Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church
Auburn WA
by Gregory S. Kaurin, pastor
August, 29, 2010; 14th Sunday after Pentecost
Texts: Psalm 112 & Luke 14:1, 7-14
Live Graciously
Grace, mercy and peace be with you from God our Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Before I start, most of you know that last Sunday I was just out of the hospital. My family and I were very aware and thankful for all of your prayers and cards, and I was grateful for Pastor Jon’s visit and prayer with Pauline and me. Turned out that I passed what’s called a bile duct stone, followed by pancreatitis. I’ll never forget after the attempt on President Reagan’s life, everyone was so interested in seeing all the X-rays and images of his insides. So, I brought some color pictures and slides to share… not really.
But again, thank you. These things remind us how lucky we are to have a church family, and to see the signs of God’s grace lived out through your words and actions. And that is what we are called to be: living signs of God’s grace.
While he was here, we know that Jesus was from God because of what? How did he show us that he was from God? …miracles, signs. The disciples were amazed when he showed authority, even over winds and waves. He raised Lazarus as a sign of his authority over death and life.
By looking at Jesus and reading what he said, how he reached out to the outcast and sick, what have we learned about God? God is not the distant, judgmental, angry fisted God. Jesus taught us to pray to him as our loving Father. Jesus’ own actions were the signs of God’s love.
When Jesus saw Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree, and went and ate and spent time with him, Zaccheaus was so inspired and freed, that he announced that he was giving half his possessions to the poor and if he had cheated anyone, he promised to pay them back four times the amount. At that, Jesus announced that “Today, salvation has come to this house.” Did Jesus mean that in return for Zaccheaus’ sudden generosity salvation had come? No, Jesus was pointing to this sudden outpouring of generosity as signs, actions of love, signs of the freedom God had poured into Zaccheaus. God’s grace had inspired Zacchaeus to live graciously. Jesus was saying, "Look! See, salvation has entered this house and transformed it."
In the Bible, Jesus was asked by a rich young man how he might earn his way to heaven, and after reviewing the Ten Commandments, Jesus added one more thing. “Go, sell all you have, give it all to the poor, then follow me.” The young man walked away sadly. We can get so tied up in the money and the extreme thing Jesus was asking of him that we miss what Jesus was trying to do for him. The young man was so focused on himself, his life, his possessions, his soul, his salvation. It was not about his money, but his inaction and a lack of external compassion. "Let it go. Give to someone who needs."
A poor person can be just as self-absorbed and tied to what little he has. Live graciously, freed from being owned by our possessions or lack of them. Freed from fear of losing, or being too gracious with what God has given to us.
I was talking with one of our members, Will Lathrop, just yesterday. We were talking about how life situations or experiences can make us a bit timid, overly cautious, and Will said, “Live in fear, die in fear.” If you live by fear, then you are already dying in fear. Life is a gift. Eternal life and a relationship with God is a license to live joyously, freely, graciously.
One of the great Protestant proclamations: we are saved by…? Grace. Not by our…? Works. In the Bible, the letter of James, however, we sometimes focus on the seeming contradiction. James wrote that “faith without works... is dead.” If we get too distracted by this so-called contradiction, we can miss the consistent description of what those works are throughout his letter. The works that James calls us to do are all actions and signs of our love for others and world. Feed the hungry, give generously, pray for one another. “Be quick to listen,” he wrote, “slow to speak, and slow to anger. Care for the widow and orphan” (James 1:19, 27). He calls that care the height of worship. James summed it up by calling it the Law of Liberty, Freedom, or the Perfect Law. Paul in one of his letters said it this way, “I could have everything; I could do everything else, but without love, I have... nothing.”
Let me be clear, these loving actions are not how we get it or prove that we’ve got it: salvation, a relationship with God. They are signs of that salvation. And, it’s not just about charity, being nice and giving handouts—but about a lifechange, our lifesong, living graciously in the way we work. No one has to “become a pastor, priest, nun, or monk in order to dedicate [your] life to God. What the world needs is people being gracious wherever they work [and live].”
It is a call to allow that compassion to reach out to others. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus was at a dinner watching folks try to jostle their ways up to seats of honor, presuming, angling, and gauging one another as competition. Instead, he suggested another approach. If you assume a more gracious attitude toward others, then you won’t ever have to be embarrassed. And to the hosts, he reminds them of God’s heart for those who weren’t invited at all.
Believe it or not, during her life, Mother Theresa was criticized by other Christians for her willingness to minister and provide care for men, women and children, regardless of who they were, or what they believed, and without insisting on conversion. She answered simply, “We treat all as children of God. They are our brothers and sisters. We show great respect for them.” It is no different than Jesus’ willingness to treat others, like Samaritans and Canaanites, as children of God.
800 years ago, St. Francis of Assisi established his order, saying, “Whoever may come to us, whether friend or foe, a thief or a robber, let him be kindly received. Should there be one anywhere in the world who has sinned, no matter how great, after seeing your face, let him not go away without having shown him mercy.” This doesn’t mean that anything goes, or that everything’s relative, or that it’s time to take down our prisons and dismantle the justice system. It means that even within these, there can be acts of mercy, kindness, human dignity …graciousness.
So, in our own lives, we’ve been saved; we have a relationship with this loving God, our Father through Jesus Christ; How will others know? Through signs, our actions and words--small or large--whenever we are gracious, especially when it’s undeserved and unexpected.
One of the books I read while in the hospital was by a pastor as he discovered the unconditioned love and grace of God, and he began to finally understand that salvation isn’t just about escaping from hell and getting into heaven. Salvation is a loving, growing and deepening relationship with God, and it is played out in the way we live in the world, signs of the grace given and within us, flowing out.
He wrote: “My perspective on the purpose of life changed. Salvation became as a lifelong adventure in which God is gently and patiently drawing us away from self-absorption and toward authentic relationship with God and one another. The point of life was no longer to get saved. The purpose of life was to live graciously.” [Live graciously.]
And later he says, “I’ve committed to living my life in such a way that others are drawn to God. …I was reminded when I was growing up that I might be the only Bible that someone ever reads.” For some people, the first bit of God’s Word they will ever encounter… is us. Let us be gracious words.
In our Psalm lesson that we read responsively, verse 4 reads, “They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright; they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.” Verses 8-9: “Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid; in the end they will look in triumph on their foes. [That would be the forces of darkness, greed, hatred, injustice. Instead,] they have distributed freely, they have given to the poor, their righteousness, that righteousness, endures forever.” Righteousness, even the Hebrew word for righteous, tzedek, is almost synonymous with generosity and gracious living. What we do in this life does echoe in eternity, in the Kingdom of God.
We are called to be living signs of God’s grace…to believe and trust the grace in us so much that it spills out in the way we encounter and treat others, strangers, friends, family, husbands and wives, and people we don’t even like.
I heard about a heated council meeting in which two of the members, both good and respected were vehemently disagreeing. Finally, one of them stood up and stormed out. Everyone was a bit shocked; it was out of character. Fifteen minutes later, he came back with a basin of water, a towel over his shoulder, and in silence he knelt, removed his opponent’s shoes and socks, washed and dried his feet. Finally, he stood and said, “Please forgive me. I’ve treated you badly. I realized after I left that, if you are so passionate about this, you must have good reasons. I need to listen to you because, even if we disagree, your opinion is important. You matter to me” Living graciously. We don’t have to roll over, but we don’t have to win. It isn’t about the goal. It’s how we treat people on our way to it. We simply remember that the Creator’s fingerprints and love are found in every living being, and we act on that truth.
In the interest of converting others, some Christians will ask the question, “If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?”
But here’s a question I’d like you to really think about… “If you live tomorrow, what kind of life will it be?”
May the peace which passes all understanding guard your hearts in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
