April 19, 2009 Second Sunday of Easter, Amazing Grace Sunday
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 133; Acts 4:32-35; John 20:19-31
Last fall the confirmation class was struggling to describe the way God works in
the world. Finally someone thought of “the force” in the Star Wars movies, that
mysterious essence that flows through all creation that people can learn to cultivate so
that it guides and empowers them. The idea of the force worked for the confirmands,
and it rings true for many people, because it is based on something real that we can
experience. The Christian name for the real-life force is grace. It may not be quite as
showy or controllable as in Star Wars, but like the force, grace can help us change the
way we and others see things, it can guide us when we are unable to find our way ahead,
it can give us power we did not know we had.
At the end of this sermon we will sing “Amazing Grace,” and this evening we will
see the movie of the same name. But what is grace, and what is so amazing about it?
What does grace do? What does it make us do?
Yoda, Obe Wan Kenobe and the other Star Wars Jedi knights mastered the ways
of the force and used its power to serve the cause of freedom and justice. When I was
growing up the TV show Kung Fu showed Chinese monks using a similar force to do
similar things, and in fact people in this congregation are being trained to draw on that
kind of force in courses on martial arts and tai chi and even, you could say, in yoga.
Christianity has its own version of this. Jesus was certainly a master of it,
drawing on its wisdom, its charisma, its eloquence, its power to heal and empower
others. Some of his disciples and some of his followers in every generation since have
become masters as well. There are stories of great miracles, of monks doing healings or
time travel or reading the hidden truth of souls, but then there are also those whose
powers of grace are less out of the ordinary—people who exude a profound peace,
people who have some measure of wisdom, charisma and eloquence and use it to
change the world.
Yet despite all the evidence of this force we call grace, it is something most
people do not bother to try to master, if they believe in it at all. It is within and
available to everyone, and yet to most people it remains largely unknown.
What is grace? Theologians have offered many definitions over the years.
Around the year 200 Tertullian called grace “divine energy working in the soul.” Four
hundred years later Augustine sometimes referred to grace as the gift of the Holy Spirit
and sometimes as the Holy Spirit itself within us. Almost a thousand years after that, in
the sixteenth century, Martin Luther said that grace is what God does and who God is—
it is God’s being.
Other theologians have observed certain traits in the experience of grace. It
comes as a free gift. We do nothing to earn it. In fact, grace seems to seek out those
who are wayward to turn them, stir them or drive them toward the light. Augustine said
that grace can feel like a restlessness of the heart that does not find rest until we rest in
God. It does not always feel good to us, or make sense, or lead us into comfort or
safety.
We do not earn grace, but we do have to choose it or it will go away. We choose
it by turning to it and trusting in it, by relying on its guidance and power, by giving our
lives over to its care, by seeking to learn its ways.
Once we choose grace, we come to know with absolute certainty that we are
unconditionally loved and forgiven. One theologian calls grace a “transforming
personal influence” that enhances our talents, and gives us new marks of character and
new tasks to do. The Latin word for grace is charis, from which comes the word
charismatic, meaning someone full of grace’s power, and also the word charismata,
meaning the specific gifts that grace gives us. As the Apostle Paul said, there are a
variety of gifts. Each one of us has our own particular set. They are within us to
discover and use and develop. Grace gives us these gifts and also teaches us how to use
them.
The amazing thing about grace is that for all we know about it, there is so much
more we do not know, and when we feel grace take a hold of us, there is so much more
to it than we can comprehend, let alone control. Grace can pick us up by the scruff of
our neck and move us from point A to point Z in one swift motion, or it can change us as
slowly and inexorably as the drip, drip, drip that carves a boulder on the edge of a
waterfall. Humble amazement, gratitude and praise are fitting responses to its higher
power.
What may be most amazing about grace is that if you study it in many lives over
history, you can see patterns in it. You can see an intelligence and a force of will
behind the movements of grace. There appear to be things that it consistently tries to do
in individuals and in the world. It is enough to make you believe there really is a God.
We can see four of these patterns in today’s scriptures and in the hymn and
movie, Amazing Grace. Grace leads toward greater vision and unity. Grace gives us
greater power and peace.
John Newton wrote the line, “I once…was blind, but now I see.” Newton began
opening to God’s grace when the slave ship he was sailing almost sank in a storm. As he
opened himself more to grace, he saw more clearly the evil he was doing. In time it led
him to quit the slave trade and become a minister and hymnodist. The movie is not
primarily about him, but he is a powerful presence in it. Toward the end William
Wilberforce goes to visit him and finds that Newton has become physically blind. At
the same time, he has finally become able to see and confess the full scope of his
wrongs. He has become able at last to weep for the 20,000 ghosts of slaves that haunt
him.
Some versions of the hymn “Amazing Grace” change a key word in the first
stanza. They change “that saved a wretch like me,” to “that saved a soul like me.” The
truth is that one of the first things grace does is show us how wretched we are. It
teaches our heart to fear, as the hymn says. But it also relieves our fear at the same time
by giving us the vision not only of our wretchedness, but of God’s unconditional,
unfailing love and mercy toward us.
A direct result of this change in our vision is to see our unity with others. To see
the truth of our own darkest shadows is to know that we cannot set ourselves apart from
anyone, including the worst of criminals. To see the truth of God’s love for us is to see
that there is no one outside that love, that we are all one in it, including the worst sinner,
our worst enemy or the lowliest creature. We understand then what Psalm 133 means
when it says how good and pleasant it is when we live together in unity. The world will
not be truly good until we do, and neither will we.
Today’s passage in Acts is so full of amazing grace that most people cannot deal
with it. We hear it and get a befuddled look on our face, because we cannot imagine
ourselves selling everything we own and bringing it to the church to be distributed to all
according to their need. Those conservative Christians who cry out in protest at what
they call socialism in the Obama Administration are in complete denial about this
passage. Yet this is what it means to love our neighbor as our self. This is what Christ
commands us to become. Only by the grace of God will we ever come close. When you
look at the work of grace, it is always pushing in this direction. The more we give our
lives over to grace, the more possible it is that this unity and justice will come.
There is a scene in the movie where William Wilberforce comes down to the
kitchen to tell his cook that there will be extra guests for a meal. She bursts into tears.
The butler takes him upstairs and shows him why. He opens a door into a great dining
room and it is overflowing with people of all kinds. Wilberforce had given instructions
to feed everyone in need who came to his door. They came in droves. His house was
also full of wounded or homeless animals. He had what modern developmental
theorists call the highest, universalizing level of faith, able to identify with all people
and creatures with compassion. It led him to help found the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals. It drove him to work for almost fifty years to abolish slavery. It
led him to open up his house to the hungry and hurting. And it drove his cook crazy!
Grace gives us new vision and leads us to unity. It also gives us the different
forms of power we need to fulfill our vision of where our lives need to go and how the
world needs to change. Today’s passage in Acts says, “great grace was upon them all”
as the disciples preached and healed and shared all they had to meet others’ needs. Last
week I quoted the Rev. William Sloane Coffin’s observation that after Christ’s death the
disciples were ten times the people they had been. That transformation was the result of
the grace Christ’s Spirit breathed into them.
In the hymn, John Newton says, “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have
already come; ’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
Grace gave him the power he needed to walk away from the lucrative slave trade, and to
serve as an effective pastor and anti-slavery activist—and to live with his guilt.
Grace increases our spiritual vision, leads us to unity, gives us powers, and then
calls us to join the long struggle to overcome what stands in the way of the world being
more like God’s realm. But there is one other amazing gift of grace, and that is, in the
midst of all the inner and outer struggle it leads us to undertake, it also gives us peace.
Jesus comes through the locked doors and breathes the Spirit of grace into those fearful,
confused disciples, and says “Peace be with you.” He sends them out to suffer
persecution and their own crucifixions, yet in their depths they are profoundly at peace,
and they serve as instruments of peace.
Mother Theresa of Calcutta said that the life of grace feels like being torn to a
thousand pieces, but because every piece belongs to God, underneath the anguish are
freedom, joy and peace. Despite her recently publicized life-long inner anguish, peace
is what she communicated through her presence and what she gave to others—peace,
and the justice that makes for peace.
The best stories in the world are about people who have the courage to choose
the grace that comes to them, who decide to develop the gifts they find within them in
order to fulfill the purpose grace calls them to serve. I am a sucker for movies about
people overcoming all obstacles to fulfill their calling as artists or activists or saints.
One of the purposes of all such stories is to inspire us to want to be the hero of
our own story. That is the purpose of our showing Amazing Grace here tonight. We
hope that the people who watch it will be activated, will be pushed to go more deeply
into the life of grace that Christ calls them to lead. Every one of us has grace-given
powers and every one of us has a calling and our own role to play in the transformation
of the world into God’s realm. But what can we do to become strong in the force of
grace? How can we train to become a master? How can we discern and fulfill our
calling?
The answer is similar whether we look to the fictional Star Wars Jedi or the real
Asian or Christian traditions. The first thing we need is a community of people on the
same path, and a body of teaching that can guide us along the way—a wisdom school or
a community of practice. This is an important part of what a church should be. The
second thing we need, common to all paths, is to learn how to live in relation to the
source of grace within us: how to open to it, how to endure the process of
transformation it will put us through and how to draw on its resources to guide and
empower us—how to trust in the force.
Our Prayer of the Heart offers this kind of training, in the most direct and time-
proven way, but it is not the only way. If you open yourself to grace, it will show you
the way that is right for you. Some people will find that grace propels them into action
for on the job training. Yet all people are commanded, “Be still and know that I am
God.” We all need to learn how to be still at times in order to get to know the source of
vision and unity, power and peace that is found in our deepest center.
Let us turn to that source now, saying yes to it, choosing its grace. Then let us be
still and look deeply into our heart for what grace would have us see. Let us pray in
silence….
Sermon 04/19/2009