"Can Grace Abound?" - Hebrews 13:1 - 8; Luke 14:1 - 14

A Sermon by Alex Evans, Pastor

Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Texts: Hebrews 13:1-8; Luke 14:1-14

“Can Grace Abound?”

One morning in the fall of 1936, 10-year-old Frederick Buechner and his younger brother were playing in their room. Their father opened the door, checked on them, and then went down into the family garage, turned on the engine of the car and waited for the exhaust to kill him.

Buechner and his brother heard a commotion, looked out the window and saw their father on his back in the driveway. Their mother and grandmother, in their nightgowns, had dragged him out of the garage and were pumping his legs up and down in a doomed attempt to revive him.

There would be no funeral, or discussion of what happened. Their mother just moved the boys to Bermuda to escape. The rules in that family were, “Don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel.” They became masters at covering themselves over. (David Brooks, NY Times, August 18, 2022)

Many decades later, despite this horrific and formative incident, and the rules of his family to not talk, not trust, not feel, Frederick Buechner emerged as one of the most significant writers, preachers, and theologians of his time. He somehow discovered that you cannot steel yourself against the pain, just shut down the feelings. When you do that, you simultaneously close yourself off from being transformed by the power and beauty and grace of life itself.

Kate talked about Frederick Buechner in her sermon last week. I suspect he is being referenced in so many sermons in these days. Buechner had a profound influence on me and my ministry which seems to call forth a few more thoughts from him in this sermon. All of his works – poetry, books, sermons – inspired all the preachers and theologians that I know to be more in touch with our faith and feelings. A whole section of my study is devoted to Buechner’s publications.

You may recall that Fred Buechner died this month, at the age of 96.

He was an ordained Presbyterian minister who served for nine years at the prestigious Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where our own Larry Palmer knew him when Larry was a student there.

This is what Buechner says – a kind of summary of his life - back in 1983: [I]f I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. (Now and Then)

Life’s temptation, of course, is to move from place to place on cruise control, which means, mostly focusing on failures in the past or worries about the future. We are not automatically good at listening to our life – or paying attention to the sacred in our midst. It is so easy for all of us to just go through our days – wake up, make some coffee, and get going on our duties. If we are not careful, we move mindlessly through, and before we know it, where has it all gone? Are we seeing and sensing the sacred, the beautiful, the grace? Are we living with grace?

Buechner – despite the sadness and losses that he knew, and there were many – kept urging us into the habit of fully inhabiting our experience. “Pay attention” he said, when “unexpected tears come to your eyes and what may trigger them.” Always look for the ‘mightiness,’ the sacred. He was talking about those sudden upwellings of emotion we get from nature or art, when we see a whale breaching, or are emotionally ambushed by a line in a film or poem. “We are led toward truth and beauty by a lump in the throat.” (Michael Gerson, Washington Post, August 22, 2022)

The other big subject for Buechner was GRACE. His writings, his stories, his honesty, his doubts, always pointed toward GRACE – something that seems to be increasingly missing in our world. Here is a way Fred Buechner summarizes GRACE: A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody? A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. The grace of God means something like: "Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you." There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too. (Wishful Thinking)

Grace – and gracious living in response to a gracious and amazing God – is what our Scripture passages are about today.

Those words printed in our bulletin from Hebrews, which Kelley just read, remind us to live a certain way – sharing love, sharing hospitality, concerned about the less fortunate. Those words remind us, like Buechner, to pay attention to what we are doing – not just going through the motions on auto-pilot.

Then we have another story from Luke 14 about Jesus and eating with Pharisees. Listen:

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had edema. And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?” But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?” And they could not reply to this.  When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

When we get this setting in Luke 14, we take note: 1) Jesus 2) in a house with Pharisees, 3) to eat a meal, and 4) on the Sabbath. It is a stage set for confrontation. Pharisees love to challenge Jesus – and this is the third time in Luke that Jesus dines with Pharisees. Who you eat with says a lot about you and your purposes. Add a Sabbath-day healing and you have more tension – this is the fourth time this issue has come up in Luke. What is lawful on the Sabbath?

Right on cue, the Pharisees begin observing Jesus with hostile intent.

I had a professor say one time that there are two ways to approach life: 1) with a suspicious stare, or 2) with a loving glance. That seems like a good reminder to us – do we live more with a suspicious stare or with a loving glance?

The language of this text shows the Pharisees in an adversarial stance. Once again, they are hoping to trap Jesus, have him indict himself as going against God.

And there is a man present with edema; edema is a disorder where excessive swelling from fluid retention creates major problems. Although the man does not say anything, or even ask for help, we sense that Jesus will again intervene, restore the man to health, even on the Sabbath, and even in front of suspicious Pharisees.

“Is it right to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” Jesus asks. “Who among you, with a son, or a cow that falls into a pit, will not immediately lift him out on the Sabbath?”  They were unable to offer a response – so their silence leaves Jesus’ view of appropriate conduct on the Sabbath uncontested. (J. Carrol, Luke, p. 297)

But the man with edema is not the only person at the dinner who needs healing from the Jesus, the Healer of bodies and souls. The abiding grace of God intends to fill us all with grace. And we all have a long way to go to be more grace-filled.

Jesus continues with a parable about meals and where to sit and what is important. “When you are invited, . . . do not take the prime seat. . . . For all who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who lower themselves will be lifted high.”

If we look closely at this passage, Jesus is very direct, employing the imperative mood: “don’t grab the seat reserved for the most prestigious guests! . . . . Go and recline in the last place.”

This is another of the many reminders all through the Scriptures – God’s  vertical status reversal. This is God’s way. The low are brought high – the high, low.

We are inherently attuned to climbing, to securing the best for ourselves; God cares about the lowly, the forgotten, and invites us to be more tuned to the lowly. We are generally selfish and desiring more and better for ourselves; God keeps wanting us to turn away from self to others, to selflessness. We are generally calculating, anticipating, planning for what might be more preferred, most suitable to our needs; God keep turning things upside down, reversing status, wealth, power.

Here is the truth: Christian faith is not mostly about receiving blessing from God – it is about being an agent for God’s blessings on those who have less, who have been forgotten, who need to be lifted. Christian faith is not mostly about finding our way to heaven; it is about bringing heaven to others, lifting others up, spreading grace and peace in the world – then we will find blessing.

This is all confirmed in the last section of this passage: Jesus says, when you have a banquet, invite those who are poor, the lame, the crippled, the blind – because they do not have the means to pay you back – for your repayment will come at the resurrection of the just.

We are so good at calculating for ourselves and navigating for the best for ourselves. Jesus urges us toward a reversal – be grace-filled and more thoughtful, especially toward those who have less. That is the way to life and the Kin-dom.

We are so good at comparing – who has more? How can I get more like others? Jesus points us toward a new measurement – a reversal – and to be grace-filled and generous, not greedy and selfish. Can grace abound with us?

The man with edema is not the only one who needs healing in this story. The Pharisees, fixated on their rules, especially Sabbath rules, are taught about  grace and healing. And the message of the meal – we are all to be turned toward grace and healing – away from self to others, away from our own plans to the plans for others to be lifted up, away from calculating . .  to gracious living. “For all who lift themselves up will be brought low, and all who lower themselves will be lifted up.”

Can grace abound with our lives? This is what Jesus is constantly urging!

One of Buechner’s often cited observations is that you find your vocation at the spot where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.

Clearly, according to Jesus, our deep gladness comes when we find ways to help and care for others, when we think less about our futures, ourselves, our plans, our best positions. Our deep gladness emerges when we find ways to bring help and healing to the world. And there are so many places – near and far – longing for help and healing.

May God’s Spirit so transform us to be instruments of help and healing, today, tomorrow, forever – in small ways and big ways – wherever we can extend ourselves toward the world’s deepest needs. May it be so. AMEN

Prayer of Commitment: Holy God, to turn from you is to fall; to turn to you is to rise: to trust you and serve you is to abide forever. We seek to live with abounding grace and faithfulness following Jesus. AMEN

Alex W. Evans, Pastor, Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA preached this sermon during Sunday morning worship on August 28, 2022. This is a rough manuscript.