Sermon: The Flavor of Grace

Texts: Exodus 16:1-15; Matthew 20:1-16

Date: September 18, 2005

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

“Is there a richer and stranger idea in the world than grace? Only love, grace’s cousin, grace’s summer pelt.”[1]

Brian Doyle opened his essay on grace with those words, which really hit the mark for me. A couple of paragraphs later, he describes grace as “utterly free, ferociously strong, and about as mysterious a thing as you could imagine.” Grace: rich and strange, free, strong, mysterious. Above all, mysterious.

I find the concept of grace rolling around in my mind like a chrome ball, shining and beautiful but hard to grasp, difficult to pin down somehow. You can try to stick words to it but grace defies definition. Perhaps grace is the poetry of our religion.

The word, like most words, can be traced back to its roots. “Grace,” according to Brian Doyle, “is the English translation of the Greek charis, itself a translation of various Hebrew words meaning, collectively, love, compassion, fidelity—all used in context of these gifts being utterly free from God to God’s creatures. There are no requisites for grace, no magnets for it, no special prayers to lure it. No guru, no method, no teacher…”[2] About as mysterious a thing as you can imagine.

The two stories in our texts today point to the rich and strange idea of God’s grace. I’ve done some poking around in my books (which are for me vehicles of grace) and uncovered some additional ideas about grace I want to share with you. Some of the classical theologians worked hard at describing all the nuances of grace. Grace is one thing, but there are nuances; like there is ice cream, and there are flavors.

Oh, now I’ve got you thinking grace, now that I’ve mentioned ice cream. Just dwell on ice cream for a moment, why don’t you, and while you’re remembering your favorite flavor, or the best ice cream you ever ate, think: God is good. That’s a little homily on grace right there.

Classical theologians spoke about one aspect or flavor of grace being prevenient grace. As I understand it, without using a lot of other big words to define a big word, prevenient grace is the grace that goes first. It is the divine love that is offered to every human prior to their making any decision or move to respond to God. It’s the vanilla ice cream of grace, the one that comes before all the rest.

According to the United Methodist Book of Discipline, prevenient grace is a) preventing and b) preparing. Preventing means there is a safety net, preventing one from straying so far that she or he is not redeemable. Preparing means that it prepares us to acknowledge God’s presence in our lives by saying “yes” to God’s call. It is the grace that makes it possible to recognize and say yes to God.

Prevenient grace shows up in the parable of the workers in the vineyard. In the story the landowner goes out early in the morning to hire laborers for the vineyard. That actually is a bit unusual; one would expect a steward or manager or foreman or some other servant layered in between the landowner and the laborer to be up early to do the hiring. In the culture of Jesus’ day, the gap between the landowner and the laborer was immense. Furthermore, we might reasonably expect the seeking to go the other way around—workers going to great estates asking, even begging for work. But this landowner turns it upside down. He goes out looking for laborers. And not just once. He goes out looking over and over again. He hires workers at 6:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m., noon, and 3:00 p.m. And as if that weren’t enough, he goes out looking for workers to hire at 5:00—just one hour before quitting time. What boss with any amount of prudence and good business sense, goes out and hires workers one hour before quitting time, no to mention paying them as if they worked all day long?

Here you see a sign of God’s grace seeking us out. God doesn’t seek us out just once—just early—but over and over again. Even up until quitting time, the invitation is still good. This peculiar and merciful God lovingly seeks us out from the crack of dawn, at nine and noon and three and even to the close of our days. That’s tireless grace, that seeks us before we seek it.

Classical theologians point to another flavor of grace they call “justifying grace.” I think of this as the lemon sorbet of grace, refreshing, the type of dessert used to cleanse the palate. Justifying grace is “about face” grace. As God calls, we turn from our ways to God’s ways. Our sin—all the myriad ways we have missed the mark—no longer traps us. We are set free from the burden of sin and given new life in Christ. “Justifying” is a kind of legal metaphor for saying that Jesus’ sacrifice paid the penalty for our sin so that we are free from it.

One of the saints of the middle ages, Catherine of Siena, was the 24th of 25 children who became a Dominican nun at age 18. She retired to her room for three years, coming out only for Mass. When she did emerge she was so charismatic that cardinals and bishops and priests all were drawn to confess their sins to her. Catherine had visions during which God spoke to her at length, and God, it turned out, was obsessed with grace, as Catherine heard God speak. One of the things God said to her was, “My mercy is incomparably greater than all the sins anyone could commit.” God said to Catherine, “This is the sin which is never forgiven, now or ever: the refusal, the scorning, of my mercy. For this offends me more than all the other sins they have committed. So the despair of Judas displeased me more and was a greater insult to my Son than his betrayal had been. My providence will never fail those who want to receive it.”[3]

Grace is unfailing, inexhaustible, endless. Sometimes we who are more limited in our capacity for mercy find this hard to believe. We might find it hard to believe that God’s mercy is inexhaustible when we’re talking about ourselves. We might find it even harder to believe when we’re considering the shortcomings of others. Can God’s grace possibly extend to those people we find exasperating, disgusting, or downright hateful? Is there a flavor of grace for the obviously unredeemed people we have in mind?

Did you know there is a flavor of ice cream made by Snoqualmie Gourmet called “Honey Roasted Garlic Vanilla Bean?” I’m not making that up. Honey roasted garlic vanilla bean ice cream. Ick. I can’t say I have much of an appetite for that flavor, how about you? Perhaps that’s our perspective on the flavor of grace offered to people we don’t think deserve much grace from ourselves or from God. We catch ourselves thinking that grace ought to go so far and no further. You can see it in the parable of the landowner and the laborers. The people who were industrious, got up early to do an honest day’s work, were pretty put out that the latecomers to the labor pool got the same pay as they did, even though it was the wage they had agreed to. Those slackers who slept in until noon got a full day’s pay! The people who had hardly broken a sweat before quitting time, too! Shocking. Picture yourself getting the same forgiveness as the terrorist who set off a car bomb at the market and later repents and you’ll have a sense of the outrage of the first hired.

In the story we hear one of the quintessential statements of divine freedom. “Take what belongs to you and go: I choose to give to the last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” [Matthew 20:14-15] That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Frankly, I am envious of God’s inexhaustible grace. I’d like to be able to be as generous with understanding and mercy as God. I can’t achieve that; but I could, possibly, resist the temptation to cut God down to my size. Some wise person has suggested we probably ought to audit our theology if God conveniently hates all the same people we do. Another flavor of grace is needed: what the classical theologians called “sanctifying grace.” Sanctifying grace is grace for the journey. It’s the kind of grace that accompanies walking with God and growing into the likeness of Christ. What flavor would we call it? Rocky Road, maybe—lumps and bumps reminding us that growing into the likeness of Christ isn’t so easy. But it’s sweetness all the same, walking with God, finding grace more and more amazing as we make our journey.

One of the most mysterious aspects of grace is the way it’s spread out, everywhere, whether one is deserving or not. As Brian Doyle writes, “You can be good, bad, or indifferent, and you are equally liable to have grace hit you in the eye.” Augustine of Hippo, a grace-obsessed bishop of old, wrote, “It will not be the grace of God in any way unless it has been gratuitous in every way.” Gratuitous. What is the gratuitous flavor of grace? Peach ice cream, hand cranked, made with sun-ripened peaches on a perfect summer day. No one deserves the flavor of a peach. It’s entirely unmerited.

Unmerited grace is God saying to the complaining, belligerent, ungrateful Israelites, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you.” Bread from heaven. So much of what we enjoy in this sweet life comes at us just like that, like bread from heaven for the deserving and the undeserving alike. A gentle rain, the orangey red of a turning autumn leaf, the smile of a baby, the embrace of a friend, the whiff of salt air, the sound of a bird in the forest, the lines of a lover’s neck, the feeling of love so strong we are overwhelmed at times. Complain all you want about the things that go wrong. God is still going to rain bread from heaven for you.

Take what you need for today. Just go out and gather it up. Don’t begrudge it for your neighbors, either; there’s plenty to go around.

It’s free.

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[1] Doyle, Brian “Grace Notes” Best Spiritual Writing 2001 Philip Zaleski, ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001, p. 48

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid, p. 53-54