Christmas 2

Christmas 2 CLAIM THE NAME OF GRACE 1-2-05

Ever heard that “An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?” When this statement is made about a child, it means we can observe the child and learn a great deal about the parents. My grandmother was the one who first taught me, “People can tell a lot about you, Danny, by the people you hang around with!” My father used to tell his three sons to always “remember your last name,” thus reminding us that whatever we did when away from our home and family would directly reflect upon our home and family. I read that a veterinarian can learn a lot about a dog owner he has never met, just by observing the dog.

What does this world learn about God by watching His Church on earth? What do others learn about God by watching this congregation…Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church? The word “grace” is read often in our lessons this morning, twice in Ephesians and 4-times in our Gospel. When we trace the roots of the term “grace”, or “charis” in Greek, we discover a verb that means “I rejoice, I am glad.” Is this the image we portray of God through our individual and congregational life? Are we a rejoicing people? Do people observe and experience “gladness” through the relationships they share with us? Do we claim the name? In many ways we do, but we now have another year to do so even more. Author Philip Yancey writes: “Some of us seem so anxious about avoiding hell that we forget to the celebrate our journey toward heaven!” We, the people of Grace, are on a journey!

A prostitute, in conversation with a Pastor, tearfully admitted to “renting” out her young daughter to nameless men in order to make money to support the woman’s drug habit. The Pastor knew he was legally required to report cases of child abuse, but beyond that he was not quite sure what to say to this woman. He finally asked her if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. The Pastor writes: “I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. ‘Church!’ she cried out. ‘Why would I ever go there? I am already feeling terrible enough about myself and my life and my choices. The Church would only make me feel worse!’” What has become of “grace”? Has the Church lost its gift of grace? One author writes: “Evidently the down and out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers. What has happened?” What has become of “grace”?

Many of our Grace men have just read and discussed a book by Gordon MacDonald. It is this author that writes: “The world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.” I believe Gordon MacDonald has put his index finger on the church’s single most important contribution. Where else can the world…this broken, sinful, hurting, and frightened world…go to find grace?

I am placing before myself and this congregation that the year 2005 be the year when, like no other of our nearly ninety years before, we claim the name our faith ancestors chose for this church! I know of no greater and distinctly determining name than “Grace” for the gathering of God’s children. In our Ephesians lesson this morning, specifically verses 3-6, we read of how richly blessed we are by God, in Christ: choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world…calling and enabling us to be holy and blameless before him in love…God has destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ---to the praise of his glorious grace. We are recipients of “grace” and are to live our lives “to the praise of his glorious grace”! The Church, throughout the New Testament, is referred to as “the body of Christ.” We are to be the hands and feet and ears and eyes of Jesus as we move about, day to day. Again I ask: “What do people learn about God by observing you…by observing us?”

God has chosen us to be His children and, as we read in John 1:12/ “he gave us power to become the children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” As God’s children we are to be bearers of the Light…the light John writes about in this first chapter of his gospel account. The language is beautiful, as we read in verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Skipping down to verse 16, let us be reminded/”From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” As gifts were given and received during these past days, God in Jesus Christ has given us “grace upon grace—plenty enough to go around and to come around. We are to claim the name of grace!

Just as a drop of water can reflect the bright rays of the sun, we are placed in this time and setting to reflect the full image and grace of God. Most of us know how to be more like Christ than we have been in days and weeks gone by…the time is now for us to put into practice what we know and believe! “Through Christ all things are possible” and may all we possibly do this year be “through Christ” and “by grace”, by God! Amen.

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