May 8 Sermon: Grace
Family of God
May 8, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Ephesians 2:1-10
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Many of the best-selling books in our culture are in the “self-help” genre. We browse the shelves at Barnes and Noble, scanning books that promise us better lives, healthier self-esteem; and it’s no wonder: we live in a culture that can tear us down. Celebrity culture emphasizing a cookie-cutter standard of personal appearance and success based on weight and wealth; kids being bullied for not wearing the right clothes or dating the wrong person; commercials telling us our happiness will be based on how much we buy.
We watch the news and doubt who we are in the world and what our role should be—from the Royal wedding, prizing a fairytale life based on wealth, imperialism, and heteronormativity …. to the very grave news of the death of Osama bin Laden, causing some of us to cheer, others to be angry or sad, many of us with contradictory emotions wrapped up together, in tension. Bringing up the broken structures of war, violence, and terror.
How are we to achieve a worthwhile life in the midst of such a broken world? How are we to respond?
So we find ourselves picking up books like:
10 Simple Solutions for Building self-esteem: How to end self-doubt, gain confidence, and create a positive self-image.
The power of self-coaching: The five essential steps to creating the life you want
And when we need to put pen to paper: The self-esteem workbook.
We scan Amazon.com late at night, hoping for some author to give us the secret to happiness. We come across titles such as:
When am I going to be happy? How to break the emotional bad habits that make you miserable.
There are specific titles for women: The courage to be yourself: A woman’s guide to emotional strength and self-esteem;
(one that was written for someone like me): Women who worry too much: How to stop worry and anxiety from ruining relationships, work, and fun.
The authors of these books are trying to help us help ourselves, in order to get us happy and grounded with healthy self-esteem. Their advice is manageable and doable—in five and 10 step, measurable chapters. There are even the accompanying workbooks. Practical guides to help us love ourselves. There are many forces in our culture that are against us, and so these guides multiply to help us be for us.
And then we come to church, hoping for another dose of self-esteem building, and hear this letter to the Ephesians. Shockingly, Paul isn’t doing anything to improve our self-esteem this morning.
Listen again to what he tells us about our very nature as human beings:
We are dead, trespassing, sinners.
We follow a spirit of worldly power and fall to disobedience.
We live among the passions of the flesh. We, like everyone else on the planet, are children of wrath.
Nothing about this makes us feel good. If he were alive today, he’d be the worst self-help author around. I doubt he’d even be able to find a publisher. A book entitled: 10 reasons you’re a child of wrath isn’t going to fly off the bookshelves.
Happy Mother’s day, mom! I got you this book about how we’re all evil. Enjoy!
Of course, though Paul begins with the ways we’re broken, he doesn’t end there. He goes onto name how we’ve been made whole:
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.
What a gift! In the midst of our brokenness, our sinfulness, our proclivity to trespass, God pours out immeasurable grace upon us.
In the face of a turned upside down world, Paul only has one piece of advice for us; not 10, not 5, just 1: By grace you have been saved!
Sheepishly we ask: That’s it, Paul? It’s good news, but harder to respond to when we’re used to operating in a world of checklists and steps and color-coded calendars of progress. How does grace help us, in tangible and measurable ways?
What about our self-esteem? When we feel fat in our new pants, or guilty for cheating, or shame for past abuse…
Is grace really the answer?
Paul’s resounding answer is: Yes! Grace is the answer.
He tells us: 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.
This is not your own doing; Another title that wouldn’t make it very far in today’s market:
Not Your Own Doing: A Grace-filled Life
God’s answer to our brokenness is that we don’t have to do anything to be whole. How’s that for our self-esteem?
We’re not perfect, as humans, but we are perfectly loved. No matter what we do or don’t do.
I’m all for self-growth, journeying, etc…I see my counselor faithfully each week and recommend therapy to others. Part of what it means to be born into a broken world is that we need to name the broken places, why, where, how and discover a path towards wholeness…We play a part in our mental and spiritual health, taking real steps to grow…
But what’s dangerous about the self-help genre is that it implies we can and do walk this journey on our own; that we are in complete power; in control of our own destinies.
If our self-esteem is based on what we can or can’t do on our own, then we’re in trouble; because our self-worth is not based on anything we control, but on the good news that we are indeed God’s beloved children. Created by and for grace. Unconditionally loved and chosen before we were even born. If we need counseling and reading and support groups to help us know and believe this truth of our worth, then all the better.
This news can be unsettling to a world that tells us we need to do x, y, and z to be loved. That if we can master and control our surroundings, we’ll find happiness. God shatters these lists and loves and restores us to wholeness in Jesus Christ, regardless of our lists and our actions. It’s all pure gift, grace.
And yet, God also creates us with agency and free will. So how do we receive grace, unmerited and unreserved, and also live good, whole, and healthy lives in the world?
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had a distinctive theology of grace that continues to shape who we are as United Methodists today. He names three stages of grace:
The first is prevenient grace: This is the grace that comes before us and claims us before we can know or name it for ourselves. Prevenient grace precedes our understanding, knowing, or response to God. This is why we baptize infants in The United Methodist Church—the baptismal waters are an outward and visible sign of the grace that surrounds us before we can even recognize it or claim it for ourselves. The babies are claimed by God before they can know or claim God.
The second stage is justifying grace: as we grow into our faith and our discipleship, we recognize this grace of God that surrounds us. We also recognize that we are broken and sinful; we realize we’re not perfect. And yet, no matter what we’ve done, God loves us unconditionally and forgives us, as pure gift. As grace. Justification prompts a change in a person’s heart and marks a new beginning in his or her Christian life. When we recognize our sin, God reaches out and assures us that we are forgiven. Wesley’s understanding of justification was born out of biblical study but also his own experience.
The final stage is sanctifying grace; sanctification meaning: to be made holy. Sanctification empowers our response to God’s grace. Once we know we are surrounded by such love, we can’t help but share God’s love with the world. So we do this by living lives of mercy and justice. John Wesley visited those in prison, prayed with the sick, established schools, fed the hungry.
But we don’t live lives of love in order to earn grace or love; we share this love as a response to grace.
So, it turns out, there are things we do; not to be loved, but to share love.
And this is what Paul writes at the end of this passage: For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
So how are we, as Christians, to respond to a world that is beyond our control?
With good works. With sanctification; acts of holiness.
On this mother’s day, much is out of our control: we can’t control how our mothers treated us when we were children; we can’t control the past when we weren’t perfect parents; we can’t control our own reproductive systems.
But by the grace of God, we can know and believe that we are loved, no matter what. We can respond with good works: seek a path to adoption; pray for our mothers; advocate for healthy labor practices across the world.
As we face a world of terror and wars, much is out of our control.
But we can know and believe that we are loved, as is every person on the planet, created with grace. And in response we can act accordingly: praying for peace; rejoicing that victims of violence are reconciled with God, advocating for stricter gun control laws.
We can know and believe that our self-worth isn’t wrapped up in our appearance or financial situation or whether we’re partnered. That contentment won’t come with illusory happiness. We can desire a different life, and even put steps in place to change our circumstances in the ways we can. But ultimately, at the root of who we are is our name beloved, spoken by God.
And whatever else the world takes from us, this never changes.
By grace, we can be the body of Christ, for each other and for the world.
In all that we do, we are called to respond with the triumphant Easter message that life wins. We have been saved from death. Saved by Jesus. Saved by grace.
May we live accordingly, in response to this good news.
Thanks be to God, Amen.
Tags: Kate
