Romans 3:19-26
September 12, 2007
Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.
You know, generations ago Presbyterians knew what it meant to be Presbyterian. Today I’m not so sure how many of us really know what it actually means to be Presbyterian. I say that because looking at our congregation, it’s pretty apparent that the majority of us grew up something other than Presbyterian. In the polling I’ve done of the members, I’ve found that at least 65% of our members grew up in a denomination other than Presbyterian, or grew up as nothing at all. They grew up Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Methodist, Christian Scientist, Pentecostal, or some other denomination.
A generation or two ago, growing up in one denomination, and then joining another would never have been the case. People who grew up Presbyterian stayed Presbyterian. We didn’t bring in many outsiders, and people just knew what it meant to be Presbyterian. Now, I’m not so sure people do. Do you know what lies at the foundations of our beliefs?
For the next four weeks, I want to do a series on what it means to be Presbyterian. I want to focus on what the basics of being Presbyterian are so that those of you who didn’t grow up Presbyterian, and those of you who did, can become a bit clearer on what it is that makes Presbyterian distinctive. In truth, four weeks really isn’t adequate. I could spend all fall preaching on this topic, but that would be kind of boring. So, I’m going to limit it to four weeks.
What is at the foundation of being a Presbyterian? If we are going to understand what it means fundamentally to be Presbyterian, we have to travel back to Germany on October 13, 1517, where a young monk did something that changed the world.
Before that hallowed date, this young monk had been an unknown Augustinian friar who toiled in obscurity in the town of Wittenberg. Having been raised and trained in the Augustinian Christian tradition (a tradition based on Augustine, who in the 5th century wrote a treatise on his own sinfulness and the fall of humanity), he was very much obsessed with his own sinfulness. He was also ordained as a priest, and he was so consumed with his own unworthiness that whenever he celebrated mass by holding the chalice, his hands shook so much that he often spilled the wine. This young monk kept wondering what he could do to overcome his own sinfulness.
Part of his problem was the theology of the Catholic Church at the time. There was a belief in the church, which still persists in a lesser form among Catholics, that a person had to merit getting into heaven. The Catholic Church had a central doctrine that entry into heaven was not free. Instead, people had to earn getting into heaven by doing good deeds. And giving money to the Church to do big projects was considered by God to be great enough to earn either entry into heaven, or at least less time in purgatory. In the early 1500s contributing to a big project, and thus doing a great deed, meant giving money to the Catholic Church to help build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The Catholic Church used this doctrine as a fundraiser for building the basilica. They did this by sending a bishop traveling throughout Europe in a cart carrying thousands of small scrolls, bearing the papal seal and bound with a red ribbon. These scrolls were called “indulgences.” By purchasing an indulgence, the proceeds of which would go to building the basilica, a person would be told that she or he, or a relative, had purchased the ability to get out of purgatory early, and to merit getting into heaven.
This whole theology of meriting entry into heaven through the purchase of indulgences bothered the young monk. He wondered how the Church or we could tell if a deed was good enough, or if we had done enough of them. This matter pressed upon his mind and soul, and he obsessed about it. As a New Testament scholar and reader of Greek, the monk was reading the Letters of Paul one day, and came across our passage for this morning. He had read it many, many times before, but this time he read it with fresh eyes. In reading it, he had a hard time moving beyond one particular sentence: “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.” He wondered, “Is this true? Is what Paul says the real path to God? Are we really saved by grace as a free gift? If this is true, then the church has been astray from the Gospel for over 1000 years.”
What did the young monk do? He did what any religious scholar at the time did to make people aware of a theological idea. He invited people to debate it. The monk, Martin Luther, went to All Saints Church, in Wittenberg, and nailed his proposal, titled "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," onto the church door. Why nail it to the door? That was the practice of the time for making people aware of events, announcing proclamations, and inviting discussion and debate on theological topics. The printing press had been around for only a short time, and publishing was expensive, so this was a cheap and time-honored way of posting his ideas. He did not anticipate the Church’s response.
His proposal basically entailed 95 “theses” that stated, in essence, indulgences were wrong because they had no power. Since grace, and therefore salvation, were free gifts given by God unearned, and accessed only through our faith in God, money spent on indulgences were merely good acts with no power to save us. He was telling the church and the faithful that the practice of selling indulgences did nothing to get us into heave or keep us out of hell. This idea rocked the church. It not only challenged almost 1000 years of church doctrine, but it seriously threatened the fundraising efforts for building a holy building in Rome—one that was to become treasured throughout the world.
The Church was so angry with Luther that it not only excommunicated him, but officially tried to have him killed. Luther had to go into hiding, yet his “95 Theses” were printed, published, and distributed widely throughout Europe. The Church now not only had its fundraising efforts interfered with, but people were leaving the church and joining new movements based on Luther’s insight that we are saved by grace, not works.
Why is this idea, that we “are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” so important to Presbyterians? Because this idea of salvation by grace is the foundation of being a Presbyterian. We are a people who believe that everything in life comes from God through grace, and that all our actions should be motivated by faith in this grace. Despite our believing this, this is also one of the hardest ideas to get across to people because most people want to be saved by something other than grace
What do I mean? What are some of the things you’ve heard people say we need to do in order to be saved? You’ve heard that we have to be “born-again,” although that passage from John 3:3 only tells us that we need to be born-again to “see” the kingdom of God, not to be saved. You’ve heard that we need to do the right good deeds to be saved. You’ve heard that you need to belong to the right denomination, movement, or church to be saved. Despite what Paul says in Romans, we are always looking for ways to get this salvation thing under our own control. We don’t want salvation to be a gift. We want to be able to earn it through our beliefs, behaviors, or belonging to the right church. We don’t want it to be all up to God. What if God decides not to give us grace or salvation? Much better to have it under our own control.
I was asked an interesting question a few weeks ago by one of our folks. Years ago I had asked the same question and it took me a while to get a good answer. The question? What is grace? I love the fact that she asked me this question. Sometimes we are so reluctant to ask basic questions because we worry that people will think we’re stupid. But the truth is that those of us who have studied deep Christian concepts forget what it was like to not know them. How did I answer? I answered by giving her a hug and telling her that’s what grace is. I’m not sure it was the best answer, but what I was trying to say was that grace is all of God’s love, all of God’s blessings, all of God’s power all wrapped up and given to us as a free gift. Like a hug, it’s an expression of God’s love for us that goes beyond what we understand. We feel and experience it more than we understand it.
David Steindl-Rast, who is a Dominican priest, says that grace can be understood this way. It is as if God was standing around every corner, doorway, and hallway, waiting to give us gift-wrapped gifts of grace. The problem is that we are so busy with our tasks and interests that we brush right by them. But God keeps running in front of us, holding out gifts. We accept them when we simply have faith—when we trust in God’s goodness and receive the gifts thankfully. The irony of the approach of trying to earn the gifts is that we become like people receiving gifts at our birthday party, asking the givers how much we owe them for the gifts. We would never do that, but we do try to earn God’s gifts, gifts that have already been given for free.
It’s because of the connection between grace and faith that the forming a relationship with God is so important. God doesn’t force grace on us. We accept these gifts of grace by having faith, by trusting in God and loving God. That is a problem for some people because they want grace, but they don’t necessarily want the relationship with God that comes with grace. They want God to give them grace when they need it, but they also want God to leave them alone when they don’t. Yet when we have a deep relationship with God, based on faith, grace flows through everything we do.
To be Presbyterian means to be aware of God’s grace everywhere, and being constantly open to it. This idea of being available to grace creates some interesting and quite profound ways of thinking about our faith. For instance, why as Presbyterians, should we worship, do good deeds, and serve God in everything? Do we worship in order to please God so we can get into heaven? Do we give money to the church to get into heaven? Do we do good deeds to get into heaven? We already know the answer to those questions, but the question remains, if everything is free, then why worship, give, and serve?
The answer is that for us Presbyterians, we worship, give, and serve in response to grace. We recognize that grace is all around us, and we become so grateful (literally meaning “grace-filled”) that we respond to grace. We worship in order to enhance the connection between God and us so that grace can flow more freely in and through our lives. One of the problems of today is that we are so “me-focused” that we are always asking, “what’s in it for me to worship?” The answer is “nothing,” unless you count spending an hour with God, praising God, praying to God, listening to God, and preparing the way for God to grow in your soul as “something.” Presbyterians worship because we are called to worship, and because worship deepens our relationship with God. We give to the church and charity as a way of saying thank you to God, and as a way of giving back to God some of the grace God has given us. We serve because God’s grace has entered our lives so fully that we want to share grace with others.
It is this belief in grace, and our response to grace, that distinguishes us from Roman Catholics, Pentecostals, and many Evangelicals. In the Roman Catholic tradition, there is still a belief that we must do good deeds to merit salvation. That’s why worship in the Roman Catholic tradition is considered an obligation. We have to worship, and take part in the mass, to merit salvation. In the Pentecostal and Evangelical traditions, the emphasis is much more on certain ways of acting in faith that procures grace. You must believe the right things, or have the right gifts of the Spirit, or have given the right confession to merit grace and salvation. We Presbyterians don’t worry about salvation. When someone asks us when we were saved, we say that we were saved 2000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross, and we spend our times opening up to and responding to grace rather than trying to figure out how to get it.
Hannah Whitall Smith, the great Quaker writer of the 19th century, gives a great metaphor for the Presbyterian, and Protestant, attitude towards grace. She says that the problem is that we are like flowers planted outside the garden of grace, always straining over the fence to get some of that grace. We strain to get grace, but can’t get it because we are planted in something other than grace. What we need to do is to simply plant ourselves in grace, and when we do that the grace just flows through everything we do.
I actually believe that it is this belief in grace, and response to grace, that keeps the Presbyterian Church relatively small. I think that people respond much more to fear, and worries about their salvation, and doing good things to save themselves, than to the free gift of grace. Many churches preach messages that say that if you don’t become one of them, or believe like them, or act like them, or belong to them, you aren’t saved. Presbyterians never preach that, and we also never make people afraid. What we do is to help people to grow and mature in grace, but that’s not necessarily what people want, or at least it’s not what people think they want. We offer grace as a free gift, and we offer a path to grow in that grace. That’s what makes us Presbyterian at our foundations.
So, here are some questions that I want you to reflect on, as Presbyterians
• To what extent do you worship in response to grace?
• To what extent do you serve God in response to grace?
• To what extent do you let grace fill and flow through your life?
Amen.
