Gracious God, forgive the sins of the preacher, for they are many; that only your Word may be proclaimed and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In most artistic endeavors, being repetitive isn’t often a virtue. If Van Gogh only painted vases of yellow flowers, he probably wouldn’t be remembered. If Shakespeare only changed the names of the characters in his plays, but not the dialogue, we wouldn’t know his name. If every song recorded by Bruce Springsteen was just a re-release of “Born in the USA,” he wouldn’t sell out even the smallest of concert venues. But I hope to be remembered as a one-trick pony, as a preacher who only had one thing to say, as someone who just repeated the same old song.
I only know of one thing worth saying in a pulpit. In response to hearing God’s Word proclaimed in Scripture, in gathering as in beloved community in Christ, in hearing the message of forgiveness, in preparing to receive the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood, in becoming attuned to the movement of the Spirit, there is only one message that is fitting – the Grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Grace is the beautiful, comforting, transforming, and wonderful message of Jesus. The message of Grace is that we are fully known, chosen, forgiven, supported, and loved by the God who created all things, who came to us in Jesus, who died on a cross and rose again on the third day, and all of is true because God is love, not because we’ve earned or deserved it, meaning that our belovedness is a gift that can never be lost or taken away. And that message of Grace, when it gets into our bones, changes everything. Grace gives us a foundation of love to build upon. Grace is why we can trust that all shall be well. Grace is why we can be freed from the burdens of the past. Grace is how we live in expectant hope. Grace gives us peace amidst the chaos of life. Grace beckons, inspires, and enables us to live as the renewed and redeemed children of God.
So I hope that I never stray from the message of Grace. Between Sundays, Wednesdays, special services, weddings, and funerals, I preach at least 100 sermons a year – and if I kept at it for another century, I wouldn’t even begin to exhaust the breadth and depth of the message of God’s infinite and abundant Grace. By all means, please, accuse me of being a repetitive preacher because as long as the message is Grace, it would be the highest compliment I could ever receive.
I mention all of this because, through today’s Scripture readings, I’m going to preach about the timelessness of Grace. Grace is a message that never goes out of style and has no expiration date. There are three ways in which we experience and categorize time, and Grace applies amazingly to all of it.
We begin with the past, not because it’s necessarily the first, but rather because it’s the phase of time that many struggle with the most. Yes, the past is what has brought us to this moment, it is what has made us who we are. There are wonderful memories, formative experiences, and outstanding accomplishments in the past. To be sure, we have many things to be grateful for. A lot of us though struggle with the mistakes that we have made. We wonder about the paths that we did not take, the opportunities that did not materialize, the what-ifs of life. We replay in our minds what we should have said differently, what we would change if we could have a do-over, what pains and shames we would erase from our story.
What the Grace of God says to our past is that our past does not define us. We are not the worst thing that we have ever done. Our mistakes and shortcomings do not define us because we are defined by the Grace of God. We always loved and already forgiven, and so the past has no bearing on our worthiness or belovedness. This gracious message is what we heard about in the prophet Jonah, which is a book full of Grace.
The section we heard today begins with Grace – “The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time.” This word came a second time because the first time that it came, things didn’t go exactly as planned. You might know the story – God called Jonah and told him to go to Nineveh. The Ninevites were fierce enemies of Israel – they would have been seen as heathens and barbarians. Jonah had no interest in either confronting those sorts of people nor in giving them a chance to repent. So Jonah ran as far as he could, and when he got to the sea, he found a boat and got on board. This displeased God and when a storm rose up, Jonah realized he could never outrun God; so he jumped overboard to save the ship and was swallowed by a large fish, where he remained for three days until the fish transported him to the shores of Nineveh before spitting him out there. And then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time.
The Bible is the story of a patient and gracious God who gives us all second chances. Abraham was a manipulative coward at times, and yet God continues to be in a covenant with him. King David commits atrocities, and yet God is steadfast to the promise. St. Peter denied Jesus on the night of his arrest, and yet is forgiven and restored after Resurrection. St. Paul was a persecutor of the Church, and he was chosen by God to be the chief evangelist. Jonah disobeyed God, yet God did not reject him or revoke his prophetic call. The Ninevites weren’t Jewish, they were not followers of the God of Israel, and even they received God’s mercy. If there’s an example of Grace, that’s it – they didn’t even know that they needed a second chance, and yet they are given one. And it’s not just a second chance, as Jesus tells us that we are to forgive seventy-seven times, meaning without limit. The Church is a society of second, third, fourth, and fifth chances.
There is no limit to God’s forgiveness, no maxing out on mercy. The message of Grace speaks to our failings and regrets, redeeming our pasts. God created out of the chaos of nothingness and has worked with sinners before, so whatever it is that you did or did not do, God’s Grace is for you. God’s mercy is more definitive than anything in your past.
The next aspect of Grace is found in the future. In a sense, the future is the opposite of the past. Whereas the past seems closed and determined, the future is open and uncertain, which can sometimes lead to fear and anxiety. Because many of us don’t like uncertainty, we try to exert control over the future by overplanning and directing. But we cannot control the future any more than we can control the weather. Our anxiety and desire for control make us see others, and even ourselves, as competitors instead of companions.
What the message of Grace does for our future is to fill it with hope. We heard in First Corinthians that “the present form of this world is passing away.” The point is not that our relationships, griefs, celebrations, and labors are meaningless or unimportant, it’s just that they are not eternal, final, or definitive. Yes, we have reasons to mourn, but that mourning will not last forever. We have certain relationships and arrangements, but the hope of Grace is that, one day, all of us will be perfectly reconciled to God and one another in the love of Christ. We are given the holy work of justice, compassion, and generosity, but our fate will not be determined by how well we do that work.
All things are passing away just as surely as time slips through the hourglass. But that does not mean that anything is lost. The future is not a place devoid of our history, rather it is a place where all is perfected. It’s what St. Julian of Norwich has been telling us for the past 600 years through her writing – that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” The future is the place of that wellness. And the truth of a future full of Grace means that the future is not something to worry about. Rather, the future is something we entrust to the God who loves us as our Good Shepherd and loving Mother.
And then there is the present, which is, in a sense, the only time that we ever experience. Yes, we can reflect on the past or consider the future, but we always do it from the present moment. The present is the only time in which we are truly alive. The present is where those past regrets and future uncertainties meet, which is why so many of us experience the present as a time of stress and anxiety. From the present, we can look to the past and the future and it becomes overwhelming as we consider the scope of infinity from the vantage point of a single moment. It’s no wonder that we struggle with addictions that numb us, with depression that dulls us, with anxiety that makes us restless.
How Grace is manifest in the present is as a peace that passes all understanding. This is why people with a cancer diagnosis can be people of strength, why people in Ukraine and Gaza still plant trees, why those who live in generational poverty work for a better tomorrow. It’s what we heard in this morning’s Psalm, that God is our rock and salvation; our stronghold and refuge. We do not need to worry about redeeming our past or determining our future, which means that the present is a gift in which we can participate in the love of God. We do not have to come up with our own stories because we are a part of God’s glorious and eternal story. We do not have to determine our own meaning because our worth is secure in the love of God. Our home, our foundation is the gracious gift of God that allows us to find rest and peace in the present.
This is what Jesus means when he proclaims the Good News that “the Kingdom of God has come near.” God is always near to us, sometimes manifest as the beauty of a sunrise, a blossoming flower, the compassion of a stranger, a word of Scripture, the music of a symphony, a word of forgiveness, an embrace of love, an act of generosity, a piece of bread or a sip of wine. The struggle with our world today is not that people don’t believe in God, it is not that we struggle with questions of faith, it is not that life is too challenging or busy. No, what plagues us is that we all struggle with attention.
Between remorse about the past and concern for the future, we end up distracted from the present moment, which is the only time that we can ever experience Grace. Love happens in moments in time. A relationship of Grace with the past and future allows us to stand solidly in the present. As one theologian has put it, the present is when time touches eternity. In other words, the present is when the Kingdom comes near.
To focus on this present aspect of Grace, you might try some centering prayer – using a mantra like the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me), using a rosary, or sitting quietly. Maybe if you need help remembering that God is your rock and refuge, you find a nice looking rock and keep it in your pocket. You might do nightly prayers of gratitude. The peace of the present that comes through Grace is about enjoying your forgiveness and being aware of your belovedness.
This Grace that suffuses our past, future, and present is a gift that is intended to be used. This is why Jesus tells us that we are to become fishers of people. This message of Grace is the best news there is – it liberates us all from the regrets of our past, assuages our anxieties about the future, and allows us to receive peace of God in the present. Grace allows us to experience life as the gift that it is instead of life being something to endure and get through. Grace gives us mercy, hope, and peace. And once you’ve come and seen this Grace, our holy work is to tell others to “Come and see” the amazing Grace that makes all things well – our pasts, our futures, and our presents. Grace is the gift of love from the God who is, and was, and forever shall be the God who is with us and for us in Jesus. That’s God’s story, and I’m sticking to it.
