Karl Barth looks at the difficulty we have in reconciling our understanding of an all-powerful, all-perfect God with the reality of God in Jesus Christ as a fragile, non-powerful, very human being. We ask, "How can weakness and fragility be God? How can servanthood be God?" and we tend to separate God from Jesus...Jesus lived obediently, we say, then after he was killed God raised him from the dead and restored his ability to be all powerful and all perfect...
Barth stands firmly on the presupposition that "...in equal Godhead the one God is, in fact, the One and also Another, that He is indeed a First and a Second, One who rules and commands in majesty and One who obeys in humility. The one God is both the one and the other." If we buy the fact that God and Jesus are the same (despite the weakness of our theological language that separates the two) we really have to buy Barth's basic premise. That's not so hard in our practiced Christian lives. (Might be a lot harder if we were coming from a different religion.) But then Barth issues a challenge. Our way of "finding a lesser dignity and significance in what takes the second and subordinate place" must be rethought. Why do we automatically assume the subordinate place is the lesser place? It appears almost impossible for us to admit that assuming a subordinate role could be the more powerful position...even though we read it incessantly in the New Testament witness and give some lip service to the idea of Jesus the servant. The only thing that seems more impossible than us admitting that a subordinate role could be more powerful is us living into that charge.
How would the world change if we truly lived into 1) the complete obedience to God that Jesus modeled starting with love God and love your neighbor as yourself, and 2) the assumption that being a servant is not a lesser call than being the boss...but in fact a greater call... and 3) the understanding that service is for the other...and in no way should serve our own interests...
Would that fix congress????????
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