Home > Work > How Odd of God: Chosen for the Curious Vocation of Preaching
1 " A church removed the American flag from its sanctuary. The pastor explained the flag’s removal: “There may have been a time when this national symbol, positioned so close to Christ’s holy table, might have been innocent. But in our day, when it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to keep our symbols straight, and when we are asking too much of this flag, we don’t want to confuse people about the dominant signifiers of Christian reality. As you know, our hope is not in the flag of any nation; our hope is in the cross, the broken bread and shared cup. "
― William H. Willimon , How Odd of God: Chosen for the Curious Vocation of Preaching
2 " Barth refused to enlist theology merely to sustain Western civilization. "
3 " To criminals imprisoned in the Basel jail, Barth preached that the first Christian community was composed on Golgotha: “They crucified him with the criminals.” Which is more amazing, to find Jesus in such bad company, or to find the criminals in such good company? … Like Jesus, these two criminals had been arrested …, locked up and sentenced. … And now they hang on their crosses with him and find themselves in solidarity and fellowship with him. They are linked in a common bondage never again to be broken … a point of no return for them as for him. There remained only the shameful, pain stricken present and the future of their approaching death. "
4 " Whenever the Church has imagined that it had a claim upon God which others did not have, it is already fallen away from grace. "
