"GRACE IS EVERYTHING"

Rev. Jim Petersen

October 25, 2009

First Congregational UCC

Great Falls, MT

Text:  Psalm 107:1-9

 Romans 3:21-24, 27-28

It was this very week, 492 years ago, that Martin Luther began what came to be known as the Protestant Reformation.  The year, 1517 A.D.  Like anything that happened nearly 500 years ago, much of the Reformation is dated and is no longer that interesting or helpful to us.  It dealt with concerns and questions raised in the 16^th century, which are gratefully not our concerns today, though we have our own.

But there is at least one permanent contribution that Luther made for all us, as relevant now as then, and that is his emphasis that Christianity is about grace.  Fundamentally, Christianity is not about rules or requirements, it is not about creeds or catechisms, it is not about dogma or doctrine.  The lowest rung on the Christian theological ladder is grace.  Christianity is about the grace of God.  The above all else is the "good news."

For this alone it is appropriate that we observe Reformation Sunday.  To remind ourselves that the Gospel is about grace, because we, like the church historically, seem particularly prone to forget this.  And we need grace.  It was certainly present last night as I was the zombie priest dancing to Michael Jackson's the Thriller, along with my children Katrina and JJ.  We did great, by grace.  Lord forgive us.

Back to history.  In 1517 the Augustinian monk Martin was assigned to teach New Testament at the new university in Wittenberg, Germany.  One evening while preparing his lesson plan for a course on Paul, he was pouring over the letters of Paul, and specifically Paul's letter to the Romans, when Luther was theologically and spiritually awakened.  It was in the third chapter of Romans, as you heard read this morning, that Luther came upon verse 24, By the free gift of God's grace all are put right with God through Christ Jesus, who sets us free.  Talk about an a-ha moment!

For Martin it was as if the skies had opened and the angels of God descended, the cherubim and seraphim singing.  For Luther was lifted from the despair of his day, and his personal struggle of trying to make himself right with God, and granted the dawn of a new day by the grace of God.  So this became the battle cry of the Protestant Reformation.  It is all about grace, the free gift of God's grace.  This is how we are justified, or put right with God, by the grace of God.  There is no other way.

Paul got this and wrote about this in the very beginning.  And now it was reborn in Martin in the Middle Ages.  According to Paul, what Jesus reveals to us is grace.  Jesus is the revelation of God's grace, God's grace incarnate, born into this world.  Paul writes about this in several ways, not only in Romans, but also in Galatians and Ephesians, where I believe it reads a bit easier.

Paul defines grace as love, as forgiveness, as reconciliation.  He also defines grace as adoption.  We are adopted as sons and daughters of God.  This is grace.  I hope my adopted children feel the same way.  That we are adopted by God is grace, for as Paul puts it, it is undeserved, given to us freely, without a price.  Well, or paid for by the cross of Christ, in which grace abounds.

This was astounding to Paul, and to Luther fifteen centuries later, that God took the initiative to come to us, to care for us, and to adopt us.  You see, both Paul and Luther, who I remind you were really religious guys, had been trying to reach God by being perfect.  If this doesn't sound like a guy thing.  They were trying to get to God by their own efforts. 

They sought perfection in order to become acceptable to God, not unlike the foster child trying so hard to be good so the foster parents might consider him or her worthy of adoption.  Paul, and later Luther, trying to earn their way into God's love.  You realize how tiring this is?  It makes you weary, if not downright grumpy.  Paul and Luther sure were.  But, by the grace of God, they both discovered a wonderful paradox.  It was only when they admitted they were not perfect, it was only when they relaxed and accepted themselves as human being, sinner no less, that they realized their relationship to God.

You see, it was as if all their own efforts, all their own achievements, all their own success, were barriers to God.  They were so focused on their performance, trying to please God, they could not recognize the presence of God.  But once they decided to be mere mortals, imperfect human beings, they discovered God's grace, for they found they were not perfect men, but children of God.  And, oh, what a relief it was.

Paul put it this way to the Ephesians (2:8-9):  we are saved (through our faith) by God's grace, and not by our own efforts; it is the gift of God, not the results of our work.  "By God's grace?not the result of our work."  Paul's words.  These words launched the Reformation for Luther.  And by God's continued grace they echo on in reply.

For if you are UCC, or have grown up in middle-class America, where we are taught to work hard and that success will be our reward, and if you have models of perfection that have been given you that you have to live up to, whether created by your parents or peers or your own personalized self-image, and that if you don't measure up to this standard you are going to be something between a failure and a worm, then the Reformation was held just for you 492 years ago.

Hello (echo)!  "We are saved by grace, and not by anything we can do."  Paul wasn't UCC.  But he was something like it.  Actually, he was a Pharisee, which rhymes with Puritan.  Paul believed it was possible to reach perfection by his own pure efforts.  He believed he could win a relationship with God by being obedient to God's Law.  Obey God and earn salvation. 

Now the biblical commandments are good.  We should obey them.  But not because we expect God to slip us the winning lottery ticket in return for our obedience.  The laws are simply good rules for living.  They keep the world sane, and safe.  But they themselves do not make us happy.  We do not live for laws.  We live for relationships.  This is why the converted Paul in retrospect calls the Law a curse.  He did not mean, ignore the Law.  Or break the Law.  He meant, if all you do is keep the Law, you are liable to be lonely and miss your life.

As the saying goes:  The meanest man I ever saw always lived within the Law.  You know some people like this.  For them the Law is not a blessing, it is a curse.  It does not lead them to love their neighbor, it causes them to judge their neighbor.

Paul learned this the hard way.  As a Pharisee he was a Christian bounty hunter.  Paul did not like Christians for they broke the Law.  Look at their leader, Jesus of Nazareth.  He ate with the unclean, touched the lepers, healed on the Sabbath, and forgave the sinners, that is, those who had broken the Law.  "How can you do this?" the Pharisees demanded of Jesus.  "They must pay for their sins!" 

In response, Jesus said things like, "Why do you point out the speck in your neighbor's eye, when you can't even see the log in your own eye?"  And. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."  Not kosher.

Paul was an exceptional Pharisee.  First rate!  So he not only questioned the Christians, he persecuted them.  Which is why he was riding high in his saddle to Damascus.  He had heard of a pocket of Christians there, and like a one man posse, he was determined to track them down and bring them back to Jerusalem for justice. 

It doesn't happen often enough to the self righteous, but by the grace of God, Paul was knocked from his high horse on the road to Damascus.  Thrown to the ground, literally, and temporarily blinded.  Poor puppy.  And then, the irony, he is carried to Damascus and care for - get this - by Christians.  Paul must have wondered, "Why do you provide for me, your persecutor?"  Which provided the Christian community in Damascus with a teachable moment.  They replied, "Because Jesus taught us to love our enemies."  So they did.  And Paul's sight returned.  As the story goes, scales fell from Paul's eyes, and he could see clearly now.  Like never before he could see!

He could see his interpretation of the Law was not a blessing, not to him, not to God, nor to those he sought to persecute.  It was a curse.  Paul could see the Law had not saved him, it had condemned him.  The Law had not freed him, it had bound him.  The Law had not led him to love his neighbor, but to hate his neighbor.

Now Paul could see.  Not brought to the Lord by his perfection, but by his brokenness.  On bended knee Paul was baptized and called to preach the gospel of grace.  Which is why Paul wrote, "everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.  But by the free gift of God's grace all are put right with God through Christ Jesus, who set us free."

Praise be to God, centuries later Martin did not miss this message.  He had been.  Like Paul he was slaving away in devotional obedience to his Augustinian order.  As Luther said of himself, and I love to quote, "If ever a monk was going to get to heaven by his monkery, it was I."

Luther was a perfectionist.  And he was miserable.  His life was obedient to the Law, but distant from humanity.  He knew the letter of the Law, but not the Spirit.  Then he stumbled across Paul, and his theology of grace.  As already described, reading Romans in his monastic study, like Paul, scales fell from Luther's eyes and he could see.  Or more appropriately, chains fell from his monastic cloak, and he was set free.  He quit trying to earn his way into relationship with God, and in the words of the great 20^th century theologian, Paul Tillich, "simply accepted that he was accepted."  And the Protestant Reformation was born.

So what for us?  This is ancient history.  Well, not exactly.  We, as a church and as individuals, consistently default to a merit system.  We believe our relationship to God is something we have to earn.  Or closer to home, our own self worth is something we have to earn.  I tell you, this screws us up, having to prove our worth.  It is like living under a curse.  Brothers and sisters, we need grace.  How does it happen?  That we get introduced to grace.  I don't know.  But I do know God is at work, still speaking, and God is grace.

Sometimes it comes in a mountain top experience.  And sometimes it is very little at all, grace comes in a sunset, a song, a smile.  Sometimes it comes in a time of tribulation, when the dark clouds part for just a moment, and we are able to glimpse the blue sky that was there behind the clouds all along.  Or the tribulation persists, but we sense a presence, and we know we are not alone.  And we can make it.  Sometimes it comes after confession, when we admit what we always knew, that we are not perfect beings, we are human beings.

And sometimes it happens, incredibly enough, in worship, when people pray together and sing together, and even listen to God's Holy Word, which is certainly by the grace of God.  We work so hard at figuring out who we are.  Jesus came to tell us.  He said, we are defendants called to justify our existence or prove our worth in a court of trial.  We are children of God, called to embrace the abundant life.  We don't have to prove anything.  Just be who we are, and look to Jesus for how to act, with compassion, generosity and justice for all.

Or as our reformer friend Luther said, "Sin boldly, but more boldly still be free."  Now by this Luther did not mean go out and commit crime.  What he meant was we are going to screw up, fail, fall on our face some of the time.  Be not discouraged.  Pick yourself up and move on by the grace of God.  His time had come and the fellow finds himself at the Pearly Gates.  St. Peter meets him there and lays out the rules:  "You'll need 200 points worth of righteous living to enter here."

Not a problem, contemplates our faithful one.  So he proceeds to cash in his chits:  "Well, I've been a member of my church for 47 years.  I've been a deacon, a trustee.  I sang in the choir and taught Sunday School, and I even chaperoned two overnight youth retreats."  "Well done," says St. Peter, "That's good for four points."  Hmm, he thinks.  "Well, I've been a faithful husband for all my married years, I provided for my children, belonged to three service clubs, and chaired the Community Chest."  "Good," responds St. Peter.  "You get another six points."

Yikes, thinks our fellow, as he begins to have a sinking feeling.  That's some of my best stuff, and I've only got ten of my needed 200 points.  "Well," he continues, "I've been a hard working employee for 42 years, continued to tithe even in my retirement years, and took care of my elderly mother in her last years."  "Very well, my son," remarked St. Peter.  "You now have three more points."  At a total loss, our fellow throws up his hands and proclaims, "O Lord, I am done for.  If ever I get into heaven it will be by the grace of God."  "Bingo," says St. Peter, "that's worth 187 points."  "Come on in, we've been expecting you."

Which is to say John Wesley, another great reformer and the founder of Methodism, was right when he summed up his theology in three words:  "Grace is everything."  Grace is everything.  Like Luther, Wesley nailed it.  Now get out there and do it with grace.

AMEN