Grace, thinking and what I need
Well, Yule, I have to preach again on Sunday. Not preach so much as do the “talk”. I’m not sure what we call it these days. I’m not sure what we call “us” — the PowerPoint Church got dissolved through a powerplay that was just plain Alpha Chimp not knowing that he was dealing with another troop who simply “knew not Pharaoh, and he was the only one who didn’t get screwed. My opinion is that a friend of mine got played, and I think that he and his family are the ones who will bear the burden of Alpha Chimp’s decisions. Personally, I call us “Church 2.0″ which is a catchy name, I think. But I’m a geek.
So, what to tell them? I always seem to simply say what I need to hear. I know: I should be more connected than that. But I don’t seem to have it in me. If I try to give folks, even my youth, something that they need to hear, it never lands. I’m not a professional and clearly I’m not that talented. I’m not ruby lipped and clever tongued. But I can occassionally speak honestly and it sometimes seems like that can work for other people, too. But I really just say what I need to hear.
And I need to hear a lot.
For whatever reason, I got it into my mind that we needed to cover Romans 9. Like an idiot, I decided to cover a passage that I clearly have no understanding of. My discussion of it with the youth back in Chitown was “nope, no one understands this so stop thinking that they do”. Not particularly helpful.
Paul is talking about God’s choice and how that’s all that matters in this game.
What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. God told Rebecca, “The firstborn of your twins will take second place.” Later that was turned into a stark epigram: “I loved Jacob; I hated Esau.” [The Message]
“You’re not part of the equation, manasclerk.”
This is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to me, proclaimed into my heart by the Spirit to unite me with the Father. It was his choice for us to be his. It wasn’t anything that we did. For Rebecca received the message of the LORD, while “her babies were still innocent in the wombâincapable of good or bad” [Message], that is, before they did anything to cause his love for them. This isn’t simple foreknowledge as I was always taught but a statement of causality. The Greeks loved causes. Paul, being a part of this greater Roman culture, knew all about causes and effects.
God chooses you, manasclerk.
Somewhere else, our Lord spoke to his disciples, saying:
It was not you who chose me,
it was I who chose you
to go forth and bear fruit.Your fruit must endure
so that all you ask the Father in my name
he will give you.
The command I give you is this,
that you love one another.
[New American Bible]
Or, as another translator set put it:
You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. [NASB]
Appointed to bear fruit. Not told to, but because you have been chosen to bear fruit, your fruit must therefore endure, so that what you ask for will be given.
It’s not effort: it’s grace.
I am the true vine
and my Father is the vinegrower.
He prunes away
every barren branch,
but the fruitful ones
he trims clean
to increase their yield.
You are clean already
thanks to the word I have spoken to you.
[New American Bible]
You are clean already, not because of what you have done, not because you somehow willed yourself to produce fruit. You are clean because of the Word spoken. Does a vine make itself fruitful? No, it is a function of its soil, its vinedresser, its self. Barren vines are those who are trimmed away. Cleaned vines bear fruit. You are clean because of, made clean by the word spoken.
Made a son of God, joint heir with Jesus Christ, not because of the will of a man or the sperm of your ancestor or your awesome efforts, but on God who has mercy. On whom does he have mercy? Those upon whom he has mercy. It’s a circular argument, of course.
Grace. It is a totally disarming thing. What shall I do? Shall I sin so that grace may abound? That would just be being downright nasty. To repay someone who has given you his life with slapping him isn’t cricket.
Chosen, appointed. Before you did anything. Not that time has any meaning for God, but this is for us, to hear the causality of it all. The relationship is God’s choice.
Yet I am called. “Come, follow me.” Have you ever wondered why the disciples all seem to be people who are called by Jesus, literally called, as he calls out to them to get up from where they are and come after him. Think about the ones who, like me, say things like “I will follow you!” The rich young man said such a thing, and Jesus sent him packing, sorrowful because he could not give up his riches. Peter proclaimed that he would follow Jesus to death, and look how that turned out. Sure, in the end things worked out alright, but that was after the Spirit came in power upon them.
It’s a hard time right now. Hard to loose the wall of your community. Perhaps it is as my brother used to say: “chemotherapy’s hell to go through but probably it’s doing something good for you.” Maybe. I’ve never had chemo. I know that what we had wasn’t much. And it wasn’t necessarily good. Many of my friends had left, and not happily. I would rather have had something else happened, for it’s been a hard year and there are many changes coming, what with SpookyGirl’s arrival soon, a new career or at least a new permanent job on the horizon. But Paul has an answer for that, too.
Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. [The Message]
It’s obviously what I need to hear. Everyone else is simply listening in to what God is teaching me through them.
“You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
“But remember the root command: Love one another.” [The Message]
What he has given us, let us give to each other.
