Sermon for Sunday, February 9, 2025 || Epiphany 5C || 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Today I’m going to talk about grace. This is a word we use a lot in church, but “grace” is one of those concepts that defies easy definition. So this morning, we’re going to try to squeeze our way to an understanding of grace by looking at how we use the word in other contexts and then by looking at the story of the Apostle Paul.
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The most common appearance of the word grace outside the church is when we use it to describe dancers and gymnasts and figure skaters. We talk about a dancer’s grace when she leaps and spins or when a gymnasts moves through a routine on the balance beam or a figure skater on an ice rink. But if you take a second to think about how we use the word grace, what we’re really talking about is how the figure skater makes complicated movements with her body without falling over. If the gymnast over-rotates on her wolf turn, she’ll slip off the beam, at which point she is no longer being graceful.
The thing about dancers and gymnasts and figure skaters is that the movements they do are just really complicated versions of what we all do when we move about in space. I can walk down the aisle or I can do a series of backflips, but I make it down the aisle just the same. Newly walking babies teach us that every step we take is a little fall followed by a balancing catch on the next step. Every step we take, we lose our balance for a fraction of a second before our other foot hits the ground, then we lose our balance again and so on and so on. Dancers and gymnasts and figure skaters have honed their ability to move in space to such a degree that they make nearly falling over in outlandish ways look beautiful.
So, in the sense of movement, grace is the beauty of catching ourselves when we are about to fall, turning the fall into the next step, into the next step, into the next step…
But sometimes we do fall, and that leads to another use of the word “grace.” We say someone is gracious when they are caring, kind, hospitable, compassionate. The gracious person picks us up when we fall. They lend us their grace for a moment until we can find our feet again. The Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable is the epitome of graciousness. We call God “gracious” because God never abandons us to a fall, but remains ever present to help us get back up again.
The Apostle Paul fell in the most spectacular way. Back when his name was Saul, he was on his way to Damascus to terrorize the followers of Jesus’ Way that he might find there. He had made a name for himself in hunting for Jesus’ followers and arresting them even though they had committed no crime. They wanted what everyone wanted: a life of opportunity and peace for themselves and their children. But men like Saul denied them this desire. He was known as a particularly vicious and dogged agent of terror.
Then, on his way to Damascus, he fell to the ground, blinded by a brilliant light. And he heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Not ‘why are you persecuting my followers?’ ‘Why are you persecuting me?’ Remember when Jesus says that serving the least of the members of Jesus’ family means serving him? The same happens when Jesus’ presence confronts Saul. Jesus so identifies with those Saul is oppressing that Saul is hurting Jesus by hurting those Jesus loves. Saul hears this indictment, and Jesus’ words begin to work on him. Blind, he allows others to lead him to Damascus, where he finds a gracious welcome from Ananias, one of Jesus’ followers. Imagine that! The graciousness of Ananias brought the chief persecutor of the Way into his home so Saul could recuperate. The grace of God raises Saul up; he recognizes the pain and trauma he inflicted, and he changes his heart and life. He becomes Paul, the one “untimely born,” as he says in today’s reading.
“Last of all, as to one untimely born, [Jesus] appeared also to me,” Paul writes. “For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and [God’s] grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them–though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
Notice how Paul understands God’s grace. Paul regrets his time as a persecutor, but he does not sweep it under a rug. Those death-dealing days are part of him. Only by integrating them into the new vision of himself will he be able to live an authentic life. And so he says, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
Paul has fallen. God has raised him up. He is the figure skater who tumbles on her triple axel, but what we always remember in those moments of falling is the determination of the skater in getting back up and continuing the routine. That’s the grit of grace. That’s Paul saying, “God’s grace toward me has not been in vain.”
And then Paul acknowledges the fundamental truth that God’s grace within us provokes and energizes our hard work, our movement along the Way of Jesus. If this man who pulled people out of their homes, out of their workplaces, off the streets – if this man could fall and rise again by the grace of God, then so can anyone. So can you and I after the innumerable times that we take a step along the Way and begin to stagger off the path.
By the grace of God I am what I am. Indeed, the grace of God is God’s divine ‘I Am’ within us, our being that derives its belovedness from God’s love. This wondrous being is full of grace like a dancer and full of graciousness like the Samaritan. The grace of God steadies our steps, especially when the way is rocky and the climb is steep. The grace of God guides our hearts towards mercy and justice, guides our hands to reach out in love, and guides our feet into the way of peace. Thanks be to God.
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