Excerpts from Minister Jamie's sermon based on Mark 9:30-37
What do you call a person who graduates last in medical school? A doctor. Maybe not my doctor.
As human beings we really value rankings. We rank colleges. We also pre-rank their football teams - not based upon what they're doing but what we think they're going to do. We rank the 40 greatest songs of the week. I've never been invited to an awards show, but folks will gather on the red carpet because people are nominated for awards. We not only judge the performances of movies and music, but we also judge how they dress.
The question before us today is, how does grace change the way we answer the question, “who is the greatest?” Maybe it's because I was a product of the 90s, but I think 90s sitcoms were pretty cool. Think about it: Full House, Family Matters, Friends…even The Golden Girls’ last season was in 1992. There was another sitcom that did not get nearly as many nominations or wasn’t nearly as noteworthy as other shows of the time. The show was called Grace Under Fire. That show featured a woman named Grace, who was trying to raise her children after recently divorcing. Not only is she a single mom trying to now raise her children, but she's also a recovering addict. Sounds to me like the title, Grace Under Fire, was an appropriate title. Think about the way that we judge… single mother… recovering addict… Seems like she's at the very end of her rope, but really for her she's starting anew. She's starting fresh. Isn't that really what grace is all about?
Every single week we gather in this place and say the words, “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you”. I bet just this week that you are feeling life’s pressures, and maybe, just maybe you've been left wondering, where is this grace that we speak of? I'm fascinated by grace. I'm absolutely astonished by grace. But what is grace?
Grace literally comes from the Greek word “charis”. Charis similar to the word “charity”. Charity, in older English, was more likely to be translated as “love” instead of grace. What I find so astonishing about grace in the early church is that it seemed to occupy a central role in what the early church was trying to establish. Think about the writings of Paul. Paul was so intent on trying to help people who were trapped in a society where a person's worth could be measured by where they were supposed to fit into society. Were they a slave? Were they free? Were they male? Were they female? Were they rich? Were they poor? Did they have lots of ability? Did they have little ability? All the ways in which we might draw status and might draw our human worth and value from is not what the early church placed value in.
We rank the wealthiest people in the world in terms of how much money they have. But would you really consider the guy in Mexico who run runs a cartel and is worth multiple billions as greater than the janitor who works every week doing the very best he can to bring a smile to make a place clean, where people can come in and gather in a school or church or to a library? I think not. Value and worth and dignity as human beings is not something we earn with the star system or with a dollar figure but comes from the very grace of God. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our IQ, skin color, language, abilities. It is the grace and mercy and love of God that defines us no matter where we fit into societal rankings.
You may be familiar with the star system in recruiting rankings. In high school football these kids who are 16-17 years old are being measured; a five-star athlete is the cream of the crop. But not always does this five-star ranking predict who is actually going to be the best athlete, or the best teammate. Some of the greatest players and greatest people that emerged from these from sports were two- and three-star athletes. So maybe it's not the number of stars people want to give us, but it's how we respond, and how we use the abilities the capabilities and the lives we have, to be the best people that we can be.
Grace itself can be defined as a gift; a gift that is independent of your cultural value and worth, how we walk, how we talk, how we do our hair. All these things that might signal status to others do not signal status before God, because God doesn't work the way we do. We try and decide who is qualified by our own metrics. But when God calls a person by his grace and mercy, God qualifies that person. It doesn't matter who that person is or where they come from. All that matters is that God has called them.
Why do things have to be fixed? Why can’t we allow people, especially children, to be and fall where they are and to grow into the people that they are called to be? Aptitude is yet to be ultimately determined, because how you use the opportunities and the gifts you have is far greater than the gifts you actually have. You can have a lot of gifts but if you're not willing to use your gifts to love and to serve other people then Jesus says you are last. God gives us grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, and does not see our greatest failures or our greatest challenges as ultimately defining.
I think no further than Josh Heupel. He was a quarterback for Oklahoma in 2000 when they won the national championship. He would go on to become the offensive coordinator for the Oklahoma Sooners. He was then fired from Oklahoma. The school he graduated from, where he was Heisman Trophy runner-up, told him they were going in a different direction. He admits he has some anger and frustration about how he had been treated, but he did not allow that frustration to trap him. No, instead he went back to work, trying to do better and be better. By grace he continued to move up in the rankings. Just this season he is the head coach of Tennessee, and they are 4-0. And they beat Oklahoma.
Are we going to allow the opinions and the way other people value us to determine how we see our own value? Or can we find grace? Be like Grace Under Fire and find our own freedom and find a new way to live life together. This is what grace is all about - knowing that you are free from the past and from the way that you have been measured by society. Free from the way others have labeled you and judged you.
So, if we have been touched by the grace of God, then we will not judge others by status. We will not judge based on where people fall on the right and the left of the divide. Instead, we will focus on how we love and care and serve others. Who you are attracted to doesn't give you more or less space in this place. How fast or how slow you run a 40-yard dash does not give you more or less worth in this place. How old or how young you are does not give you more or less space in this place. God has called you by name and has said you are you; you have space, and you are worthy.
By and through God's grace we can live a life that is motivated by love and serving others, and not by loving and serving ourselves at the expense of others. We might look like we are finishing last, but by God's Amazing Grace we finish first.
Amen.
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