God does not need us. Indeed, if He were not God, He would be ashamed of us.
— Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans
Ever since I read that line the other day, I have not been able to silence it. It is such a terribly non-United Methodist thing to say. I can’t imagine the folks at ReThink Church sticking that on a billboard, but wouldn’t that be great if someone did?
Maybe you don’t think it would be a great idea. Here’s why I do. I think we too often act as if we are afraid of our own convictions. The implications of what we claim to believe lead us places we fear to go, so we back away from the claims. We fear looking like fools, so we cultivate earnestness. We become bland and inoffensive to the point that TV comics make jokes about us being bland and inoffensive.
We could use a little subversive humor in our communication with the world.
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
I’m of two minds about this quote. I agree with the first part and not the second part. I have no idea whether God is ashamed of us or not. I imagine that if one can ascribe such feelings to God (and why not?) that God probably feels both ashamed and proud — joyful and frustrated. But that’s just me. I’m not God.
On the other hand I am very convinced that God doesn’t need us. In fact I think that God delights in us and, in fact, created us for delight. But whether that is how God feels or not – I don’t know. I do know that so much of the liturgy and practice of the church seems to be something that says in one way or another: 1) God can’t do this if we won’t (wrong, I think); or, 2) We are God’s hands and feet in the world (wrong again, I think). My sense of our evangelistic call is not to be God (which we, obviously can’t be) but to recognize and celebrate God’s presence and power in the world. God doesn’t need us to do that. God is doing just fine, it seems to me.
So, to be more specific — the implication of that for me is that we would do a lot less of the “mission” efforts that we seem to think God needs us to do…and more of celebrating the presence of God in and among the poor (rather than trying to fix them).
But we really do seem to have this fixation on being God ourselves it seems. I once was on a panel with Stanley Hauerwas and he gave one of the all time great answers to a question that someone asked him…his answer was: “God’s God, and I’m not.” Indeed. God doesn’t need us to open homeless shelters and soup kitchens – but if we recognized God’s presence in the homeless and hungry – as individuals whose names we know – we might find ourselves doing what Isaiah says and taking the homeless into our homes and sharing dinner around the tables in our homes. I can hardly think of anything that would more dramatically show that we believe in God’s power and presence.
Is it fair to say, Mike, that your last paragraph is how you hear Jesus’ command “love each other”?
Thank you for your thoughts.
[...] preamble to highlight a recent comment by Mike Mather, pastor of Broadway UMC in Indianapolis. In his comment on my post “Barth on a billboard,” he writes this: I do know that so much of the liturgy and practice of the church seems to be [...]