The Gift of God -- Sola Gratia -- Grace Alone

Ephesians 2:1-10

October 1, 2017/World Communion Sunday

             I thought I remembered the majority of commercials and ads that Garrison Keillor created on his brilliant radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion”. But I read about one just recently that I either never knew or had completely forgotten. It was for “Mourning Oatmeal.” Mourning as in grieving, not morning as in “morning, y’all!” The tagline to this was “Mourning Oatmeal: it’s like Calvinism in a box.” I guess the reasoning for this kind of ad and this kind of product is that if you were growing up in the harsh winters of the upper Midwest, you would want oatmeal that reminds you of Calvin’s belief that humanity was completely fallen and totally depraved. Why start the day happy and carefree when you’re about to face a world full of cold and snow? So forget that gentle Quaker. Go for Mourning Oatmeal, because it’s like Calvinism in a box.

            Actually, I read about this ad in relation to this passage from Ephesians. It was part of a commentary and the writer compared the first verses of this chapter to Keillor’s oatmeal.

            “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.”

            You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived. You were dead following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, and you know who that ruler is? Satan. And it is his rule that is at work among every person who is disobedient. Every single one of us lived that way, we lived according to our flesh; we followed the desires of our flesh and our senses. We were, at the very core of our being, by our very nature, children of wrath, of anger, of sin, of death.

            Here’s your oatmeal.

            But if these opening verses were the essence of Calvin’s theory of total depravity, then the next verses are explications of God’s grace.

            “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

            But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us…. Those words are the preface to every good thing. Our merciful God, because of his love for us, made us alive in his Son, our Christ. God, who is rich in mercy, abundant in mercy, has saved us not because of what we have done, but because of grace! Out of love for us, because of God’s rich mercy, God has saved us by grace, through grace, because of grace. God has shown us kindness through God’s grace. We have done nothing to deserve it, nothing to earn it. It is not because of any of our works, but because it is God’s gift to us. Our God, who is rich in mercy, has given us this great gift, this tremendous gift, this gift that cannot be adequately described in words, God has given us grace.

            And God has not just given us grace; God has saved us through grace. Remember those first verses? We were not just on life support or living half lives. We were dead. We were completely fallen. We were captives to the wages of sin and to the ruler of the air. We had no true life in us. If we got what we deserved, we would have stayed dead. But that is the funny thing about grace. It isn’t what we deserve. That’s why it’s grace. And I think that’s why we struggle with it. We welcome it when it is given to us, but if we’re honest, it’s harder to swallow when it’s offered to others. And what about what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, “cheap grace?” Is grace just a cure all for whatever we feel like doing?

            Author Michael Horton wrote that he was confronted by Jimmy Swaggart over scripture’s radical gospel of grace. Swaggart told Horton that if he kept trusting in God’s justifying grace that he would just end up living in sin before too long, and then he would lose his salvation and go to hell. Horton wrote that Paul anticipated the religious community of his own time misunderstanding grace in that way as well. If you trust in grace, than you’ll just go out and “live like the dickens.”

            Horton also used an example of Martin Luther. Someone challenged Luther when Luther rediscovered this biblical understanding of justifying grace,

            “If this is true, a person could simply live as he pleased!”

            “Indeed!” Luther answered, “Now what pleases you?”

            As Horton explained, and as other scholars have clarified, grace is not just a cheap cover from God for endless sin. When we receive God’s grace, what pleases us, really pleases us, is living a life that pleases God. That doesn’t mean that we still don’t mess up. But grace opens us – our hearts, our minds, our eyes – to seeing God’s children and God’s world a little more like God sees them. As we receive grace, maybe what pleases us is to be more gracious.

            This is both World Communion Sunday and the first Sunday of October, 2017, the beginning of the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. As you have already read in other places, we are dedicating each Sunday this month to one of the Five Solas of the Reformation. The Five Solas are the five emphases that the reformers lifted up: Grace Alone, Scripture Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone, and To God Alone be the Glory. On this day when Christians around the world gather at table to share the bread and the cup, I can talk and talk about grace or I can tell you a story about what I think grace looks like.

            Reporter Steve Hartman does a series for CBS news called On the Road. It is a series of human interest stories that generally make you feel a little bit better about your fellow humans. One of these stories was about a young high school student named Mitchell in El Paso, Texas.

            Mitchell has a developmental disability, but he LOVES basketball! He has always loved basketball, so although he couldn’t really play for his high school team, he was the manager. His coach and the other teammates clearly cherished him, and on the final game of the season, his coach told him to suit up. Mitchell would have been thrilled just being in uniform, but the coach had a surprise for him. Regardless of the score, his coach was going to let him play in the last minute of the game. Mitchell went in and his teammates did everything to help him get a basket, but nothing was working. He would miss the basket or the ball would go out of bounds. The ball went to a player on the other team. And in the last seconds of the game, when the other player was supposed to throw the ball to his teammates, he called Mitchell’s name, threw him the ball and Mitchell shot and scored. The other player, Jonathan, told Hartman that he was raised to treat others as he would want to be treated. So he wanted Mitchell to have a final shot. It was not a game winning shot. Steve Hartman referred to it as a moment of such sportsmanship that left both teams winners. True. But it seems to me, it was also a moment of grace, a moment not just of pleasing humans, but of pleasing God. It was a moment when the people we were created to be shone through.

            Grace alone covers us, lifts us out of death and darkness. It is God’s gift to us out of God’s rich mercy and abundant love. May we live our lives, today and always, in gratitude for that grace, changed by that grace, and showing that grace to others. Now, what pleases us?

            Let all of God’s grace covered children say “Alleluia!” Amen.