WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO GRACE?

A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk

Harundale Presbyterian Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland

June 30, 2002

Text: “since you are…under grace.” (Romans 6:14)

First Reading: Genesis 22:1-14

Matthew 10:40-42

It doesn’t take much to see what’s going on. Read the newspaper on any given day and, if you have any predilection at all for Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ series, Left Behind, it seems as though things are falling into place quite nicely. The corporate financial world’s a mess. The courts now tell the American public that they can’t say The Pledge of Allegiance with “one nation under God” in it. The Israeli/Palestinian crisis only seems to be getting worse. Some think Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is the devil incarnate. More and more people fear that the third world war will originate in the Middle East. Quite a few of them have told me they are just waiting for the tenth book, The Remnant, to appear as the Antichrist prepares for the last battle.

Here in this country there’s growing concern that the United States is becoming too diverse. European Americans will soon no longer be in the majority. I just returned from Southern California. Last Saturday evening when I returned to the Pasadena Hilton, where I was staying, four ballrooms were busy with events. I couldn’t understand a word that was spoken. Each ballroom of people was speaking a different language, none of them English. There’s alarm at Islam being the fastest growing religion in America, and what that means for Christians who believe Jesus Christ to be the sole means of salvation. The Roman Catholic Church is in a financial dilemma with countless lawsuits being filed against Dioceses throughout the country. Organized religion doesn’t command the same respect it once did.

So, it all comes down to the possibility that LaHaye and Jenkins may be right and that we’re heading for “the end times.” But before we get there let’s discuss some behavior modifications we may need to make for those of us who may be left behind. The first has to do with Paul’s letter to the Romans and our Scripture reading this morning. To paraphrase a bit it seems as though God has accomplished a great deal on our behalf. Through God’s grace sin no longer has dominion over us. Through God’s grace we have been “right-wised.” That is Christ has come along and done for us what we were unable to do for ourselves. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our life, which had heretofore been at odds with God’s will for us in the creation, has now been made aright. We can therefore present ourselves to God as instruments of righteousness. Through God’s grace we are also sanctified. That is to say, the end is in sight and what we see is eternal life. Paul says it himself; “The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, from God’s point of view, God went to great lengths to secure for us what God intended from the very beginning. From our point of view everything that we have, everything that we are, everything that we may become is due to God’s grace. That is, unless we continue as Paul says to be indebted to sin. Then Paul is quite clear. We can’t serve two masters. Either we will be completely obedient to God and enjoy life, or we will follow our own instincts and be subject to death.

Along comes Abraham. We’ve heard how God expects a great deal from Abraham. He’s to go where God calls him. He hears how God will give Sarah a son, even though she’s in her dotage. Now that Isaac is born, suddenly we hear that God expects Abraham to sacrifice his only son. From our point of view that doesn’t make sense. But, our point of view doesn’t matter. It’s God’s point of view that matters, and what God seeks is Abraham’s obedience, which is what Abraham does without questioning. As a result Isaac is spared and both he and his father go down the mountain together as though nothing happened. When we know that everything happened. Abraham did as God told him to do and as a result Abraham went on to become the father of a mighty people.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes God’s grace as “peculiar,” the “extraordinary in life,” or the “unusual.” (The Cost of Discipleship, page 136.) When you think about it, from what Paul describes and what Abraham went through with Isaac, Bonhoeffer’s definition is pretty close. God’s grace occurs in those peculiar situations, those times that are out of the ordinary and unusual to what we would consider our normal routines.

This past weekend there was one particularly graceful moment for me. As Marie told you I was in Southern California. The primary reason for the trip was a phone call I received in February. When I was an associate pastor in my first church in San Gabriel, California we had 47 kids in the youth group. It was during the sixties and we did some daring things in those days. Well, one of those kids, Mark Minor, remembered some of the things we did and wanted to get as many of those 47 people together for a reunion. He had already contacted about 30 of them and many expressed a willingness to get together. Most of us hadn’t seen each other in 34 years. The date was set for last Saturday and sixteen of them gathered along with two of their advisors and myself. It was a wonderful experience after all those years to remember the times we had and how we grew in the faith the five years we were together.

Looking back, we were probably pretty peculiar, or at least extraordinary. It must have been God’s grace that brought us back together last Saturday. But what was particularly graceful for me was when after lunch one of the girls took me aside and thanked me for making her feel so much a part of the group back in 1965. Her brother had been a prisoner of war in Hanoi during the Vietnam War and she was having a difficult time with her faith. The usual questions, how could God allow this war to happen? Why did my brother have to be shot down and in a prisoner of war camp? Was he ever going to come home and in what shape would he be? We’d talked about all those things during our youth group meetings and those discussions must have helped her, not so much with answers, but just knowing she could ask the questions. After the war her brother did come home and she and he wrote a book about their experiences, his in the prisoner of war camp and hers what she went through during his absence.

We never know what impact we’ll have on people’s lives, but by God’s grace we may show the love of God in even the peculiar, the extraordinary and the unusual ways God claims for us. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have brought a lot of excitement to countless people who’ve read their books. But I don’t think we ought to concern ourselves too greatly with when the rapture will occur or whether or not we’ll be left behind. The behavior modification Paul calls us to make is to align ourselves with God’s will in all that we do right here and now. Each day we are to be the peculiar ones in society, the ones who’ll go to extraordinary means to help people, the ones who’ll take unusual steps to walk with those in need. When, like Abraham, we put that kind of complete trust in God to guide us, then God’s grace will be the source of all that we think, do and feel.

Thanks be to God,

Amen