50 Shades of Grace, Aug 5, 2012

Ephesians 4:1-16

50 Shades of Grace

Rev. Kathryn Ransdell

Sunday August 5th, 2012

She lived most of her life sickly, until someone told her about a man who could heal her.  After visiting him and finding herself healed of her ailments, she became a believer in what he taught.  It came to be known as "New Thought" in the 1800s, and one of its basic tenets is that illnesses could be caused by someone wishing ill on you, literally.  The sickly woman healed by these teachings was named Mary Baker Eddy and she went on to found the Christian Science movement, which in its 20th century rational thinking, has tried its best to separate itself from those original writings.  

New Thought taught a form of animal magnetism, which has a deeper teaching that in essence, there is one energy, matter, substance, that we are all apart of and unites us together....there is a connectivity among us even when we don't name it. 

I still get people who buy into some form of this thinking, most likely because they have been brainwashed by a cult.  I don't believe anyone has power over us...I believe that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ Jesus, not height nor depth nor angels nor principalities nor anything else can separate us from the love of Christ.

Yet at different times in history Christians have believed in a very strong inner power and external power.  There is even a conspiracy theorist who is Christian who believes that the ringing of the English bells to start the Olympics was being used by Satan so that when the bell run, the powers of Satan would be unleashed on this world.  He needed enough of his believers focusing together at the same time the bells were ringing to create a spiritual wall to bind these forces.   Seriously.

That's where I got the idea of asking all of us to pray at 11 am for 31 days.  Just kidding. 

There is nothing wacky or supernatural or abnormal about asking this community to come together at a certain time to hold spiritual space outside of the chronos of our day.  Maybe it will call you into the present moment; maybe it will call you into prayer for someone in our community; and maybe it will be something that annoys you just enough to get an email each day that you find your spirit opening despite yourself. 

Pausing at the same time every day as an individual is a personal spiritual discipline.

Pausing at the same time very day as a community is a corporate spiritual discipline. 

Both are a means of grace.  Before we go there, let's take out and examine what we mean by this 5-letter word "grace."  It's a word thrown around by us insiders in the church.  Outside the church, most people don't have a use for the word.  So what is our use for the word here on the inside? 

Spiritual director Frederick Schmidt said, "We are all triage theologians. We may not be card-carrying professionals, but step by step in conversation with life, we build an understanding of God and the way in which God is at work in the world and in our lives." (-- Frederick W. Schmidt, What God Wants for Your Life: Finding Answers to the Deepest Questions)

Grace is more than a warm and fuzzy.  Grace has to do with the connection between us and God.  God's grace is a living, active force in this world and inside you and me.  God's grace always starts with God first.  There is nothing that any of us can do to either earn the love of God or lose the love of God.  God constantly pours out grace upon grace, and we meet God's presence through what we call the means of grace.

           

If grace doesn't feel deeper than a warm fuzzy, then it's time to build your spiritual muscles. 

Because these graces come to us through personal and communal practices, like praying, fasting, reading Scripture and healthy living, and, they come to us through Holy Communion, Baptism and being in conversation with other Christians.

The grace of God is also poured out when we are focusing on other's needs, doing good works, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, feeding and clothing those in need, earning, saving and giving all we can, seeking justice, focusing ourselves on society's needs. 

Grace isn't just a generic catch-all kinda word.  We are speaking about something specific what we hold to be true.   We are talking about a word that has power to shape us, move us in new directions, change our hearts, and dare I say, change our minds.  Grace has the power to open doors and unlock closets. 

Grace starts with God but it doesn't happen without us taking part, diving in, trusting, and opening ourselves. 

So what exactly is the nature of grace? 

            1.  Is grace imparted on our behalf or imputed into us?

            2.  Does grace create a relative or real change?

The good news is: it's not an either/or.  It's a both/and.  Yes, grace is imparted on our behalf but it's also imputed into us.  It's in our hearts.  It's here.  Grace is somehow mixed in with our cells, our blood, our breath. 

Grace creates a relative change.  It might mean we go to church, who knows.  But grace also creates a very real change in our lives.  It's a very real power that's quite different from mustering the energy to make it to church for the start of worship.

But I'm going to be honest...for most of us, that very real power has gone dormant.  And it's not totally your fault.  The world wants this power to grow dormant.  Consumerism demands that we focus on ourselves, want more, perceive a need for more, and do what we can to get more.   Regardless of what it does to someone else.  

As the remnant of liberal Protestant Christians, we must constantly be asking ourselves where we have sanitized for the sake of making it easier on us, privatized it for the sake of not offending or ritualized because we just don't feel it in our hearts and souls anymore.

Which is why I totally understand Paul's plea in the opening verses of chapter 4.  Paul says, "As someone who has given it all for this Jesus thing:  my previous faith, my profession, my friends, my family...I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called."

I beg you.  Not just inquire as to whether it is comfortable for you to possibly consider living the life God has given you, but beg you.  To the church at Corinth, Paul said, "We have this treasure in clay jars so that we may know that this power comes not from us but from God." 

This treasure is your life.  You have been given your life in this clay jar.  And this life is to be marked by humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the bond of unity. 

Those words are so powerful that for some reason we reigned them in and  made them "nice and polite" ways of being and put aside the radical notions of what it means to live this way. 

"For each of us is given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift."  I like that I have this Scripture verse memorized.   I quote it quite often.  Especially in this unique time of life with the twins turning 2 tomorrow.  Can you believe it?  Those sweet little babies that once cooed --they are still sweet, but let me tell you, they are monkeys.  They are everywhere, into everything.  So when I think I don't have enough in me, I quote this verse.  Now I'm probably mis-applying it just a bit, but that's okay because it works for me.  Remember, though, grace never stops with me, the individual. 

Our Christian belief is not supposed to stop with making us feel good.  Christian belief shapes us from the inside out through the means of grace and makes us people who live in this world as people defined by grace. 

Each of us is given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift.  What does this mean?  How do you measure Christ's gift? 

                        Christ's gift is unconditional and unlimited.

Unconditional and Unlimited and Accountable.  We are to give grace as God has given to us.  Our souls need to give.  We must  learn to love ourselves unconditionally so that we can love unconditionally. 

Let's go back to the Scripture: "The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.  Paul says these gifts have been given to us so that we are knit together as one body until we reach maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.  

The full stature of Christ...I like to think of this as conscious living, as being woken up from all that has put our souls to sleep, of being healed of all the wounds that keep us guarded and of being so grounded in ourselves, in intention and in love, that our very living changes this world. 

Speaking of things that are changing some people's words, have you heard about the series of books called "50 Shades of Gray."  The 3 books in the series are No. 1, 2, and 3 on the NY Times Bestseller list, and have been so for 22 weeks running.  I think it's surpassed the Harry Potter series in its printing. 

The book is creating a sexual revolution.  Apparently women are finding renewed romantic interets in the bedroom after reading this book.  I was telling my husband about how this book is the must-read for the summer and how it is affecting women afterwards.  To be  blunt, one mommy-blogger said, "After finishing this book, you will want to have sex with your husband.  A lot of it."  There is even discussion how at the end of this year and into the first quarter of next year, there will be a Shades of Gray baby-boom.   The very next day, in wanting to help me keep up with what's trendy, he downloaded all 3 books onto our iPad. 

It's interesting that this series of books has been able to take something very old, that's been around for a long, long, long time, and make it new, and spicy, and exciting ... and for a lot of partners out there, it's changing lives.

The church is an old institution.  It's been around for a long time.  And some want to pronounce that the church's time has passed.  But I believe that God has not abandoned this world, that when we stick with practicing our means of grace, we are downloading shades of grace, not just on ourselves, but on every person we come in contact with.  That which has been around for a very, very, very long time becomes new again.  Our hearts soften and our eyes begin to see possibilities and our lives shift course.  Our hearts evolve and our souls awaken. 

We tap into the kind of oneness that Paul describes, a oneness that is not about exclusivity but about inclusivity...there is one, and if there is just one, then that means you and I are somehow both part of the one.  And even that knowing, for me, is grace.