Grace in the Plural--July 17, 2020

"Grace in the Plural"--July 17, 2020

“For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2:14) 

The thing about grace is that it cuts both ways. 

In the end, that’s a good thing, but it can also make us squirm uncomfortably in our seats, too, in the mean-time. 

Here’s what I mean. Everybody likes the me-side of the grace equation. Everybody likes to sing about how grace was “amazing” for “a wretch like me.” It’s great to know that even when I was a mess, and even when I still am a mess, Jesus loves me through it all, and has forgiven me and accepts me. In other words, when grace is a first-person-singular experience (grace for me, welcome for me, a new start for me), I’m all for it. 

But if grace is what allows me know God has put away the failures of my past, then—and here’s the hard part—grace also gathers in other people into the mercy of God… even people I don’t know, or don’t like, or don’t want to see forgiven. Grace includes people whose politics I don't like, whose experience is very different from mine, whose tastes, preferences, family situations, and loves are different from what I know.  Grace includes people for whom I have lost respect... and grace includes people who have lost respect for me.  Grace includes rule-followers who kindly and dutifully do all that is asked of them because they care about the well-being of their neighbors, and grace includes the selfish stinkers who think the rules don't apply to them and want to revel in their stupidity. Whether I like it or not, grace includes, and keeps on including, people in every direction. Grace tells me that I have been brought into the family of God, not by my earning but because of God’s overflowing kindness—and that means that grace is bringing in other people, too, regardless of whether they meet with my approval. I don’t have to like someone in order for God to love them. 

Grace isn’t just first-person singlular (me), but second person (you), and third person (them, too!). And frankly, that can be difficult for… me. 

It’s more “fun” to be the returned prodigal son, reveling in the abundant mercy of a forgiving and generous dad, than to see ourselves cast as the older stick-in-the-mud son who wants to poop the party because he doesn’t think his younger brother is worthy of all the attention at his homecoming. But that’s the thing about grace—if grace is what “will lead me home,” as the song says, then everybody else who’s there in glory will be there by that same grace, whether I would have let them in or not. 

That brings the humbling reminder that grace is Christ’s gift to give, not my personal get-out-of-jail card for me and me alone. Jesus doesn’t have to ask my permission before he welcomes in a Zaccaheus, or a Matthew the tax collector, or an anonymous Samaritan woman who can’t seem to settle down, or self-important Martha, or skeptical Thomas, or blowhard Peter, or insecure Paul. That puts each of us in our place—and it also, at the very same time, is what makes a place for each of us at the table. I can’t help but offer welcome to you here in the family of God, because God has welcomed me the same way. That might be tough, but it is also such a source of comfort, too. 

This is the key to what it means that Christ Jesus is our peace. Not merely that he taught to live in peace. Not merely that he made a helpful suggestion that we try our best at being peaceful. Not even that Jesus can give us a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that will make us like each other better and therefore be more agreeable. But Jesus is our peace, because only a Lord who rules by grace can make us able to welcome one another. 

If I am still stuck in the old me-and-my-group-first mentality, I will be always comparing myself to the next person, trying to edge them out, get a better spot or ranking than they have, acquire more, do more, etc. And when that happens, I cannot really be at peace with anyone around me—they will always be threats to me getting enough of what I want. But Jesus makes peace because he breaks the old ‘earn your way’ thinking by grabbing a hold of all of us apart from what we deserve and simply on the basis of his choosing to love us when we didn’t earn it. There’s no comparing anymore between me and you. There’s no need for fear that if you’re in the group then my place is threatened. There’s no more pretending that I’m “in” with God because I have the right heritage or do the right deed or even that I have memorized the correct set of religious facts. 

For the Christians in Ephesus, who came from Jewish and Gentile (anybody who wasn’t Jewish) backgrounds, all of this was very real and very important. Each side, each group, had to come to the point of admitting they were there, not because of their own religious accomplishments, but by grace. And once they could accept it about their group, they realized that Jesus had given the same gift of welcome to the others. He was their peace. 

The same is true for us: because Jesus has claimed each of us, regardless of our actions, Jesus really is our peace. That’s good news for me… but not just me. 

O Christ our Lord, give us the joy to see not only ourselves, but the whole Christian community, caught up in Jesus our Light. Amen