Community Church Sermons

Year B

March 8, 2009

The Second Sunday in Lent

“Struck by Grace”

Mark 8:31-38

During this Lenten season, we are walking with Jesus toward the cross. As he makes his way through the towns and villages of Galilee, he speaks more and more openly about the death that awaits him in Jerusalem. His followers, of course, want no part of this conversation because they – like us – would avoid thinking about such things, let alone talking out loud about them. But Jesus will not let them - or us - hide from the reality of his mission, or from the ultimate result of our days on earth. We will all die. And so he tells them about what will soon happen, and begins speaking about the cross.

“If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.”

The cross has become the very symbol of the Christian faith. And Jesus tells us to lift it up daily!

What do you suppose Jesus means by that?

“Take up your cross daily.”?

Is he speaking to us about the need to offer ourselves in sacrifice? Is he telling us to die to ourselves in order to live for others? Is he instructing us to construct crosses along the interstate highways – like the one on I-75 southbound here in Loudon that stands 101-feet tall?

“Take up your cross daily…” And then Jesus adds:

“…and follow me.”

There is some connection between taking up the cross on the one hand, and following Jesus on the other. So the question we should ask is, “What does the cross mean?” Some two millennia after Jesus’ death on the cross, what does the cross mean to us that we should take it up daily?

For the past several weeks now I’ve been re-reading and mulling over a famous sermon written years ago by Paul Tillich. Tillich is considered to be one of the four most influential Protestant theologians of the 20^th-century, and this particular sermon is thought to be one of the most important sermons ever preached on our soil.

The simple title of the sermon is: “You Are Accepted!”

And that, dear friends, is the message of the cross that we are to lift up daily.

“You are accepted!”

I can’t think of any other message that is more important to get our heads around, our hearts around, and to build our lives around. For until you center your very life upon that message of the cross – “You are accepted!” – you will languish in the destructive world of separation from God which, by its very nature, expresses itself by alienating us from ourselves and from each other.

This morning, let me pull two words from Tillich’s famous sermon that may help us to better understand the meaning and message of this cross that we are to take up daily. One of the words is “sin.” The other is “grace.” When St. Paul the apostle spoke about the meaning of the cross in Romans 5, he wrote, “…where sin abounded, grace abounded more!”

Many modern day Christians no longer understand these two words. They are so commonly used in our religion today that they have sort of drifted into the background of our awareness. And yet “sin” and “grace” lie at the very heart of our human experience and they form the foundation of our faith. You see, the cross is about “sin.” And the cross is about “grace.”

Let’s start with “sin.” Tillich points out that people have lost the meaning of “sin” in our day. Have you? What do you think “sin” means?

My best boyhood friend Dennis Astrella and I were chowing down a burger one day at Slattery’s 1941 House restaurant not far from where we lived. We were maybe 12 or 13 at the time and we had returned a bunch of soda bottles to a store to get the deposit-money back so we could buy lunch that day. Well, we were just finishing up those burgers and getting ready to pay when we realized the waitress had gone back into the kitchen. The hostess was nowhere to be seen. No one was behind the counter. We were all alone…sitting at a table…right by the door! I looked at Dennis. He looked at me. And…WHOOSH!!! We were out that door and running for our lives down Burncoat Street. I think most of us would classify that act of theft as a “sin.”

Funny thing about that “sin” though is that, years later – after I was well into the ministry – I moved back to my hometown to serve a church there. One day, I happened to meet one of my new parishioners who introduced herself as Dolly…Slattery. She was the owner of Slattery’s 1941 House! I felt like so much pond scum. I looked at her to see if there was any sign that she remembered me from that little caper years ago. She didn’t seem to recognize me. But…I told her anyways. I confessed my sin. And she was good about it. She smiled and said, “So that was you, huh?” And I said, “Well, it was Dennis’ idea!”

Isn’t this how most of us think of “sin” – all the little or big acts of immorality that we commit along the way of our lives? We all have a long laundry list of “sins.”

And that’s the problem with “sin” today, Paul Tillich points out. We’ve added an “s” to the word and made “sin” plural to describe all the unrighteous things we DO. But along the way, we’ve lost the true meaning of the word “sin” which is really about a state we are in.

“Sin” in the Bible is the great, all-pervading problem of our lives. It is the underlying illness that causes us to commit “sins.” Before sin is ever an act, it is a state of existence. And perhaps the best word to use in describing this human illness called “sin” is “separation.” To be in the state of “sin” is to be in the state of “separation.” And “separation”, Tillich says, is threefold: we are separated from each other, we are separated within ourselves, and we are separated from God our Creator.

“Sin.” The cross is about “sin” – that state of separation that exists between us and others, between nations, between races, between “friends” and “enemies” – that state of separation within ourselves that causes us to do the things we know we ought not to do, and to not do the things we ought to do – that state of separation between all of us and God, the Source of our lives. The cross is about the frightening human condition called “sin”.

And the cross is about “grace.”

“Grace” is a similarly misunderstood term. We think of it as “unconditional love” – love offered to us though we do not deserve it. But even that description does not do justice to the Biblical meaning of “grace.” Tillich observed that just as “sin” is “separation”, the essence of “grace” is “reunion.” “Grace” is the bringing back together of that which has been “separated.”

And in between these two opposite realities – “sin” and “grace” – is where you and I struggle. It is the tension between “separation” and “reunion” that defines history.

Israelis and Palestinians. Christians and Muslims. Blacks and whites. Northerners and Southerners. Heterosexuals and homosexuals. Republicans and Democrats. Poor and rich. Native born and immigrant. Saints and sinners. Can you even count the dividing lines that exist in our world today, separating us one from another?

We even know it on a more personal level, too. Have you ever been at a party or social gathering where you felt all alone in the crowd? Loneliness is one of the most common symptoms of our “separation” from others. Right at this very moment, in this great crowd of people, there is someone who feels all alone. Is it you? Right now, in this very pulpit, there stands a man who at the core of his being experiences profound loneliness. There are parts of my life that nobody knows, and if you did, you wouldn’t like me very much. Do you know what I’m saying? We are all lonely people with walls of separation between each other.

And yet, on a personal level, we crave intimacy and friendship and belonging and love! And on a societal level we so desire peace and community and cooperation. We WANT reunion!

But what we want, we can’t seem to get. And what we have, we can’t seem to overcome! When we look out at the world as it is, and understand ourselves as we are, we might very well be left to utter despair…but for one thing. Remember what Paul said about Jesus and the cross?

“…where sin abounded, grace abounded MORE.”

And St. Paul the apostle was not talking about some abstract concept here, but about his own experience along the Damascus Road when – in the deepest valley of his own separation from others, from himself, and from God – remember how he was running about arresting people and killing them? – in that very state of separation, he was STRUCK BY GRACE in a blinding light when Jesus came to him as the Christ who ACCEPTED him!

And when he found that the highest Power of all accepted him, he was then able to start accepting himself, and to begin to be reconciled to others.

On the Damascus Road that day, Saul was struck by “grace”, and was transformed over time into the amazing man we know as St. Paul, who gave the rest of his life to the ministry of “reunion”.

What does it mean to be “struck by grace?” Well, it doesn’t mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Messiah, or that the Bible contains the Truth. And being “struck by grace” doesn’t necessarily mean that we start getting better control over destructive habits, behaviors or lifestyles – or that we become involved in making the world a better place. Moral progress may be a result of “grace” striking us, but it is not “grace” itself.

I like what Tillich says about how “grace” strikes us:

“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted…”

“Grace” is nothing you can grasp. “Grace” is something that comes to you as a gift, and that you can only accept.

“I AM accepted by the One who created me!”

When “grace” comes to you, you may not be better than before, or believe more than before. But everything is changed because you now have been given power to see “grace” in relation to others and yourself. You can begin to accept others. You can begin to accept yourself. You can begin to see the cross not as repository of forgiven “sins”, but as the sign that “grace abounds more than sin”, that “separation” has been overcome by “reunion” in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, and that YOU ARE ACCEPTED!

In our little booklet “Faith Stories” there is a very beautiful telling of such an experience of being struck by grace. It’s Terry Blevins’ story. He writes, “I never considered myself a Christian. Then I lost my wife.”

In the days following the tragic car accident, Terry began an unsolicited and painful journey into the experience of loss. Along the way, he met a man tending to a church garden. They struck up a conversation, and as time went on became friends. Terry was able to tell the gardener about what he was going through. The gardener just listened and cared. He also invited Terry to church, and he was surprised to discover that the gardener was also the church’s pastor!

But Terry was not only struggling with the loss of his wife, but also with his broken soul. He thought that if his wife was in heaven, the only way he’d get to see her again would be by convincing God that he was a Christian. So Terry – who, among other things, is a salesman - bought a Bible and a prayer book to start learning about God so that he could sell God on the idea that he was a Christian.

But listen to Terry’s words about what happened:

“I can’t tell you when or where I was when it happened. I can’t even tell you how or why. Was it the daily Bible readings? Maybe. Was it the confidential, one-sided conversations with God? Possibly. Somehow, some way, God had turned the tables, and in my attempt to sell Him…He sold me.

What kind of person am I? That’s easy. I’m someone that God accepts and loves, and that’s enough for me.”

And that is the meaning of the cross that we are to take up daily!

“…where sin abounds, grace abounds more!”

You are accepted!