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A Word from Grace Street

Grace, The Enemy

September 23, 2009

My Dear People,

"Grace is the enemy of everything.  It proclaims a perpetual revolution."
 

Whoa!  Who said that?!

Karl Barth, only one of the most revered and influential theologians of the modern era.

That's pretty strong stuff, eh?  

Are we ready for it?  Are we willing to hear what Barth is trying to tell us?

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Revolution against what?

Revolution against anything that is not entirely of God. 

Revolution against the domestication of faith, and of life, and of love, and of hope. 

Revolution against--now, brace yourself--our domestication of...  Jesus...

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To put it one way, what would it mean if one Sunday morning, as the choir sang a soaring descant, we suddenly realized that Jesus... had gotten out of his cage?...

What if we suddenly realized that Jesus was not who we thought he was?  And what if we realized that that was a good thing--an infinitely better thing?

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Are we willing to let that happen?  Are we open to that possibility?

Are we willing to leave the key in the lock?

Are we willing to let Jesus be who Jesus is?

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Rip Van Winkle slept through the revolution. 

Will we? 


Your brother in Christ,

Wallace+

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SERMONS

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The Pointer’s Point

More than fifty times, in his published writings, Barth refers to the Grunewald image; and, indeed, usually, it is precisely in reference to John,  and John’s relation to the figure of Christ; as he points.
Barth (and Grunewald before him) understood John’s sole purpose to be to serve as a pointer to Christ, a reference to Christ, a witness to Christ.

Keep Alert, Awake, and Watchful

On any given day, there are those things that would get our attention; those things that would bring fresh perspective; those things would remind us of what is most important, what is most true. If, that is, if we but notice. We never know when those things, those experiences, those people might come. And so it has always been, so it has always been.

The Rule of 72

The Rule of 72, they call it.  It’s a rule of thumb to figure how long it’ll take to double your money. If you know you can get 5%, on your investment, then you divide 5 into 72 and that tells you: it’ll take roughly 14 and ½ years to double your money. That’s the Rule of 72. Now, sometimes an investor doesn’t want to wait 14 and a ½ years, or however long the Rule of 72 tells you that you have to wait and so increased risks are taken. And sometimes you win, and sometimes you loose.

Walk the Way of a Servant

We all want, in the words of St. Paul, to “lead a life worthy of God.” A life worthy of God. Un-like the lives of the false prophets, of Micah’s day, or the false teachers of Jesus’ day, the scribes and the Pharisees, teachers of the law. Their lives are un-worthy of God, we are told, in no uncertain terms. In their hypocrisy, they serve, not God, not God’s people, but themselves.

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