Each of us was given grace

Ephesians 4: 1-16, NT pages 193-194 An incredible story made national news this week. The events were unfolding in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I don’t know exactly why it is that the people who decide what goes on national news decided to report on this story for so much of the week, but certainly it caught my attention to hear about a father who gave a false confession so that he would go to prison in place of his son. You heard about the story I’m sure. A lot of people were talking about it early in the week, before other stories took its place on the news cycle, and some people are really upset about it. The Assistant District Attorney of Milwaukee County described the false confession as “a complete manipulation of the system.” He said that, “You have basically a family that decided they were going to decide amongst themselves who should pay the price, instead of a judge or a jury or the system." Now he’s right about that. The guilty son went free while the father paid the price. The innocent took the punishment and the guilty was spared, which sounds a whole lot like the story of our salvation. The Chaplain of the Milwaukee County Corrections system could easily tell the story of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection using the words of the Assistant DA: “It’s a complete manipulation of the system. You have basically a God who decided that he was going to decide amongst himself who should pay the price, instead of a judge or a jury or the system.” I wonder if the Assistant DA would protest during such a sermon. Would he stand up in the church service and express his disapproval about the innocent Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world? Would he demand that humanity be put on the stand to pay the price for their crime? Maybe he would, or maybe he never thought about it. Regardless, this news story helped me to uncover something radical about our faith, for the truth is that our salvation is a complete manipulation of justice, and I wonder if God is saying about us what this Milwaukee father was thinking about his son: “I thought he would use this as an opportunity to better his life, go to school, get a job, but in fact, it had just the opposite effect,” The Apostle Paul says the same thing this way: “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” but have you been saved only to return to the same life you led before? Specifically the life that Paul is calling the church to in this 2nd Scripture Lesson is one marked by humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace – to put away the kinds of division that marked their life before their baptism into Christ. Maybe they heard the words of the baptismal liturgy that told them they were baptized, not by their own merit, but because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it’s one thing to hear words and it’s another thing altogether to live them. And that’s the case with all kinds of things. Consider the words of the Declaration of Independence – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” You can certainly make the case that Thomas Jefferson knew what these words meant, that John Adams and the rest of the Constitutional Congress knew these words were significant, but the true meaning of these words was not unlocked for nearly two hundred more years when finally the words “all men” actually included all men – and eventually not just “all men” but also all women. The same is true when it comes to the words of hymns in our hymnal. There’s one that I like – it’s not in our hymnal, but I bet you’ve heard it. It goes: Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within! Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin! We can sing these words – but what do they mean? What do they demand? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. Now that one makes people cry. The words make people cry and I know that they do, because I get to stand up here where I can look out on all of you and I can tell which hymns you hate because about halfway through some of you make a point of closing that hymnal and returning it to its place on the rack. I can also tell which hymns make you cry because you’ll be singing one minute and then you’ll have to stop. You’ll try to say the words – you sort of start the words, but then you’ll just close your mouth and wipe your eyes, and Amazing Grace does it to some of you every single time. The hymn reminds us of the gift that we’ve received – a gift we can’t earn and don’t deserve but have been given nonetheless by the incarnate son of God who died on the cross to pay the price for our sin, and that is a truth that’s worth singing about, rejoicing in, but it is most definitely a manipulation of justice that demands some kind of response from us. The Assistant DA got it right. It is “a complete manipulation of the system. You have basically a [God who] decided he was going to decide amongst himself who should pay the price, instead of a judge or a jury or the system." We ought to cry at the thought of such mercy, rejoice in it, give thanks for it, but today I want to urge you to remember what such grace requires: Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood. But listen to this part: O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! “Each of us was given grace,” says the Apostle Paul, and the gift of this grace makes us debtors, it places on us an obligation. “Each of us was given grace, I therefore beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Gifts can be this way – maybe gifts are always this way – what a gift it is to be 15 or 16 and handed the keys to the car. Such a gift that you jump right in the driver’s seat, but if it happened to you the same way it happened to me, your father wouldn’t let you turn the ignition without a speech. He looked me in the eye and said something like, “This is a privilege, and with this privilege comes responsibility” – I don’t know that we’ve been taught to think of grace this way but our second scripture lesson seems a lot like a responsibility speech that comes with a great gift. “Each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.” When it says, “He ascended,” what does that mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?” Paul’s point is this – while Christ descended to get down to your level, how could you be so bold as to think that you have ascended high above your neighbors? It’s like those words, “All men are created equal,” from the Declaration of Independence. It’s not enough to hear those words and for only a small demographic of society to apply it to themselves for if one class of society is to enjoy the benefits of equality than those same benefits must be offered to everyone – if not than the words, “All men are created equal” are empty. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” These words appear on the Statue of Liberty not just pronouncing a lofty ideal that we should put up on a statue and then not do anything about – they call us to action. If I have been given equality than I am obligated to extend such a gift to you. If I have received shelter and refuge than I am obligated to work on behalf of the refugee who has neither. And if the Lord has given me grace, than how must I live? How am I to treat my neighbor? My actions or my lack of action can make even powerful words seem empty, and certainly my willingness to take such a gift as grace for myself without offering the same to my neighbor makes me a hypocrite. At other times the gifts of God have worked this way. Take for example our 1st Scripture Lesson, the manna in the wilderness. The Lord provided the people with bread from heaven in the wilderness, a fine flaky substance that covered the ground and which the people collected to eat. The Lord simply provided it, but with this gift the Lord also gave instructions – Moses said to the people, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.” But the people did not listen; some left part of it until morning and it bred worms and became foul. I wonder if you’ve ever seen grace do that to a person. They’ve received it – forgiveness and all – but when it comes to their neighbor, sometimes forgiveness is withheld, and you watch as this withheld forgiveness breeds worms and becomes foul within their heart. Like a room closed up, their soul longs for a cool breeze and sunlight, but in order to withhold that forgiveness the blinds must be pulled down, the door must stay locked, and you wonder if they are causing their enemy as much pain as they are causing themselves. A quote has been attributed to everyone from the Buddha to Carrie Fisher, “That holding onto resentment or anger is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die,” but still people do it. They still hold on tight to the grace that they have received without giving any of it to their neighbors, a lifestyle that fails to honor the gift they have been given. We must not forget the character of the one who has given us everything. If we affirm the truth of the Lord who was born into divinity but took on humanity, what do we do to these words if we walk through life with our nose pointed toward heaven, our eyes looking down towards some and not even seeing others, our lives focused on ascending the ladder of proper society – distancing ourselves from those who we deem below our status and rank? We render such words empty and we shall be rightly judged as hypocrites, unless we look out on our neighbor and see our brother. Unless we look on our enemy and see our sister. Unless we look on the guilty and see ourselves. Our salvation. It is “a complete manipulation of the system. You have basically a [God who] decided he was going to decide amongst himself who should pay the price, instead of a judge or a jury or the system." As you look on your neighbor with contempt, do not forget that you have been spared. As you look on the criminal and demand that he pay the price for his crime, do not forget that you have been forgiven. And as you wonder how it could be that some people could be so strange, confused, or misguided, remember that we are all part of one body and “we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Amen.