A Lesson in Grace
Text: Romans 6:12-23
This past week we brought to a close our exploration of different world religions. We finished up with Protestant Christianity, partly because it would be in theory the most familiar to us as we are part of that tradition. However, given the diversity of the various protestant traditions, there is a lot that we don’t know that is under the broad umbrella of being “protestant.” My hope for the series was to provide at least a broad overview of the various major world religious traditions so that people can have a sense of how those belief systems originated and developed. It would also help for us to understand what similarities there are between the traditions, but also what makes each of them unique in their witness to the world.
Of course, when it comes to our own tradition, there are a number of things we can point to as being similar. The curiously-named “Golden Rule” – do to others as you would want them to do to you appears in nearly all religious traditions. It is a point of commonality. The concept, presence, and reality of the Divine is common amongst most traditions. So when it comes to our faith, what makes being Christian unique?
Here’s a short reflection from author Philip Yancey about this question:
“During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of returns from death. The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. “what’s the rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”
After some discussion, the conferees had to agree. The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seemed to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, the Jewish covenant, and Muslim code of law – each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.”
The answer is easy: grace. The concept, on the other hand, is very hard for us to get our head around… even in a society that as been largely shaped in cultures where the church has been a dominant presence. Ironically, grace is a lesson that I don’t think we as the church have learned very well, and it is the very thing that we have to share with the world that nobody else can.
It’s also not surprising, given how difficult reading this morning’s part of Paul’s letter to the Romans we heard this morning. It talks about grace, freely given, to free us from sin… and at the same time being enslaved to God. The language is a bit archaic, especially the slavery bit, but Paul was using terms familiar to the people of his day… so we shouldn’t get too hung up on it. Paul was saying that we were essentially imprisoned by law… a way of earning favour with God… In Jesus Christ is revealed the gift of grace, God’s unconditional love and free gift of eternal life. The bit about being enslaved to God is an ancient play on words that we miss. It is out of a sense of deep gratitude that we willingly serve God out of gratitude for this free gift. We don’t serve God to earn it, we already have it, and respond out of a sense of deep and profound thanks.
That is what grace is all about. However, if there is any one term that is so central to Christian thought, and yet so completely misunderstood. We use the term a lot, but do we really know what it means to have an unconditional free gift from God? Probably not. Because as soon as bring up this definition of grace… that God’s gift of salvation is freely given to us in Jesus Christ, without any conditions, we immediately start putting conditions on it… and no sooner do we do that, then we find ourselves with a set of beliefs that go back to us trying earn favour with God.
Grace is scandalous because it runs contrary to what we expect. We expect that people get what they deserve. What goes around, comes around, as the saying goes. Except that isn’t grace. That’s Karma…
Grace is an unconditional gift. God gives it to us because we need it, not because we deserve it or have earned it. What we do with that gift is up to us, and that’s the challenge that Paul lays down in Romans. Since grace is freely given, and we cannot do anything to earn it, should we continue to sin all the more to let grace flow? Paul’s response is translated with a rather soft “By no means!” –which is frankly a bit weak from what Paul wrote in Greek. If I were to translate that into what Paul was really saying, I may get letters of complaint for using foul language from the pulpit! Let’s just say put a rather emphatic and profane word before the word “no!” and you’ll get the picture.
Paul goes on to say that our response to God’s free gift of grace should inspire in us a sense of gratitude that is so deep and abiding that we inspired lives of gratitude. The gift came first, the gratitude follows… and in living a life filled with gratitude we reflect God’s love in Christ in who we are. Grace comes first… gratitude flows out of that.
In my first pastoral charge, I was the associate minister at the Presbyterian Church in Cornwall. My first winter there was 1998, the year of the great Ice Storm that knocked out power to much of Eastern Ontario. Even as power was restored, there was a great deal to be done in terms of clean-up. I ended up being involved in coordinating some of these efforts. Around this time, I had also come into contact with a Chaplain at a university in Jacksonville Alabama, whose students were looking for a mission trip. More often than not, they went to places south… but in the aftermath of the Ice Storm, they decided to come north.
I remember in one of the worship services that we held in the closing days of their visit that their visit was very much grace in action. To illustrate that, I told the story of a professor who pulled out a $20 bill and gave it to one of his students. Except while I was telling the story, I actually did it myself… and gave one of my own $20 bills to one of the students from Alabama. This was a lesson in grace… as the professor had told it, the student tried to return it all through his class… this student from Alabama quickly and emphatically shoved it into his pocket… which got a laugh from everyone including myself. But after the service, under some pressure from his fellow students… he did try to return it. Despite hearing the message, and receiving something he tried to return it. My response to him was that I meant what I said, the $20 was now his, and he could do whatever he liked with it.
It’s a lesson in grace… and a revealing one. We have no trouble when we receive something that we feel that we have either earned or deserve; but when someone gives us something that we feel that we neither deserve nor have we earned, our first instinct is to give it back… sometimes quite forcefully… The second thing is that we are often puzzled what to do with it… and more often than not the best thing we can do is share it. Grace is no different… so instead of tying ourselves in knots to convince ourselves that we somehow deserve it… we should accept the fact that grace is freely given, and the best possible thing we can do with it, is share it.
Amen.
This past week we brought to a close our exploration of different world religions. We finished up with Protestant Christianity, partly because it would be in theory the most familiar to us as we are part of that tradition. However, given the diversity of the various protestant traditions, there is a lot that we don’t know that is under the broad umbrella of being “protestant.” My hope for the series was to provide at least a broad overview of the various major world religious traditions so that people can have a sense of how those belief systems originated and developed. It would also help for us to understand what similarities there are between the traditions, but also what makes each of them unique in their witness to the world.
Of course, when it comes to our own tradition, there are a number of things we can point to as being similar. The curiously-named “Golden Rule” – do to others as you would want them to do to you appears in nearly all religious traditions. It is a point of commonality. The concept, presence, and reality of the Divine is common amongst most traditions. So when it comes to our faith, what makes being Christian unique?
Here’s a short reflection from author Philip Yancey about this question:
“During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of returns from death. The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. “what’s the rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”
After some discussion, the conferees had to agree. The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seemed to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, the Jewish covenant, and Muslim code of law – each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.”
The answer is easy: grace. The concept, on the other hand, is very hard for us to get our head around… even in a society that as been largely shaped in cultures where the church has been a dominant presence. Ironically, grace is a lesson that I don’t think we as the church have learned very well, and it is the very thing that we have to share with the world that nobody else can.
It’s also not surprising, given how difficult reading this morning’s part of Paul’s letter to the Romans we heard this morning. It talks about grace, freely given, to free us from sin… and at the same time being enslaved to God. The language is a bit archaic, especially the slavery bit, but Paul was using terms familiar to the people of his day… so we shouldn’t get too hung up on it. Paul was saying that we were essentially imprisoned by law… a way of earning favour with God… In Jesus Christ is revealed the gift of grace, God’s unconditional love and free gift of eternal life. The bit about being enslaved to God is an ancient play on words that we miss. It is out of a sense of deep gratitude that we willingly serve God out of gratitude for this free gift. We don’t serve God to earn it, we already have it, and respond out of a sense of deep and profound thanks.
That is what grace is all about. However, if there is any one term that is so central to Christian thought, and yet so completely misunderstood. We use the term a lot, but do we really know what it means to have an unconditional free gift from God? Probably not. Because as soon as bring up this definition of grace… that God’s gift of salvation is freely given to us in Jesus Christ, without any conditions, we immediately start putting conditions on it… and no sooner do we do that, then we find ourselves with a set of beliefs that go back to us trying earn favour with God.
Grace is scandalous because it runs contrary to what we expect. We expect that people get what they deserve. What goes around, comes around, as the saying goes. Except that isn’t grace. That’s Karma…
Grace is an unconditional gift. God gives it to us because we need it, not because we deserve it or have earned it. What we do with that gift is up to us, and that’s the challenge that Paul lays down in Romans. Since grace is freely given, and we cannot do anything to earn it, should we continue to sin all the more to let grace flow? Paul’s response is translated with a rather soft “By no means!” –which is frankly a bit weak from what Paul wrote in Greek. If I were to translate that into what Paul was really saying, I may get letters of complaint for using foul language from the pulpit! Let’s just say put a rather emphatic and profane word before the word “no!” and you’ll get the picture.
Paul goes on to say that our response to God’s free gift of grace should inspire in us a sense of gratitude that is so deep and abiding that we inspired lives of gratitude. The gift came first, the gratitude follows… and in living a life filled with gratitude we reflect God’s love in Christ in who we are. Grace comes first… gratitude flows out of that.
In my first pastoral charge, I was the associate minister at the Presbyterian Church in Cornwall. My first winter there was 1998, the year of the great Ice Storm that knocked out power to much of Eastern Ontario. Even as power was restored, there was a great deal to be done in terms of clean-up. I ended up being involved in coordinating some of these efforts. Around this time, I had also come into contact with a Chaplain at a university in Jacksonville Alabama, whose students were looking for a mission trip. More often than not, they went to places south… but in the aftermath of the Ice Storm, they decided to come north.
I remember in one of the worship services that we held in the closing days of their visit that their visit was very much grace in action. To illustrate that, I told the story of a professor who pulled out a $20 bill and gave it to one of his students. Except while I was telling the story, I actually did it myself… and gave one of my own $20 bills to one of the students from Alabama. This was a lesson in grace… as the professor had told it, the student tried to return it all through his class… this student from Alabama quickly and emphatically shoved it into his pocket… which got a laugh from everyone including myself. But after the service, under some pressure from his fellow students… he did try to return it. Despite hearing the message, and receiving something he tried to return it. My response to him was that I meant what I said, the $20 was now his, and he could do whatever he liked with it.
It’s a lesson in grace… and a revealing one. We have no trouble when we receive something that we feel that we have either earned or deserve; but when someone gives us something that we feel that we neither deserve nor have we earned, our first instinct is to give it back… sometimes quite forcefully… The second thing is that we are often puzzled what to do with it… and more often than not the best thing we can do is share it. Grace is no different… so instead of tying ourselves in knots to convince ourselves that we somehow deserve it… we should accept the fact that grace is freely given, and the best possible thing we can do with it, is share it.
Amen.
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