What Grace Looks Like

When living in Scotland, I was invited to attend the retirement party of a woman named Ruth.  Ruth attended the church where I was interning, but I hadn’t met her other than brief handshakes.  My friend Liz, who would be playing the fiddle, invited me as her guest.

But it was Ruth who as the hostess showed me what lived grace looks like to a stranger in a strange land.

This was Ruth’s night, but she took me literally by the hand and told the stories of her work life as a midwife to me.  When she referred to people, well-known to everyone else in the room, she had them stand up so I could know who they were.

In every way, Ruth reached out to me and drew me into the circle of friendship and love surrounding her on her night.  It was about her, but she managed to include me.

That’s grace: including.

God includes us just like Ruth included me.

Violence Was Jesus' Problem, Not His Solution

Jesus is not a terrorist, but we make him out to be one
we insist that the cross was foreordained by God
that Jesus/God decreed that not only would God die, but that God’s followers would too
die violently
on a cross
a torturers rack
in an explosion of violence

Why?
Because, we say, nothing else would do
human sin is so great
that only this death will suffice

we say that Jesus had to die this way

as if Jesus/God dying wasn’t sufficient to ‘atone’ for the sins of humanity
as if death itself wasn’t at the heart of the matter
after all, what original sin gave the world was death
what the cross took away was death

did the manner of Jesus’ death have to be violent?
No
it was, but it didn’t have to be

others have said that it wouldn’t have been ‘enough’ for
Jesus to have died an old man in his bed

why not?
Death, after all, is the ‘it’ Jesus came to free us from
by taking on death, Jesus frees us from death

wouldn’t any death have done?
Violent death captures our imaginations

but is that not simply evidence that our imaginations are as corrupt as our bodies?  As our world?

Death, you see, is our bogey man
most won’t die on the torturer’s rack
but all will die

and that is our existential crisis
our collective holocaust reality -
we will all cease

even earth itself will cease
with the death of our sun
will come the winter of no existence

every old man dying in bed is just as pain-filled
just as afraid
as the man dying on the cross

and at the end, one is not more dead than the other

so why do we insist that Jesus had to die by the torturers’ hands?

Why do we glorify torture?
Why do we find such ghastly beauty in the dance of the macabre?

I am not scholar or theologian enough to even ponder these things
let alone speak them well

all I can say is that

Jesus was no terrorist
leading his followers to intentional suicide
in the cause for God

Jesus led his followers in the cause for God
knowing that the reactions of others
might well lead to their untimely deaths by violence

but violence was Jesus’ problem,
not his solution

When Even Heaven is Not Enough

[Cliff Notes version of Sunday's Sermon on Matthew 21.23-32 - Jesus is challenged by the chief priests and elders and gives them a parable about two brothers to chew on]


When I first came to Highland, I went on Map Quest to get directions to Harrisonburg from McDowell, which sent me to Monterey, then to Franklin, West Virginia, and from there, on Rt. 33, to Harrisonburg, almost doubling the distance.  Now, Map Quest would have gotten me there . . . eventually. . . but somewhere in the mountains, I would have begun to wonder if I’d taken a wrong turn and long before I got to Harrisonburg, I probably would have turned around and gone back, believing myself hopelessly lost.
That’s the problem with the view of God and faith as a matter of prescribed rules . . . there are so many rules, so many obstacles, so many ‘long-way-around’ directions that, if you didn’t already know the way, you’d feel yourself hopelessly lost, and, chances are, turn around and go home, giving up any thought of ever getting to “Harrisonburg”, or if you kept at it, you’d be so exhausted by the journey that you’d probably wonder why you even bothered.
From the outset, the chief priests and elders  refuse to believe that they have anything to learn from this Jesus guy.  They understand his object lesson.  It’s obvious.  But instead of repenting, instead of allowing themselves to be changed, instead of even allowing for the possibility of another, easier, way, they react in anger.  By golly, they knew the way to Harrisonburg and nobody was going to tell them any different!
Jesus isn’t tricking the chief priests and elders and he isn’t damning them either.  Notice that Jesus doesn’t say they won’t get into God’s kingdom.  He says that others will get there before them.  It’s a sort of last-ditch shock-therapy approach by Jesus, who is trying, desperately, to move them . . . to turn them . . . to get them to turn themselves in another direction . . . that’s repentance . . .

Turning . . .

Away from the direction of bondage
into the direction of freedom
Away from the direction of self
into the direction of God . . .

One brother changed his mind
the other brother changed
and the chief priests and elders didn’t change at all.

They’re all kingdom-bound.
I wonder if they’ll be happy there.
I wonder if even heaven will be enough.

***

If you'd like to listen to the sermon or read it in its entirety, click on the McDowell Presbyterian link on the right and go to 'Podcast' for the audio or 'Sermon of the Week' for the text.