During a conference on World Religions, scholars were debating what belief, if any, was unique to the Christian faith. They agreed that it wasn’t morality, or compassion, or a belief in judgement and an afterlife. Other great religions included those same teachings. So the question was whether there was anything especially distinctive about Christianity that set it apart. The discussion was in full force when the Christian writer C.S. Lewis entered the room. “What’s the rumpus about?” he asked. When they told him, he said, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”
He was right. And, in fact, grace isn’t just a unique teaching, it’s the heartbeat and lifeblood of our faith. It’s the essence of it all. This is very clearly illuminated in Paul’s majestic letter to the Ephesians:
“Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (vss. 4-10)
We’re saved only by God’s grace, received through faith alone, and not by any of our own good works. Our salvation is all about grace, from beginning to end. But what is this essential spiritual quality called grace? How well do we understand grace and its role in our lives?
Grace is love in its highest form, love as a pure gift. It’s the quality of kindness in love, its mercy, that doesn't have to be earned or deserved. Grace is the essence of love, that saves us when nothing else can.
We see reflections of God’s grace in the natural order: in the love of parents and grandparents; in the faithfulness of a spouse committed to the marriage “for better or worse;” in the heart of a good friend, who “knows us very well and loves us anyway;” in the generous grade of a teacher who spares us from our fear of failure.
Although Jesus never actually used the word “grace,” he shared stories that highlighted its importance in the Kingdom of God: a loving father’s passionate joy in welcoming home a wayward son, the sacrificial kindness of a compassionate Samaritan, or the blessing of rain falling on both good and evil alike. And one of his favorite images of grace was that of a feast to which everyone is invited, rich and poor,
A contemporary version of that story happened in Boston about twenty years ago. An engaged couple booked their wedding reception at the downtown Hyatt hotel, and after choosing all of their china, silver and flower arrangements for the tables, they left a check for half the amount, which came to $6500. But on the very day the announcements were going to be mailed, the groom got cold feet and said he wasn’t sure he was ready.
When his angry fiancee returned to the Hyatt to cancel the banquet, the events manager was entirely sympathetic. She even told the story of her own broken engagement. But she was nonetheless unable to refund the deposit, according to the terms of their contract. She could only return $1300, a fraction of their down payment.
It so happened, however, that ten years previously the would-be bride had been living in a homeless shelter herself, and the more she thought about it, the more excited she became about the idea of putting that money towards providing a feast for the less fortunate in the city of Boston.
She changed the menu to boneless chicken--”in honor of the groom,” she said--and sent invitations to the city’s rescue missions and homeless shelters. When that evening came, Boston had never seen anything like it: Hyatt waiters in tuxedos served exotic appetizers to ragtag senior citizens on walkers; and people who were used to foraging dumpsters for half-eaten pizza feasted on chicken cordon bleu, sipped champagne, ate rich wedding cake and danced to big band music late into the night. It was an “all are welcome” banquet, and a celebration worthy of the Gospel of grace.
And, of course, Jesus’ own life itself was the supreme illustration of grace: the embodiment of the saving love and mercy of God offered to purely as a gift. All of us are loved just as we are, with a perfect, unconditional and unchanging love. And the cross of Christ stands as the ultimate expression of the reality and depth of that love.
Our only response is to allow this truth to soak into our hearts and become part of us. But the problem for us is that grace is something so foreign and so outside of our worldly experience that it requires a transformation of our minds, a completely new frame of reference to live by. Grace is miraculous. According to the world, there’s no free lunch, and all of our actions have consequences. But none of that matters when it comes to grace, because by definition it expresses the quality of love that doesn’t need to be earned or deserved.
In the King James translation of the Old Testament there are two elegant expressions used that capture the essence of God’s grace: “lovingkindness” and “tender mercies.” Those terms describe the spirit of grace very well: the kindness, tenderness and mercy of God’s love at the very heart of our salvation.
I’m sure that’s also why the Apostle Paul wrote so much about grace all throughout his letters to the churches, and why he began and ended every one of his letters with a benediction of grace. Grace is our spiritual lifeblood. But the great tragedy is that so many Christians don’t really grasp that truth or believe it deeply enough, and instead we spend our lives trying to justify ourselves in God’s sight and in the eyes of other people. That misses the whole point of how and why we’ve been saved: to be transformed by this miraculous love, and to reflect it in the witness of our lives.
Because the gift of grace isn’t meant only for us; it’s also intended to be shared. As we allow it to transform our hearts, we’ll become grace-filled people who live out that same spirit of kindness and mercy to others. As this passage says, (v. 10), this saving grace is the gift of God, not the result of our own efforts. Instead, our lives are God’s workmanship, and any good we’ll do is only because of God’s grace flowing through us. Our most Christ-like actions are the result of that kindness and mercy alive in our spirits.
Robert Webber was a professor of worship at Wheaton College. He’d been raised in a devout, but quite rigid, Christian home. In his adult life he still carried vestiges of his earlier legalistic conditioning--as he discovered one evening while attending an Episcopal service. While standing in line to receive the Eucharist, he couldn’t help noticing the slightly sour, fruity smell of whisky in the air. And it didn’t take him long to discover its source: the man directly in front of him, was also swaying slightly.
Webber felt a strong sense of indignation about this, enough so that afterwards he called the rector aside. He let him know that he was offended, not only that the man had come to worship in that condition, but especially that he’d received the Eucharist in such an unworthy state. He expressed himself passionately, and thought he’d made his case in no uncertain terms.
The rector saw it very differently, however, and he responded with just as much passion and conviction, even putting his finger in Webber’s chest as he told him, “You have a very important lesson to learn, my friend. You need to understand that the church isn’t a country club for saints; it’s a hospital for sinners.”
Webber said that statement floored him. He'd never really understood the church in that way. And it caused him to reexamine his theology of worship, and of grace, as he took that rebuke to heart. It provided one of the great epiphanies of his life, and one that carried over to his teaching on the nature of the church. (And to finish the story, the man eventually found help for his drinking problem and became a blessing to that parish as a devout, active layman--which only further drove home that truth: “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints.”)
This core truth of God’s saving grace--his kind, tender, merciful love--has two parts, equally important: 1) First, that we grow in our understanding and experience of the miracle of God’s grace (which has to happen before we can share it with anyone else). 2) But then, that we also live out that same spirit of kindness and mercy towards others. It’s a two-fold process, like breathing in and breathing out: we need to do both, to receive this beautiful gift of God, and to share it freely.
Amen.
