Grace

ROMANS 12:1-3

What is it? We hear it played at weddings, funerals and other public gatherings. We say it at mealtime. The word I’m referring to is also included at the end of our worship services. By now you know what it is. Of course, I’m referring to GRACE – “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound!” Grace is also a name we sometimes give to baby girls. We also talk about a period of grace. So, what is grace? This will be the aim of today’s message.

In addition to the passage from Romans, I am going to rely heavily on theologians, both past and present, to help us have a better understanding of grace.

In his letter to the Church in Rome, in chapters 12 and 13, Paul discusses “the structuring effects of grace as they come to bear on a variety of circles of human society”. He explains how we experience grace; he talks about the effect grace has within the Christian community; he mentions the affect it has in secular society; also the effect it has in our relationship with the civil authorities.

Today, I am going to limit my remarks to the question –how do we experience grace and what happens after we experience it?

Scott Peck [1936-2005] was an American psychiatrist and a best-selling author who wrote the book The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978. Here’s what he has to say about Grace “….while we cannot will ourselves to grace, we can by will, open ourselves to its miraculous coming. We can prepare ourselves to be fertile ground, a welcoming place.” His point is that grace is a gift, and there’s nothing we can do to receive it, then how do we experience it?

Paul Tillich,  [1886-1965] a German Philosopher and a Lutheran Theologian, spent the latter half of his life in the U.S.A.  teaching at Union Theological Seminary, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. He was one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. In his book, “The Shaking of the Foundations” writes..

“Do you know what it means to be struck by grace?…We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life….It strikes us when year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.

Sometimes at that moment, a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘you are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not ask for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.  If that happens to us, we experience grace.

After such an experience, we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment grace conquers sin and reconciliation bridges that gulf of self-estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance…

It is such moments that make us love our life, that make us accept ourselves, not in our goodness and self-sufficiency, but in our certainty of the eternal meaning of our life. We cannot force ourselves to accept ourselves. We cannot compel anyone to accept himself or herself. But sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say ‘yes’ to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate and self-contempt disappear, and that our-self is reunited with itself. Than we can say that grace has come upon us.”

“Simply accept the fact that you are accepted”

Henri Nouwen expresses this well in his book –“Life of the beloved”–  This book is the fruit of a longstanding friendship between him and a journalist from the New York Times, who was assigned to interview him.  It soon became clear that the journalist, whose name was Fred Bratman, was not interested in either Henri Nouwen or the subject of religion.

“Life of the beloved” is a book written to the Fred Bratmans of the world, explaining the spiritual life in terms that he and his friends could understand, avoiding theology and technical language. This is what he wrote to him… “Well, you and I don’t have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us.  That’s the truth of our lives. That’s the truth I want you to claim for yourself. That’s the truth spoken by the voice that says, ‘you are my beloved’ “ Simply accept that you are accepted!

That’s one side of grace, that we are accepted. And do you know something? If more of us were convinced that we are accepted,  if more of us left this gathering this morning, knowing that we are accepted, this world of ours is bound to be a different place. I am thinking of the world we live in, work and socialize. We would have nothing to prove, except show our ID that says: I AM ACCEPTED! This is the one side of grace. “That you are accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know.”

The other side, according to St. Paul in today’s passage – we have to offer ourselves. That’s all we have to do- “Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him.” It’s the same as when we receive an invitation to have dinner with someone. We’ll never know what we have missed. I am referring to the dinner itself, the conversations around the dinner table, the building of relationships, unless we accept the invitation and have that experience.

When we offer ourselves,  we have to offer ourselves completely. There’s no holding back. I am going to use a goofy illustration, but it’s an illustration that expresses well what I am trying to say. A chicken and a pig were driving down the street. Now tell me, what’s the likelihood of seeing such a sight? All of a sudden they see a billboard advertising a special breakfast –two fried eggs and several strips of bacon. The chicken said to the pig – “isn’t that nice!” To which the pig replied –  “it’s okay for you to say that, for you it’s only a partial offering, for me it’s a total commitment!” So is our response to grace!

We have to offer ourselves completely. I suspect it was this complete commitment that inspired the hymn writer to generate the following praise selection-  Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee. Take my moments, my hands, my feet, my voice, my silver, my intellect, my will, my love, my all. “This is your logical response”   St. Paul writes. This logical response is the consequence of grace,     rather than the standards of this world. “Here’s what I want you to do: [by the grace of God] take your everyday ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life – and place it before God as an offering. [become that fertile ground / that welcoming place]. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.”

This is grace at work. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted; bask in it, and then forge ahead with your head high because you are one of God’s beloved.