So We Always Will Remember

In our Lectionary reading today, the letter to the Ephesians is written to a church that is struggling amongst itself.  As we break open this Lectionary reading together here, I am struck once again that Christians around the world are also reflecting on this same reading on this 4^th Sunday of Lent.

On the one hand, there are the “Jewish Christians”, the ones who have been around since the beginning … they left their synagogues and took the risk to form this new community, following in the ways of this Jewish Rabbi, Jesus, who they came to believe to be the Christ.  

On the other hand, there are these “Gentile Christians”, who do not come from Jewish roots. They have come from a variety of traditions and now have come to believe whole heartedly in the Good News of Jesus Christ and they too are giving their lives to following Jesus through the church.

Let us open our hearts to the ways that God is speaking to us today through this reading from the Epistle to the Ephesians:  

⁴But God, who is rich in mercy,

out of the great love with which God loved us

⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses,

made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

⁶and raised us up with him

and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

⁷so that in the ages to come

God might show the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith,

and this is not your own doing;

it is the gift of God— ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

¹⁰For we are what God has made us,

created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. 

The word of God for the people of God, thanks be to God.

Please pray with me: Holy and Loving God, May the words from my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. 

***** 

“By grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing”. (2:8)

Before entering Yale Divinity School, I visited Andover Newton Theological Seminary, a historic seminary founded by Congregationalist hundreds of years ago and now situated on a hill in Newton, Massachusetts, overlooking that other city in New England. When I visited there, I went to sit in on a New Testament class. As I was waiting for the class to begin, one of the students introduced themselves to me and said, “Have you heard? We are getting our mid-terms back today. This will be interesting.”  Hmmm. Okay. 

The professor opened the class, “Well… what did you all think about the mid-term?”  A student raised her hand, “I was so anxious about that exam… I had three unexpected funerals in the church I was serving. I admit it – I had no time to study. I was terrified… and then I read the instructions: ‘So that you will never forget God’s gift of grace, simply sign your name and hand it in, and you will receive an A…’  I was so relieved. I signed my name and handed it right in. I was ecstatic!” 

Another student said, “I studied my bee-hind off for this exam… I turned down invitations for dinner… I holed myself up in the library rather than spending time with my family… I got headaches from all of the studying…then I was ticked off! I wanted to prove all that I had learned. I worked hard. It’s not fair! I want to earn my A!” 

It was a class divided. 

The professor then shared, “It was a real risk for me. I was concerned what my colleagues would think … that they would think me not academic enough… that I could be denied tenure for doing this…. And I also recognized that I could only do it this one time… that when word got around campus, I couldn’t do it again next year.  I thought, ‘Can I really do this?! Is this good teaching?’ And I recognized, ‘Yes, so that we always will remember God’s gift of grace…’” 

And surely, even though, as a prospective student visiting the class for the first time, I didn’t even take the exam, or prepare for it … or not prepare for it… I experienced it. 

***** 

“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, so that no one may boast.” (2:8)

I unexpectedly learned about grace that day in Newton, Massachusetts.

Grace is … complex. Sometimes it is easy to receive, other times … it’s not so easy.

 I continue to learn about grace in unexpected ways in these last three and half years of serving as a chaplain at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center over in West Haven. 

You may have heard me tell this story before, and I’ll keep telling it:

My first day at the VA, I went to visit a patient in the medical intensive care unit, and introduced myself to a nurse. I asked her about her patients. She described her patient who had arrived that morning as,

“a 40 year old male in a coma with decades of drug abuse”.  

As she said this I remembered the voices of nurses at other hospitals I had served describing similar patients, saying,

"He's brought this on himself; there is nothing that we can do for him."

This nurse, however, said, "He's been through hell; we'll do everything that we can for him."    

This is grace: offering everything.

This, I believe, is what God does for us through Christ Jesus:  “They’ve been through hell; we’ll do everything we can for them.”

And hoping, and desiring, that it is received. 

***** 

A couple of years ago, a veteran told me his story and told me to tell it to others  and so I share it with you. 

Each time I begin to relay this story, I feel a burning in my chest … and so I take a breath now.. 

This Vietnam vet was in his sixties and on hospice care when I met him. He shared with me about his current life… about his struggles with members of his family… about his love of vintage cars … and  told me about when he was in Vietnam: 

“I was a trained and skilled sniper – an excellent shot. My job was to be at the top of my tank as it was rolling through the jungle and to protect my people, to look out for ambushes and to shoot the enemy.  I was very good at what I did. 

“One day… I saw a young boy… about eight years old… run out into the road ahead of us … he lifted his hand to throw a … 

"I did what I did.

 "I have lived with that moment for decades.

“I had nightmares… I drank… I might have been dead to the world… 

“Somehow, I don’t know how, I eventually found myself here at the VA… I worked with a social worker for years… and eventually, I wrote a letter to that dead child and I told him everything that I felt, how sorry that I was, what I wish his life could have been like… I spent a lot of time by the river in Derby, thinking about this... One day, I tied that letter to a rock and threw it in the river… I don’t know…. I’ve felt a peace since then.  It’s possible. Even with this worn out body, this troubled heart… there is a life to be lived.”

*****

 And so it is that, every week at the worship service at the VA, the first song is always Amazing Grace. This choice was made by the group of veterans that I developed the worship service with. (It's on Thursdays at 6:15 pm – after supper … and before Bingo.)  And they said that it should be Amazing Grace - it is both an assurance of pardon and an acclamation and thanksgiving to God. 

A year after I started this worship service, I started supervising Chaplain Interns at the VA… and these students then rotated leading this Thursday evening worship service.  I showed them the format that I had developed, and, because these folks come from a variety of traditions – Lutheran, African Methodist Episcopal, Quaker, evangelical… I invited them also to develop an interfaith format that feels comfortable to them ...  The one thing that remains consistent throughout all of those worship services … the singing of Amazing Grace.  I’m told, that if Amazing Grace is not song there are blank stares – kind of like South Park characters… seemingly saying, “Is it time to sing Amazing Grace? We have to sing Amazing Grace…”

Indeed, some Yale Divinity School students came to the VA to write a senior project about hospital chapel services.   One of them asked, Mr H, one of the founding regulars, what would it be like if Amazing Grace were not sung. He said: “Bad. It’d be bad.” 

Now, in a moment, I’m going to invite us all to sing Amazing Grace together – and to sing it in the way that we sing it at the VA.

Some of the folks who attend the worship service are blind, so I am intentional in having a worship service in which reading is not required for full participation.  And so we simply sing the first verse of the hymn – and we sing it through three times, a cappella – the first time normally, the second time softly like a whisper and the third time with full voice.

I line out the words and when I first did so, I struggled with a couple of lines: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a …. Wretch …or soul?… ”  I asked participants about it. The reply: “I need to sing ‘wretch’ – because that is what I have felt like."

 And then I asked veterans who are blind what should be done about the line, “was blind but now I see. The consistent reply:  “Sing it. I may be blind … but I can see. Sing it.”

I can't explain it all to you. And after having sung this for the last several years with a variety of veterans, I know that it is true. 

***** 

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith,

and this is not your own doing;

it is the gift of God— ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

¹⁰For we are what God has made us,

created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (2:8-10)

Sisters and brothers in Christ of dear Spring Glen Church: this is a moment, no matter where we are on life’s journey, this is a moment when, as a church community, and as individuals, we can accept God’s grace. 

 Every time we gather in church on Sunday mornings, we begin again.  

We may have been “dead through our trespasses”, just like our forebearers in faith in centuries ago.  

We may feel that there is nothing left that is good in us and that we must forever pay the price of what we have done and by what we have left undone… and yet God has created us in Christ Jesus, who knows our struggles and our suffering. 

And God has plans for us to live … to live life to the full. 

For whatever reasons, Grace may not be easy to accept. 

There is nothing that we can do it earn it. We cannot have done anything to prepare it for it. And, for better and for worse, neither can the person next to us. 

So that you will never forgot,

so that you always will remember the Gift of God’s Grace

 … sign your name

… and join me in singing, VA-style:

first time normal, second time softly like a whisper, third time with full voice…

                         amazing grace,

                        how sweet the sound,

                        that saved a wretch like me,

                        I once was lost and now am found,

                        was blind and now I see.