January 3, 2010

Clay Nelson

Christmas 2     
John 1:1-18

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Today, nine days into Christmas, we finally get the other version of Christmas, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” While it is a little like asking a parent, “who is their favourite child”, if pushed, I would have to say that I prefer John’s mystical version more than Luke and Matthew’s baby in a manger. Yes, it is more abstract and philosophical, but that alone allows more room for the imagination.

There is a French website where its creator has collect classical works of art portraying different parts of the Bible. [i] For Luke and Matthew’s Christmas the site has over 500 works of art. For John’s version there are none. While the portrayals of a baby in a manger are often beautiful and inspiring, it is not unlike going to a movie after reading the book. We can be disappointed when the characters and the world they live in don’t look like they did in our imagination.

With John we are given, in beautiful language, a concept to play with. It is a radical concept. It is the radical notion that the divine was made flesh in the person of Jesus. While Christianity has traditionally seemed to imply this was only true in Jesus, an alternative understanding is that Jesus revealed all of humanity to be the flesh of the divine. How does a painter paint that unless it is a portrait of six billion people?

But language is no less limited than paint on canvass. While words may point the way, they will never put flesh on the mystical. So, I begin this sermon knowing I will fail to capture what it is I wish to impart, for my meaning will be behind the words. So I invite your imagination to carry you to that place.

It is the mystery of grace that has captured my attention. It is John’s words, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” that challenge me. It isn’t that the language isn’t beautiful, it is. It isn’t its suggestion that through our experience of Jesus we finally got it: We are all one with the divine. We are. My problem with it is the idea of grace. Frankly, I need some grace to deal with grace.

It is one of those theological words that while not as shop worn as “sin,” is still getting a little frayed around the edges. It’s meaning has gotten mushy from over use and multiple uses. For many, or perhaps just me, it has lost a lot of its texture making it hard to sink our teeth into. It also presents some embarrassing challenges for those of a progressive Christian viewpoint. Yet, in spite of that, I am reluctant to let it go, because I know from my own life experience it is real. It may be mystery but it is not supernatural.

Classically grace is an undeserved, unwarranted blessing that we receive from God. It is not a concept without power. Grace was at the root of igniting the Protestant Reformation. Luther rebelled at the notion we could do anything to save ourselves. Only God could save us, not the church or its sacraments; not our good works; nothing but the grace of God. While theologically rooted, it is a word that has adopted secular meanings as well. What could be more secular than MasterCard giving us a “grace” period to pay our Christmas bills? 

Amongst many uses of the word, we hear it most often in two ways in our daily lives: Grace is something we say before a meal in thanks for what we have to eat, although there may be exceptions. When a youngster was chastised by his mum for beginning to eat before grace at his grandparents, he explained that it wasn’t necessary here like at home, “Nana knows how to cook.” In its best sense it takes meal time out of ordinary time and places it into sacred time at least until the kids spill their milk or refuse to eat their veggies. In its worst sense it is gratitude that we won’t hunger while many, many live in abject poverty wondering where their next meal is coming.

Secondly, it is also used to express relief when we encounter the less fortunate. “There but for the grace of God go I” is the phrase we commonly use. My problem with this statement is not the gratitude of having been spared or the compassion it may engender but that it is terrible theology.

I find it hard to believe that there is a god that intentionally breaks into someone’s life to lead them, guide them, or make things happen for them, and so on but not for another person. Is it grace or just dumb luck that someone survives a catastrophe like the tsunami in Samoa. Were those who lived saved by God’s grace? If so, were those who died not in God’s favour? Such theology makes my skin crawl.

Ultimately though, my problem with grace is that there has to be a giver and a receiver. Generally a god in our own image is presumed to be the giver, but who is the giver when our image of God is no longer a person? Where does it come from then? What is the source of grace? I do not presume to know the answer to this mystery. For me, it just is.

While I believe grace is at the heart of Christianity, I would agree with Frederick John Muir that “the experience it names is common to virtually all religious and spiritual tradition.” [ii] However, I would go further to say it is available to all, religious or not.

But what exactly is the nature of the gift. What is it?

Traditional Christianity largely views grace as a private matter captured by the hymn Amazing Grace. It is about an individual’s sinful state and the redemption we receive IF we believe Jesus died for us on the cross. This view understands grace as something for the here after, obtaining eternal life. It is about how we die, not how we live. But the life of John Newton, the slave ship captain who wrote Amazing Grace, gives grace a more here and now understanding.

The myth says that the captain was in a storm and in danger of losing the ship and his life and so in desperation he prayed for help. He, the ship, and the cargo survived the storm and he had a conversion experience that made him see how evil slavery was. That was the myth. The truth appears to be that the good Captain retired from the sea after earning plenty in the slavery business, returned to England, and became a talented preacher and eventually an Anglican priest. He also had a talent for writing hymns and wrote hundreds of them. As time went on, John Newton must have seen the error of his ways and became an ardent opponent of slavery. Out of this understanding, he wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace.” While clearly an evangelical with a traditional belief in the saving grace of the cross, his life story suggests that grace is all about being transformed in and for the now, not the life to come. Jesus’ story clearly inspired him but it was not right belief in church doctrine that transformed him. So, what was the grace that could turn a slave captain into an abolitionist?

Theologian Paul Tillich offers this suggestion: "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… Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness [and] everything is transformed." [iii]

What I take from Tillich is that the conditions for grace to happen are universal, and so is the “wave of light.” And I agree that if our lives are not transformed we have not experienced grace. Grace is all about transformation. I only take argument with his idea that grace only strikes in the difficult times of our life. Does that mean we don’t need to be or cannot be transformed when our lives are blessed?

I think the problem is when we think of grace as being something that breaks into life, rather than the essence of life itself. It is the mysterious substance behind the Word that was in the beginning, ever present and ever available to us in the world around us, in each other and in ourselves. It is there, ever waiting to transform us. 

But to access it we must not wait for the wave of light, but seek it out constantly in both the ordinary and extraordinary. Ideally it becomes a way of life. And when it shines on us, our task is not to close our eyes. We must fearlessly invite it to enlighten us every moment of every day. If we only wait for when we need it, we may not know how to receive it when we do.

I can’t paint a picture of how we do that anymore than Rembrandt could paint John’s Christmas story. But within our imaginations may we begin to visualize the possibility, allowing it to transform and bless us in the now.

[i] http://www.artbible.net/Jesuschrist_en.html

[ii] Muir, John Frederic. Heretic’s Faith: Vocabulary for Religious Liberals. p 104

[iii] Tillich, Paul. Shaking the Foundations