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"Comprehending Grace"... it has been bearing fruit
among yourselves from the day
"Truly comprehended the grace of God?" We know the answer to that question: yes. We have comprehended grace. We live by grace. It is needed for a healthy life. It is something that can only be given to us and can only be received by us. Grace is not a thing, not a substance, but a presence: God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Grace is God's presence with us. Grace is God's enduring reading of the human situation and acting for our good in that situation. God knows us so well: broken, fragile, fractious, lonely, in need of creative loving and responsible caring. God knows those yearnings: that loneliness, that fear, that difficulty in learning to trust, to love.
Grace is that basic component of all relationships: to God, to others, to ourselves. All of us need a relationship to depend upon. In a fallen, sinful world, some have, "Trust only yourself" as their creed. But such people are not gracious even to themselves: so many are driven, and do not even like themselves. St. Augustine, the great fourth century saint, said it well: there is a God-shaped void in each of us that can only be filled by God. No substitutes are possible. That is a truth that we can learn only from God. Grace is always open and including. It resonates with us. Grace enhances. It is enabling and comes with understanding and intuition. Grace is a building block for all other basic values: trust, obedience, holiness, righteousness, justice, faithfulness, mercy and forgiveness. In fact putting un- or dis- in front of any of these values is to describe a graceless situation. Grace takes seriously the weaknesses and difficulties of human personality and the possible limits to growth. But with a marvelous patience and taking the long view, looking at life as a whole, and having high expectations of the quality of life, grace sets to work, not in destructive, but in constructive ways. Grace is truthful, loving, and just. And though it may be almost impossible for us to hold those three together, grace somehow always does! Grace is commitment with openness. It knows how hard it is to be good. And grace always leaves room for learning and growing through mistakes and failures. It knows the process of growth is rarely straight forward. It knows we can't simply be good, and it knows how simplistic the demand "if you would only...be this or do that" really is. Some Christians proclaim grace as a reward for being good. "If we do this, then we will receive grace." That is a contract: if-then... That reduces God and us. It shows low esteem for both. It won't work because such people believe grace comes after goodness. No way! Grace is the only thing that makes goodness possible. If you if-then grace then what you have is destruction, not grace. Some Christians do believe it that way. But I don't. For them it is a matter of control. It is like a spigot that they turn on and off as self-styled guardians of grace. Grace they say is a reward that will make us healthy, wealthy and wise. That is for them the be all and the end all. But I have seen situations where none of those three applied and yet grace was there in unhealthy, unwealthy, and foolish situations - there it was needed and there it was given. Grace is not a product with controlled access and a price. If that were the case then they would be right: why would you want to give it away when you can demand so much for it? But that's wrong. Grace doesn't look at us as economic entities! There are some real grace blockers out there. There are times when human beings want to hurt each other, cut off grace, ignore each other, demand and assume adversarial positions. They don't speak, misinterpret, and attack motivation, even in church! They even try to substitute money for grace. They may even do good in the name of grace, but there is no fitting substitute. If it isn't a servant of grace it is no good. We human beings can't demand or buy or presume upon grace. Yet we can't survive without it. And it is only freely given. Unity is, in fact, when we human beings have it, a sense of being graced. Grace goes where it is needed, not where it is deserved; it is open, including, enhancing, enabling. What an extraordinary, amazing gift; what an extraordinary, amazing God: consistent, mysterious, understandable, yet transcending understanding. We know a lot about grace. But have we "truly comprehended the grace of God?" We have to say no. No, we have not plumbed the depths of grace nor fully explored its heights. Preaching is the humble exercise of pointing to grace and exploring its dimensions. And as we go through life we need to be reminded that we experience grace in many different forms. Here are a few of those forms. There is comforting grace, a sense of presence with us in merited and unmerited adversity, a sense of presence with us in conditions good or bad. It is companionship that generates in the words of an old hymn "peace, calm and sure." It is knowledge of being surrounded, led, and protected, all around on every side. It is that feeling of moving toward the kingdom. When we don't know where to turn, we feel life slipping away, we are not what we want to be, we realize the pain we have caused, and the good we have thrown away, comforting grace is that presence that is not destructive nor judgmental nor blame placing. It never says, "I told you so." "You got what you deserved." No, this grace feels the pain and it knows the agony. Remember the story of the good Samaritan? He surrounded and protected on every side and level the one lying in the ditch. Will God do no less? How much more! There is transforming grace; grace that is faithful to promises made in all ages and to peoples and cultures. This is grace that enables us to "see" what life is all about and can be. This grace is communal, not private. It is in communities like the church that we feel the tide of purpose swell through the years. And we affirm together that a work, a purpose, and a plan have been among us moving us toward transcendent ends. Every once in a while we briefly glimpse the strategies and trends and we have learned to trust those moments. And we are transformed because we have seen. Why does God do this? For love of creation and us. We are created for fellowship with God and each other, and then recreated into new life when we had fallen away from that fellowship. All else we can say about God: about God's judgment on us and others, about God's purposes for us all, about God's providential will for history, even about creation and our human achievements, all of that should be seen under this central concept of God and God's graciousness. There is surprising grace. This is grace that enables us to hear God speaking in and through non-Christians, something we desperately need in this diverse world. This is grace that opens the hearts and enables us to dream dreams in a sterile environment. This is grace that is always one step ahead of us. This is grace that draws a line or opens a door and we know we must follow. This is grace always leading us to newness and our learning not to fear the new. Without newness and change there is no coming to health, wholeness, and security. We would sacrifice to great lengths for stability and security, but I have to tell you there is no such quest that does not follow grace into newness. This is grace that calls us to give up control. Do you remember that you learned to swim when you quit fighting the water. We need to give up control and stop fighting and be open to this surprising grace. For its leads us into God's future and it has much to teach us. This is grace from a God who calls into existence things that do not exist. This means that nothing in existence can be intrinsically evil. Things can be directed and transformed by God's recreative power. There are always potential goods out there and life can always be redeemed. Finally, there is confounding grace. This is grace that is sharp and stimulating, that calls us to come out, to take risks. This is grace that calls us to recognize our idolatries. Idolatry is when we define what we like, need, or want apart from God and then ask God to help us find, get and keep what we want. Idolatry is when we make the individual self the measure of all things and the goal of all striving. Such idolatry has led to rampant materialism and destructive individualism in our culture. Sometimes God's grace has to confound and challenge that attitude to get our attention. This is grace that challenges us with regard to race, and Jews and Arabs. This is grace the flames of which bless and consume. This is grace that does not confer immunity, but requires full accountability. This is grace that sends us into places of pain to cry and embrace suffering ones. Comforting, transforming, surprising, confounding, in whatever form it comes grace can be trusted for our good and God's greater glory. We live and we die and we will be raised by such grace. What a gracious God! It is in this gracious God that we live and move and have our being. This grace is the gift of our sure redeemer, the only trust and savior of our hearts, the life alone by which we live. This grace has no harshness and no bitterness. And this grace has brought us safe thus far, through many toils and dangers, and this grace will lead us home. In the strength of that grace we ever more endure. Amazing! Grace always is. God knows us so well, and seeks our good so passionately and committedly, and pushes us so much and challenges us so strongly, and nurtures and cares for us so lovingly. To what end? So that we may become like the God revealed through scripture: gracious! We are to be amazingly gracious! Incredible, but true nonetheless! It will take all we have and are. God has done no less and asks no more of us. |
F.
Harry Daniel