God’s Amazing Grace
Proper 23
There is a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. What a relief! I know huge hurdles lay ahead: prisoner and hostage exchanges; securing peacekeeping troops from other countries; developing interim and long term governance; and rebuilding hospitals, homes, and sewer, water, power, and communication systems. No matter what happens next, this cease fire is a relief. The cease fire reminds us that God’s grace is present. Hardships and horrible events can cause us to forget that God’s grace is ever present.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote a letter about God’s grace when the fighting between Israel and Babylon ended. As he wrote, structures in Israel lay in ruins, valuables looted from the temple and homes forever lost, some leaders and citizens taken into exile, and a few beleaguered survivors remaining in Israel. In spite of all that, there is relief. God’s grace was present. As Jeremiah prayed and reflected about the relief at hand and the challenges that lay ahead, God spoke to him. Jeremiah wrote what God told him in a letter to the people. God said
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. …seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Jeremiah 29:5-7
Awful things had happened, there were future hurdles to navigate, and yet there was relief. God had been with them in the hour of death. Now God was literally setting a table for them in the presence of Babylonian enemies. God was about to anoint their heads with oil. Psalm 23 Survivors were processing their grief, haunted by fearful nightmares, and nursing anger. God wanted and needed them to know that death, loss, and fear could not separate them from the love of God. Jeremiah wrote to the people about God’s grace. He reminded them that God’s grace had been with them and would remain with them. The people had seen loved ones die from starvation or killed in battle. The people left in Israel would have to rebuild and those carried off into exile would have to “learn to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.” Psalm 137:4 Jeremiah’s letter urged them to go on living. He encouraged them to marry, have children, raise their children to become adults, and arrange for their children to marry and have children of their own. God told the people to build homes, open businesses, plant fields, and enjoy the produce and products of their labor. God implored them to live while grieving their dead. God invited them to invest after devastating losses. God directed them to work in captivity because their welfare was woven into the same cloth as the welfare of their captors. Thousands of years before psychologists and sociologists were to define and identify post-traumatic stress disorder, Jeremiah communicated God’s counsel to people suffering from post-traumatic stress. There are two essential components to God’s therapeutic regime: a commitment to go on living and a commitment to the welfare of their enemies. Listen again to God’s counsel
…multiply (live full and productive lives)…,do not decrease. …seek the welfare of the city where I sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
The recovery and welfare of the survivors are embedded in the welfare of their enemies. The welfare of victim and victimizers, of guilty and innocent, of immigrant and citizen, are inextricably woven together. God’s prescription is sound counsel for Jews and Palestinians in Israel and Gaza after these two years of war. It is sound advice for House and Senate Republicans and Democrats in the midst of this government shutdown. It is wise and worthy counsel for both survivors and victim families of mass shootings, spouses going through a divorce, and parents raising recalcitrant teenagers. In the collect for today, we pray for God’s grace to go behind and before us. The truth is God’s grace is ever present. It is always behind, before, and on every side. God was with Jews and Palestinians every day of this awful war. God is with elected officials, federal employees required to work, and federal employees being laid off. God is with you and me in sickness and health, for richer for poorer, during good and bad times; loving and cherishing us. Our God is not “a fair weather friend.” Jesus said, God “makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:44b God generously dispenses grace.
We forget this truth. We assume God’s grace is a reward for the righteous or reserved for good people. These assumptions cause us to take God’s grace for granted and forget that God’s grace is available to everyone at all times. These assumptions allow the devil to trick us into feeling hopeless or into thinking we are powerless.
This is what happened to the nine lepers. In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 17:11-19) Jesus healed ten lepers. Nine of them were life long Episcopalians whose relatives immigrated to the US many generations ago. After the nine were healed, not one returned to praise God or thank Jesus. They had health insurance so they assumed they had a right to good health. They were members of a world wide Anglican Communion with a female Archbishop of Canterbury, so they felt entitled to God’s grace. The one leper who thanked Jesus and praised God for his healing could not get insurance and so he did not assume he had the right to good health. He was an immigrant. His religious practices were deemed heretical. So when a teacher from the faith tradition, that claimed it was the “true faith,” helped him, and when a citizen of the country that discriminated against him and other foreigners restored his health, he was grateful. The Samaritan leper recognized and gave thanks for God’s grace.
What assumptions are compromising how you give of your time, talents and money? How do fear, grief, or anger impact your life? Have there be times when you did not feel God’s grace? What events caused you to forget that God’s grace surrounds you on every side?
Over the course of my priesthood, church members, colleagues and diocesan staff have accused me of being a pollyanna: advocating for difficult work, taking up lost causes, and working on hopeless endeavors. They may be right, but I like to think my pollyanna tendency reflects trust in God’s grace. Call me a pollyanna, but I expect the Christ Church parish hall to become handicap accessible, the Community Cafe commercial kitchen to be installed, and our church buildings, local businesses and homes in Sag Harbor to be connected to a sewer system that safeguards well and bay waters.
God’s grace is amazing. Do not underestimate its power. Never forget: God’s grace proceeds, follows, and surrounds you on every side.
