John 8:31-36
Grace is the center of gravity…in our life together.
- Not personal righteousness…not discipleship…not morality…not piety…not progressive sanctification…not activism.
- GRACE…and the thing that separates grace from all the other things I just listed is that with grace…
- God is the determining factor…not us and our efforts.
- When anything other than grace is the starting point in my relationship to God…I am doomed…
- Because it means that my goodness or righteousness is the determining factor.
- The Lord be with you…
In the beginning…all there was…was God…so to bring the world into being…God had to scoot over. So…God chose to take up less space…God made room.
- So…before God spoke the world into being…God scooted over.
- God wanted to share.
- Like the kind-faced woman on the subway…who takes her handbag onto her lap…so that there’s room for you to sit next to her.
- She did not have to do it…but that is just who she is…
- The kind-faced subway lady’s nature…is that she makes room for others.
Then God had an absolute explosion of creativity and made animals.
- Amoebas…chickens…crickets…bees…monkeys…butterflys…
- Then God said…Let us create humans in our own image and likeness.
- Let us create humanity in our image and likeness.
- Let there be us and them in one being.
So…God created every one of us in the male and female image of God.
- Then God gave us God’s own image…
- Something so holy that it could never be harmed…and never be taken away.
- A never-aloneness…an origin and destination…a source code of grace.
I have got good news and bad news this morning.
- Here’s the thing…to really speak of grace…we must speak of why grace is needed.
- Which means we must speak of sin…
- Even if liberals tend to think that speaking of sin is the same as speaking of low self-esteem.
- But…how can we ever understand why grace is amazing…if we think we do not need it?
The problem…is that the word sin…is too often used as a synonym for being immoral.
- But you could live an entirely moral life…never cheat on your spouse or your taxes…
- Never break a law and be a…so-called…good person…and still be a total sinner.
In fact…the word sin has been so misused and misunderstood…
- That it is helpful to substitute the word sin for the human propensity to mess things up.
- Do not be fooled into thinking that with enough therapy or meditation…
- Or with enough social and racial awareness…and enlightenment…
- Or with the right Mediterranean diet or with good enough intentions…
- That you will not still mess things up.
- You will…I will.
Martin Luther…in a letter he wrote to his friend…Philip Melanchthon…said:
- If you are a preacher of grace…then preach a true not a fictitious grace…if grace is true…you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin.
- God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners.
- Be a sinner and sin boldly…but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly…for he is victorious over sin…death… and the world.
- As long as we are here we have to sin.
- So…pray boldly – you too are a mighty sinner.
While it can be healthy and useful to have regret about the ways we mess things up…and to even make amends…
- We need not have shame about it.
- Because…if we did not mess things up…we would not need God.
- There would not be any space for God.
So…we must feel free to name our sins…because it is how we scoot over and make room for God.
- I like to think of Grace not as when God is good enough to forgive me for my failings…
- But as when God is a source of wholeness…redemption and healing…
- Which makes up for my failings…which is more powerful than my failings.
- Grace is the Holy Spirit’s renewable resource.
- Grace is the way to force our egos into a posture where we can receive forgiveness.
When I forget about the grace all around me…I start to feel entitled to all the good things in my life.
- To be a living being on this glorious earth is…itself grace.
- What did I do that God would knit me together in my mother’s womb?
- How could I earn the right to eat a perfect Georgia peach…
- That the creator even thought to make the peach is grace to us.
- My son-in-law…Ed…was working with bees and said that honey is grace in a jar…a sweetness entirely given that we did absolutely nothing to deserve.
When we experience grace…we become more compassionate.
- When we see how God’s source code of grace has redeemed our human propensity to mess things up…we give other people a break.
- We stop holding others to a ridiculous standard.
- We believe God can make beautiful things out of even other people’s propensity to mess things up.
But to be clear…faith is not about self-improvement.
- Because God is not interested in making us a better people.
- God is interested in making us new people.
- Because if this whole thing was only a matter of self-improvement…
- Then trying harder should do the trick…in which case we really do not need Jesus anymore.
Being better people…being good-er Samaritans…is something we can do on our own.
- But to become new people we need God.
- To become new people…we need a God who offers us a way…where there is no way.
- Becoming new people does not happen by trying harder to be good.
- It happens by being robbed.
- Robbed of our old ideas about ourselves.
- Robbed of our self-sufficiency.
- Robbed of our piety…robbed of our selfishness.
It is grace that the sweet Holy Spirit intercedes for us.
- It is grace that our prayers are welcomed by the creator.
- It is grace to hear each other’s prayers and to make them our own.
- Every day that an alcoholic or addict is clean and sober…that is grace.
- The sun rising in the East every day is grace.
- My virtue cannot pull the sun…that ball of fire…up over the horizon.
It is grace that God would make her home in the womb of a peasant girl.
- That God would hang out…see what it’s like to have a body that aches and a mother that loves…
- And bread that nourishes…
- And friends that betray…
- And empires that dehumanize…
God saw what all of that was like and said now is the time of salvation.
- And opened his arms wide on the cross.
- And welcomed every horrible thing that our human propensity to mess things up could do…and responded with only forgiveness.
- It is grace that God would again scoot over…
- And make room for our hearts and hurts and prayers and say to us…you are mine.
I know only one thing…that there is only grace…my sweet friends.
- Everything else is a measure of worthiness.
- Everything else leads to insiders and outsiders.
- Everything else can fail us.
- But oh…amazing grace…how sweet the sound…that saved a wretch like me… forever and ever. Amen.