Grace to You

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

It was about 54 AD. About eighteen months previously, Paul and others had founded a Christian community in the primarily Roman seaport of Corinth. After crossing the Aegean Sea and settling in Ephesus, Paul continued to write to the fledgling Corinthian community, advising them on their new life together. Then reports reached Paul about conflicts and divisions within the Corinthian community. There were conflicts between those who ate meat dedicated to the Greek and Roman gods and those who refused to eat meat from shrines, between those of higher social status and those of the working classes, between those who were married and those who remained celibate, and between those who had followed Apollos, one of the other evangelists, and those who had followed Paul. Worst of all were the reports that some of the Corinthians were aggravating others by claiming to have – and even boasting about – special spiritual gifts. Sighing, Paul called in his scribe and began to dictate yet another letter.

As was his wont, Paul began his letter by giving the Corinthians a theological grounding for understanding who they were as a community. Although he would address all their various conflicts specifically, he first wanted to make sure that the Corinthians had a theological foundation for their life as a community committed to Christ. And so, after greeting them, Paul reminds them that it is God who has brought them together as a community. In this reminder, he implies that, as a Christian community comprising a disparate group of people, not related to each other by blood, marriage, class, or ethnicity, they differ from almost every other human community. More important, they have been enriched with gifts by the grace of God. This grace now active among them is a dynamic power, given to them so that they may bear fruit as a community. Because grace is the source of their gifts, there is no room among them for boasting or division. Most important of all, as a community grounded not in human power or authority but in the grace of God, they are now an odd people in the midst of a divided world.

It is fitting that we hear such a reminder, that we are grounded in God’s grace, at the beginning of a new church year. It is fitting that the church reminds us, as we begin the holy season of Advent, that we are all here by God’s grace. The world around us – and I risk sounding like a Grinch for even saying it – has frantically begun preparing for, even celebrating, Christmas. Stores and online sites bid us celebrate Jesus’ birth by maxing out our credit cards, while we try to escape smiling Santas, decorated trees, and sentimental Christmas music. It’s enough to make me sympathize with old Scrooge and mutter, “Bah, humbug!”

We are not preparing for Christmas – not yet. We have entered a different season. In Advent, the church has given us a slower, more reflective time, a time when we can pause, turn toward God, and remember who we truly are. Our readings from Scripture, even our collect, remind us that we are an odd people, who, unlike the world around us, are actually living in more than one time zone at once. The prophet Isaiah wrote early in the fourth century BC to a people who had returned from exile in Babylon to find Jerusalem in ruins. We hear the prophet’s reminder to them – and by extension to us -- of all that God had done for them in the past and his anticipation of God’s help, both in the present and in the days ahead. The writer of the Gospel according to Mark similarly wrote during a time when Jerusalem was in turmoil – and indeed would be destroyed by the Romans shortly after the writing of this gospel. In today’s reading, we catch up with Jesus just before his arrest and execution. We hear Jesus’ prediction of God’s future intervention in the world and the eventual consummation of God’s reign. We too then hear Jesus bid his friends to stay alert in the present and wait patiently for God to complete God’s work.

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth helps us to live faithfully in all three time zones. Reflect on your own lives and remember all that God has done for you personally. In fact, there’s no better spiritual exercise than to take the time at the end of the day and reflect on how God has been present to you in your day or to that point in your life. Then walk around this church, read the windows and the plaques, look at the pictures in the hallway, and remember all that God has done for this parish. God has blessed this place and the people who have worshipped here for more than 150 years!

More important, as we continue to hope for the coming of God’s reign, and as we commit ourselves to living faithfully in the present, we remember who we are as a community now. Like the Corinthian Christians, we have been brought together by God. Look around you. What a motley crew we are! We range in age from three to nine-ty three. We are of different ethnicities, different classes, different genders, and different sexual orientations. We have converged on this place from different parts of the country, maybe even the globe. God has given us many spiritual gifts: some are musicians, some are preachers, some are readers, some can tell others of their Christian journey, some are devoted in prayer, and some are the hands of the parish reaching out in service and ministry. Most important, all of us are grounded in grace, grace that bears fruit in good works. And what a wonderful day to celebrate that grace, as we continue a ministry in Loaves and Fishes that this parish has given to the surrounding community for over ten years. And, yes, we are called to be different from the rest of the world. Like the Corinthian Christians, we too are called to be an odd people in a divided world.

Yet, for all that, it’s all too easy to despair as we look around us. The divisions in our world are all too apparent. However you get your news, whether by newspaper, or television, or via tablet or smart phone, or even if you try to escape all the news media, we are bombarded by news of Israelis and Palestinians, terrorist bombings, violence against women and gays, and poverty in the US – no wonder food banks are thriving. Once again the deaths of John Crawford in a Dayton Walmart, Tamir Rice in a Cleveland park, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, remind us of the deep divisions in our world, our sad history as a nation, and our complicity in fostering racial and ethnic conflict.

Just when even I am ready to despair that God’s reign will ever be realized, I open the newspaper and God’s grace leaps out anew. Out from the Columbus Dispatch this week came the story of the Revs. Gerald Rice and Doug Duble.1 Twelve years ago Pastor Rice looked out at his predominantly black congregation and felt the Lord telling him that it was time to make his church more diverse. “I felt a real burden in my heart that our church was predominantly African-American, but that was not God’s heart for us to be,” he said. Meanwhile, Pastor Duble accepted the call of his predominantly white church, making sure the congregation understood his multicultural vision. A member of Rice’s congregation introduced the two. As they became friends, they realized they shared the same vision and began planning and dreaming. Two years later, the two congregations came together to form the nondenominational Judah Christian Community. Now, ten years later, the congregation numbers over 300 regular worshipers, about 65 percent black and 35 percent white. Bringing the two congregations together took time. Overcoming differences in worship style, music, and even dress, required effort, and some members in both groups were not ready to compromise or change. Now the congregation attracts those who are drawn to the mix, who have come to value the multicultural community. Most important is the love that permeates the community, love of God, and love of each other. “Every Sunday is like a celebration in our ministry,” Rice said. “The joy and love show in here, it’s just incredible. If you like being hugged, you will be hugged in this church. You will be hugged, and you will be welcomed.”

In Advent, we continue to hope that God’s grace will enable us to overcome our divisions and conflicts, that God’s grace will continue to bear fruit in us, that we may “do all such good works as [God has] prepared for us to walk in,” and that God’s reign has already begun in us and is even now coming closer. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. JoAnne Viviano, “Church has proved it’s serious about diversity,” Columbus Dispatch, November 28, 2104, B6.