Tomorrow's sermon: REVISED

Here is tomorrow's sermon, although by the time you read it it may be today's sermon or yesterday's sermon. This the draft version that I'll revise tomorrow morning. And I'll revise it here before I preach it at 11 Pacific time. As is often the case it feels a little disjointed tonight, but hopefully it will come together tomorrow morning. Enjoy.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Those are the lines to probably the most famous of all Christian hymns. Most people are familiar with it whether they are Christians or not. And grace is probably the most important theological term for Protestant Christians. So it is not all that surprising that this is one of the three phrases you all chose when you thought about new names for the congregation. I could probably preach 100 different sermons on grace—as a matter of fact I probably have preached a 100 different sermons on grace in some shape or form, it being so much a part of our understanding of God’s relationship to the world.
Earlier this summer I had you all participate in an exercise. I asked you to think of a story that fit one of three difference situations. I don’t remember what the three situations were but I remember one was tell a story about a time when you got something you didn’t deserve. Gini told a story basically about cheating on a test or in a class and then getting an a or getting by—I don’t exactly remember the exact nature of the story. Gini do you remember what I am talking about, could you retell that story? Now Gini did exactly what I asked of her and of all of you. She told me a story about getting something she did not deserve. And when I asked that question in my mind I was thinking about the concept of grace. I was thinking about the amazing grace that saved a wretch like me. And that is a general notion of what grace is—getting something you didn’t deserve.
But here is the thing, as I’ve been thinking about grace this week, I’ve realized I have a real problem with that idea. I was talking with someone about grace and saying just that. And she said well alright what do you understand grace to be and I told her well what I’ve always thought is that we get God’s love and salvation in spite of ourselves simply by believing in and becoming a follower of Christ. Basically that we are wretched souls undeserving of God’s love but that God gives us love and salvation anyway.
And as I said, I have a real problem with this concept. For a few reasons. First lets take the wretched part. I can’t hold the idea that we are wretched, horrible fallen individuals along side the idea that I talked about two weeks ago that we are God’s beloved beautiful creation. We may do some pretty awful things but calling ourselves a wretch seems a little too much. It seems like we are a world of Eyeores. You know Eyeore from the Winnie the Pooh books and cartoons. Eyeore is the classic woe is me, don’t worry about me, I’m a nothing character. I’m unlovable but God loves me anyway. But I believe over and over throughout the Bible God is saying you are lovable, you are loved. And I believe that I have felt that overly abundant love throughout my life.
The second part I have a problem with is the there is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace. That is true, but as I said last week that has all too often been fudged a little bit. Remember, I talked about the fact that I was always told that there was nothing I had to do except accept Jesus as my savior, but then I was also given a list of dos and don’ts to keep me from going to hell. And in the end I think what I have a problem with is not the concept but instead the language. I don’t think we can use the word “earn” or “deserve.” And the reason I say that is that our whole western society is set up on this get what you earn ethic. The pull yourself up by your bootstrap mentality. We get what we work for. We love the stories of the self made millionaire or in our national election we love the former beauty queen become governor become vice presidential running mate or community organizer who was raised in a single family home in Chicago now presidential candidate. We love those stories because they say that anything is possible with enough effort and drive and ambition. Or there are the stories of people who don’t get what they deserve, they just get lucky. The person who wins the lottery, or the executive who sleeps his or her way to the top, or in Gini’s case the person who got a passing grade by cheating. They just got lucky. But the assumption with all of these cases is that something was done or not done to get what you want or something could have been done. We don’t earn God’s grace, we just get God’s grace. There are no winners or losers.
And I say that but in reality I think we do have to do something. I think we have to accept the gift of God’s grace, we have to choose to live in Grace. What do I mean by that? Well let’s go back to the wretched part. It is all I can do to remind myself that I am God’s beloved. As Stuart Smalley used to say on Saturday Night Live that I am good enough, smart enough and doggone it people like me. I have a much easier time believing that I am wretched and undeserving of God’s love. But the very nature of Grace is that we are deserving of God’s love, we are lovable. We just have to choose to live in that knowledge and that love. And we really have to choose grace, it is a choice. We have two options when we pull up our lives to the soul campground. We have two options of where to set up camp. We can pitch our tents in grace or in judgment. And all too often we set up camp in judgment. And the longer we stay in that camp, the more difficult it is to see grace.
The field hands had the choice of where to live. They all received the same wage. Those who worked all day got the same amount that those who worked only an hour got. Now we know how those who had worked all day responded. They were none too pleased. One moment they were grateful to have earned a days wage and the next moment they resented the landowner and felt that they had been jilted. They worked longer and harder they deserved more. They could have lived in the place of giftedness and grace, seeing the radical generosity of the landowner, paying those who had been chosen last the same as those who had been chosen first. But that is not the way the system worked. That is not the way our system works.
But what about the ones who had only worked a short period of time, how did they respond. I would suspect that they were not necessarily overjoyed either. I’m guessing they felt a little guilt and a little shame. It is difficult for most people to accept grace or generosity. Most people if paid a compliment will say “oh it was nothing.” Did the workers try and give the money back because they didn’t think they were worthy or deserving? We don’t really know. We also don’t know what happened the next day. I like to imagine that feeling this overwhelming gratitude they were the first to the fields the next day ready to put in a full days work and more.

But we don’t know do we. And in the end we don’t really understand grace, because it is so inexplicable. It is so unfair in terms of what we know in this world. We can’t earn it, we can’t lose it, we just get it. And when we live out of it, out of the place of grace, out of the place of giftedness, out of the place of generosity it makes us do some crazy things as well.

John Claypool, a famous preacher, who I think Cecil has known in a past Baptist life, tells this story:
“There is an old rabbinic parable about a farmer that had two sons. As soon as they were old enough to walk, he took them to the fields and he taught them everything that he knew about growing crops and raising animals. When he got too old to work, the two boys took over the chores of the farm and when the father died, they had found their working together so meaningful that they decided to keep their partnership. So each brother contributed what he could and during every harvest season, they would divide equally what they had corporately produced. Across the years the elder brother never married, stayed an old bachelor. The younger brother did marry and had eight wonderful children. Some years later when they were having a wonderful harvest, the old bachelor brother thought to himself one night, "My brother has ten mouths to feed. I only have one. He really needs more of his harvest than I do, but I know he is much too fair to renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he is already asleep, I'll take some of what I have put in my barn and I'll slip it over into his barn to help him feed his children.
At the very time he was thinking down that line, the younger brother was thinking to himself, "God has given me these wonderful children. My brother hasn't been so fortunate. He really needs more of this harvest for his old age than I do, but I know him. He's much too fair. He'll never renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he's asleep, I'll take some of what I've put in my barn and slip it over into his barn." And so one night when the moon was full, those two brothers came face to face, each on a mission of generosity. The old rabbi said that though there wasn't a cloud in the sky, a gentle rain began to fall. God was weeping for joy because two of his children had gotten the point. Two of his children had come to realize that generosity is the deepest characteristic of the holy and because we are made in God's image, our being generous is the secret to our joy as well. Life is not fair, thank God! It's not fair because it's rooted in grace.”
As the hymn we just sang says, there is a wideness in God’s mercy, but it would also be appropriate to sing there is a wildness to God’s mercy. It is wild that a father would go out searching for the one son like we saw in Gilead. It is wild that a shepherd would leave 99 sheep to look for one. It is wild that those who work one hour would receive the same wages as the ones who worked all day. It is wild that whether we love ourselves or not God loves us. But in the end that is God’s love, that is God’s gift to us, that is God’s grace.