Church of All Nations

delivered 22 March 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans

Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3,17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

Every so often our regular lectionary readings throw up the great passages of scripture – and sometimes in double abundance. That seems to be true today.

Give thanks to the Lord, for God is good
And his mercy endures forever. (Psalm 107:1)

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works. (Ephesians 2:8)

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

And the next verse:

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3: 17)

In this season of Lent, this time of reflection on our discipleship and faithfulness, it is important to be reminded of God’s love and the very basis of the Christian faith itself.

It is the verse from Ephesians I wish to consider this morning:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works (Ephesians 2:8).

It is a verse, or at the very least it is a theological affirmation, which was historically central to the self understanding of us Protestants and reformed Christians. As we know, now many centuries ago, the then Catholic church was corrupted by an emphasis on works – buying your way into the kingdom, whereas the reformers, like Martin Luther, saw that from the insight of scripture, our relationship with God, our salvation, was brought about by God’s own gracious act in Christ – and what we needed to do was believe this.

For the reformer John Calvin, whose 500^th birthday we celebrate this year, such was the scope and nature of God’s love and action, he famously suggested the idea of pre-destination of our lives. Now I don’t want to go there – but I do want to open up this tussle, this dichotomy between faith and works.  On the one hand, faith in God’s grace and on the other, the role of our works; works which could be the keeping of religious practices or, as the apostle Paul saw, the law of Moses.

Often within our church or spiritual life, we just bandy around slogans, without really grappling with, and testing them. The slogans, or sometimes it is verses, like John 3:16, just become hackneyed tests, or signs of who we associate with or who we accept – or exclude.  (I still haven’t gotten over the fact that there was a Rolls Royce in Perth that bears the number plate John 316!)

And here we have God’s grace on one side and our faith in that grace, and works, our works, on the other. The verse again:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works. (Ephesians 2:8)

Works always seem to get a bad press, theologically speaking.  There’s the notion that faith in God’s grace somehow does not involve works . . . our work.   Our actions, or works will downplay divine power, or something like that.  Certainly Christians can be seen to become patsies; wimps; or doormats.  God’s grace, and our living a life of grace, certainly in difficult situations, can be seen to be unsatisfactory because some action or response is required.  On the grace/faith side of the split between faith and works there certainly is not a great emphasis on works.  However, as I reflected on several current events which have had coverage in the media over recent weeks, I wondered if this is helpful.

Mohammad Khatami, President of Iran 1997-2005

The first concerns the brewing controversy over the lecture we have been advertising, and are still advertising in our Bulletin.  Next week, the former President of Iran, Seyed Mohammad Khatami, will speak at LaTrobe University.  His lecture is under the title, ‘Dialogue: The Only Path to Peace.’

Some argue that President Khatami is a strident Islamist — he is on record that Israel should not exist — his views should be rejected out of hand, and to meet with him, allow him to speak, will legitimise his points of view.

The thought I wish you to hold with this incident: where are grace and works?

Now a similar story, but it happens to be at the other end of a successful dialogue process and much, much pain.   Just before St Patrick’s Day there was an upswing in violence and killing in Northern Island. The Real IRA, or more likely just a group of aggrieved crime bosses, have killed police and soldiers.

Peace rally in Belfast, March 2009 (photo: Peter Morrison)

Remember ‘the Troubles’?  Two generations, perhaps many more generations, of violence, hatred, vitriol and death reigned – and no doubt lurking in there somewhere were issues of justice and deprivation which needed to be addressed. However, over the last week or so there have been these wonderful, grace filled events: rallies, vigils and speeches, true sad events because young lives have been lost, but events affirming that such violence and provocation will not wipe away the peace; there will not be a response, there will be no revenge, there will not be a return to a cycle of violence. The hard work of achieving a dialogue and eventually peace – will not be overturned. . . the hard work of dialogue and peace will not be overturned.

Where are grace and works here?

My final story of grace and works is a little closer to home, and it has also been in the media recently. And yes, another sad and difficult incident. Even before I was inducted last year in January, on the very afternoon of the induction service in fact, I led a service of remembrance in this Church for a young man, Damian Cooper, who twelve months previously had been killed at the corner of Lygon and Elgin Streets. He had been hit by a hit-and-run driver. (There were actually more at that service than at the induction an hour or two later!) It was very tragic.

Now two weeks ago, another young man, this time the hit-and-run driver, was sentenced to a four-year custodial sentence. Indeed he had been in gaol since his arrest just on two years ago. Damian’s parents, who have been marvellous in advocating for slowing the speed limit on Lygon St, among other measures that will save lives as a result of young males and excessive speed, were outraged over the sentence: a maximum sentence should have been given, they believe, their son had died in this incident, and an example needed to be set. Action was needed. A public protest has held. ‘Justice for Damo’, is the cry.

Where are grace and works here?

The grace of God is hard work. It was for God – and it is for us.

For God, the fullness our relationship was not a ‘given’ or readily achieved.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” as John succinctly, poignantly, says.  This does not mention the cross –- that was to come later in the Gospel — however, it is through the cross that life comes.  Grace is shown through the cross.  Such love and grace does not mean we just sit back, however.  It is not that we are trying to gain a relationship with God through our works, which was St Paul’s and Luther’s concern – ‘just observe the law and you will be right.’  But that through our works we show God’s way of grace.

In the three examples given, God’s way of grace requires painful and difficult hard work.

Peace in the Middle East, between Israel and Palestine; between Iran and the West, will not be achieved unless there is understanding, dialogue, acknowledgement of wrong, forgiveness, grace.  It will involve a process of dialogue and listening to each other.  One needs huge amounts of grace to begin such a process, and much hard work to sustain it, and much disappointment.

The alternative?  Well, we could do nothing and allow the pain and the hardship, the hatred, the slow atrophying of life of all concerned to continue.  In this instance, doing nothing is like doing something, like waging war.  If we feel so self assured that we know what is right, and that we are right, and in religious matters, we know God’s mind – our self assuredness looks very much like us doing ‘works’ to gain a relationship with God.  The mindset of grace is not needed because one is right and, after all, we have God on our side.  Such is the mindset of fundamentalism.

The success of the Northern Ireland peace process is an example where strongly held positions had to be given up, concessions made, forgiveness sought and granted, and trust built up.  Peace is achieved.  It may be hard work, disappointing work, frustrating work.  It would have been so much easier to stay within one’s worldview and assume dominance or victimhood and believe the rightness of one’s cause.  And of course, the violence would continue.

Punishment of wrong is important; there are consequences for our actions.  However, if punishment alone is one’s desire; a short gaol sentence does not satisfy.  To dream, however, of a transformed life, reformed life may need a different approach – at the least a multifaceted approach towards the young man who killed Damian Cooper.  And that is hard work.

My point is that grace is hard work to live out in our world.

You see our Ephesians passage goes on and says:

We are God’s work, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

If we start with grace, God’s love, our love for others – faith in the grace of God, means we are still going to be engaged in work.  Not self-righteous work for the sake of our relationship with God; rather, it is for others, so that all may have a full life as God would want it.