During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith.
They began eliminating various possibilities.
Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form.
Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room.
"What's the rumpus all about?" He asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's Grace."
The Buddhist eightfold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, the Jewish covenant, the Muslim code of law, each of these offers a way to earn approval. It is only Christianity that dares to make God's love unconditional.
Aware of our inbuilt resistance to grace, Jesus talked about it often.
He described a world immersed with God's grace: where the Sun shines on people good and bad.
Jesus saw grace everywhere.
Yet he never analyzed or defined grace.
Instead, he communicated grace through stories and through parables.
We are accustomed to finding a catch in every promise, but Jesus stories of extravagant grace include no catch, no loophole that disqualifies us from God's love.
Each has at its core an ending too good to be true or so good that it must be true.
How different are these stories from our own childhood notions about God:
I imagined as a child, God as a distant thundering figure who prefers fear and respect to love.
Jesus tells us instead of a father publicly humiliating himself by rushing out to embrace us even after we have squandered half of the family fortune.
There is no solemn lecture from the Father, "I hope you've learned your lesson!"
Instead, Jesus tells of the father's exhilaration "this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found" and then he adds the buoyant phrase, "they began to make merry."
And we as Anglicans have that making merry part down pat. Praise God. We truly know how to celebrate. We have a solid ten out of ten in celebrating and, in making merry.
What blocks forgiveness is not God's reticence "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him." God's arms are always extended; we are the ones who turn away.
The story of the prodigal son appears in three stories by Jesus-the lost sheep-the lost coin-the lost son-all of which seemed to make the same point.
Each underscores the loser's sense of loss, tells of the thrill of rediscovery, and ends with a scene of jubilation.
Jesus says in effect, "do you want to know what it feels like to be God?
When one of those human beings pays attention to me, it feels like I just reclaimed my most valuable possession, which I had given up for lost."
Can you even imagine, can you begin to imagine what it must feel like for a parent to receive a phone call from the FBI reporting your daughter who was absconded six months ago has been located at last, alive?
Or for a wife to receive a visit from the Army with a spokesman apologizing about the mix-up; her husband had not been aboard the wrecked helicopter after all.
These images give a mere glimpse of what it must feel like for the maker of the universe to get another member of his family back.
In Jesus words, "all the angels in heaven above rejoice when there's a soul saved" Luke 15:20
"God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, not because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him.
No, God rejoices because one of his children; one who was lost has been found.
Despite a hundred sermons on forgiveness, we do not forgive easily, nor find ourselves easily forgiven.
Forgiveness, we discover, is always harder than the sermons make it out to be.
Many of the Psalms express the same sentiment, imploring God to help avenge some wrong.
"Lord, if you can't make me thin, then make my friends look fat, humorous Erma Bombeck once prayed. (Pause)
What could be more human?
Instead, in a stunning reversal, Jesus instructed us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
At the center of the Lord's Prayer, which Jesus taught us, lurks the unnatural act of forgiveness, of grace.
Forgive us our trespasses as-(Pause)
No word in English carries a greater possibility of terror than this little word "as". What makes the "as" so terrifying?
The fact that Jesus plainly links our forgiveness by the father with our forgivingness of fellow human beings.
Jesus next remark could not be more explicit: "if you do not forgive them their sins, your father will not forgive your sins."
It is one thing to get caught up in a cycle of ungrace with a spouse or business partner, and another thing entirely to get caught in such a cycle with Almighty God.
Jesus concluded the parable of the unforgiving servant with a scene of the master turning over the servant to jailers to be tortured.
"This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart,.....Jesus said.
God has granted us a terrible agency: by denying forgiveness to others, we are in affect determining them unworthy of God's forgiveness, and often without realizing it we are declaring that we are also unworthy of the fathers forgiveness.
The evangelist, Tony Campolo would ask students at secular universities what they know about Jesus. Can they recall anything Jesus said?
By clear consensus, they reply "love your enemies."
More than any other teaching of Christ, this one stands out to an unbeliever. Such an attitude is unnatural.
It's hard enough to forgive your rotten brothers, as Joseph did, but your enemies?
Most would argue that a person should be forgiven only if they deserve it.
But the very word for-give contains the word (Pause)"give".
Wrestling with the command to "love your enemies" while being persecuted under Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer finally concluded that it was this very quality of what he defined as the "peculiar, the extraordinary, the unusual"......... that sets a Christian apart from others.
Even as he worked to undermine the Nazi regime he followed Jesus command to "pray for those who persecute you."
Bonheoffer went on to write, through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.
Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them that they will not spitefully use and persecute us.
They certainly will.
This great theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer was executed in the final weeks of World War II.
The gospel of grace begins and ends with forgiveness. And people write songs with titles like "Amazing Grace" for one reason: grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations. Grace alone conquers ungrace.
The business of forgiving is by no means a simple thing. We often say if they are sorry and beg to be pardoned, then I will forgive them.
We make forgiveness a law of reciprocity. And Beloved this never works.
Breaking the cycle of ungrace means taking the initiative.
That is defying the natural law of retribution and fairness.
In Romans 12 Paul admonishes us in these words "do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, as it is written: "vengeance is mine saith the Lord." Romans 12:19 (Pause)
In the final analysis forgiveness is an act of faith.
By forgiving another, I am trusting that God is a better justice maker than I.
I leave in God's hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy.
Beloved, I never find forgiveness easy, and yes nagging injustices remaining, and the wounds still cause pain.
I have to approach God again and again; yielding to him the residue of what I thought I had committed to him long ago. I do so because the Scriptures make clear the connection.
Beloved, God forgives my debts as I forgive my debtors.
Only by living in the stream of God's grace will you and I find the strength to respond with grace toward others.
Let us break open our Alabaster Jars of Grace and let the aroma of God's love fill the air. ...... Amen!!
It is my deepest desire that we at Epiphany are known as a fellowship of grace, a family that cares dearly for the people in this community.
Our Lord Jesus Christ places people in our lives on a daily basis that we have the opportunity to portray the love that our Lord has placed in our hearts.
I am asking that you give about 15 minutes a week for ten weeks and write a short note to two people that God has brought into your life. A short note to two people for the next ten weeks.
Write that you are praying for them for sickness, death, employment or for an unsaved friend or loved one and include a short prayer.
Share your grace in a joyous event such as a birth of a Child, Grand Child, Marriage, Birthday or Anniversary.
A short note thanking someone for being in your life. Like a friend, waiter, waitress, pharmacist, checkout person. (Pause)
This ministry ......Epiphany Mustard Seed Ministry....... is as small as a Mustard Seed but it is a powerful step and I promise will transform your life.
It seems to me as we reach out to those around us that the faithful at Epiphany will also be transformed.
If even fifteen will do this over this ten week period we will touch the lives of three hundred souls in our community.
If we all step forward into this ministry we will clearly be known as a fellowship of grace that truly loves and cares about the people in their community.
I foresee a new freshness in who we are as a people; a fellowship that is held together by the love of Christ.
After the service those who are willing please fill out the form on the table near the entrance, so I know who is involved and pick up a package which includes twenty cards and twenty stamps and a short write up concerning the ten week outreach.
I believe that God will give you abundant opportunities to share his love.
And the eyes of your soul will soon begin to be transformed. You will truly be a blessing and in turn be blessed.
The biggest obstacle to any ministry is ourselves. (Pause)
But if we are willing to let Christ transform us then there is little to hold us back.
We are Epiphany the light of grace in our community (Pause) I know it, you know it and together through God's grace we can let the Ligonier community both know it and feel it.
May you be a blessing and in Turn be Blessed.
Amen and Amen!
Help: I retired in November 2017 and am attempting to supplement my income by sharing on Sermoncentral. If this Message has been helpful to you, please consider a nominal gift: Send to The Rev. Jeff Smead 11725 Regent Park Drive Chardon Ohio 44024. Blessed To Be A Blessing.
Much of the information in this homily was from a book by Philip Yancey What's so Amazing About Grace I highly recommend adding this to your library. Zondervan Publishing House 1997. ISBN 0-310-21327-4
Dear Reader: So I can better help you, if this Homily was not helpful and you rated it low, Please let me know what it lacked or why it was not helpful. You can search by contributor Smead (Constructive Criticism is very helpful) and contact me there. Blessings.
