The Christian Life as an Act of Gratitude
Sermon by James W. Crawford
October 17, 1999
Every year, during the course of the fall, we send the members of this church and some of our friends a letter interpreting the ministry and mission of Old South. We include in the envelope material describing the urgency of the mission and a pledge card. And each Sunday one of our members, just as did Sue Grefe this morning, interprets an aspect of the church's ministry. And every Sunday during the year we include in our morning worship a component we call the "Offering." How come? What is this all about? Is it just money grubbing? Fund raising? Hitting you up again? I suppose it can be seen that way. Money and cynicism frequently go together. So, this morning I want to talk with you about the ground of our giving; its motivation, its source. I am not going to present to you a catalog of urgent needs. I am not going to tell any stories of desperation. I am not going to paint a compelling vision. I am not going to exhort, shame, or bully you. I simply want to explain why our theme this year, "Faith, Gratitude, Commitment", reflects so clearly the root and flower of the Christian life.
I am reminded of a colleague of mine who tells of a church member who encountered his pastor and sternly rebuked him: "I'm fed up with the Church and Christianity. All I ever hear is 'Give, give, give.'" The pastor answered simply, 'Well, can you give me a better definition of Christianity than that?'" Give. Give. Give.
The pastor is right. Give. Give. Give. But here is the beauty part. Although it sometimes sounds like an imperative, "Give, give, give" does not come to us as an imperative! We give not because of a demand, not in response to an urgent and droning insistence. We give not because of a constant beating over the head. We give because something has been done for us. We give because we have been given to. We give, not because we must, but because we are grateful. The whole of the Christian life is not a matter of living up to certain ideals; it is not honing and then exercising a whole range of virtues similar to those we may find in the Boy Scout oath. The whole of the Christian life is an act of gratitude. So this morning, let me remember with you the gift we have been given, the only way we can respond and, finally, the shape our response takes.
I
I want to begin with the Apostle Paul. He wrote the Letter to the Romans Ian Holland read from this morning. Remember his story? Something wonderful happens in Paul's life. He receives a second chance. On the way to Damascus to argue against the Gospel, a decisive and transforming moment puts his life in reverse. His old life goes out the window. A new life begins. His efforts to dispute, subvert and demolish the story of Jesus hits the wall. His life turns around 180 degrees. For God's sake, shipwreck, beatings, imprisonment, persecution, life always at stake becomes a routine. And through it all he testifies to joy, peace and power. He gives his life, he surrenders his death to the person standing behind his marvelous personal change whom he names as Jesus Christ.
But more: Paul can only call this new opportunity a gift of grace. He recasts the story of his life and before he discusses anything else he tells his readers what has been done for him. As Ian read to us, Paul is a servant of Jesus Christ, called by grace to an apostleship destined to change the world. Right up front, Paul affirms his faith. He expresses his confidence, his trust, his faith in the source and content of news changing his life.
What can we call that? On what ground does Paul rearrange his life? What gift acts like a continental divide in his autobiography? Grace! Grace!
Do you know what many people believe Christianity is all about? Do you know what experience many people—some of you, perhaps, in this room today—many people have had with the Church and the religion of Jesus Christ? I think it is too often a gruesome story. They met a scolding, finger-pointing, angry God. They encountered someone who in God's name puts them down, turns their lives into some kind of quid pro quo: "You be good, or else." "You do this and this and this and this, and you'll be rewarded with this and this and this and this." "You want to be loved by God? You will be when you deserve it." "Disobey me and no Christmas for you."
A travesty! A horror story! That is not good news. It is bad news. That is not the source of the Christian life; that is the way of an ethical life measuring itself in counting good deeds and bad; a life of striving, hard effort, never achieving enough, mistrusting the way love, especially Divine love, works. Who wants to live under the thumb of a cosmic scold? That is not what changes Paul's life. Grace does. Love does.
Let me illustrate. You saw that wonderful little boy this morning. We baptized him. Baptism represents many wonderful things but let me emphasize here just two. First, he is an infant. He senses strongly that his mother and father love him dearly. They tend his every need: tummy aches, tummy emptiness, a chapped bottom. He trusts their love, and they care for him even when he gets them up at four-twenty in the morning, when he dribbles his applesauce down his new sailor suit or spits it out, throws a tantrum at the photographer's studio, fails to smile at his grandmother, passes on his bronchitis to his mother. They love him when ostensibly he deserves it least and before he even knows it.
Just so with God. In that act this morning we affirm God loves this little boy before he knows it; before he can respond to it; before he can do anything about it; before he can say "yes" or "no" to it, before he can do anything other than simply be. God takes an initiative. The love of God embraces him before he can make any deal for it; before he can arrange for it. In effect, as the French Reformed Church puts it in simple Christian religious language: "Little child, for you Jesus Christ came into the world, he did battle with the world, he suffered; for you he went through the agony of Calvary; for you he cried "it is fulfilled," for you he triumphed over death . . .For you—and you, little child, do not yet know anything about this, but thus is the statement of the Apostle confirmed: "We love because God first loved us." It is a fact of faith and we trust this grace will hold this little child in its arms regardless of how he responds as he grows older. Nothing, not even his skepticism, or perhaps indifference can deny this initiative. An act of grace!
But the second important ingredient in this act of grace is this: you and I stand within this loving embrace no less so than does this child. That is why we baptize here, in this room, in front of you. Baptism is a sermon acted out. It bears not simply a message for this child and his family, but for us, too. The love and grace of God hold for you and me exactly as they hold for this little boy. We express in this event that for all of us Jesus Christ came into the world, did battle, suffered, went through the agony of Calvary, cried 'it is fulfilled', triumphed over death, confirming the statement of the Apostle: 'We love because God first loved us.'"
The difference? We know something about this! We read it in the scriptures, we hear it from the pulpit, we sing it in our hymns, we affirm it in our prayers, we witness it on this cross, we proclaim it in the sacrament of baptism. It is Paul who crystallizes the essence of grace later in his Letter to the Romans. Remember? He asks a marvelous rhetorical question, I paraphrase it here: "What can separate us from the love of God? Can cancer, or AIDS, or spousal abuse, or a job lay-off, or a lover's betrayal, or the death of a child, or deep depression or a debilitating accident? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor any configuration of evil or psychological disposition, nor forces over which I have no control, nor earthquake, nor flood, nor national military claims, nor bloody warfare, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." No deals. No strings. No quid pro quos. No heavenly check marks and account books. We love because God first loves us! Believe it. Trust it. It is true. A gift for you.
II
And what happens? What response to this good news of our being loved, forgiven, healed right from the start? What attitude toward this being held onto, grasped, embraced, stayed with throughout the worst things we can do or that can be done to us? What is our position with this God who hangs in there with us, who never, never lets us go?
What can it be but gratitude, a note of thanksgiving, a song of joy, an exulting in release and freedom? How can we say anything but "thanks" for something most of us believe we do not deserve—and we don't—for something we did not work for, for something whose definition of our worth does not depend upon achievement, job status, bloodlines, income, residence, all the junk we seek that would give value to our lives.
There is no cost-benefit analysis that can measure the depths love goes to in our behalf and come up with an arrangement for appropriate pay-back. We receive the gift and can only say "Thanks."
There is no market where true grace and love can be purchased. It is a gift. Receive it and say "Thanks."
There is no focus group where grace and love can be calibrated, weighed, packaged—no way— as Paul Scherer says, "Love is a spendthrift", and as Ruth Duck affirms in her hymn of joy, "In every corner of the earth, God comes to save and free; Break forth with shouts of Holy Joy, all lands, make melody."
III
Faith in the grace of God. Gratitude for the Grace of God. And finally, commitment born of grace and gratitude. If there is any pay-back it comes here.
C.S. Lewis helps us. Asked to speak about the matter of Christian stewardship, Lewis began with these words: "On the whole God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for God." For the last few minutes we have been thinking about God's love for us. But as we inferred a few moments ago in speaking of God's loving initiative, we love because God first loves us. So, being loved first, we love. And what shape does that take? How, in gratitude for the grace of God do we offer our lives?
Well, you might take a look again at someone like Catherine Dauber. Though I do not know all that motivates Catherine, what we lose by her leaving, what we know by her witness is someone who seems, regardless of circumstance, to rest securely in the grace of God, through, among other things, severe bouts with cancer, the early death of her beloved Clarence, to radiate an attitude and demeanor as usual through a ton of personal, public and charitable activities, a testimony and commitment as a result of—what? could it be gratitude? Faith. Gratitude. Commitment. I don't know that she would like this: but let me call her, "Commitment Exhibit A." That is what we lose! That is what we treasure!
Or on a larger scale, I have been intrigued with this week's announcement of the 6 billionth human being born. On Wednesday morning the papers showed a picture of a Bosnian mother with her new child. There she was: number 6 billion. Donna Schaper, in The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote a little article entitled, "Happy Birthday 6 Billionth Baby." She speculates some of us will take out our calculators and our Malthus and be astonished at the geometrical progression of population increase. She also informs us that "if this child is born in Switzerland, she is likely to live to age 82 and enjoy a lot of good meals. If this child is born in Sierra Leone, he is likely to live to age 39 and live on 1000 calories a day, if lucky. If born in Uganda, she will likely live on an annual income of $600. If born in the United States he will live in a family with more than $20,000 annual income."
As we consider this 6 billionth child and our life as Christians, as gratitude for the grace and love given us, is it possible for us to see our lives partly, anyway, as offered to the next generation in the world? Can we consider ourselves an offering to the next generation?
Marian Wright Edelman has composed a marvelous prayer outlining the scope of the task.
O God of the children of Somalia, Sarajevo,
South Africa and South Carolina,
Of Albania, Alabama, Bosnia and Boston,
Of Cracow and Cairo, Chicago, Croatia,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
O God of Black and Brown and White and Albino
children and those all mixed together,
Of children who are rich and poor and in between,
Of Chidden who speak English and Spanish and Russian
and Hmong and languages our ears cannot discern,
O God of the child prodigy and the child prostitute
of the child of rapture and the child of rape.
Of runaway or thrown away children who struggle
everyday without parent or place or friend or future,
And yes, God of children who can walk and talk and hear
and see and sing and dance and jump and place and
of children who wish they could but can't,
Of children who are loved and unloved, wanted and
unwanted,
of beggar, beaten, abused, neglected,
homeless, AIDS, drug and hunger ravaged children,
Of children who are emotionally and physically and
mentally fragile,
and of children who rebel and ridicule, torment and
taunt,
O God of children of destiny and of despair, of war
and of peace,
Of disfigured, diseased and dying children,
Of children without hope and of children with hope
to spare and share,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
This prayer touches all bases. This describes in many ways a world we live out of gratitude to serve. When we ask for your time, or your personal talents, or your money in this church, we ask it first of all as a response to our faith and trust in the grace and love of Christ given at great cost to us. We ask these things confident in our gratitude for a gift already given. We ask because if we love because we are loved first, then giving becomes not an obligation, a responsibility, a necessity to balance a budget, to pay a salary, to maintain a building, to build houses, or reconcile the warring creeds and races—not at all. Giving becomes a "thank you" to the God who blesses us each moment of the day with an assurance that our lives amid all our troubles, traumas and fast-paced change rests in the secure hands of Love that will never let us go, a life-long commitment born of grace— a giving that becomes an act of gratitude.
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