Your Lavish Riches
Ephesians 1:3-14
The will of God made known in Christ
1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
1:4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.
1:5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will,
1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace
1:8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight
1:9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,
1:10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
1:11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will,
1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.
1:13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;
1:14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory.
Beginning the New Year with grace sure sounds like a good idea. We human beings seem to have a problem with generating our own grace, so let’s talk about God’s grace, for the purpose of this first 2025 sermon. Biblically, we tend to define GOD’S grace as “God’s unmerited favor.” Like any definition or explanation of the Holy Trinity, this definition falls far short of all that God’s grace—extended to the creation and especially humankind—actually is. We know that God has shown grace to God’s people since the proverbial Garden of Eden, or we all wouldn’t be here, at least as we and Hollywood tend to understand Deity. In fact, maybe THIS is our problem in defining grace—we’ve got GOD all wrong. What if God IS grace, even as the Bible says God IS love? What if the very existence of God IS as a being who, from the earliest thoughts of the creation to Earth’s final whimper, is a giant “Pez dispenser” of grace?
This would be the thought of a process theologian. The “grandaddy of them all” passed away late last year—the United Methodist scholar, John Cobb. Process Theology sees God AS a dispenser of grace, with the goal of reconciling all of creation AND the human community into a concrescent, loving community. While some have criticized Process Theology as “non-Christian” because it purportedly has a “weak Christology,” I would submit that for the Process thinker, Christ is the ultimate “concrescent” being—fully encompassing both God AND humanity. And as such, Christ introduces into the human community the possibility of total unity with God AND each other. In Christ, the grace-giving God offers what Karl Barth said was the great “YES” to the world, making possible humanity’s full reconciliation and redemption. Without the Christ event, God historically had to just keep “luring” humanity toward blessedness by laying down bits of saving grace like breadcrumbs before a hungry animal. After the Incarnation and the totality of the Christ Event, humanity is now “enlightened” to see the flow of God’s grace and to live in such a way as to stay within that “flow.” Our journey’s path is not perfectly straight, due to our fits, foibles, and imperfections, but it IS “moving on to perfection,” as Mr. Wesley might put it.
Speaking of Mr. Wesley, he was partly famous for being a preacher of grace, and for attempting to shine a light on God’s grace in such a way as to help us understand how it applies to our lives. He saw God’s grace taking three forms:
PREVENIENT grace, or that which “goes before.” Prevenient grace was that which guided a “pre-cognitive” human being Godward. United Methodists put a lot of weight behind prevenient grace, believing it is particularly the agent of Christian baptism, and most especially of infant baptism.
JUSTIFYING grace, or the “grace of salvation.” Justifying grace is that which offers the “all-ee, all-ee IN free” to humanity through the Christ Event. It is a “yes” grace, announcing to the world GOD’S “yes,” and then eliciting a “yes” response from the person recognizing and receiving this “saving” grace.
SANCTIFYING grace, or the “on to perfection” grace. Sanctifying grace is that which guides us to “live out” what we believe, as Christians, and to work toward becoming the person WE want to be and which GOD wants us to be. (Incidentally, as a Process Theology thinker, I would suggest that most of Process Theology operates in the realm of this sanctifying grace.)
The most controversial of the Wesleyan “graces” would have to be JUSTIFYING grace. Conservative “Methodists” pretty much ascribe to the “Four Spiritual Laws” idea of popular evangelicalism. It goes something like this: we are sinners, needing God’s pardon, or we’re eternal toast; in Christ’s shedding of blood and death on the cross, human sin is “atoned for”; if we say the Sinner’s Prayer and confess Christ as lord, this “blood is applied,” and we are forgiven by God; and then God has a “wonderful plan for our life.” The hope of all evangelicals is that THEIR process leads to a dramatic transformation of the sinful life, and living happily ever after. The problem with it is that rarely is this the actual human reality. I have met too many Christians who deeply struggle with the fact that their lives are NOT going the way this evangelical thought-line teaches it SHOULD, and they feel so shamed by it. Oh, there ARE the occasional, miraculously-transformed lives, but this is not the experience of so many, who are chastised for “not following the program,” and made to own the blame of their faith malaise. Where’s the grace in that? The other problem with this evangelical model is that it is not Wesleyan.
Wesley certainly advocated a disciplined life for his followers, but it was launched and fully empowered by GOD’S grace, and in its striving for perfection, advocated for “acts of mercy,” or the “good works” of the faithful. In helping to bring about human social justice and helping those victimized by the social stratifications of the monied interests, we became co-creators of a more beloved, “concrescent” community, moving ourselves AND the human community toward God’s “perfection.” Wesley understood—and taught—that this “perfection” had nothing to do with “law” and everything to do with grace and love. God was pleased when God’s people were fed, clothed, sheltered, and embraced, NOT just by individual Christians keeping a list of rules which are often mislabeled as “God’s law.” The purpose of God’s “law” was to bring about the concrescent, beloved community, in the first place, NOT just to appease Deity. We sure get that all backwards. Mr. Wesley did not, but WAY too many folk who consider themselves Wesleyan do.
While we’re at it, let me suggest two other “elements” of grace to add to John Wesley’s Prevenient, Justifying, and Sanctifying:
INDIVIDUAL grace, or the grace YOU need. It is clear from the life of Jesus that God does NOT see us as just a bunch of smelly sheep needing a random shepherd. Jesus cast himself as the GOOD shepherd who “knows his sheep’s voice.” Each person has value to God, and God offers grace that each of us needs. Clearly, MY needs may be VERY different than YOUR needs. Jesus Christ is not a “one size fits all” Savior! If it is true that “every hair (or follicle) on our head is numbered,” then God sees us for who we are and understands what we need to thrive at any one moment. (Here we are in the Process Theology model again, aren’t we?)
CORPORATE grace, or the grace that empowers concrescent, beloved community, and that is essential to its ongoing unfolding in the “real” world, and to its survival. Corporate grace is the grace of the church, or the “Body of Christ,” and it is the grace wielded by the Holy Spirit as she weaves us together and guides our pathways toward God’s goal of a SINGLE pathway toward reconciliation and “concrescence” with Godself and each other.
I’m tempted to suggest yet another form of grace: the grace of patience, as we certainly struggle with each other’s current sitz im leben, which “must be wrong,” for it differs from MINE, and we all know I must be right!(?) We surely need this kind of grace to survive our political “civil war,” don’t we? I don’t really think God has a “grace” of patience, but since it IS listed among the “fruit of the Spirit,” the wider means of God’s grace can apply.
I called this message “Your Lavish Riches,” because I DO believe that this precisely describes God’s GRACE, offered to us “without price,” other than the price of belief and practice. The Ephesians text makes it clear that God has “lavished” this gift of grace upon us. “Lavished” is an incredible verb! A God who “lavishes” is a God who profoundly loves, not judges. A lavishing God is one who loves all that God has created. A lavishing God grieves when one of God’s “little ones” stumbles. A lavishing God wants the best for us, but ALSO for YOU.
As I write this message about God’s grace, as the author describes in the Ephesians passage, and how God “lavishes” it upon us all, the words of one of my favorite hymns from “The Faith We Sing” goes through my head, which maybe summarizes this discussion of grace:
1.I was there to hear your borning cry, I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized to see your life unfold.
I was there when you were but a child, with a faith to suit you well;
in a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell.
2.When you heard the wonder of the Word I was there to cheer you on;
you were raised to praise the living Lord, to whom you now belong.
If you find someone to share your time and you join your hearts as one,
I’ll be there to make your verses rhyme from dusk till rising sun.
3.In the middle ages of your life, not too old, no longer young,
I’ll be there to guide you through the night, complete what I’ve begun.
When the evening gently closes in and you shut your weary eyes,
I’ll be there as I have always been, with just one more surprise.
I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized to see your life unfold.
Friends, God’s grace IS “unfolding” us, and it is indeed being lavished upon us! May 2025 be a year in which we come to understand just how RICH we are! Amen.
