The Waking Dreamer: Grace

Showing posts with label Grace. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Good All The Time

Matthew 14:22-33; Romans 10:10-13[1]

There’s a tradition in Presbyterian gatherings where the leader says, “God is good!” when it’s time for the group to settle down. The response is supposed to be “All the Time!” Then the leader announces, “All the Time!” and the group responds, “God is good!” On the surface of things, I think it’s a pretty great thing that we start gatherings with a reminder that God loves us so much that he’s good to us all the time. But being a student of language, I think not only about what it says or what the words mean but also how it works. So you probably won’t be surprised that I’m not entirely comfortable with this practice. Because when we say together, “God is good, all the time!” in that setting, the point of it is that it’s time to hush and listen to what the speaker has to say. I’ve mentioned before that instead of settling down and being quiet, if we really meant what we’re saying, we would burst into spontaneous celebration!

One of the reasons why we don’t do that, in my opinion, is we’re not sure we believe “God is good, all the time!” Life can be wonderful at times, like when you’re holding your newborn child or grandchild. But life can be hard and painful at times as well. It’s in those times I think we wonder most whether God really is good. It doesn’t help that the Hebrew Bible is full of statements about how “angry” God is. Especially for those of us who may have grown up with abusive parents. For us, “anger” doesn’t mean that God loves us so much that he’s upset with us when we do things that could hurt us or endanger us, like any good parent would. “Anger” means that God is just looking for an excuse to take his self-hatred out on us by “striking” us in some way. There’s really nothing good about that! Many of us have grown up with a keen sense that somehow, we never lived up to all the expectations of our parents. Most of us carry that burden in some way, and we tend to project it onto God and assume that God is disappointed with us as well. I think we’re not really sure we believe that “God is good, all the time.”

But the Scriptures insist over and over, especially in the Hebrew Bible, that God is indeed good, and that God is good all the time. We have a word for it: we call it “grace.” But “grace” is one of those words we use all the time without actually knowing what it means. In the Bible, “grace” means that God’s love for us never fails. “Grace” means God truly is “good all the time.” And “grace” means that’s true simply because that’s who God is, not because of anything we might do to “deserve” it as a “reward.” The truth of the matter is that we can never have enough faith, we can never be good enough, we can never do enough to deserve God’s love and goodness. God gives them to us anyway because that’s who God is! That’s what “grace” means. And that’s the testimony of Scripture, over and over again. It’s the point of the verse from our Psalm reading for today says God’s unfailing love combines with the fact that he is always true to his nature: “Loyal love and faithfulness meet; deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss” (Ps 85:10, NET). Those things come together in God’s character and assure us that yes, God really is good all the time!

I think we see something of God’s goodness reflected in the way Jesus interacts with Peter in our Gospel lesson. At the outset, we should note that in Matthew, discipleship is always practiced by people who are called “you of little faith.” That’s what Jesus called the ones who were going to be called “the Apostles” and have statues built in their honor all over the world! We see it in this story when they become afraid in a boat that’s being “battered” by a storm “at the very dead of night” (Mt 14:25, NTE)! One of the ways that Matthew calls attention to the original disciples’ “little faith” is by telling the story of Peter asking to walk on the water. Only Matthew tells this story. It’s been commonly observed that Peter’s “faith” was demonstrated by being willing to get out of the boat in the midst of a storm, and that his “doubt” came when he shifted his attention from Jesus to the wind and the waves and began to sink. The idea is that if he had had enough faith, he would have been able to walk on the water just like Jesus did.

But I’m not so sure about all that. I don’t think getting out of a boat in the middle of a storm is such a good idea. I would say Peter demonstrates his “doubt” by asking to walk to Jesus on the water in the first place. When Jesus called out to them, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Mt 14:27), he was trying to reassure the disciples. But Peter didn’t trust Jesus’ word. Instead, he wanted “proof.” So Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (Mt 14:28)! Peter sounds doubtful! I tend to agree with those who, like John Calvin, think that a response of faith on Peter’s part would have been to take to heart the assurance Jesus gave him and stay in the boat![2] That’s where he was supposed to be. That’s where he was needed. And Peter needed that boat to keep from sinking into the waves during a raging storm! But when Peter plunged out onto the waters and began to sink, Matthew’s Gospel says that Jesus “immediately reached out his hand and caught him” (Mt 14:31). I think one of the lessons we’re meant to come away with is that God shows us his goodness by always “catching” us, even when we’re still waist-deep in the water with the storm raging all around us! God always “catches” us.

Paul makes a similar point in our lesson from Romans. I particularly like the part that says: “‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be disappointed,’” and “The same Lord is the Lord of all and gives many blessings to all who trust in him” (Rom 10:11-12, NCV). I like it even better in Gene Peterson’s The Message translation: “Scripture reassures us, ‘No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.’ It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s … background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help.”

“Incredibly generous.” I think that has to be one of the best phrases to describe God’s grace I’ve ever heard. “Incredibly generous.” I think the heart of Paul’s message in this passage is that God is incredibly generous all the time, and to everyone. And as Paul insists, that’s a thoroughly biblical concept. He’s quoting Scripture passages here. He’s quoting from the Hebrew Bible! God loves us all unconditionally. God offers new life to us all, without any exceptions or exclusions. And God does this simply because that’s who God is.[3] We can ever do enough to deserve or earn God’s love or God’s goodness, but that means we don’t have to do anything to earn it! From the standpoint of biblical faith, from Moses to the the Psalms to the prophets to Jesus to the Apostles, the fundamental message of the Bible is that “God is good, all the time,” simply because that’s who God is!

[2] John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2, 240–241. Cf. also Gene Boring, “Gospel of Matthew” New Interpreters Bible IX:329-30: “Faith is not being able to walk on the water—only God can do that—but daring to believe, in the face of all evidence, that God is with us in the boat, … as it makes its way through the storm, battered by the waves.”

[3] Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, 1933, 102-103: “Grace is the generous and free will of God, His will to accept us; its necessity proceeds from Him and from Him only. … the necessity that God shall maintain and show forth His faithfulness, without any provision by us of an occasion for its display—but simply because He is God; … .”

Wednesday, July 01, 2026

Alive to God

Romans 6:1-11[1]

Reading Paul’s letters in the New Testament can be an exercise in frustration. Perhaps, hearing a sermon on a passage from Paul’s letters can be an exercise in frustration! Of course, many of our favorite “memory verses” come from Paul. Verses like “Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Rom 8:39, CEV). Or, “the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7, Phillips). These are wonderful verses. And we keep them close, because they bring a great deal of comfort and assurance. But when you really try to dig in and understand the meat of Paul’s letters, they can get really confusing really fast. I’m saying that as a person with PhD in New Testament studies and someone who has spent forty plus years trying to dig in to the meat of Paul’s letters! It helps to read a version that is more than a translation, but also attempts to “translate” Paul into language we can understand. I think that’s why Charlie Noren always liked to read from The Message version when he served as liturgist!

One of the reasons why Paul’s letters are so difficult to understand is because he’s trying to explain our salvation in depth. He lays out the groundwork for our salvation in what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. He calls all people, Jewish and Gentile alike, to respond to the Gospel with faith. And he talks in some detail about what it looks like to live the life of faith. But in doing so, he uses language and figures of speech that are not only 2000 years old, but also are steeped in the metaphors and thought world of the Hebrew Bible. I’m probably stating the obvious when I say that language is quite foreign to most of us. Anyone who’s made a serious effort to read the Old Testament might agree with that evaluation.

One of the problems we have understanding Paul’s letters is that through the history of the church, two very different views about how salvation works have emerged. One view insists that there’s nothing we can for our salvation. Our faith and the way it changes how we live is an act of God. Only God in Jesus Christ, working in our lives through his Spirit can create the kind of faith that leads us to live for God and for one another in the way that God wants us to. The other view insists that we have to do everything for our salvation! In order for what God has done for us and in us to truly make a difference in our lives, it has to be met with the willingness to change our attitudes and our actions, to open ourselves to what God wants to do in and through us, and to set aside all that gets in the way of our growth in faith. One view emphasizes that our salvation is the work of God from start to finish. The other view emphasizes that our salvation is something we have to work out in our own lives.

Part of what makes this question so challenging is that both of these views are true. As with many aspects of our faith we have to hold them together in balance. But as is the case so often, holding these two perspectives in tension takes skill and practice. Unfortunately, a lot of people tend to fall off on one side or the other. Some will insist that there’s nothing they can possibly do to save themselves because it’s the work of God. And that’s true, but it doesn’t go far enough by itself. Others will insist that the only way to experience salvation is to put faith into practice. For them, salvation is all about what they do for themselves. Again, there is some truth to that, but downplaying the role of God in this life change strips it of its power.

From my years of ministry and interacting with people, I would say that of the two, the bigger obstacle to faith these days is the notion that I can “do it myself.” We hear it in those who seem to have their sights fixed on the idea that “I have to be good enough to make it to heaven.” For some people this is official church teaching. If you want to “make it to heaven,” you have to check off certain “boxes.” For others, it’s simply the message they’ve always heard. For whatever reason, if you really get down to what people believe about all this, they tend to think that their “salvation” is something they do for themselves. Because of that, they may throw themselves into the obligations they think will enable them to “make it to heaven.”

Of course, we’re all taking something for granted here: that the life of Jesus, a Jewish man who lived in a faraway land so long ago can really make a difference in our lives today. We take it for granted because we’ve experienced throughout our lives. But not everybody does. To some extent, we have to reckon with the fact that what Jesus did for us will always be something that has taken place “outside us.” Besides the fact that it took place long ago and far away, it’s not something we’ve done for ourselves. It will always be something someone else did. When push comes to shove, most of us aren’t comfortable relying on what anyone else does for us. But the mystery of the gospel is that what Jesus did was also “for us” and therefore it is something that can make a change “within us.”[2] These are common phrases in Paul’s letters. In our reading for today he calls attention to the mystery this way, “if we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him” (Rom. 6:8, CEB). And he says, “just as Christ was raised from the dead …, we too can walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4, CEB). The mystery of the Gospel is that what God did in and through Jesus can and does make a difference in our lives today. What he did makes it possible for us to be “alive to God” just as Jesus is alive to God.

How do we let this really sink in and take root in our own lives so that we trust the promise of salvation? How do we get past those notions that somehow, some way we all have to “be good enough to make it to heaven?” I think that somehow we need to find a way to believe that changing how we live is a real possibility for us. This is where Paul’s teaching about the Cross and the Resurrection, as challenging as it can be to understand, can help us. The Cross and the Resurrection together represent a divine act that in a manner of speaking “interrupts” the normal “way things work” in this life and opens up for us the real possibility of living a life that is truly “alive to God.” The forgiveness we have through the Cross gives us the freedom to turn from old ways. The Resurrection points us to the new life as something that can be just as real for us today as it is for the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

The two sides of what we call “salvation” always go together. What do we have to do to make it to heaven? “Nothing!” And, “Everything!” They go together. Do people ever really change in this life? We tend to think not, but Paul says the answer is “Yes!” and it’s because of what Jesus did for us. His death on the cross breaks the grip of old ways on our lives. His resurrection opens up the very real possibility of living a whole new life, “just as Christ was raised from the dead.” Our salvation is all about what God does for us.[3] That’s always the foundation for our salvation. But the New Testament teaches that we also have to “work out” our own salvation.[4] For the change of life that the Bible calls “salvation” to be effective, we have to both open ourselves to what God wants to do in our lives, and we have to take steps to “work the program,” so to speak. We have to hold the two in balance.[5] Being set right with God through the forgiveness accomplished by Jesus on the Cross works hand-in-hand with his Resurrection to create the opportunity to live a life that is truly “alive to God.”

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.4:18-21, where he discusses the idea that what Jesus does extra nos (“outside us”) is also pro nobis (“for us”) and therefore effective in nobis (“in us”).

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 1933, 207: “Grace is the power of the resurrection … . Grace is the existence begotten of God, the new man created and redeemed by God … .”

[4] Cf. Barth, Romans, 221: “Grace means that God reckons men’s whole existence to be His and claims it for Himself. … Grace seizes visible life and demands that it be presented to righteousness.” Cf. also, ibid., 222: “Grace means: thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven … .”

[5] Cf. Barth, Dogmatics, 4.4:22, where he discusses this balance between what God does for our salvation and what we do: “the omnicausality of God must not be construed as His sole causality. The divine change in whose accomplishment a man becomes a Christian is an event of true intercourse between God and man. If it undoubtedly has its origin in God’s initiative, no less indisputably man is not ignored or passed over in it.” He adds that it is also one’s own “decision and act” (ibid., 23).

Wednesday, March 04, 2026

How Blessed We Are!

Matthew 5:1-12[1]

If you asked someone to define what it means to live the Christian life, you’d probably get answers as varied as the people you ask. Some would likely say it means seeking to follow Jesus more every day. Some would say it means becoming a part of a church family and participating in their life and work. Others might say it’s about following the Ten Commandments. Or perhaps the two “Great Commandments” Jesus identified: to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. And there would be truth in all of those answers. But part of the truth of all of those answers is that it’s no easy matter to live the Christian life!

As a matter of fact, in some circles, the answer to the question about the Christian life would be to follow the beatitudes. In fact, in one of the study Bibles I’ve owned, there was a whole “sermonette” in the notes section on how the Beatitudes constitute a kind of “staircase” for living the Christian life. Yes, in some cases, people have believed that practicing the Beatitudes was a literal “staircase to heaven.” That idea actually goes back centuries in the history of the church. It’s still the primary way that the Beatitudes are taught in the Catholic tradition today in some places. Many other Christians as well see the Beatitudes as a “blueprint” of what you have to do to “make it” into heaven. The benefit of that answer is that it keeps things pretty clearcut. The problem is that I would say Jesus’ teachings about how his followers were to live are both simpler and harder than that.

That approach to the Beatitudes makes our relationship with God based on what we do. And once we start down that path, we likely will not stop with just the Beatitudes. We’ll add the Ten Commandments. And maybe the whole Sermon on the Mount. And maybe more of the “laws” from the Hebrew Bible. Essentially, the attempt to quantify our relationship with God in terms of how much we “have” to do will likely lead us to an endless list of demands. There are traditions around us in this community that practice that approach to faith. I think that makes things a lot more complicated. And people who practice their faith in those traditions do so in constant anxiety about whether they’re doing enough to “make it” to heaven. I don’t think that’s what Jesus intended!

That way of reading the Beatitudes misses the very wording of the Scriptures. They don’t say “blessed are those who become “poor in spirit,” or “meek,” or “pure in heart.” They say, “blessed are the poor in spirit,” “blessed are those who mourn,” “blessed are those who are humble.” It’s not about what you “become,” it’s about who you already are. I think the first clue to being able to hear the Beatitudes is to understand that they’re meant to reinforce the promise of salvation for all who open their hearts to the good news of the kingdom Jesus came to proclaim! In Matthew’s Gospel, we’re meant to read the Beatitudes in light of the statment that Jesus was “proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people” (Mt 4:23). That’s important context for understanding the Beatitudes. And Jesus didn’t check the spiritual “credentials” of the people he healed. And he didn’t just heal Jewish people. Matthew tells us that he shared the blessings of God’s grace with everyone who came to him.

From that perspective, it doesn’t make any sense to read the Beatitudes as a “blueprint” for the Christian life. Rather, they are a beautiful way of spelling out the “good news of the kingdom” that Jesus was proclaiming. The Beatitudes show us the blessings we find when we align ourselves with God’s purposes in the world. That’s particularly important for the kind of people Jesus was addressing. Those who align their lives with Jesus’ “good news of the kingdom” often do so at their own expense. Those who look to God and God alone for what they need in this life—the “poor in spirit”—aren’t typically the “movers and shakers” of our world. In fact, they are often precisely the opposite: the last, the least, the left out, and even the powerless.

We who seek to follow Jesus in this world, who may not be last and least and left out and powerless, often find ourselves in the kinds of situations he talks about in the Beatitudes. We mourn: we mourn the condition of a world that thrives on greed and violence. We may even find ourselves “reviled” or worse because we refuse to endorse the way things are. We hunger and thirst for God to come and set things right. Because we’ve come to know God’s mercy in our lives, we cannot help but extend that mercy to others, giving without any thought of receiving, turning the other check, welcoming those whom others see as outcast. The good news that Jesus preached in the Beatitudes is that we are blessed: blessed because we know that our lives rest securely on God’s unfailing love for us.

At the same time, in Matthew’s Gospel, we’re meant to read the Beatitudes as a kind of introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. Even within the Beatitudes themselves, there’s a subtle shift that changes the emphasis from who we are to what we do. Jesus says, “Blessed are the humble,” but he also says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” (Matt 5:7). Being merciful is something you do. He says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matt 5:9). Again, being a “peacemaker” involves action. The Beatitudes shift from assuring us of God’s blessing, to calling all who have received God’s blessing to put that grace into action in the way they live their lives every day. This pattern of grace as a gift that demands we live in certain ways is one that’s found throughout the Bible. Jesus adopts it in the Sermon on the Mount. When you move from the Beatitudes to the rest of the sermon, you find that Jesus makes quite challenging demands on those who would follow him.

I think Jesus knew that all who would try to follow him would desperately need the assurance offered in the Beatitudes. I think he knew we would need to hear that we’re supported and surrounded by God’s grace every hour of every day of our lives. And so it is that in the Beatitudes, Jesus makes clear that our relationship with God is always based on God’s grace and his unconditional love that never fails, not on what we do. And yet, I think Jesus also knew that we would always need reminding that God’s grace always demands all we have to give. He sums it up with the “golden rule”: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you” (Mt 7:12). We heard something similar in our reading from the prophet Micah for today: God’s grace demands that we “do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” (Mic 6:8, NLT). But in the Bible, grace always comes before demand; and the demand about the way we live our lives is always based on God’s grace. That’s why Jesus starts his most famous sermon with a striking reminder of how much we truly are blessed. Before he instructs us about what it looks like to follow him in some uncomfortably specific ways, Jesus spells out for us just how blessed we are by the gift of God’s grace.

Monday, September 22, 2025

Channels of Grace

1 Timothy 1:12-17[1]

We’ve been discussing some of the pitfalls of religion over the last several weeks. As hard as it is to admit, the Church has not escaped the flaws inherent in all human religion. I think it’s fitting to have this discussion this year because Luke’s Gospel focuses on these matters. A brief overview of history shows us that the Church has had a mixed legacy. In many cases those who follow Jesus have given sacrificially and have poured out kindness and mercy to those who are hurting. At times giving their very lives to serve other people. But in all too many cases, I’m afraid the Church has been responsible for inflicting harm. More than that, the Church has inflicted violence of many kinds on innocent people. At times it was just for being from the wrong religion. I think about the crusades. At times it was for being the wrong gender. I think about the “witch hunts.” There were sometimes when it was simply for practicing a different form of Christianity! I think about Protestants versus Catholics and vice versa.

Just like every other human endeavor, religion is flawed because it is practiced by human beings. Many others have observed that the roots of the problem are to be found in our own capacity for fear, hatred, and self-deception![2] As hard as it is for us to hear, our religion can turn into neurosis. The definition of neurosis is that what a person has repressed—fear of not being “enough,” self-hatred, excessive pride, unbridled desires—becomes what they see in others. But it’s all an elaborate (but unconscious) ploy to avoid having to face the ugly truth within themselves![3] This repression of one’s own insecurity and guilt inevitably leads to a rigid set of rules and authoritarian beliefs that are considered absolute precisely because they protect the guilty from having to face their own shame. Anyone who opposes, challenges, or in any way questions that system of religious self-justification becomes the target of vicious hatred and violent attacks. It’s happened over and over again in the history of the world! When religion originates with fear and hatred, it’s no wonder that people kill others in the name of God, as heartbreaking as it is to recognize!

By his own admission, St. Paul was such a man. His devotion to Judaism was so complete that he considered the message of Jesus about God’s joyful acceptance even of those who have lost their way to be a blasphemous insult. When confronted with the gospel, Paul’s initial response was violent. Anyone who preached Jesus’ message deserved a death sentence. What made Jesus’ gospel outrageous to someone like Paul was that it defines God as the one who loves everyone so much that he goes out searching for those who have lost their way, as our Gospel lesson reminds us.[4] But the fact that Jesus preached and enacted that good news contradicted Paul’s original view of God as a stern and unfeeling judge who doles out rewards and punishments in strict conformity to obedience and sin. Jesus’ message of grace and mercy to those who have lost their way was an intolerable upheaval in the image of God for Jewish zealots like Paul. It was outright blasphemy! And so he set about to eradicate it.

Again, this isn’t propaganda hurled against Paul by his opponents. This comes from Paul’s own confessions about his life. In our lesson from 1 Timothy for today, we hear about how Paul had formerly been “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence” (1 Tim. 1:13). I can imagine that his heart broke as he authored those words. The book of Acts recounts that Paul was on his way to Damascus with the authority to seek out followers of Jesus and have them put to death! The sobering fact is that he did all of that on God’s behalf, as an expression of his faith. That may seem impossible to believe, and yet I think it was part and parcel of his version of that compulsive, neurotic religion. When confronted with something he could not reconcile with his own “sacred cows,” Paul didn’t hesitate to act in anger and violence. People of all faiths still do it all the time.

But something happened to Paul that changed him. He came face-to-face with the risen and exalted Christ. And as a result Paul says he received mercy and grace “poured all over” him (1 Tim 1:14, CEB). That was enough to convince him that he was headed in the wrong direction. So he turned his life around. But more than that, he received a commission: Paul says he was “judged faithful” and “appointed” to serve Christ. And so, as he says elsewhere, Paul began to proclaim the good news he had formerly tried to destroy (cf. Gal. 1:23). In a real sense, Paul became a channel of the very grace and mercy he had formerly sought to suppress and even to eradicate.

Some might be tempted to say that God made an exception for Paul. But our lesson for today suggests that the reason why Paul experienced such extraordinary grace and mercy was not only to make him a channel of that grace to others, but also to show that this is the way God deals with us all. As the Scripture lesson puts it, Paul’s experience was to demonstrate that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Since Paul could consider himself the “foremost,” or a “worst-case” sinner, our lesson says that he received mercy so that “Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16). Paul experienced God’s grace, mercy, and love so that he could become a channel of that grace to others, especially those who were considered a “lost cause.”

I think some of this might come as a shock to us. After all, it is “Saint Paul” we’re talking about, preacher and teacher of the gospel, founder and pastor of churches, and writer of about a third of the New Testament! He’s called “Saint Paul” for a reason. Most of us would consider ourselves much worse sinners than Paul! But I would say our lesson insists that the reason why Paul experienced such amazing grace and mercy was to show there is no one who is beyond the love of God. By his own admission he had blasphemed Christ and viciously attacked and even murdered Christians. If he could be forgiven for that, then there was no one who could not be forgiven their sins. Since Jesus came into the world to save sinners, that includes us all. Paul was the prime example of how God’s grace can transform even the most violent person into a channel of grace to others.

While our Scripture lesson for today comes from the end of Paul’s life, the message that God’s grace and mercy and love are for all people was an important part of the gospel Paul preached from the very beginning. In fact, this message can be found in Scripture long before Paul lived, even before Jesus died on the cross. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, God displays grace and mercy to the people of Israel again and again. Grace and mercy and unfailing love define God’s very character throughout the Bible. We might wonder how Paul and his compatriots could be so devoted to Scripture and be so completely wrong-headed about God. And yet, as I observed when we began, whenever anyone uses religion to cover up a fundamental sense of guilt and shame, their religion can become angry and violent.

As was the case for Paul, so it is still true today that God’s grace and mercy and love remain intact, even for those who use their religion to harm others. God’s grace remains for us all! And part of Paul’s point in our lesson from 1 Timothy is that the extraordinary grace God showed someone like Paul is for everyone. Christ Jesus came to save us all. That means there is no one who is ever beyond the love of God. This is the way God has dealt with people from the very beginning. But the purpose of God’s grace has always been to transform those who experience it into channels of grace to others. That was true with Abraham and his descendants. It was true for Paul and his compatriots. And it’s still true for us today.

There are things happening in our world and in our country that are troubling and discouraging. It may leave us wondering what we can do to make a difference in this big world that seems to be spinning out of control into violence and hatred. I’ve said it before: I believe that every time we act with integrity and compassion, it makes a difference. Every time we share the grace we’ve received from God with someone else, it makes a difference. It certainly makes a difference directly in the life of those with whom we share that grace. But I believe it also makes a difference in the bigger world. We may not see it. We may not see the path in front of us, but that’s because we’re living in a time when we’re forging that path by every act of integrity, kindness, or compassion. Every time we act as channels of God’s grace, we’re forging the path toward the light, toward goodness. We’re blazing the trail toward kingdom of God. The purpose of God’s grace has always been to transform us into channels of grace to others. That was true for Paul and it’s still true for us today. God shows us his grace and mercy and love, without restrictions or conditions, to make us into people who will rejoice with him any time anyone who has lost their way finds their way back home. He does so to make us into people who will become channels of that grace to those around us.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/14/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Keith Ward, Is Religion Dangerous?, 25-41. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 186-89.

[3] Cf. Paul Tillich, “The Yoke of Religion,” in The Shaking of the Foundations, 93-103; Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason, 258-273; Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 236.

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 128-29, where he points out that Jesus “demonstrated God’s eschatological law of grace towards those without the law and the transgressors of the law, through his forgiveness of sins. By so doing he abolished the legal distinction between religious and secular, righteous and unrighteous, devout and sinful. He revealed God in a different way from that in which he was understood in the law and the tradition and was perceived by the guardians of the law.” Cf. also ibid., 142, where he speaks of this as a “revolution in the concept of God”: “God comes not to carry out just revenge upon the evil, but to justify by grace sinners, whether they are Zealots or tax collectors, Pharisees or sinners, Jews or Samaritans, and therefore, also, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.”

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Before We Know To Ask

Before We Know to Ask

Psalm 31:1-5, 9-16[1]

Trust is a precious commodity these days. It seems the more divided we become as a people, the less we’re willing to risk trusting anyone. Many of us live by the motto, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” We’re just wired that way. Self-reliance has been a virtue for generations, since long before Emerson wrote an essay about it.[2] We believe in pulling ourselves up by our own “bootstraps.” And that can make it difficult to trust—really trust—anyone. After all, making the choice to trust someone, anyone, means taking the risk that our trust will be broken. It’s simply one of the costs of living fully. It’s much easier to withdraw into our protective shell and isolate from anyone who might hurt us in any way. But if we want to experience the full spectrum of what it means to live this human life, we’ll have to learn to trust.

I think our general attitude about trusting anybody for anything rubs off on our ability to trust God. As we’ve seen in our journey through the Psalms during Lent, the psalm-singers framed trusting God as a matter of relying on God wholly and completely for every aspect of our lives. That cuts directly against the grain of our self-reliance. From my perspective, trusting God means acknowledging that there’s nothing we can do to come up with a better version of our past. It means accepting our lives just as they are in the present moment. And it means entrusting our future entirely into God’s hands. It’s hard to do that when we’re busy trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Even and especially when we can’t even find any straps to pull ourselves up by, or when we’ve lost the strength to even take hold of the straps, let alone pull them up.

I believe our Psalm for today addresses this question of trusting God with every aspect of life. It may be difficult to hear that, however. Because Luke’s Gospel has Jesus cry out, “Into your hands I commend my spirit” as his dying breath (Lk 23:46), we tend to hear Psalm 31 as a “prayer for the dying.” We think that the Psalm is about giving up our “spirit” into God’s hands at death. But the prayer in Psalm 31 is better translated, “Into your hands I commit my very life,” as in the New International Reader’s Version we used in worship today. I’ve mentioned before that the Hebrew word translated “spirit” in the Psalm means more than we may think. It refers to one’s whole existence, heart and mind, body and soul. It’s like the way we use the word “self.” Entrusting one’s very “self” to God in this way is not a prayer for dying, but rather a prayer for living.

In Psalm 31, the psalm-singer recalls all the hardships of life, including the “frenemies” who sought to undo him, along with all the anxiety and sorrow that caused.[3] As a result of the anguish he had borne, the psalm-singer could say, “I am as forgotten as a dead man” (cf. Ps. 31:12, TEV). He likens himself to so much “broken pottery.” And yet, in spite of all the pain he’s had to endure, at the end of the day he summed up his trust in God by saying, “my times are in your hand” (Ps. 31:15). Again, this points us in the direction that the Psalm is a “life-prayer.” In this song, the psalm-singer expresses his faith in terms of relying on God wholly and completely for all of life.

Another reason for seeing Psalm 31 as a “life-prayer” is because the psalm-singer expresses his confidence in the “faithful God.” That’s the second part of the prayer: “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God” (Ps. 31:5, NRSV). In Hebrew the idea of God as the “faithful God” is literally worded, “the God of truth” (el-emeth). One could also translate this as “the God of trustworthiness.” This phrase points us to the one whose very character is defined by dependability. The psalm-singer entrusts his entire life to “the God who can be relied on … because [God] is true to himself.”[4] Being dependable, being reliable, being trustworthy in relationship to us all is what it means for God to be true to himself. The psalm-singer shows his confidence in the God who is always faithful by essentially praying, “it is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I am willing to have it so.”[5]

As we’re learning about “Faith in the Psalms” during Lent this year, I think that may be the foundation for everything else. To be sure, like the rest of the Bible, faith has different facets in the Psalms. Sometimes we learn faith by hearing about all the ways God was faithful to people in the past. Sometimes we learn faith from their affirmations about God, like “God’s love never fails.” And sometimes we learn faith by following the example of those who entrusted their lives wholly and completely to God. When we take that step of faith, we’re not just engaged in so much wishful thinking. In the Psalms, faith is based on the firm foundation that God’s love for us never fails. And through the stories of those who entrusted their lives to him, God has demonstrated time and again that he is the God we can rely on. More than that, we have our own experiences of God being there for us, through good times and bad times. Again and again, God has been true to himself by being true to us. God does this simply because that’s who God is. God is the “faithful God” in whose hands we can “entrust” our “times,” all our times, past, present, and future.

If you’ve been in worship here for a while, and if you’ve been paying attention, it’s likely you recognized the title of my sermon for today, “Before We Know to Ask.” It’s a phrase I’ve used every week in my pastoral prayer since before I came here over ten years ago. I don’t use that phrase because it’s something I just memorized or it’s an “easy” way to close my prayer. I composed that phrase years ago as a way of concluding my prayer with the kind of trust this Psalm expresses. It’s a way of formulating in words that I hope we can all relate to the faith that the psalm-singers encourage us to embrace. It’s the faith that God always shows us grace, mercy, and love in little ways every day. Theologians call it God’s “prevenient grace.” I know that’s not likely a phrase you’re familiar with. One of the things I love about the Reformed Christian tradition to which we in the Presbyterian Church belong is that we believe God’s grace is always “prevenient.” That means it always precedes anything we might do. A theology of grace teaches us that God is constantly at work in all our lives, even and especially when we’re not aware of it. God is “for us” in many more ways that we can know simply because that’s what it means for God to be true to himself. And God’s unfailing love always precedes our asking or even knowing what to ask for!

Our faith is not about “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps”! Our faith teaches us to recognize that we don’t have any bootstraps strong enough to actually pull ourselves up at all. Every grace, every mercy, all the goodness in our lives comes as a gift from God’s love. Our faith is not about relying on ourselves for every little thing. It’s about acknowledging that there’s nothing we can do to come up with a better version of our past. It’s about accepting our lives just as they are in the present moment. And it’s about entrusting our future entirely into God’s hands. We do that when we follow the psalm-singer’s example and entrust our “times,” all the times of our lives, into God’s hands. We do that when we live out the faith that the God whose essential character is reliable, trustworthy, and faithful will bring grace, mercy and love into our lives before we even know to ask.

[2] Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, 1841; accessed at https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance.html

[3] Most modern versions follow the (Greek) Septuagint version which reads “misery” in v. 10 rather than “iniquity” in the Hebrew text (and KJV, ASV, NASB, ESV, CEV, NET, NLT [2015; NLT 1996 has “misery”]; contrast GNV, “pain”). Cf. H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 360; Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 258.

[4] James L. Mays, Psalms, 143; cf. also Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 363, who renders it “the faithful, dependable God.” He also adds (p. 365), “The truth of God is the confirmation of [God’s] grace and faithfulness.” See further, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.1:459-60, where he relates this to the doctrine of God’s “simplicity,” or the idea that God is entirely true to himself when God relates to us with love, mercy, grace, and patience. God does so because God has chosen to do so, and because God always faithful to God’s self. It is a matter of “the unity of grace and holiness, mercy and righteousness, patience and wisdom, in the total work of His love” (ibid, 460).

[5] This is Mays’ interpretation of “into your hands I commit my spirit.” Cf. Mays, Psalms, 144.

Wednesday, April 02, 2025

The Burden Lifted

Psalm 32[1]

If we live in a world defined by dissatisfaction, as we discussed last week, we also live in a world defined by competition. There’s probably no better time of year to talk about this. “March Madness” isn’t just about basketball. It’s a symbol of how deeply competition is drilled into our lives. In every area of our lives, from school, to work, to sports, to even the games we play for entertainment. The level of competitiveness in our world can leave us feeling like life itself is a “zero-sum game.” That’s just a fancy way of saying that somebody has to lose so that somebody else can “win.” In a tournament like “March Madness,” a whole lot of “somebodies” have to lose so that just one team can win.

I realize that this competitiveness is so much a part of our way of life that some of you may seriously ask whether there is any real alternative. We see it when more than one company has to “compete” for our business. That can be a good thing. To be sure, we also see many ways in which cooperation brings people together for mutual benefit. I think of how communities rally around a farmer who has been injured or is sick and can’t get their crops planted or harvested. But at the end of the day, when the driving force is to “win,” that means “beating the competition.”

I think that’s at least one of the reasons why the message of God’s grace gains so little traction in our culture. The idea that God’s unfailing love is unconditional, unqualified, irrevocable, and unlimited, and that it extends to everyone, everywhere regardless of who they are, where they’ve been, or what they’ve done, just doesn’t compute for us. Like everything else, we view love as something we have to “win” by outdoing others. Even many of us who sing God’s grace in church every week may try to “win” God’s love for ourselves with our morality and our religious devotion. But the very effort means we view others as the “competition.” Maybe that’s one reason why the church has lost so much spiritual credibility with so many in our day. The idea that God extends his grace and love to all people everywhere solely because that’s who God is gets lost in the drive to “outdo” others. We just cannot envision a world in which everyone “wins.” But maybe that’s part of our problem.

You might think that’s a surprising way to introduce our Psalm for today. We hear the language of “righteousness” and we think we have to “measure up” to some kind of standard. In some of the Psalms, the bar for being “righteous” is set so high it leaves us wondering who can ever reach it.[2] But that’s where the Psalm for today comes in. We discussed last week that in the Psalms being “righteous” means trusting in God completely and wholly. Our Psalm for today expands on that: the “righteous” who are “blessed” or truly “happy” are not those who by their own efforts achieve some unreachable standard of morality. Rather, the “righteous” are those who know that they are embraced by God’s love.[3] They’ve learned to be vulnerable enough to admit their pain not only to themselves, but also to God. When they do that, they know the meaning of the psalm-singer’s words: “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!” Unfortunately, we tend to hear this kind of language in terms of guilt and shame. But this Psalm isn’t about guilt or shame, it’s about grace.

This is more than just religious jargon. The psalm-singer knows by experience the pain of feeling “not good enough.” To paraphrase the ancient words of the Bible, when we try to hide that pain, it becomes a burden that crushes us. It grinds us down as long as we keep silent. Many of us may know by personal experience the suffering that comes from keeping silent about our burdens. Some things are too painful to admit, even to ourselves. That’s because we may we think we’re unworthy of love and acceptance, by God, by others, or even by ourselves. But the burdens we carry don’t disqualify us from God’s love. We’re more than our worst failure. We’re more than the labels people put on us.

The psalm-singer also speaks of the freedom that comes from honesty. The promise of the Psalm for today is that when we admit all the ways in which we feel unworthy or disqualified, we find God’s total and complete acceptance. Even the language of sin and forgiveness demonstrates this. The variety of Hebrew words for sin and forgiveness in Psalm 32 offers the promise and the hope that our all guilt and shame in all its dimensions is resolved in every way that is necessary.[4] And this total and complete acceptance is available to us just for the asking. All we have to do is open ourselves enough to admit to ourselves and to God who we are, what we’ve done, and how we feel about it. We may be able to share this burden with a trusted friend or a counseling professional. The offer of healing held out to us by God’s grace applies not only to what we’ve done, but also to the pain we may carry for what has been done to us. When we name what hurts in a safe environment, we find that we’re still loved by God. Always have been and always will be. The joy and the freedom that comes from this kind of honest vulnerability is rooted in knowing that we are accepted for who we are, now and to all eternity.

In this Psalm, as in the Psalms as a whole, the key to finding this kind of freedom to learn to trust God’s unfailing love. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Psalms are filled with testimonies of the “blessings” that come from trusting God’s unfailing love. It’s about more than just comprehending God’s love as a concept. It’s about embracing God’s love wholly and completely with our whole hearts as well as our minds, even with body and soul. It’s about entrusting all that we are and all that we will ever be to God’s care! It may be hard to wrap our heads around something that big. Maybe we need to bring it down to a level we can grasp by taking the risk of trusting a friend enough to share our deepest pain. When we do, and we find love and acceptance in the place of the rejection we feared, the burden is lifted.

More than that, this process of healing can lead us to a whole new sense of worth, value, and acceptance. When the burdens we carry are lifted by God’s unfailing love, or even by the love of a friend, we find the freedom to accept that we are accepted. We find God’s unconditional, unqualified, irrevocable, and unlimited acceptance. That’s what “grace” means.[5] It means we’re accepted by God for who we are, now and forever. Always have been and always will be. When we find this level of freedom because the burdens that may have weighed us down for years have been lifted, we’re free to live fully in the present in a way that’s grace-filled and loving. We’re free to pass on to others the acceptance we have received. It transforms us and everyone around us, as God’s unconditional love is meant to.

[2] Psalm 15 is a great example: the psalm-singer asks a question that boils down to who may live in God’s presence, and the answer is, “Those who obey God in everything and always do what is right, whose words are true and sincere, and who do not slander others. … They always do what they promise, no matter how much it may cost” (Ps 15:2-4, GNT). I think we all tend to assume that “I could never live up to that.”

[3] J. Clinton McCann, Jr. “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV:806, where he points out that one of the purposes of this Psalm is to demonstrate the truth that “to be righteous is not a matter of being sinless but a matter of being forgiven.”

[4] Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, 266.

[5] Paul Tillich, “You are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations, 162. He says that we truly experience “grace” not by anything we decide to believe or do, but rather it’s as if “a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’” (emphasis added). See also James L. Mays, Psalms, 146: “Calvin observed that all that the Scripture says about blessedness in other beatitudes depends on the blessedness commended here, ‘the free favor of God, by which he reconciles us to himself’ (Calvin I:526).”

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Worthy

1 Corinthians 15:1-11[1]

The question of our personal “worthiness” can be a thorny one. Some of us may feel that we’re unworthy at the very core of our being. We may think we don’t even deserve to be here. Others may believe without a doubt that they are deserving, worthy of every opportunity, achievement, and accolade they’ve ever received. And perhaps more! It can be tricky navigating the middle ground between a basic sense of shame over who we are and a fundamental arrogance. Many of us have worked hard throughout our lives, and we have a well-earned right to be appropriately proud of our accomplishments. Others of us have worked hard and have seen all they hoped for slip through their fingers. The question of our “worthiness” as individuals is one that is complicated and fraught with pitfalls. But it’s one that we all must face.

Our scripture lesson from 1 Corinthians for today addresses this question from the perspective St. Paul’s life story. The lesson tells us part of the story of Paul’s calling to serve as an Apostle, proclaiming the good news of Jesus. We might find it strange to hear Paul talking about how he was the “least” of the Apostles, and didn’t even “deserve” to be called an Apostle. When you take a close look at what Paul says about himself in his letters, two things emerge.[2] First, he confessed that all he was and all he was doing was the result of a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. When he met the risen and living Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, it transformed his whole life. Using the language of our lesson, Paul could say that all that he was and all that he was doing was the result of God’s grace at work in and through him. That’s what made Paul’s zeal for following the way of Judaism give way to his conviction that Jesus Christ had chosen him to serve the body of Christ—from “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4)!

The other thing that Paul says about himself is that he was unworthy to be an Apostle. I think a part of this came from the fact that he was always very consciously aware of his failures and shortcomings. Several times he expressed his feeling that, because he had persecuted the church before being called by Jesus, he wasn’t fit to serve as an Apostle. And this wasn’t just initial reluctance on his part. Even toward the end of his life, Paul continued to see himself as unfit to be an Apostle because he had previously “blasphemed the name of Christ” (1 Tim 1:13-15, NLT). But I think the other side of this sense of “unworthiness” on Paul’s part was because he knew in the deepest part of his heart, that “whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his grace on me” (1 Cor 15:10, NLT). And he knew two things about God’s grace at the same time: there was nothing he could ever do to deserve God’s grace, and he would never have to try to deserve God’s grace. It was all a gift!

I think this applies to the issue I raised last week: how we find the strength and the faith to continue serving others in a challenging time. For myself, I must confess that, like Paul I don’t think I deserve the opportunities I’ve been given. But, like Paul I’m also grateful because I believe it’s all been through God’s grace. Many of the people I grew up with wouldn’t be surprised that I’ve spent most of my life working in ministry. They would consider it a natural outcome of who I am. But it was never something that I would have thought. I came from a nowhere town and a no-name family. Although I knew I was good at school, I never thought of myself as being all that special.

I “volunteered” for ministry at the ripe old age of 17. I’ve always wondered whether God really wanted me or he just “had” to take me because I stepped forward. And, truth be told, I never thought I had what it took to be a pastor. I was quite comfortable in the classroom as a Seminary professor. It was an environment that I knew well, and it was a task that I was confident I had the skills and expertise to carry out. Working as a pastor felt a bit too risky for me. To me it seemed like starting a business from scratch, and I wasn’t sure I wanted go out on a limb like that. In fact, when I was 40 I stepped away from ministry for several years. I tried to move into a parallel career, but only made it more clear to me that serving the body of Christ was where I belong.

When it comes right down to it, however, I would have to say with Paul, “whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his grace on me.” Like Paul, I have certain gifts and abilities that God has used in my service to the body of Christ. And like Paul I’ve worked diligently to serve to the best of my ability for decades, continuing to “sharpen the saw” to be as effective as I can at what I do. But I would also confess with Paul that “it was not I but God who was [and still is] working through me by his grace.” Like Paul, I would say that, despite my reluctance about whether I am worthy to serve the body of Christ, I believe God chose me from “before the foundation of the world.” God’s grace led me down the path of life that has brought me to this place and time. And, like Paul, “I’m not about to let his grace go to waste.”

I bring this up because I think there are others who may find themselves at places in life where they never thought they would be. And I think most of us would agree that we could never have imagined we would be facing the issues we are today. You may know that I’m a “Lord of the Rings” fan. Throughout the years, I’ve found myself agreeing with Frodo Baggins when, while talking about the rise of evil, he says to Gandalf the wizard, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” To which Gandalf replies, “So do I … and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”[3] The truth is that none of us gets to choose the backdrop against which we live our lives. We don’t always get to choose the direction our lives take in the circumstances we face. All we get to choose is how we will live our lives right where we are.

Again, if we’re trying to figure out how to keep on serving in circumstances that make it all seem futile, I think we can take our cue from St. Paul. What I didn’t say above is that he faced opposition and criticism of his ministry from the very first. Not just from “enemies” outside the church. Some of the believers in churches he had founded, some of the believers at Corinth, thought that Paul was unworthy to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ. In the face of that fierce opposition, Paul responded in a couple of ways. First, he admitted that he wasn’t worthy in and of himself to represent Jesus Christ. I think it may be healthy to follow his lead in that respect. Not one of us, and especially not me, deserves to serve the body of Christ in the ways we have open to us. But secondly, Paul confessed that all that he was and all that he did was due to God’s grace poured out in his life. I think each and every one of us can make the same humble confession today. We may not understand why we have been placed in this particular time and this particular situation. But we can trust that God will use our gifts and abilities right where we are. And we can draw encouragement from the community of faith that supports us as we seek to use our gifts and abilities where we are. But at the end of the day, God’s grace has called us, God’s grace has brought us to this place, and God’s grace is working in and through us. And that’s all the worthiness we need!

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.1.4, 196-211, where he surveys the story of Paul’s change of life from zeal for Judaism to proclaiming Jesus and serving the body of Christ as a prime example of the interaction between the knowledge and ignorance of “the accomplished alteration of the whole world situation” by God through Jesus Christ. Barth argues that this tension between knowledge and ignorance can arise only “to move to it’s overcoming” because “God is not God in vain” (ibid., 191). Of Saul/Paul’s conversion, he says (ibid., 202), “It was in the power of the self-witness of Jesus Christ that he passed from ignorance to knowledge. Jesus Himself met him before Damascus. … . This is the decisive element in the story.”

[3] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2004, p. 51

Tuesday, July 09, 2024

Weakness?

2 Corinthians 12:2-10[1]

The ironic affirmation that “when I am weak, then I am strong” is the personal testimony of the Apostle Paul in our lesson from 2 Corinthians for today. It may be hard to understand that statement on its own. But when we put it into the context of Paul’s life, perhaps we can begin to make some sense of it. He wasn’t the only Christian teacher who had come to Corinth. There were many others, and some of them attacked Paul for his “weaknesses.” They claimed they were better speakers than Paul. They claimed to have supernatural visions and powers. In short, they claimed they were better apostles than St. Paul. In 2 Corinthians he even acknowledges that they claimed to be “super-apostles.” But he did not concede that they were truly superior to him.

Rather than trying to “out-boast” those other teachers, Paul took the opposite approach. His ministry followed the model of the Suffering Savior, and he demonstrated that by listing all the hardships he had endured in the service of Christ (2 Cor 11:23-30). He had been imprisoned, and he had been beaten “often near death.” He had been shipwrecked and spent a night and a day adrift on the open sea. He had experienced dangers of all kinds: from rivers, from bandits, from his own people, from gentiles, “danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea.” His life as an “Apostle” was one defined by working “hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights,” going without food “often,” shivering in the cold without enough clothing to keep him warm. He concludes that list of his weaknesses by asking, “Who is weak without my feeling that weakness?” (2 Cor 11:29, NLT). That’s probably not the image of an “apostle” most of us have. I would say it’s certainly not the image of ministry that inspires people to serve!

As a part of his personal testimony, he tells the story of an unusual spiritual experience he had years earlier. Something about that experience was so extraordinary that St. Paul says he was afflicted by a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from boasting about it. Although there have been many guesses, nobody really knows what this “thorn” was. But it’s clear from Paul’s perspective that it weakened him. In a sense, it put him in a state of perpetual weakness. No wonder he says he asked to be relieved of that burden. Not once but three times. Most of us would do the same thing—except we wouldn’t stop after three times! In reply to his fervent prayer, the answer he received was “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9, NLT). I’m not sure that was the answer he was looking for. But by the time he recounts this experience in 2 Corinthians he had embraced it so much that he could affirm what seems absurd to us: “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Let’s be honest: For most of us, the affirmation that “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10, NLT) makes no sense. Weakness is something to be avoided at all costs. Besides beauty, youth, and wealth, we live in a society that values strength. Which explains why most of us do everything we can to avoid or hide our weaknesses. We’re afraid to let other people see our weaknesses. I think we’re afraid to admit our weaknesses even to ourselves. In our way of thinking, weakness makes us vulnerable. It puts us in a position where we may have to rely on others for help. Perhaps more importantly, weakness frightens us. After all, if we’re weak and vulnerable, someone can take advantage of us. We believe “when we’re weak, we can be hurt,” not that that “when we are weak, then we are strong”!

But the idea that God’s power works best through our weakness is a theme that runs throughout the New Testament, beginning with Jesus himself. In the apparent “weakness” of his humiliating death on the cross, Jesus demonstrated the true power of God’s love to change everything and everyone. In that same vein, St. Paul consistently “boasted” in his weaknesses. In fact, he insisted that his weaknesses were the very means by which the power of faith in Jesus Christ to change people’s lives shone most dramatically through him. And he insisted that his weaknesses were the very means through which Christ was working in and through him to bring new life to the people he served.

Again, all that can be hard for us to process. We’d much rather talk about how our faith helps us to find joy and peace and freedom in the midst of the hardships of life. We’re much more comfortable with affirming “faith is the victory that overcomes the world” than we are saying “when I am weak, then I am strong.” We have to find a balance between the two: between faith as victory and faith as surrender. That means embracing the “weakness” of faith. When we look at faith from this perspective, we’re talking about the “cost of discipleship.” And we shouldn’t underestimate that word “cost.” Our commitment to follow Christ will cost us. I’m not sure we enjoy talking about that aspect of faith.

How, then does our “weakness” become our “strength”? As many spiritual guides have taught us, it’s precisely through the “broken places” of our weakness that God is able to come into our lives and bring new life through his grace, mercy, and love. And it’s through our weakness that God does his most powerful work in the lives of those around us. As Paul recounted, the answer to his prayer to have his weakness taken from him was, “My power works best in weakness.” That means then that the “strength” we find in our weakness is not ours, but God’s! It’s the strength that Jesus demonstrated by obeying God’s will for his life, even to the point of his death on a cross. If that’s not strength, I don’t know what is!

Learning to affirm with Paul, “when I am weak, then I am strong” is an essential part of the Christian life.[2] That may sound strange to us, or it may be uncomfortable, but it is the direct result of the fact that God was working most powerfully in this world when he entered it in the weakness of a newborn baby, who couldn’t speak, couldn’t walk, couldn’t do anything for himself.[3] Learning to affirm, “when I am weak, then I am strong” is also a direct result of our commitment to follow a Savior who gave his life in the weakness and humiliation of the cross. If we believe in a God whose power works best in our weakness, if we follow a Savior who “emptied” himself on the cross, we are going to have to learn what it means to say with Paul, “when I am weak, then I am strong”!

[2] Cf. Luke Johnson, Learning Jesus, 201: “The imitation of Christ in his life of service and suffering … is not an optional version of the Christian identity. It is the very essence of Christian identity.”

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.1:191: God “Most High” is all-powerful and majestic “precisely in His lowliness” as we see it in the birth, life, and death of Jesus.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Every Hour I Need You!

Psalm 107:1-22[1]

You may have noticed that we talk a lot about God’s “unfailing love” in our worship. As is the case with other elements of our service that I repeat week after week, that’s an intentional choice on my part. My understanding of God based on the central affirmations of the Bible is that God loves us all with a love that will never let us go. God loves us all, along with the whole human family, with a love that is unconditional, unchanging, and irrevocable. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts it (and as I am fond of quoting), “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less.” That’s my understanding of God’s love, but it’s also an understanding that’s based on and informed by almost 50 years of studying the Bible.

A statement like “50 years of studying the Bible” might sound impressive. It might sound like after 50 years of personal, professional, academic, and spiritual study of the Bible, I should have it all down. But I don’t. There are still lots of questions that I can’t answer. There are still questions about God’s unfailing love that I can’t answer. One question that I often struggle with is the fact that the Bible speaks about God’s love in “expansive” language. For example, as I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite verses is Psalm 36:5, which says that God’s “unfailing love is as vast as the heavens.” The idea is that there is nothing in all of creation that’s beyond the reach of God’s unfailing love. It’s a comforting reminder. But when I think about the vastness of all creation, I can sometimes wonder with the author of Psalm 8, “what are mere mortals that you should think about them” (Ps 8:4, NLT)? How can my problems really matter to a God whose love fills the whole universe?

That tension lies at the heart of what the Bible teaches about God. God is so far beyond us that his love can extend to the vast reaches of the whole universe. But God is also so close to each and every one of us that his love reaches into the everyday details of our lives. Another of my favorite Bible verses says it this way: “I am the high and holy God, who lives forever. I live in a high and holy place, but I also live with people who are humble and repentant, so that I can restore their confidence and hope” (Isa 57:15, GNT). It may be hard for us to understand how God’s love can extend to everything in all the vast universe and also at the same time can relate to the everyday concerns of our lives. But that is precisely what the Bible affirms about who God is and how God loves us.

I think our lesson from Psalm 107 for today addresses this question. The whole Psalm is a reflection on God’s love for people in various real-life situations they may have faced. And the point of it all is that God “is good to us, and his love never fails” (Psalm 107:2, CEV). Just to make sure that the message sinks in, there are several “stanzas” to this Psalm that demonstrate God’s goodness and unfailing love. The Psalmist reminds us that God’s love is such that “To everyone who is thirsty, he gives something to drink; to everyone who is hungry, he gives good things to eat” (Ps. 107:9). God’s love means “He breaks down bronze gates and shatters iron locks” to set free those who are unjustly imprisoned (Ps. 107:16). God in his love can “turn deserts into lakes and scorched land into flowing streams.” (Ps. 107:35). God’s love is such that “When you are suffering and in need, he will come to your rescue” (Ps. 107:41). The idea is that there is no situation in which we may find ourselves that God’s love cannot reach us and restore us.

More than that, this Psalm reminds us that God’s love for us is such that he seeks us out when we’re lost. That seems to be the point of spelling out the various real-life situations in the Psalm. The point is not only that God helps those who turn to him, but rather that God himself actually seeks out those who are in distress. Of course, there’s a balance here as well. God seeks us out, but it’s also up to us to turn to him. There’s a “refrain” that repeats through the Psalm. In each and every challenge, it says, “You were in serious trouble, but you prayed to the LORD, and he rescued you” (Ps. 107:6, 13, 19, 28). No matter where we may find ourselves in this life, we can turn to the Lord and ask him for help. And when we do, what we find is that God is always seeking us out in all the places of distress, shame, and even danger into which we may have wandered or gone astray. This is also what it means when the Psalm affirms that God loves us with a love that never lets us go.

The promise is that no matter where our lives may have taken us, God not only seeks us out, but he restores us to life. Of course, one of the big questions that I can’t answer is what to make of it when we turn to the Lord, and nothing seems to change. We go on being hungry and thirsty, we go on wandering in the wilderness, we go on suffering and there’s no rescue from it. It’s one of the biggest questions with the Bible’s teaching about God’s love, and I don’t think anyone can really answer it. Sometimes we turn to the Lord and call out to him to help us, and all we seem to get in response is silence. But I think it’s important, especially in those times, for us to hear the message of Psalm 107: God is always “good to us” and “his love never fails.” Even and particularly when it seems like God has turned a deaf ear to our cries for help, even and particularly when we feel like God has abandoned us instead of answering our cries for him to help us, we need to remember that God loves us with a love that will never let us go.

Some of you may wonder why I spend so much time preaching on passages like this one from the Hebrew Bible. I know that there’s a tradition of preaching from the Gospel lessons every Sunday in the Presbyterian world. I would answer that question by saying that in my opinion we have to understand the Bible as a whole in order to understand any of its parts. The foundations for the faith that Jesus proclaimed in his life and ministry are found in the Hebrew Bible. Without an understanding of how Jesus viewed God, we can easily turn everything he said into a rigid system that restricts access to God’s love only to those who “live up” to a certain standard. In other words, the very same kind of system for which Jesus challenged the Jewish religious leaders of his day. The point of his challenge was that God’s love is unconditional, unchanging, and irrevocable for everyone, not just for those who “measure up.”

For me, the lesson of this passage is that wherever we may find ourselves in this life, whether in good times or in hard times, the truth about us is that God loves us, always has and always will. And the truth about us is that we can look to God to care for us in any and every hardship we may be facing. When I read this Psalm, I think of that great old hymn, “I need thee every hour.” I think that’s the lesson of this passage for us today: every hour of every day, we all need the Lord. We need the Lord’s love in our lives every hour of every day. We need to know that the Lord is looking out for us, no matter what circumstance in which we may find ourselves. We need to be able to trust that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less. And that love isn’t just some nice sentiment. It makes all the difference in our ability to cope with all that we may have to face in our lives. We can face it all knowing that God is always “good to us” and “his love never fails.”

The Waking Dreamer