Grace as Rest (Galatians 3)

We live in a culture of more.  If you’ve that before it was likely connected to our culture’s materialism.  How we always want more of this, more of that.  And that’s a fair critique.  But I actually mean something else.  I mean that we live in a culture that demands more.  That demands more of you.  That wants more from you.

Back in 2000, while I was in high school, a movie came out called “Dude, Where’s My Car?”  High-art film this movie was not.  The basic premise is that a couple of best friends, Jesse and Chester, wake up one morning to discover their car is missing and they go looking for it.  That’s really all you need to know.

Anyway, in one scene a friend of theirs takes them through the drive-thru at a Chinese restaurant.  After Jesse places each portion of their order, the drive-thru lady says, “and then?”  This goes on for a while, until they’re done.  But the lady won’t relent, saying “and then?”  Jesse gets more and more frustrated as the lady gets more and more threatening and obnoxious with her “and theeeeeeeeeen?”  After a couple minutes of this Jesse snaps and destroys the drive-thru box.

It’s a silly moment in a silly movie, but it’s an idea we can identify with.  Every time we do something, someone is there to say, “and then?”  Every time you finish a project, your boss is there to say, “and then?”  You pick the kids up from school. And then…it’s time for dance or soccer practice.  And then…you have to pick up dinner.  And then…it’s time to pick the kids up again.  And then…it’s time to help with homework.  And then…laundry.  And then…yardwork.  And then…bills need to be paid.  And then…they need to be paid again.  And then…the sink needs to be fixed.  And then…taxes are due.  And then…different taxes are due.  And then…it’s somebody’s birthday and you need to get a card and a gift.  And then…you’ve got a checkup at the doctor’s office. And then, and then, and then, and then, and then.

A God Who Stoops (John 8:1-11)

How many of you enjoy being publicly humiliated?  How many of you look forward to having your most embarrassing moments shared with the world?  How many of you appreciate it when your most shameful actions become the topic of conversation around the water cooler or the lunch table?  Nobody?  Well, I can’t say I’m all that surprised.

There’s an old saying that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.  But I think we all know that’s not really true.  Sure, for a celebrity or a company almost anything can be spun to their advantage as long as they’re name is in the news.  But for you and me, for regular people…there are things we’d like to keep private.  There are things we’d like to keep anyone else from knowing about.  There are things that we might even wish we could forget about ourselves.

Our gospel reading for today deals with a woman who I have to think experienced a kind of mortifying shame and embarrassment that blows anything any of us have faced out of the water.  To begin with, she was caught in the act of adultery.  Even if she had been with her husband, that would have been hugely embarrassing for people to walk in on.  But when it wasn’t her husband…that just made it that much worse.  And then to add to the insult, she didn’t just face dealing with whispers and gossip about her spreading around the neighborhood.  She was dragged out into the public square.  Her shame was loudly made known, possibly even seen depending on how clothed they allowed her to get.  And then to add injury to insult, she was facing the prospect of rocks being thrown at her until she was dead.

Often when we look at this account from Scripture, we approach it a sort of morality tale.  It’s kind of a go-to story for the idea of “judge not lest ye be judged.”  We focus not on the woman, but the crowd.  We look at the Pharisees and those who were preparing to stone her.  We focus on how Jesus’ words convicted them, how it caused them to drop their stones and go on their way.  The primary relationship in the story becomes not Jesus and the woman, but Jesus and the Pharisees.  The woman’s situation, her safety, becomes an interesting epilogue. 

So often when we look at this story, the grace of Jesus is almost an afterthought.  A happy accident brought about by the angry crowd being shamed into leaving.  But that’s just simply not the case.  Grace is central to this story.  It’s the driving, transformative power at work.  It’s Jesus’ grace toward the woman that leads the change, it’s grace that makes all the difference.  Because here’s the thing we tend to overlook for some reason.  She was guilty.

A Change You Can Believe In (Galatians 2:19-21)

I want you to think for a second about your favorite food.  Your favorite dish, whether it’s something homemade or from your favorite restaurant.  Try and remember, if you can, the feeling you got the first time that food hit your taste buds.  The way the flavors mixed and mingled on your tongue.  The way you felt the urge, the need to vocalize to whoever you were eating with about how good it was.  The way your brain immediately said, “give me more!”  Now think of the last time you ate it.  Did it evoke the same reactions?  Or was it now something that was still delicious, still something you enjoyed, but perhaps just a bit too familiar.  A bit predictable.  Maybe even a little more bland than it used to be.

Think about the first time you ever sat behind the wheel of a car as a driver.  Sitting there in the driver’s seat, seatbelt on, turning the key and feeling the rumble of the engine.  Even with as many times as you’d sat in the car with mom or dad and felt that engine hum, felt it accelerate, this time it was completely different.  This time you weren’t just feeling the revs, they purred for you.  The car now for the first time responded to your direction. It was your foot that was pushing down on the accelerator, your pushing down perhaps a bit too forcefully on the brake.  Perhaps you felt as though the speedometer must surely be broken because it said you were going 30, but you were willing to swear you were at least 85.  Did you get any of those feelings when you started up the car to come to church today?

Think about your first girlfriend or boyfriend.  Or your first date with the person who’s now your wife or husband.  Think about how you started to smile just because they walked into the room.  Think about how your heart started racing the first time they sat down next to you, and your knees or your shoulders happened to touch.  Think about how it felt the first time they held your hand.  The electricity that rand up your arm and throughout the rest of your body.  The feeling that this, just holding their hand in yours, might be the greatest thing in the world.  When’s the last time holding their hand made you feel that way?  When’s the last time you even held each others' hands as you watched a movie, or went for a walk?