means of grace - basics

“So how do I get to your house?”  Whether it is a friend coming over for the first time, or a repair person needing directions, chances are someone has asked what route they ought to take to get to your house.  In some ways the answer ought to be relatively simple.  You take street X, to Street Y where you take a left, then you pass the service station…and you get my point.  What makes giving directions difficult however is that people begin their journeys in different locations, thus necessitating different sets of directions.  In addition there are often multiple ways one could take in order to arrive at the same location.  Even on-line resources such as MapQuest will offer several routes from one point to another.  Each route will get you from point A to Point B…the only difference being the scenery along the way and the time it takes to arrive.

I offer this opening illustration in order to help us gain a sense of what our faith tradition means by “Means of Grace.”  Means of Grace are those “routes” by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us.  Please notice carefully that I did not say that the Means of Grace are different ways to be reconciled to God (or saved if you like).  Reconciliation and salvation are gifts of God that come through the work of Jesus Christ.  As the Gospel of John tells us, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.   Means of Grace then are the routes one can take in order to access the love and grace of God that comes to the world and comes to us through the work of Jesus.  Just as there are numerous different roads and turns one can take to arrive at our homes, there are many different ways in which one can approach God in Christ and take hold of the life that is offered.

Some of you may ask why this is important.  If God loves and saves us, why do we need to have Means of Grace through which we encounter the grace of God and through which the grace of God encounters us?  Isn’t it enough that we have faith?  The short answer is no.  The Christian life is not completed by having faith.  The Christian life is composed of faith plus movement, or sanctification. 
Sanctification is essentially the process of becoming more “saintly”, meaning become more and more fully human as demonstrated by Jesus.  The Means of Grace are practices through which not only is our faith strengthened but we become more and more Christ-like.  As most of us who have lived for a while understand, our faith and our sanctification are works in progress.

For those of you who grew up in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox traditions, the Means of Grace were generally limited to the sacraments; those rituals in and through which God’s grace was dispensed to the people.  In this way of understanding the Means of Grace, grace was seen as a spiritual commodity which could be given or withheld by the agents of the church.  We can see this in the history of the church where it either offered or withheld the sacraments as a weapon to coerce individuals to toe the line.  In other words the church said that if you do not follow our rules we will withhold the very grace of God from you.  This view was challenged by the Reformers who believed that the Means of Grace, and thus grace itself, were open to all.

For those of you who grew up in more evangelical protestant traditions the Means of Grace were probably not limited to the sacraments (because your tradition might not have even had the concept of sacraments) but to preaching and prayer.  These two practices were seen as the means by which we connect to God and God connects to us.  As the reformers claimed, these means are accessible to all because all can read scripture and all can pray. 

What we will explore over the next few weeks is the view that the Means of Grace, while including the sacraments, scripture and prayer are in fact more expansive than these alone; that in fact the Means of Grace are all around us thus offering us a myriad of opportunities to deepen our faith in and following of Jesus Christ.

the means of grace - the sacraments

The primary Means of Grace within the church have always been the sacraments; baptism and communion.   

Baptism is the sacrament which initiates our relationship with the community of faith.  It is our mark of entry.  For those of us who practice infant baptism there could be no greater demonstration of the grace of God.  A child who cannot speak for him or herself is brought before God.  This child is then covered with the waters of baptism and declared to be one of God’s children and a member of the universal church.  All of this is done without the child being able to earn it or deserve it.  Just like birth itself the child is the recipient of the actions of others, including God.  This is a free gift given by God as the child is adopted into a new and loving family which freely promises to watch over and care for them.  We see grace poured out in these actions.

The temptation that comes with believers’ baptism (though it is a wonderful thing and we Presbyterians also practice it) is that those who are baptized as adults might see baptism as something that they have earned because they have chosen Jesus to be their Lord and Savior.  On the other hand when adults see baptism as the undeserved, grace of God in Jesus Christ being poured out upon them, bringing forgiveness and new life, then it becomes a powerful means of grace.  Those who are baptized understand themselves as profoundly changed by God’s free gift of love and salvation.

                
The second sacrament is the Lord’s Supper.  This sacrament is the family meal in and through which we remember the sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross.  As most of you are aware Jesus initiated this meal on the night before he was betrayed, arrested and crucified.  In this meal Jesus took the Passover feast and re-centered it away from the Exodus under Moses to the Crucifixion which Jesus was about to undergo.  None-the-less this meal was still seen as signifying our liberation from slavery to the powers and principalities of this world and into a new life with God.  The presence of grace first becomes apparent when we realize that none of us deserved what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross.  The Apostle Paul tells us “that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”  In other words, God’s desire to forgive and reconcile us was so great that God was willing to sacrifice God’s own Son for our sake.  Thus the supper itself points us to God’s amazing grace.

Grace continues to appear in that we are invited to partake in this meal of remembrance even though we ourselves continue to sin; to wander far from God as our Five Part Story tells us.  In the Presbyterian past there was something called “fencing the table.”  In this practice the communion table was literally fenced off and before anyone could come and partake they had to demonstrate that they were worthy; that they had been upstanding Christians.  Then they were given a “token” by which they were admitted to the table.  This practice tended to remove grace from the equation. People earned their way to the table.  Our practice is that all who have been baptized are invited to partake.  We believe that we are all sinners in need of God’s grace, which is what the table is all about; feeding and forgiving in order that all might be renewed for their journeys of faith.  At the table we feed on God’s gracious love for us which was first made known to us at baptism.

means of grace - scripture

One of the most central Means of Grace for the Reformed Church (meaning Presbyterians among others) is that of the reading and hearing the scriptures.       

The concept that reading and hearing scripture is a Means of Grace may seem a bit odd to some of us.  After all the scriptures are a collection of stories, history, poetry, letters and laments written over more than a thousand years, which offer, at times, what appear to be contradictory opinions about God, law and life.   In addition, in the most basic sense, the scriptures are merely words…lots and lots of words.  The question becomes then how can such a book be a means of God encountering us and us encountering God? 

The answer for some is that the Bible is literally “the Word of God.”  It is perfect in its original manuscripts because it was dictated by the very breath of God.  Therefore when one reads scripture one is reading the literal words of God; thus one is encountering God.  In some sense this coincides with Islam’s view of the Quran.  According to Islam the words of the Quran are prefect because they are the verbatim words of God as dictated to Muhammad.  Thus they ought not to be even translated out of the original Arabic.

For those of us who do not subscribe to the theory that scripture is perfectly dictated by God, and that there are places where scripture contradicts itself, we still believe that it can serve as a Means of Grace.  It can serve as such because it is the primary witness to God’s loving work in the world.  I say scripture is the primary witness because there is a secondary witness, creation itself. According to the Apostle Paul, human beings ought to be able to look at creation and know that not only is there a God, but that this God has particular wishes and desires for humanity.  In a way this is what some people refer to as Natural Theology (knowledge of God that can be derived from observing the world around us).
Scripture on the other hand is a record of God’s encounters with humanity and humanity’s encounters with God.  These encounters bring to us God’s commandments, Jesus’ teachings, the words of God to prophets, priests and kings, God’s words to Apostles and other New Testament writers, the history of God’s people and their theological reflections.  What these writers record for us is not what they learned about God from observing the world, but what was revealed to them through these sacred encounters.  What happens then when we read or hear scripture is that we are allowed to stand with these ancient persons and encounter God alongside of them.  That is the power of sacred story.  Sacred story allows us to be vicariously present with those in the past who have encountered God and been changed by those encounters.  In addition we believe that the Holy Spirit applies these stories to our lives in order that they become our stories as well.

In the end though what finally makes the scriptures a Means of Grace is that all of its stories revolve around God’s grace and love.  I understand that especially in the Old Testament there are stories which include God’s wrath; but ultimately even behind those stories is grace.  Behind and through all of scripture is grace that loves, forgives, saves, reconciles and restores.  That is the narrative that binds all 66 books together.  So as we read scripture we continually encounter God’s grace, not just for persons past, but for each of us in every moment of our lives.

means of grace - prayer

One of the most powerful Means of Grace is prayer, even if people do not refer to it as such.

What is prayer?  While there are multiple definitions I believe the simplest description is that it is conversation with God.  I realize that the church has often made prayer seem very complicated and sometimes even unapproachable.  Yet just as each of us can carry on conversations with others around us we can carry on conversations with God.  In some ways this makes prayer the most personal of all of the Means of Grace.  Each of us is allowed to encounter God either individually (personal prayer) or corporately (communal prayer…such as in church).  By so doing we make a direct connection to the one, true, living God and this facilitates us being able to experience and bask in God’s grace.

With so much having been written about prayer I do not want to write an extended treatise about it, but instead would like to offer a prayer pattern through which we can see prayer as a Means of Grace.  The acronym I will use is ACTS.

Adoration – this is perhaps the most difficult part of prayer…adoring or praising God. While we may be used to heaping praises on others it is sometimes awkward to try and praise God…the vocabulary may not be there.  Yet adoration is an essential element of prayer because it acknowledges that God is the only one who is worthy of absolute praise and worship.  Adoration places us in the appropriate vertical relationship…creator to creature…that then allows the grace of God to begin to flow toward us even as it opens us to receive it.
Confession – over the years many churches and individuals have ceased the practice of using a prayer of confession.  They have done so because they believe it might harm a person’s self-esteem or because they don’t like the whole idea of “sins”.  However, without confession we are blocked from receiving the complete grace of God.  What I mean by this is that God desires us to become more and more Christ-like with each passing day.  Unless we are willing to confess where we have fallen short of living like Christ then God cannot really work on us.  We will be stuck in self-destructive patterns which block the love and grace of God from being fully effective in our lives.  Confession then opens us up to the work of God’s grace in our lives.

Thanksgiving – this is the moment when we allow ourselves to admit that we are recipients of God’s good gifts.  When we fail to give God thanks because we think that we have either earned or deserved all that we have, we once again close ourselves off to God’s grace…which remember is a free gift.  By thanking God for all that we are and all that we have been given we become more and more aware of God’s love for us.  We begin to see those moments in our lives when God mysteriously stepped in offering us unearned grace and love. 

Supplication – supplication is not a word we use very often.  A better word might be intercession (but then we could not use ACTS).  This is our act of becoming a channel for the grace of God to flow through us to others.  Again, grace is not a commodity, but when we turn our hearts toward the needs of others it is amazing how God’s grace seems to be applied into the lives of those for whom we pray. 

In the end, the “how” of how prayer works is a mystery.  None the less, millions of Jesus’ followers have discovered it to be their most important Means of Grace.

means of grace - fellowship

One of the most unexpected yet essential Means of Grace is fellowship.

Over the years I have noticed that Americans have a split cultural personality.  On the one hand we are rugged individualists.  We speak of having pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, being self-made people, and fending for ourselves along with lots of other metaphors.  We admire the person who has persevered against great odds to make something of themselves.   Individuals like Daniel Boone and the Lone Ranger are the heroes we like to lift up as being prototypically American.  This gives credence to the notion of individual responsibility as being the cornerstone of our society.

On the other hand however is the belief that community counts.  Consider that Americans have always relied on each other for protection (banding together to win our freedom), for help in times of need (the idea of farmers coming together to raise a barn or help out when another farmer has been injured), or for supporting education (one room school houses).  While cooperation was voluntary it was seen as a hallmark of America’s self-understanding (E pluribus unum – out of many, one). 

It should not come as a surprise then that this split cultural personality can also be seen within the religious landscape of our nation.  In the United States one of the most prevalent concepts of religion (and especially Christianity) is that it is private and personal.  Years ago this was described by the author Robert Bella as Sheilaism.   Sheilaism is his term for the religion of a young woman named Sheila who simply listened to her inner voice and knew what was right and wrong.  She took pieces of individual religions and created her own.  Even within Christianity faith and salvation have become very much about me and Jesus.  Whether one is conservative or liberal there is a strain of individualism which allows people to see their relationship with God as something that has no need of others.  
What is missing from this rugged religious individualism is the Biblical reminder that human beings were created to be in community.  We were created to be in relationship because no human being is complete in and of himself or herself (Adam was incomplete without Eve; Abram was to be the father of a large family, etc.). We are complete only as a collective.  Paul reminds his readers that if the church is to be the living body of Christ then it must contain persons with a variety of gifts.  In addition he makes it clear that no one person has all the gifts necessary to fully live out the Christ-like life.  Fellowship then is to be a way of life for those who are serious about being Jesus’ followers.

This idea leads us to understanding Fellowship as a Means of Grace.  When we come together as a community we encounter the God given gifts of others as God’s gifts to us.  We become more complete as human beings when we share what God has given to each of us.  We become more loving when we are loved in fellowship.  We become more caring when we are cared about in fellowship.  We become wiser when wisdom is shared with us in fellowship.  In this way the fullness of God’s grace becomes realized when we are in fellowship one with another.  God’s grace becomes real for us in the love, acceptance, forgiveness, instruction and discipline we share with each other. When we exclude ourselves from fellowship then we only experience a portion of the grace we can receive.  So the challenge for each of us then is to discover how our gifts can be God’s grace to others in fellowship.

means of grace - service

While few of us might think of serving others as a means of grace it is in fact one of the most direct means of grace there is.

In the ancient world servants were never highly thought of.  Even when they held important positions such as teachers they were seen as somehow a little less than human.  While they may have been better than slaves, they were still simply a living, breathing tool to be used as their masters saw fit.  In many places around the world this is still the view of servants.  When Cindy and I were considering a move to the Far East we were told that we would have to have servants and that we had to treat them like servants.  The explanation given was that if we treated them like members of the family, no one else would ever employ them because the servants would no longer know their place.  They might expect to be treated as human beings. 

With that in mind then it is remarkable how often Jesus used the image of a servant to refer to himself and to his followers.  Jesus says that he came into the world to serve and not be served.  He continued with the fact the one who wanted to be the greatest was to be the servant of all.  Jesus in the Gospel of John, at the last supper, dressed and acted like a servant, washing the feet of his disciples.  He then instructed his followers to go and do likewise.  The Apostle Paul told his Galatian readers that they need to show love by serving one another.  Peter told leaders in the church that they ought to be about serving the flock and not lording it over them for gain. 
As noted earlier we can imagine how well this image was received in the wider Roman world.  Most of the upper classes dismissed the Christian faith as a religion for women and slaves.  It was simply too unseemly for any acceptable person to be a servant. Even though we in the United States might see servants differently (professionals or part of the family) there is still something unsettling about the idea of being a servant to others, rather than being the one who is served.

The question then arises how can serving others be a Means of Grace?  If our attitude is that being a servant is not an occupation in which we would like to see how our children, how is it that serving can open us to the grace of God.  The answer is that in serving we are living the grace of God as well as being a conduit for the grace of God to others.  First we are living out the grace of God.  As we have discussed before, the God whom we worship is a God who is for others.  God is for the world and for all of the human beings in the world.  We see this in that Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father, became one of us that he might save the world.  Jesus served us…all of us.  Thus when we serve we are showing the same grace that Christ showed.  Second, by serving others we are a conduit for God’s grace to touch the lives of others.  We become grace with flesh on it.  We become the living demonstration of the grace and love of God.  While it is easy to talk about God’s gracious love it is another thing to show it.

Understanding serving as grace with flesh on it is why I stated in the opening paragraph that service is one of the most direct Means of Grace there is.  It is direct because the grace of God flows through us and emerges in concrete fashion in the world around us.  Finally, serving is a means of grace we can offer the world in almost every moment of every day.

means of grace - doing justice

For a variety of reasons doing justice has never been an easy quest for God’s people; none-the-less I hope as we look at the Biblical concept of justice we will see that it can indeed be a way of encountering the grace of God.

I want to begin with the image of Lady Justice.  In one hand Lady Justice holds a scale and in the other a sword.  Sometimes she is blindfolded and other times she sees clearly.  The scales can represent truth and fairness, or a case’s support and opposition. While a blindfold was not an original accessory of Lady Justice, it was added as a way of accentuating the ability of justice to be blind to the parties involved; in other words justice does not care about the race, social standing or connections of those seeking a ruling.  The sword represented the ability of justice to deal forcefully with those who had been unjust.  I offer this quick look at Lady Justice because in many ways she provides us an appropriate backdrop for looking at justice in the scriptures.  

First, justice requires a set of values, norms or laws upon which judgment is to be made (the concept of the scales).  Within the Judeo-Christian context justice is based on the Law of God.  In the Torah God offered the world a clear image of what those values, norms and laws are.  These include norms such as loving your neighbor, caring for widows and orphans, speaking the truth and respecting the life and property of others.  In other words justice is supposed to help to bring about a community which reflects God’s original creative purposes (human beings living in a right relationship with God, others and creation).   
Second, justice is supposed to be meted out with impartiality (the concept of the blindfold).  The scriptures remind us that God is “no respecter of persons.”  What this means is that God is concerned with the inner orientation and outer actions of persons and not with their wealth, power or social standing.  The prophets were continually berating the Israelites for favoring the rich and powerful over the ordinary citizen in settling disputes.  The Book of James in the New Testament carries on this tradition.

Third, justice is supposed to make things right and not merely render a verdict (the concept of the sword).  The Torah makes it clear that there are consequences for not simply breaking the law, but for spoiling the set of right relationships which God desires of humanity.  The Psalms remind us that God will judge the people with equity and right the wrongs that have occurred.  In the end God will use God’s power to put all things right. 

These three factors then lead us to Justice as a Means of Grace.  By doing justice we are working with God to establish the type of world God desires.  In so doing we demonstrate God’s gracious love for all persons.  Just as service was a conduit for God’s grace on an interpersonal scale, justice becomes a conduit for God’s grace on a community-wide basis.  Justice allows God’s grace to impact entire societies and the individuals within them.    When we work for justice we are experiencing God’s grace in our own lives (by helping to create right relationships) and are making that grace available to others.  This can be seen in the church’s working to end slavery, abolish child labor, feed the hungry, provide equal rights for women and minorities along with other causes which reflect God’s gracious love for the world.