midst of capitalism, the housing problem, prostitution, alcoholism...the church's preaching, the church's morality and the "religious life" go their uninterrupted way...WHAT IS THE USE of all the preaching, baptizing, confirming, bell ringing, organ playing, all the religious moods and modes...the efforts to enliven church singing and the unspeakably tame and stupid monthly church papers and whatever else may belong to the equipment of modern ecclessiasticism (religion)?
WILL SOMETHING DIFFERENT COME FROM ALL THIS IN OUR RELATION TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD?? ARE WE EVEN EXPECTING SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM IT? ARE WE HOPING THAT SOMETHING MAY HAPPEN?  Are we not rather hoping by our very activity to conceal in the most subtle way the fact that the critical event (submitting to God's will) has not yet been done and probably never will?  Are we not, with our religious righteousness, acting "as if"  in order to NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH REALITY?  IS NOT OUR RELIGIOUS RIGHTEOUSNESS A PRODUCT OF OUR PRIDE AND DESPAIR, a Tower of Babel, at which the devil laughs more loudly than at all the others?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE BUILD A TOWER OF BABEL?
It is high time for us to confess freely and gladly:  this god, to whom we have built the Tower of Babel is not God.  He is an idol.  He is dead.
We have not begun to listen quietly to what the conscience asks when it reminds us, in our need and anxiety, of the righteousness of God. We have been much to eager to do something ourselves.  Much too quickly we have made ourselves comfortable in temporary structures.  WE HAVE MISTAKEN OUR TENT FOR OUR HOME...We have prayed, "Thy will be done!" and meant by it, "Thy will be done, but not just now!"  We have believed in eternal life, but what we took to be eternal life and satisfied ourselves upon was only temporary.  And for this reason we have remained the same as we were.  And unrighteousness has remained.  And the righteousness of God has disappeared from our eyes.  And God himself has become to us dubious for in his place has stood the questionably figment OF OUR OWN THOUGHTS.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE TOWER CRUMBLES?
There is a fundamentally different way to come into the relation with the righteousness of God.  This other way is NOT by speech, nor reflection, nor reason, but by BEING STILL, by listening to and not silencing the conscience when we have hardly begun to hear its voice.  When we let conscience speak to the end, it tells us not only that there is something else, a righteousness above unrighteousness, but also - and more important - that this something else for which we long and which we need is GOD. He is right and not we! He righteousness is eternal righteousness!  This is difficult for us to hear.  HIS WILL IS NOT A CORRECTED CONTINUATION OF OUR OWN.  It approaches ours as WHOLLY OTHER. There is nothing for our will except a basic re-creation. Not a reformation, but a re-creation.  For the will to which the conscience points is purity, goodness, truth and brotherhood as the perfect will of God.  In its presence, the first need is for HUMILITY.
We ought not to put our most fruitful moments to second-best uses in the belief that it is the way of piety and wisdom to pursue men's thoughts rather than God's.  We ought to apply ourselves with all our strength to expect more from God, to let grow within us that which he will in fact cause to grow, to accept what indeed he constantly offers us, watching and praying that we may respond to his originating touch...to trust all in him.
In the Bible this humility and this joy are called FAITH.  Faith means seeking not noise but quiet, and letting God speak within--THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, FOR THERE IS NO OTHER.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE RE-CREATION HAPPENS?
In the place of despair, a child-like joyfulness will come: a joy that God is so much greater than we thought...Joy that from God much more is to be expected for our poor, perplexed and burdened life with our idealism, principles, and our Christianity, than we had dared hope!  MORE TO BE EXPECTED!  The old fetters are broken. The false idols begin to totter. FOR NOW SOMETHING REAL HAS HAPPENED--the only real thing that can happen:  GOD HAS NOW TAKEN HIS OWN WORK IN HAND.
The inner way, the way of SIMPLE FAITH is the way of Christ.  He is the love of God, glorified---from him we received many different truths, but the simplest of them all we have least comprehended--that HE WAS THE SON OF GOD and that we, if we will, may go with him by simply believing that the FATHER'S WILL IS TRUTH and MUST BE DONE.  One may object that this method is childlike and inadequate.  I grant it.  But this childlike and inadequate solution is the beginning of the vast plan of God.  
It remains to be seen whether the quaking of the tower of Babel which we are now experiencing will be violent enough to bring us nearer to the way of FAITH.  
Opportunity offers.
We may take the new way.
Or we may not.
Sooner or later we shall.
THERE IS NO OTHER.

-Karl Barth

Note:  This essay is one of Barth's earliest works and just one of many in Word of God and Word of Man.  He acknowledges that many of his theological ideas move from the "foreground to the background and vice versa." He recommends reading the entire book as a whole to get the full picture.  I'm on it Karl.

Are you more of a listener than a reader?  Lucky you.  Go to the top of my blog and click on "Part One" of Karl Barth and you can listen to first half of this essay.  The second half is there too.  It's called "Part Two." (Fancy that.) If you can live with the dog collar jangles in the background and my occassional flub-up, you'll love it.

Blessings,
Hope A. Horner
www.HopeHorner.com
Follow on Twitter:  @HopeNote