Karl Barth: Psalm 23 and the New Year

Barth: Into the New Year with the Twenty-Third Psalm

This is an exert taken from one of Karl Barth's early sermons from the book "The Early Preaching of Karl Barth with commentary by William H Willimon".  This powerful little book includes fourteen sermon preached by Barth between 1917 and 1920 while he was a pastor in Safenwil Switzerland.  This is just an exert taken from a longer sermon, but it still speak in Barthian style and applicable as we face a new year.  

Yes, as I go into the New Year, I too am burdened with serious cares and concerns. I do not see the world through rose-colored glasses. I do not think people are better than they are. I know that for all guilt the penalty must be paid. I exempt from this guilt neither myself, nor my family, nor my country. I anticipate difficult, serious, and confused times to come for me and my children. I no longer rely on my small amount of money, nor on what is now called law and order, nor on my good intentions, nor on the goodwill of those around me. I know that we live in a time when everything is unstable; churches, states the crowns of kings. Even less stable is the small frame of my rights and duties that has until now held and protected me.

But in all this I perceive the hand of God and certainly God's hand of judgment, which perhaps touches a great deal that is dear to me, and yet it is God's hand and not the hand of the devil. Whatever may fall under God's judgment must fall under it, and it will involve me as it must; but God is dearer to me than all else that is dear to me. In good times I forgot God long enough; I do not intend to lose God anew in evil times. I understand God, and I want to understand God. I see God pronounce judgement, because God will reveal God's grace on earth. I see God destroy because God wills to build. I hear God say “No,” in order that God's great “Yes” can be heard again in the middle of the storm. I look forward to and await God's light and therefore all the darkness of the present can have no power over me. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me besides still waters; he restores my soul.” Yes, we can sign and yet still be blessed.

In the tumult of this world I am alone and almost always perplexed. It is a bitter experience that I find only few persons around me with whom I can reach an understanding about what must be said and done. There are so few with whom one can seriously work and pray, so few that are a real help and in whom one can find good counsel. I myself am full of error and sin; I stumble like one who is not old enough to realize what he is doing. I almost never know what to do and how to go about it, so that I might oppose something really new and better to the suffering heart of the world. All the dams that I erect against the flood rip apart like the dams everyone else builds. Ever again I choose the wrong means; I do poor work; I do not hear God's word; I disrupt God's friendly intention; and along with the world, I make myself guilty again and again.

But there is one thing that does not let me go: God speaks to me. There is a wisdom in me– not my own wisdom nor a wisdom of other persons, but something of the wisdom of God. I have a feeling for what is right, and although I am often untrue to it, it is never untrue to me. It is a light within me, and when I have followed it, I have never wished I had not. From it I receive very definite directions: “Now left! Now right! Now straight forward!” And when I obey them, there is light in the tumult of the world and ground under my feet, so that something new does happen, something valuable, something that proves itself. Often I have the impression that I am only an instrument in what I do and say, so that I have the impression that I am under an inner compulsion! And this is a consolation for me, something that no one can take from me. I see something similar here and there in another person, as ships in the night see the light of other passing ships. It is as if I were traveling somewhere and many others, perhaps very many were going with me, but I could not see them. I am glad when I occasionally greet one of these fellow pilgrims. So I am not alone, not abandoned. “He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff–they comfort me.”

On this path I am tempted on all sides. I too am earnestly a child of this dark and guilty time, this dark and guilty world. Others are rightly offended at my failures and at all the things I have neglected. I have more than one weak side. And beyond this, I must suffer because I am right, because I am the mouthpiece and instrument of God, because of my task. This is no child's play; the task given by God is vulnerable in this world. Much can be held against a person who has only one argument, only one proof, only one triumph; the quiet and peaceful divine truth. Much can be done to one who depends only on God. I stand there like a defenseless child in the middle of a battleground. I cannot refute them or hit them back or kill them, even if I wanted to.

But in all of this, the experience has never left me, and never will, that I am protected and that those who are against me cannot win out over me. Bad things can happen to me, but I will not be overcome. I can become the object of mocking and laughter, but I am the one who can first laugh to the point of tears. All of that is true because my life is not mine, and my task is not mine. For me to be completely overcome, God would have to no longer be God; but that cannot happen. One can frighten and harass me, but what can it accomplish, when there is something in me that is not me? God is not afraid. God in heaven laughs at them (Ps 2:4). Do what you can to me, try your best; in all of what you may do, I hope and I know that something in me will remain calm and will not fall to temptation. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”

I also know that I am human and have a short life, that one day I must die, and perhaps very soon. What then am I? Will I enjoy success before my death? Will I see a ray of light from the dawn of the coming kingdom of God? Will I in dying be able to be clearly right about something over against those who just flow with the stream? Will I ever have the joy of finally being recognized as right? Very probably not; no, emphatically not. I know that I must be ready to do without success. And I know that it is the highest possible honor to be included among those in the book of life, about whom it is said in hebrews 11:39 that “all these, though commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised.” If it pleases my cleverer children, may they write sardonically on my gravestone; Here lies one who dreamed and deceived himself!

And yet over and above all of this, I know that my small life is not in vain. I say this again for the reason that it is no longer my life; it is taken captive and sold to God. What belongs to God is not in vain. God builds God's eternal kingdom out of many such combative pilgrim lives. They are the instruments of the grace that breaks through the darkness of judgment. The other too, including those who unthinkingly flow with the stream, live now, already, from these instruments of grace. If there were not such persons, such instruments of grace, life would be intolerable. It is enough for me to be thankful for that highest possible undeserved honor of being included among those whose names are written in the book of life. It is enough that God uses me for God's purposes and that many, without knowing it, are nourished through me. It is enough that, even though it is inconceivable, I may be a little salt in the world. The salt may disappear, but its penetrating effect remains. Whether I live or die, in the hand of God I do not die, for God is not a God of the dead [Mark 12:27]. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” I will live into the dark and unknown future as one consoled, courageous and full of hope.

"The Early Preaching of Karl Barth with commentary by William H Willimon".
Published by Westminster John Knox Press, and available on Amazon and other booksellers