The Necessary No

Matthew 28:16-20       Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

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In 1934, a group of German Evangelical Church leaders met in the town of Barmen to write a confessional document for the church in their particular time and place. Amongst them were Lutherans, German Reformed, and representatives of the United Churches. Their purpose was simply to reiterate their common faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some of the names associated with this effort might be familiar to us: Martin Niemoller. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Karl Barth. These men and others had been working together for some time to articulate a faithful interpretation of the gospel in Nazi Germany. Their work reached its apex in this meeting.

The document was drafted primarily by Karl Barth, a theologian of the Reformed Church. He worked, in his own words, “fortified by strong coffee and one or two Brazilian cigars,” while the Lutherans in the room took a nap.[1] (I don’t repeat that to disrespect the Lutherans. But the truth is I never met a Lutheran who didn’t like a Sunday afternoon nap.) The result of Barth’s efforts, with some help from the Lutherans, was The Theological Declaration of Barmen.

This Declaration is one of the confessions of faith in our Presbyterian Book of Confessions. It is premised on the belief that the church is united in obedience to the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. It declares certain affirmations about the nature of God and Christ’s church. And it asserts that every “‘yes’ of the gospel…always entails a necessary ‘no.’”[2]

It is the task of the church always to ascertain what is, for our particular time and place, the necessary no.

And, so, included in the Declaration are these words:

The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and Sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

And it goes on to say:

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions. (The Theological Declaration of Barmen, 8.16-8.18)

That’s more than a mouthful. Ah, if only he had more help from the Lutherans, Barth might have found a clearer way to say it. In short, it means that the gospel will not be co-opted for the purposes of the state, or anyone else.

It is true that political figures have used the church for their own political ends far too often in our society – as they did in Nazi Germany. And often they have been abetted by church members. I once wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper arguing that one presidential candidate had a stronger grasp of the scriptures and a more authentic obedience to Christ than did the other candidate. It was a good letter, but even at the time I wrote it I felt a little uneasy about it. Now I look back at it with some shame about what I was attempting to do: to use Jesus Christ as a political tool.

To be faithful, to be obedient to everything he has commanded us, is to recognize Christ as our head, not as a tool we can use at our convenience and for our purposes. As the letter to the Ephesians says, and the Barmen Declaration quotes, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and knit together” (Ephesians 4:15-16).

Thus, the community of the church is charged with bearing testimony to a sinful world, with calling the whole world to obedience to the reign of God. It is no small thing, no easy task, to speak the truth of the gospel to the powers of the world; nonetheless, this is our calling.

The apostle Paul urged in his letter to the Romans, that Christians must not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, renewed, so we might discern what is the will of God. What is good and acceptable and perfect. Or, as it says in The Message, the popular translation by Eugene Peterson:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Nothing will be gained by taking up sides and sniping at each other. Nobody will grow in maturity by tossing but-what-about-isms back and forth at each other. Only in keeping our eyes fixed on Christ, acknowledging that we belong to him in our entirety – body and soul, heart and mind – will God be glorified.

We can say, “it is wrong to burn up somebody’s property, wrong to loot businesses, wrong to smash windows” and “it is wrong to beat protesters or kill innocent people” – at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. But our faith demands that we also say there is no equivalence between property and life. Even that beloved Old Testament verse, “an eye for an eye” does not pretend there is equivalence between property and life. And Jesus Christ, the one who gave up his life so that we might have life, the one who said “love your enemies,” condemns any such notions.

As the Declaration of Barmen affirms, every “yes” of the gospel entails a necessary “no.”

And it is in this spirit that I say to you, God is not glorified when our government assaults peaceful protestors to move them out of the way so a man may take a walk to stand in front of a church and hold up a Bible for a photo.

God is not glorified when our leaders order the removal of peaceful protestors by smoke, tear gas, rubber bullets – which are sometimes lethal – or brute force, and top it off with the word of God and the cross of Christ as symbols for domination. That’s a hard no. a necessary no.

The five verses of scripture we heard today are the closing words of Matthew’s gospel. They include Jesus’ departing words to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

As the church, we are called to “go therefore,” on a mission to teach the law of love that Christ taught us. To be obedient to all his commandments, which are, to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. To bear testimony to a sinful world. To affirm the gospel’s “yes” as well as the necessary “no.”

And the good news assures us that we do not go alone. No talent of ours will bring about world peace. Nothing we bring to the table will usher in the reign of God. All the grace, all the love, all the power that is needed to do this is not dependent on us. What we bring to the game is simply this: because God loves us, we are empowered to love others – all the “others.”

So turn to God. Invite Jesus into your heart. Call upon the Holy Spirit to guide you and empower you to bear witness in a sinful world.

And remember, Jesus Christ is with you always, to the end of the age.

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[1] https://postbarthian.com/2018/05/21/karl-barth-and-the-barmen-declaration-1934/

[2] Book of Confessions: Study Edition, p. 304-305.