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“Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places:  The Problem with Grace”

First Congregational United Church of Christ

March 20, 2011

The Rev. Sharyl B. Peterson

 

Scripture Readings: Jer. 31: 1-3; Romans 8: 31-39; Ephesians 2: 4-8

 

A few weeks ago, when I was on retreat up above Hotchkiss, I went for an early-morning walk.  I like to stretch both my muscles and my spirit first thing, before I start working, and I was wandering along, mostly praying and thanking God for this incredibly beautiful place to be, when amid the zillion other rocks on the ground, my gaze fell on this one (SHOW THEM).

            It’s not anything special to look at.  It’s not especially shiny, or grand, or rare.  It’s just a piece of ordinary black volcanic rock, which abounds up in that area, with a couple of nondescript patches of cream-colored lichen on two sides.  But I picked it up and put it in my pocket because it seemed just the right size for a story … and because, for some reason, it brought to mind a particular story I had read many years ago, written by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

            Neruda tells about growing up in the town of Temuco, Chile, a place to which he and his father had moved after the death of Neruda’s mother when he was an infant.  One day, he was exploring the backyard of their house in Temuco, and looking at all the wonderful things children are able to see and to find, when he discovered a hole in one of the boards of the fence that bordered their property.

            When he looked through the hole, he saw another yard that looked pretty much like his own, uncared for and wild.  When he stepped back from the hole, almost (he says) as if he knew something was about to happen, a hand suddenly appeared poking through the hole in the fence – a tiny hand of a boy about Neruda’s own age.

As Neruda moved again toward the fence, the hand was gone, and left on the ground was a marvelous white sheep.  Neruda says the sheep’s wool had faded, and all of the wheels had escaped … but he had never seen a more wonderful toy in his whole life.  He looked back through the hole, but the other boy had disappeared.  So Neruda went into his own house, and brought out one of his own most special treasures – a pinecone, open, full of odor and resin.  And he put it down in the same spot by the fence, and went off with the sheep.

            He doesn’t tell whether the other boy took his gift … he simply says he never saw the boy or the hand again.  But he talks about how this moment changed his life, as he realized, all the way down to his very young soul, that sometimes we are gifted – that he had been gifted – with the affection – the love – of someone who was a total stranger to him.  And that made him realize for the first time what he calls “a precious idea:  that all humanity is somehow together[1].”  A precious idea, and a precious moment that those of us who are religious might describe as “grace.”

            It’s not a word – or an idea – that seems to show up very much in day-to-day life for most people.  In fact, I’d guess many folks think that “grace” is just one of those church-y words” that don’t really have much to do with the real world.

            And it is indeed a “church-y word” and a “faith-y” concept that shows up in all kinds of ways in the church’s stories.  We can pick up our Bibles, and flip them open almost randomly, and we’ll come across story after story about grace.

Like the story of Jacob’s dream, in which he wrestles with an angel at night on the shores of the Jabbok river, and God comes to him with abundant grace … Or the story of Joseph and his brothers.  Or the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi.  Or the Psalms, that assure us of a dozen kinds of God’s grace.  Or the core story of the New Testament, where we see grace in the offer God makes to a young woman named Mary, inviting her to bear and to mother a special child named Jesus; and in the compassion and challenges that Jesus offers to everyone he meets; and in the commitment and work of his followers, the disciples, who offered (and who still offer) their own time and energy and resources – their very lives – to continue to share the good news with all the world.  The Biblical stories show us grace being manifested over and over, in vastly different times and places and circumstances, to all sorts of people – some admirable, some not so much, often for reasons we can’t begin to understand or explain.

            Yes, grace is clearly an important part of faith-history. 

            But it isn’t just a church-word.  It is a very real thing, as real as joy, as real as welcome, as real as love, a thing that every one of us deeply needs, and that every one of us (consciously or not) is continually seeking/searching for.

            As we see in the many Bible stories about grace, it has to do with receiving forgiveness – sometimes from God, sometimes from other people we value – when we mess up.  It has to do with acceptance of our whole selves, warts and wings and all, by God and by other people.  It has to do with hospitality and generosity – with an unexpected meal or cup of tea shared, with a place to stay when we need it most.  It

has to do with a profound sense of connection to other living beings (like that we see in the Neruda story).  And it has to do with love – with loving, and with being loved. 

            (And) perhaps the most remarkable thing about this many-faceted gift is that grace is not something we receive because we’re especially good … or because for some reason we’re especially deserving.  Instead, as Christians, we affirm that grace is not something we earn, or have to work for, but is an unmerited, free gift from the God who created and loves us.  In the words of one theologian,

“(grace is the) unconditional, comprehensive, empowering love of God for the world (and for all living beings).  God’s grace was manifested fully in            Jesus Christ, and is present in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.  As one of the central concepts of Christian theology, grace combines      the covenantal theme of God’s overflowing, undeserved (embrace of all)             humanity with a sense of divine power to liberate, redeem, and renew           human life[2].”

It’s what all three of our Scripture readings today are about.

            In Jeremiah, we’re reminded that when the Israelites, people just barely freed from their generations of captivity in Egypt, are wandering in the desert, near death, despairing that they would ever find a new place they could call “home,” “they found grace out in the desert, these people … they were out looking for a place to rest, (and they) met God looking for them!  And God told them, ‘I’ve never quit loving you, and never will.  Expect love, love, and more love!”

            In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he makes one of the most remarkable and wonderful promises imagineable.  He asks, “Do you think anyone is able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us?”  And he immediately answers, “No way!  Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even murder (can do that) … I am absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love.”

            And in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul tells them (and us), “by grace (we) have been saved through faith, and this is not (our) own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of (our) words … we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” 

            Do you hear the themes?  We don’t have to crawl groveling to God, hoping for God’s notice … instead, God rushes out to meet us.  We don’t have to give up in despair, when we’ve done something really awful … instead, we are assured that God never quits loving us, no matter what.  Instead of our warts … our mistakes … our bad choices damaging our relationship with God, we know that there is nothing that can separate any of us from God’s love.  Grace is the free gift of God, intended by God to be our (human) way of life! 

            That sounds like pretty good news!  And yet it is that, my friends, that for a whole lot of us is one of the main problems we have with grace.  That whole business about it being a free gift from God.  Not something that we earn, but something that we are given.  No strings attached.  And that is a problem because we live in a culture that tells us in a thousand different ways that there is no free lunch.  That there are always strings attached.

Someone in our Lenten Worship Planning group shared a story where she bumped into this problem.  She and her family buy Schwann’s frozen products, and one evening, after the Schwann’s deliveryman gave her their order, and she paid for it, he went back to his truck, and returned carrying a couple of packages of frozen asparagus, which he offered to her as a free gift.  She says that she almost didn’t take the asparagus, because

she kept wondering, “why would he give us free stuff?”  “what is his real motive here?”  “what is he really expecting in return?”

            You’ve probably had your own experiences with this.  You’re eating your supper, and the phone rings.  When you answer it, a voice on the other end of the line says, “Good evening … is this the lady (or man) of the house?  (And without pausing, the voice goes on to) “I have a wonderful free gift I want to give you, and all you have to do is just answer a couple of questions.”  And immediately you guess that you’re not only going to have to answer some questions to get the so-called “free gift,” but probably have to let a vacuum-cleaner salesman come to your house, and eat up an evening showing you his latest products, or sign up to go to Moab for the ostensibly free week-end at a nice hotel, with the caveat that you’ll spend most of the week-end confined in a windowless room where boring salespeople go on and on about the “great deals” they have to offer you on local condos!

            We are taught – in what we call “real life” – to always expect a “catch,” a “hook,” to look for some kind of string attached.  And it’s no different with grace.  Our culture tells us that if we’re going to get grace – if we’re going to receive forgiveness … hospitality … generosity from others … acceptance … connection … love … we have to earn it.  We have to do our part.  We have to work hard. 

            For example, we go looking for grace by hanging with just the right people, and giving just the right kind of parties, so we can earn hospitality from other people.  And we go looking for grace by wearing the right kinds of clothes, and buying the right kind of car, and living in the right kind of house, in the right kind of neighborhood, so we can earn acceptance from other people.  And we go looking for grace by earning the “right” kinds of grades, and making the “right career-choices,” and accomplishing the “right” kinds of successes, and selecting the kind of life-partner our parents approve of, so we can earn the love of our family. 

And there’s a second problem that a lot of folks have with grace, that I suspect arises in part from the first problem.  And that is the idea that not only is grace a free gift from God, it is also a gift from God for everyone.  Yes, everyone! 

            And the reason that’s a problem for so many people is because no matter how “progressive,” or “liberal,” or “Christian” we may think we are, every one of us has some group of people – maybe even several groups of people – whom we don’t like … or approve of … or accept.  Maybe it’s people who are older than we are.  Or maybe it’s people who are younger.  Maybe it’s people who have less money than we do.  Or maybe it’s people who have more.  Maybe it’s people of a different ethnic or racial background than ours.  Or people whose family configurations look different from ours.  Or people who belong to a different political party.  The bottom line is, we all have people to whom we are unwilling to extend grace, and we tend to assume that if we aren’t going to offer them grace, God certainly isn’t going to either.

            If you start paying attention (perhaps as part of your Lenten homework), you’ll start noticing all the ways this can show up.  For me, one of the most appalling – yet timely – examples is something I ran into this past week.  One of our members called me about something, and said that last week while she was away from Junction, she had attended a Sunday worship service at a church where she was staying.  And the preacher got up, and began to preach about the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan, and said that God was clearly punishing the Japanese for not being Christians.

            I was so shocked – and yet, because I’ve heard similar rhetoric about other groups – so not entirely surprised, that I went on-line to see whether this kind of thinking was showing up elsewhere.  Especially in faith-circles.  And it is.  And I find this so appalling because as Christians, we affirm that our God is a God of love and grace, and yet there are folks also calling themselves Christians who are preaching to anyone who will listen that our God has intentionally destroyed the lives of thousands of people because some of them follow other faith paths than Christianity.  And yet, this is only one example of how so many ostensible people of faith – including, I suspect, some of us sitting here this morning – believe that God’s grace is available to, is given to, only “people like us.”

            My friends, when we believe either of those things – either that we have to work hard to earn grace, or that grace is only for some people – we’ve missed the entire point.

            Grace is not something we earn.  It’s not a spiritual paycheck for doing “enough” spiritual good deeds.  It’s not something we have to rack up enough spiritual frequent-flyer or credit-card points to get.  Grace is not something we have to go looking for – in all the right or in all the wrong places.

            Grace simply is.  Grace simply is there.  Grace simply is there for us to receive and, perhaps, to be grateful for.  Grace simply is there for us – and for everyone – to receive, and be grateful for.

            All we have to do is open our eyes – to open our ears – to open our hearts – to open our spirits – and notice that it’s there.  And that’s especially good news on this Lenten journey.  A journey that so often is about working hard spiritually to re-examine our lives, to turn our lives around, to make new choices, and so on and so forth. 

            Instead, grace reminds us that God has already done all the heavy lifting.  And that all we need to do is allow … permit … relax … and lean into this grace that is a gift for everyone.

Poet Denise Levertov describes this beautifully in her poem called “The Avowal.” 

“As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns

that all-surrounding grace[3].” 

 

May it be so.  Amen.