Seed and Yeast

 GRACE

God of all who wander in the wilderness,

you go before us as beacon and guide.

Lead us through all danger,

sustain us through all desolation,

and bring us home to the land you have prepared for us. Amen.

Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-18

And God spoke all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below…

“You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work…

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. “You shall not murder. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

 Musing

Let’s talk about sin shell we. Now I know that most United Methodist Christians don’t spend a lot of time talking about sin. We know that we are the benefactors of a gracious God. The heart of Wesleyan theology rests on the concept of grace and forgiveness – prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace.

While taking the seriousness of human sin and brokenness seriously, Wesley believed that God's grace prevents the total destruction of the divine image in us. Wesley described prevenient grace as the porch on a house.

Wesley considered justification, or justifying grace, as the doorway into the house of God's salvation. God reconciles us to Godself, adopts us into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, bestows upon us our identity as beloved sons and daughters and incorporates us into the body of Christ, the church.

Wesley's understanding of grace moves beyond forgiveness and acceptance of our identity as beloved children of God. God's goal for humanity is the complete restoration of the divine image and the conformity of all creation to the image of Jesus Christ. Sanctification denotes the process by which the believer is made holy and whole in response to justification… If prevenient grace is the porch of the house of grace and justifying grace is the doorway, sanctifying grace represents the rooms in the expansive dwelling of God's presence with and purposes for humanity.

I remind us of this because it all means we are on the Way. We haven’t arrived yet; we’re moving on to perfection. We’ve been set free from slavery to sin and death, but we still wander, we still journey toward the goal of the full restoration of God’s image in us. We may be in the house of grace, but we are still searching for our room in that mansion. It’s all about transformation – transforming of your life, the lives of others, and the entirety of creation.

The Ten Commandments are a tool for us to use in your efforts to move from the porch to the door to our room in the house. They’re about how we are to live with one another. And I think the key is in the first and the last commandments: Put no other gods before me and do not covet. Put another way, keep God front and center and don’t take what isn’t yours.

It is oversimplification but I think much of what ails us can be boiled down to having other gods and coveting. Think about it, racism is about taking what isn’t yours – the dignity and worth of another. Climate change is about making the economy or personal comfort a god. How some react to Covid-19 is about valuing what they have more than the live of another – idolatry. Wanting things to return to normal – whatever that was – is coveting what others had. I’d need to do a series of sermons to unpack this fully, but I think you get my point.

It really is simple – we’ve allowed it to get confused and polluted – love God and neighbor. If we do these two things, we fulfill all that God requires of us. We don’t create and worship other gods and we don’t covet what others have or are. The key is to remember is that we move from the porch to the door to the house by grace – by the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ. And we make our home in the grace of God by loving and serving and by working to overcome the other gods and coveting that are so much a part of our world and lives.

Once again, the people of God – all people – need to be led from death to life, from wilderness to home. Once again, we need to be reminded that there shall be no other gods and that to covet breaks our connection to God and one another. We need to remember that we live in the mansion of God’s grace and to be let that color, flavor, infuse all that we are and do. Love God, love neighbor. Amen.

Prayer

We worship you, O God, as Creator and Liberator

You led the captives out of Egypt,

delivering them from the oppression of slavery.

You gave laws which enabled people to relate to you,

to one another, and to the whole creation.

You implored people to worship only you,

knowing that whatever was put in your place would all to easily become the

object of idolatry, and the priority of people’s hearts.

You showered us with blessings

by revealing in Jesus just how precious we are to you,

and through him you delivered us into a new and living relationship with you

and with one another—with a new commandment—a commandment of

love.

May we reveal the depth of our love

as we praise and adore you, O God,

in Jesus name and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

—Moira Laidlaw, on her website Liturgies Online. See that site for many other great resources.