By Grace, Through Faith

This the text from my sermon today, March 15th, 2015:

Psalm 107: 1-3, 17-22

Ephesians 2: 1-10

Pisgah 3-15-15

A young boy named Michael attended church one morning with his father,

and after sitting through the service and shaking the preachers hand,

Michael was buckled into his booster seat in the car and as they pulled out of the parking lot he said, “Dad, what is a Christian?”

Obviously, Michael had heard that word many times throughout the morning, and was curious as to what it was.

Well, his father feels quite proud of his son’s question and puts together what he feels to be a strong, Biblically grounded answer.

“Well son, a Christian is a person who believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and works hard every day to follow the teachings of Jesus.

A Christian is a person who attends church regularly.

A Christian is a person who loves God more than himself,

and loves other people too.

A Christian is a person who follows God’s laws and encourages other people to follow them too.

A Christian is a person who has been born from above and is no longer a slave to sin.”

Michael is obviously impressed by this answer,

because he becomes uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the ride home, obviously lost in deep thought.

When they pull into their driveway, the father can’t help but ask the Michael what has him so perplexed, and the boy says,

“Well, I was just thinking about Christians.”

Now Michael’s dad was really pleased with himself and said, “Really, What about them, son?”

Michael said, “Well…I was just trying to think if I knew any people like that.”

Michael perceived at a very young age what our culture has perceived over the past few decades…

as numbers in the Christian churches have dwindled.

Michael perceived at a very young age what most of us within the walls are still trying to comprehend.

And that is that they hype…the brand…the advertising doesn’t match the reality.

The packaging on the outside is beautiful,

while often the inside is decaying.

In other words, it seems that a vast majority of Christians in this culture are really good at acting like Christians,

but the obvious implication of the phrase “act like” is that you really aren’t that thing that you are pretending to be.

And the main way that we try to act like that thing that we might not actually be is by doing those things that thing would do.

For instance, if I were to act like a dog,

I might get down on all fours,

and bark life a dig, and scratch my ears,

and wag my tail, but that wouldn’t actually make me a dog.

Because the reality is that it would just be an act, and at some point, my inner human would shine through.

Well, it’s the same way with being a Christian.

You can go to church every single Sunday.

You can volunteer at the Food Pantry and grow a beard for Beards for Buds,

and make a contribution to ZOE…

but at the end of the day,

if all of those things are simply an act so that others will believe,

or maybe even an act so that you will believe that you are a Christian,

then at some point the truth of who you are will shine through.

And, Paul knew this about himself and he knew it about others.

He knew that we could pile up works upon works upon works.

He knew that we could put on good faces for other people to see without it really affecting our hearts.

How many of you have ever had the experience of being in a horrible fight with your spouse or child on the way to church, and then,

just as you pull in, put an end to it and pretend that everything is wonderful?

How many of you have found yourselves in the midst of a conversation listing your good works to people,

and then recognize what you are doing and wonder why in the world you’re doing it?

We act like we are Christians because we want people to believe that we are…

we want people to think that we are perfect.

We build up works upon works because we don’t want anyone to know that inside we are dark and confused and hurt and angry.

And the problem is,

the reason that churches across the denominational spectrum having been losing members by the truck load,

is because we aren’t very good actors.

We stink at it.

In fact, it is often in the very act of our acting,

that we expose ourselves for frauds, because in acting we boast.

Ephesians 2: 9-10 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

So that no one may boast.

Our salvation, our inclusion in the Body of Christ,

is not a result of our works, but rather it is a “gift of God”.

And a gift is something given freely, not as a result of anything,

not based on any merit,

but simply given by the generosity of the giver.

And so, in boasting, in the very act of “acting” like Christians we expose ourselves as frauds.

We see this all the time outside of the church as well.

We act as though we are past racism in this country,

and then we see a video from an Oklahoma fraternity or read the report of the Justice Department on the police department in Ferguson and we are exposed as frauds.

We act as though we have violence and especially gun violence under control,

we act as though we don’t have a problem,

but then we see two police officers shot in Ferguson and we are exposed as frauds.

We act as though we live in a wonderful democracy that works,

that should be the envy of the world, but then we see our government torn apart to the point of under-mining each other in the realm of foreign diplomacy,

and we are exposed as frauds.

We act as though we are the land of the free,

but we still discriminate every day on the basis of religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation…and we expose ourselves as frauds.

We act as though we care for the poor, and the immigrant

but we spend most of our days pretending not to see them.

We act and we act and we act, but acting doesn’t make it so.

So, what are we to do?

Are we supposed to stop doing those works? Of course not.

Is the answer that we have to actually be perfect all of the time,

so that we can stop acting like we are perfect.

Of course, not.

There is only one that has ever been perfect on this earth.

The answer is simply that we all need to stop pretending so much of the time!

We need to drop the act,

because the simple reality is that we’re not fooling anyone!

The millennials are leaving the church in droves because we are really bad actors.

They see that we say that we love God more than ourselves,

and then argue over the color of carpet and they see through our act.

The answer, and the place where the Lenten journey is leading us,

it to recognize that we are not perfect,

and never will be…

to humble ourselves to the point that we couldn’t possibly judge our neighbors,

because we are blinded by the log in our own eyes.

The answer is that Michael’s father (from the beginning of the sermon)

should have said that a Christian is someone who recognizes that he is weak and frail and sinful,

and is therefore saved by grace, through faith.

And that’s it. Everything else is a by=product of that realization.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

Good works to be our way of life….

not something we do…

not something we act like,

but the very nature of our lives in response to God’s gift of grace.

By grace, through faith…we live lives of good works in response to God’s gift on the cross.

Stay with me here because this is vitally important:

By grace, through faith…we acknowledge the old rugged cross.

By grace, through faith, we look at the sinner in the pew to our left

and the sinner in our pew to our right

and acknowledge that we are simply the sinner sitting in the middle.

By grace, through faith,

we find our salvation in the God who sent his only Son to die for our sins.

By grace, through faith…

we walk through this life relying not on what we can see,

not on the treasures we can store,

not on the works that we can do,

not on the mere motions of popular Christianity,

but rather we walk by faith, and faith alone.

That little boy named Michael knew what he was talking about.

For if the definition that his father gave him was the definition of what it means to be a Christian, then he had surely never met one and neither have I.

I am a Christian only insofar as I acknowledge that I am no more worthy of God’s love, of God’s peace, and of God’s grace than any other sinner that has ever lived…

We are Christians only insofar as we recognize that the church is a house for sinners, and not a den for saints,

We are Christians only insofar as we recognize that we are no more worthy to receive the Sacraments or rites of the church than anyone else,

and that includes the sacred rite of marriage.

We are Christians only insofar as we recognize that we walk the journey of lent by grace, through faith…and never by the sight of our works.

We are Christians because God has made us so.

We don’t have to act like it.

We don’t have to pretend to me more, or better,

or different than we are.

We just have to be exactly who we are…

authentic Christians in need of redemption.

Thanks be to God. Amen.