• "Grace"
• Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity
• July 24, 2005
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

One way to approach the Liturgy of the Word is to compare the epistle and gospel and look for common, or contrasting, themes. At first glance, today's lessons seem mostly to contrast. The gospel (Luke 15:11f. BCP 201) tells us the warm story of the reunion of a wayward son with his father. The epistle (1 Corinthians 10:1f., BCP 201) gives a rather stern warning not to be disobedient as Israel was in the wilderness.

The lessons connect on the theme of grace. We use the word grace in two distinct ways. Grace is the strength or power God gives us that enables us to rise above the limitations of our fallen nature and do the will of God. The word grace is also used in a general way to describe God's love for us as sinners. God loves us even though we have not and cannot do anything to merit that love. As Romans says, "God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (5:8).

The gospel is about God's unmerited love for us. The son, who demanded his inheritance and then wasted it in riotous living, deserved rebuke and chastisement. Instead, when the son returned, the father welcomed him with open arms, not mentioning a word about his transgression.

In fact, when the son was "yet a great way off" the father ran to meet him and kiss him. I am told that in the near eastern culture it was beneath the dignity of a father to run. God's love for us does not conform to human notions of propriety.

This story illustrates that God loves us in spite of our sin and is ready to welcome us back into his family when we repent. This is the central message of the gospel. God has provided atonement for our sins on the cross. Now he calls us to return to him.

We know this as a point of theology, but there is a part of us that doesn't quite believe we qualify for grace. We hear about the prodigal, the woman caught in adultery whom Jesus forgave, the transformation of Mary Magdalene and others; but, somehow, we think that our sins are different.

Our resistance to grace is rooted in pride. We may not want the free gift of God's love because we would rather earn it. Or we may think that our sins are too bad to be forgiven. The devil adds his "amen" to both of these human attitudes.

You will not understand the good news that comes to us through Jesus Christ until you know two things: First, you have fallen short, in manifold ways, of living up to God's perfect will for your life. And, second, God loves you and forgives you anyway. You can resist and even reject the love of God. But there is nothing you can do to change the fact of God's love for you, sinner though you are.

But what happens next? What is our response to the grace of God? What does God want and expect from us? He wants us to respond to his love with love. The story of the sinful woman in chapter seven of St. Luke's gospel illustrates this. She was a woman of ill repute who had come to experience God's love in the ministry of Jesus. In response, she entered the house where Jesus was dining with a group of respectable religious people and began to anoint and kiss the feet of Jesus. Jesus said of her: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little" (Luke 7:36-50).

She who was forgiven much, who was loved by God in an extravagant way, responded with extravagant love. But people who do not grasp the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of God respond to God's love in measured and paltry ways.

The epistle today speaks of just such an inadequate response to grace. Israel was saved by God from slavery in Egypt. The people experienced God's undeserved love in the Passover deliverance, in the Red Sea waters, in the wilderness manna and in the water that God gave them from the rock. But St. Paul says, "With many of them God was not well pleased." Why? They responded to the unmerited love and grace of God with idolatry and sexual immorality; with a lack of faith and murmuring. Severe consequences befell them for their unfaithfulness.

St. Paul tells us that the story of Israel is written for our admonition. We, like Israel, have been the recipients of grace upon grace: In the cleansing water of baptism, in the spiritual food of the body and blood of Jesus, in the answers to countless prayers offered in time of need, in God's sovereign ordering of the events of our lives in ways we never requested.

We come each week to altar of God not having done all that ought to have been done the past week; not having loved in all the ways we should have loved; having, perhaps, fallen again in some habitual way. When we come to the altar of God we discover that Jesus is Really Present for us again to forgive and cleanse us, to feed and strengthen us. We come each week as prodigals to discover that the fatted calf-or, better, the lamb-has been slain and the party is waiting for us.

Our habitual experience of God's grace can lead to two possible responses. One is that we might become callous to it and presume upon it. The message that God loves us in spite of our sins and welcomes us when we return might be seen as a license to continue to live a faithless and disobedient life as though God were an overindulgent parent who will never hold us accountable. The epistle warns us against this attitude, "Take heed that ye stand lest ye fall."

The other possible response to grace is that we might be continually changed by it. The experience of love might transform us into new people who begin to love God and others with the same love with which we have been loved.

The parable concludes in an open ended way. There was a great feast, with music and dancing. But what happened next to the son who was so warmly welcomed home? Was he faithful ever after? Did he wander off again? We add another chapter to the story each week as we leave the altar of God, as recipients of grace, with the vocation "to do all such good works as God has prepared for us to walk in."