John, author of the Fourth Gospel, begins with a beautiful hymn about the Word of God. Towards the end of the hymn, there is a tiny phrase tucked in there. But this tiny phrase possesses immense wisdom and I would like to focus on it with you today. John wrote, "From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace."
Grace upon grace.
It is hard for me to admit this but I think that, after almost twenty years as a priest, I am only just beginning to understand what the word grace means. I remember speaking to a Methodist Sunday school at my father-in-laws church right after I was ordained. An elderly gentleman raised his hand after my talk. "Yes?" I asked him. "Thank you for your talk," he said, " but what I really want to know is this, 'How do you feel about grace?'"
Well, the truth was that I felt nothing about grace. Grace hadn't really occurred to me at all. For me, leading a church was all about bringing in new people and making sure that the parishioners were growing in their spiritual lives, if that is at all possible. I had no concept of grace at all. I was approaching my ministry as a good workaholic New Englander. Work your tail off and make sure attendance is always increasing. If you struggle, pray harder, give more. Earn your way to pleasing God. So when this Methodist man asked me about grace, I thought, "Those darned Methodists! They are always talking about these sweet Christian words that don't really mean anything at all."
But his question bothered me and my lack of ability to answer it bothered me. I began to notice how much the Bible talks about grace. Paul talks about it today in his letter to the Galatians. In fact, Paul began almost all of his letters with the words, "Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and The Lord Jesus Christ." And St John writes, "We have seen his glory, the glory of a fathers only son, full of grace and truth." Full of Grace. I had to admit, there might be something essential to this word, grace. So I began to pray about it, think about it, read about it. And here is what I learned.
There are two ways to look at your life. You can see yourself as a sinner trying to earn your way to God-that is the first perspective. If you see yourself this way, then you work hard to try to please God. You are constantly trying to do better, be a better friend, spouse, parent, to do the very best job you can at work and at home. You try hard to say your prayers and come to church and manage your life. And you probably suffer from anxiety and a sense of inadequacy. When something goes wrong in your life and there is a mess, you blame yourself and try harder.
There is another way to live, though, another way to see your life. You can try to absorb the fact that you are a new creation, made anew by God at your baptism. You are beloved and good and you are even made perfect through God's grace. There is nothing that you can do to earn God's love. It has already been given to you. This is the grace perspective and it is hard to absorb but it is the true identity of every Christian and a path to joy and peace. It is not your job to earn God's love, rather you are to surrender to God's love and let Christ live in and through you.
When I was in college, a hypnotist came to do a performance on a Friday night. He hypnotized four of my classmates. When they were under, he told them that each one of them would wake up convinced that he or she was an animal. Then he woken them up. I'll never forget that my friend Matthew was among them. He woke up convinced that he was a rooster. He ran all around the auditorium crowing at the top of his lungs! Another girl was a cat and kept trying to crawl on people's laps. I laughed so hard that my side was sore the next day. When the hypnotist broke the spell and my friends truly woke up, they went to their seats puzzled and shy. And later, when we told them how they acted, they were really embarrassed. Matthew's face turned bright red, like the rooster's comb that sticks out from the top of its head.
My friends acted like animals because they were hypnotized into believing a lie about their identities. When they were taken out of the trance and experienced reality, they began to act like the people that they really were.
You are holy. God made you holy by grace. But the world will hypnotize you into thinking that not only are you inadequate but that you must try to make up for your inadequacy by trying to prove your worth. Christians fall into this trap when we try to succeed at our faith and try to please God. You must earn grace, that's what so many believe. But grace cannot be earned. It has already been given. It pours down upon us like that beautiful piece of art that hangs in Talliaferro. Someone who feels inadequate and is constantly trying to earn God's favor will be always on the defensive. But someone who understands what grace really is will understand the depth of God's love and will then be able to go on the offensive, to be creative, to be truly alive.
Imagine that a King decided that he was doing to pardon and free all prostitutes. If you were a prostitute, this would come as great news! It would liberate you. But would you change your behavior? Maybe, maybe not.
But what if they King then took you as his wife? Would you change your behavior then? Absolutely, for your were given a better identity, something to become. When you were baptized, your sins were forgiven, but you were also made the bride of Christ. Your whole identity was altered. There is no longer a need to earn salvation. God has married you. You went from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. Now all that you have to do is spread your wings.
The grace perspective begins when you realize that you have nothing to prove and instead you allow God's love to live in and through you. We do not do good words to earn God's kudos. We do good works because they flow from us naturally, because it is who we are. It is the truth about you and me. We are full of grace and truth.
I wish I could go back to that Methodist Church. I would tell the old man that it took me twenty years to begin to understand what his question meant. And I would thank him for asking.
