The Permeative Nature of Grace

A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Randy K. Hammer, April 7, 2019

Ephesians 2:4, 8-10a GNT; Reading from Mary Oliver’s, Winter Hours

What is grace?  And what role does grace play in our lives, if, indeed, it plays any role at all?

I had remembered that Mary Oliver, somewhere in all of her writings, makes mention of grace.  So this past week I went back through seventeen of Oliver’s books that I have read in search of those statements she had made about grace and that I had underlined, and wouldn’t you know the quotes I had remembered were in the very last book I pulled from my shelf.  So earlier I read to you how that Oliver observed, “truly, can there be a subject of more interest to each of us than whether or not grace exists. . .?”  And then in another place in the same book she proclaims, “You can have the other words – chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity.  I’ll take grace.  I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it.”¹   Now, to be fair, Mary Oliver was not a theologian, not in the technical sense of the term anyway.  So we shouldn’t expect her to wax eloquent upon the deep theological meaning of grace.  Nevertheless, grace was something that Oliver acknowledged and to some extent, anyway, believed in.

Another favorite contemporary writer, Anne Lamott, also writes about and wrestles with the nature of grace.  And Lamott even titled a book after it: Grace (Eventually).  Lamott also confesses her inability to wax eloquent on the meaning of grace when she writes, “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”²  Then in another book, Lamott says, “Grace means you’re in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had absolutely no way to get there on your own.”³  Like Anne Lamott and Mary Oliver, we may confess that we don’t know exactly what grace is either; but we will gladly take it, if we can get it.

A few years ago, I delivered a sermon in which I told the story of how my Grandfather Hammer could have been killed before my Dad was conceived and born.  Had that happened, I (obviously) would have never been born either.  But I also went on to point out how that all of our family trees are full of such events, times when those who came before us had brushes with death or near-tragic experiences, and if we were able to trace our roots back through history, and see all the times when those who went before us, from whom we are descended, almost didn’t make it, we would be astounded.  If my great-great-great Grandfather Hammer had been killed while migrating from Pennsylvania to East Tennessee, I wouldn’t be standing here before you today either.  All of this is to say that the very fact that you and I are here today is nothing short of the miraculous.  How many thousands or millions of life events had to occur or fall into place to make it possible for us to be born and be alive today!

Well, what got me to thinking about this was a piece I read week before last by Frederick Buechner on the subject of grace.  And the part of that meditation that spoke to me was this: “The grace of God means something like this: ‘Here is your life.  You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.’”⁴  And so, that meditation put me to thinking about the fact that grace permeates every aspect of our lives. 

To be alive on this earth is grace, as already noted.

To have clean water to drink and adequate food to eat is grace.

To get a good night’s sleep is grace (Buechner).

To have a best friend is grace.

To belong to a loving community of faith like this United Church is grace.

To have grandchildren who love you and enjoy spending time with you is grace.

To be loved by those who know everything about you – all your shortcomings and weaknesses – is grace.  The great theologian Paul Tillich contended that grace equals acceptance.  “Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!  If that happens to us, we experience grace,”⁵ Tillich said.

To be successful in life is grace, because people are successful only because of others who have gone before them, paved the way before them, and supported them.  We sometimes hear about those who “pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps;” those self-made people success stories.  I guess there is some truth to that, but even those who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps more often than not had others supporting them as they pulled. 

Someone who comes to mind is East Tennessee’s own Dolly Parton.  Dolly is an extremely talented, savvy business woman, and some would say a genius.  As we all know, Dolly was born into extreme poverty in Sevier County.  She and several siblings grew up in a log cabin in the hills, born to poor, uneducated parents.  But Dolly pulled herself out of poverty to become one of the most famous and wealthiest singers, songwriters, movie stars, and business women of our country, of our world perhaps.  But even Dolly had help getting her career off the ground.  A local grocer, political figure, and producer of a local television broadcast by the name of Cas Walker gave young Dolly a chance to sing on his local morning television program.  And then a country legend by the name of Porter Wagonner gave Dolly a chance to travel with him and be on his television show.  So, you see, even Dolly, who in many ways pulled herself up by her own bootstraps, was blessed by the efforts of others. Dolly’s life, too, I believe, is a life permeated by grace.

Suzanne and I were having a conversation the other day about the purpose of a worship service, and what it really means to “gather for worship.”  (Perhaps there is another sermon for another day in that topic.)  But I shared that for me, at least one of the several purposes or elements of the worship service is to express gratitude and honor to God or the Spirit of Life or the Higher Power or that which is greater than ourselves for the gifts and blessings of life which come to us from beyond ourselves; gifts such as all the wonderful foods that come from the earth, the ability and strength to work and earn a living, the love and support of family and friends, and the good life that is ours and all the good gifts that come to us, often without any effort on our part.  In other words, at least one purpose of worship is to acknowledge and express gratitude for the marvelous grace that permeates life from beginning to end.

One of the technical definitions of grace as used in the Bible, you know, is “unmerited favor.”  The Greek form of the word “grace” used in the passage read from Ephesians means “graciousness.”  The long and the short of it is, grace is something that cannot be earned or bought, but can only be given and then received.  As the writer of Ephesians points out, grace comes to us as an unmerited gift.

So the bottom line is that life itself is nothing less than grace, through and through.  Everything we are, everything we enjoy, every wonderful gift that comes to us unbidded, is a gift of grace.  And a big part of the religious life, a life of spirituality, is to have eyes to see the presence of grace that permeates life from beginning to end, to receive grace as the wonderful gift that it is, and to live a life of gratitude for it.  May it be so.  Amen.

¹Mary Oliver. Winter Hours, pp. 107 & 80. 

²Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p. 143. 

³Anne Lamott, Plan B, pp. 54-55. 

⁴Frederick Buechner, Buechner 101, p. . 

⁵Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be, p. xxii.