A Sermon Delivered by The Rev. John D. Painter at Centenary United Methodist Church – Metuchen, New Jersey February 5, 2006

Texts: Mark 14:22-25; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
While they were eating, [Jesus] took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. —Mark 14:22-25 (NRSV)

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes —1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (NRSV)

Bernice Sjogren died last week; she was in her early 90s. Bernice was an ordained Dea-con, and had served for many years as organist and choir director at Teaneck United Methodist Church before retiring to Indiana to live near her son, Leonard, an ordained Elder in our church. I had the joy and privilege of sharing in ministry with Bernice when I was the Pastor of Teaneck United Methodist Church from 1982 to 1987.

What caused me to think of Bernice as I was preparing this message was a remark she made to me following one of our Communion services at Teaneck. Like our church family here at Centenary, the Teaneck congregation is quite diverse…even more so, perhaps, with over thirty different first-generation nationalities represented among its members. Bernice sat at the organ bench up to the left, just like here, from where she could gaze down upon those who came to kneel at the rail to receive the bread and fruit of the vine. She came to me after one service with tears in her eyes, telling me how touched she had been as she looked down from her unique per-spective and saw persons from a multitude of nations lined up at the rail, kneeling side by side with hands extended to receive Communion, and thought this must be what the heavenly banquet in God’s kin-dom looks like. It was an image I have never forgotten, and it added to the richness of my understanding of this sacrament, which is central to our unity as sisters and brothers in Christ.

Bernice was a good friend…an elegant woman, endowed with dignity and grace. There’s that word: Grace. That’s what I want to really talk with you about this morning. And to do that, I want to offer a brief course in “Grace 101”, as I have done recently with those involved in our study of This Holy Mystery. With apologies to them—you all can consider this a refresher course. Though at the heart of our spiritual journey with God, grace remains an elusive and often misunderstood dimension of our Christian faith. When we hear the word “grace,” we might think first of that prayer we offer before eating a meal. Or, as a reference to a gracious person, like my friend and colleague Bernice. When he set about seeking to clarify the concept of grace for us, Philip Yancey wrote a book with the provocative title, “Grace Is Not a Blue-Eyed Blonde”! Aah, yes, that amazing Grace!

Grace is simply the unmerited, freely-given, no-strings-attached, you-can’t-do-anything-to-earn-it love of God. God’s grace begins before we are born and carries us throughout our lives…and beyond. The grace of God is ours before we are even aware of it. That is called Pre-venient Grace, when God is nudging and nurturing us toward a relationship. The Holy One is seeking us out, pursuing us, calling us to enter into the loving relationship with God that we were created to enjoy. It is the grace that “comes before” (precedes) anything we can do to help our-selves. Yesterday afternoon, as I drove by the sign in front of First Baptist Church here in town, I noted the message: “God loves you whether you like it or not”. My first reaction to that message was mixed, honestly; and then I realized that by changing one word it could be a perfect illustra-tion of Prevenient Grace: “God loves you whether you know it or not.”

In a real sense, all grace is prevenient grace—we cannot move toward God unless God has first moved toward us. “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19, NRSV). Out of that divine love of God comes Convicting Grace, which makes us conscious of our sin—the bro-kenness of our relationship with God and one another—and leads us toward repentance. Justify-ing Grace is when we truly experience the forgiveness of God and move into a right relationship with our Creator. Sanctifying Grace is the response we make to God’s love, seeking to mature more deeply in our relationship and to live more fully in God’s purposes for our lives. Finally, Perfecting Grace molds us more and more into the image of Christ.
Some have described this grace-filled process using romantic imagery: In Prevenient Grace, God is courting (or wooing) us toward a relationship. Justifying Grace is when we say “Yes” to that relationship. Sanctifying Grace is the marriage that follows, as our relationship deepens and matures.

While God’s divine grace reaches us at any time and in any way that God chooses, we believe that God has designated certain “means” (or channels) through which grace is most surely and immediately available to us. John Wesley—our Methodist founder—understood these “means of grace” to be “outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end, to be the ordinary channels whereby [God] might convey to men [and women], prevent-ing, justifying, or sanctifying grace.”

Wesley enumerated these means of grace for his fledgling Methodist societies: the public worship of God; the ministry of the Word, either through the public reading or preaching on Scripture, or personal reflection and study of the Bible; family and private prayer; fasting and abstinence; Christian conferencing; and, the Supper of the Lord. Wesley wanted us to under-stand that these means of grace were not ways in which we earned our salvation or God’s favor, for that is an unmerited gift. Rather, these were ways open to us to receive, live in, and grow in divine grace and love. They are opportunities available to us to deepen our relationship with God.

The two sacraments of our tradition—Baptism and Holy Communion—have been desig-nated and chosen by God as special means through which divine grace comes to us. Baptism is the sacrament that initiates us into the body of Christ; it is in baptism that we receive our identity and mission as Christians. Holy Communion sustains and nourishes us throughout our journey of faith. In both of these sacraments God uses ordinary, tangible, natural material things as vehicles or instruments of grace: water; bread and the fruit of the vine. Wesley understood a sacrament to be “an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same.”

In other words, Holy Communion is a “sign-act” which includes words and actions and physical elements that express and convey the gracious love of God to us. Bread and cup make God’s love both visible and effective. Gayle Felton has observed, “We might even say that the sacraments are God’s ‘show and tell,’ communicating with us in a way that we, in all our bro-kenness and limitations, can receive and experience God’s grace.”

It is through the work of God’s Holy Spirit that we meet Christ at the Communion table and receive the spiritual benefits that are available here. Nourished by sacramental grace, we strive to be formed more and more into the image of Christ and to be made instruments for the transformation of God’s world. We receive spiritual nourishment through Holy Communion, and as we return to the table again and again, we are strengthened. As we encounter Christ in Com-munion, and are repeatedly touched by divine grace, we are progressively shaped into Christ’s image. We are healed and restored to right relationship with God, and through the grace we re-ceive at the Lord’s Table, we are empowered to perform our ministry and mission, to continue Christ’s work in the world—the work of redemption, reconciliation, peace, and justice (2 Corin-thians 5:17-21).

The loving God who meets us at the Table provides us with the means of grace and gives us the gift of eternal life. Our life in union with Christ is life eternal. It is not only the divine promises of our being united with Christ after our physical death; it is also our being in a dy-namic, loving relationship with Christ here and now. It is the life that never ends, because it is grounded in the everlasting love of God who comes to meet us in Holy Communion.

+ + + + + + + + + +
PRAYER
Bread of the world in mercy broken, wine of the soul in mercy shed,
by whom the words of life were spoken, and in whose death our sins are dead.
Look on the heart by sorrow broken, look on the tears by sinners shed;
and be thy feast to us the token that by thy grace our souls are fed. Amen.
+ + + + + + + + + +