Nebraska Synod ELCA

Beloved in Christ,
You’d think that after 20+ years of pastoral ministry, a brief word about “Cultivating Love through Grace” would be simple. Yet I have to admit I’ve pondered and written and deleted and rewritten and re-deleted more this month than in any monthly missive I’ve ever written. Perhaps I’m putting too much of a burden on myself to somehow magically create a last and definitive word on grace, a mystery and gift that has confounded and inspired people of all religions (and none – atheists and agnostics ponder grace even if they may not ascribe it to the Divine) for as long as we’ve pondered things greater than what our eyes can see.

So, I’m not going to give you a last word this month. Here I’ll give you some good words that many have written, some of which I’d pondered while trying to write this month. Don’t worry: at the end I’ll add my own little bit, and I’ll encourage you to consider words you might use to describe grace. Enjoy!

[One] who learns must suffer.
And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart,
and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
—Aeschylus—

The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and it will not only trample upon the Holy,
but also will tear apart those who force it on them.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer—

The grace of God means something like, “Here is your life. You might never have been,
but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.
Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you.”
—Frederick Buechner—

Grace saves us from life without God-even more it empowers us for life with God.
—Richard J. Foster—

Nobody who understands the free grace of God takes sin lightly.
—Timothy Keller—

Just as the power of the sun is the only force in the natural universe that causes a plant to grow against gravity,
so the grace of God is the only force in the spiritual universe that causes a person to grow against the gravity of their own ego.
—Simone Weil—

The grace of God is preposterous enough to accept as beautiful a coloring that anyone else would reject as ugly.
The grace of God sees beyond the scribbling to the heart of the scribbler – a scribbler who is similar to two thieves who hung on crosses on either side of Jesus. One of the two asked Jesus to please accept his scribbled and sloppy life into the kingdom of God and he did. Preposterous. And very good news for the rest of us scribblers.
—Mike Yaconelli—

Grace is all of these things and more. As an attribute of God, it is inexhaustible and unpredictable, given to those who often seem irredeemable for reasons that seem unfathomable. When we cultivate love through grace, the Holy Spirit empowers us to imagine a world of second chances, of daily repentance and renewal, of death and resurrection. It is, in the end, what Martin Luther described in a letter to Philipp Melanchthon in August, 1521:

“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here we have to sin. This life in not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. . . . Pray boldly—you, too, are a mighty sinner.”

Pray boldly, mighty sinners – God be with you as you cultivate love through grace, this month and always.

Yours in Christ,
Bishop Scott Johnson