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Monday, May 10, 2010

Grace

By Rev. Jerry Herships

Scripture: Ephesians 2: 8 – 9

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

Few words have lost their luster more than the word “grace.”  It is a word that has been used to describe sports stars and perfume, and Donald Trump.  To be fair, for Donald it was used to describe someone who was “lacking in grace.”  It is a word we throw around as if it were meaningless and yet it is the core, of not just the Methodist theology, but Christian belief as well.

 

            For me, I was taught grace at an early age.  It was exemplified by my mom.  Despite the fact that for a long time, during “the trouble years,” I pushed my mom away, she was always there for me when I came back.  She was someone who took my side when no one else would.  She loved me when I was acting pretty unlovable, and she accepted me right where I was all along the way.  She was a pretty good, flesh and blood example of grace.

 

            My biggest fear in telling you about grace is that I think it is almost impossible to convey the enormity of what it is.  No matter how worked up I get, it will still seem too good to be true. We push the idea away because we can’t help but think, maybe for some, but not for me?

 

            I will be quoting a number of people tonight.  People, who, I think, had a better grasp on what grace is, and isn’t.  They are amazingly gifted with their words.  As I was reading some of it, I told Laura that the words almost brought me to tears.

 

            I’m going to try not to tear up on you tonight.

 

            Chesterton, whom I’ve quoted before, calls the fancy theology phrase, “Justification by grace though faith” simply, “the furious love of God.”  We belong to a God who loves us all no matter what we do.  As Brennan Manning says in The Ragamuffin Gospel, of universal acceptance and unconditional love, “but of course, this is almost too incredible for us to accept.”  Our response is that is too good to be true.

 

            John Wesley the founder of Methodism had even more fancy terms for the topic of grace.  He talked about three types of grace. Prevenient grace, a grace that is there and always will be there, even before you believe it.  Justifying grace, the transformative grace at the moment we believe, and Sanctifying grace, the grace we carry with us as we move to respond to God’s grace.

 

I don’t want to talk about churchy grace.  I want to talk about God’s grace.  A grace that comes to all: the junkie and the judge, the cop and the convict, the sinner and the saint.  ALL covered under God’s grace.

 

            We have to remember that at the core of the gospel message is that the gospel is Good News.  So then we have to see how this “good news” is different from the previous news of the Old Testament.  When Paul talks about the “righteousness of God” in Romans, what does that mean?  If the righteousness of God means that God rewards the good and punishes the evil, how is that different from the Old Testament?  As Manning points out in his book, “Did Jesus really come to reveal that terrifying message?”  He makes a good point.  That is not “news” because we read about that in the Old Testament.  And it certainly isn’t “good.”

 

            Martin Luther came to the realization that “the righteousness of God” wasn’t saying that God was the one who was righteous…but rather it was the righteousness of sinners, which happened because of Jesus and his sacrifice that is truly the good news.  The righteousness of God is that through Jesus, we ALL have been made righteous through the forgiveness of sins.  Now THAT is something that is both NEWS and GOOD!

 

            We see Jesus’ life exemplify this over and over.  Jesus was not attracted to the supposed “perfect people.”  Jesus came for the sinners and to be around the sinners.  He did then, he does now.

 

Let’s take a second to talk about that word, sinner.  I could never stand, still can’t actually, when people call themselves sinners or worse, call other people sinners.  It is such a loaded word and means so many different things to different people.  I think of it as anyone who feels they are less than perfect.  People who don’t feel wholly and completely connected to God.  They are broken in one way or another.  Jesus came for those of us who are broken in some way.  Who do you know that isn’t broken in one way or another?

 

Jesus came for all kinds of people.  Jesus came for the college frat guy who likes to drink and party more than study.  Jesus came for the mom who is a stripper because she can’t see any other way to support her two year old.  Jesus came for the middle class guy who wants to show the world that he can have everything the upper class guy has and spends every last dime to prove it.  Jesus is here for the drug dealers and the crooked politicians and the gang member, and the homeless and yes even the used car salesmen.

 

            But God’s love and grace goes even deeper than that.  Jesus is also here for the ones we can’t imagine.  You know, when it comes to grace, we like to think “We get it; God’s grace is for everyone.”  But do we really get it?  Everyone?  Everyone?  See Jesus is also there for the rapist and the pedophile and the terrorist.  And even though we want to shake our heads and say, “ok everyone except them”, we realize that would be limiting God’s grace and love when we do so.  We say it when we do the service of communion.  “This is a new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Some churches add, “Happy are we who are called to the table.”  Jesus called everyone to the table, poured out for you and for many.  The many is everyone, EVERYONE.   If this is hard for you to believe – good.  It reinforces that it is impossible for us to conceive of the hugeness of God’s love and grace.

 

            And if God’s grace is poured out on those people, don’t we have to believe that God’s grace is good for us as well?  Can’t we just take a deep breath and drop the act.  We don’t have to be perfect anymore.  Thank GOD!  I’m glad that’s over.

 

            The Good News means that we can relax.  We can continue to work on ourselves, continue to try to be the best people we can be, but at the same time we don’t have to worry, that because we are less than perfect, we have lost God’s love.  Remember, in another chapter in Romans, Paul reminds us that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.  When we come to church, or go out into the world for that matter, we can drop the act.  We can stop lying to ourselves.  We can admit our shortcomings and lose the façade.  We are not a finished work; we are a work in progress.  We are a work in progress that God loves very much and who forgives daily and every time we screw up.  Thomas Merton said, “A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.”

 

             I have been saying for weeks why it is important for us to go out into the world, why the world needs us.  Then last week I said why it was a good idea for you to go into the world and how you will benefit.  This giving is not a way to earn your way into heaven.  As our scripture says grace is a gift from God, not the result of works.  It is not what we do to get our ticket punched and stroll through the gates.  The giving is a response to what we have been given.  That is why it is called giving back.  It is our reply to God after we have opened the present of God’s gift of love and grace.

 

After weeks of telling you why we should go out into the world, I am here to tell you one reason why you shouldn’t.  Don’t do it to earn God’s love and grace.  I have some good news for you.  It’s already there.