September 5, 2010
Soaking up Grace - 1 Timothy 1:12-17
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadSomebody has recently made the discovery of Karl Hocker’s personal scrapbook. Karl Hocker was the adjutant to the commandant at a Nazi concentration camp in Poland that claimed the lives of some 1.1 million people, most of them Jews. Now you would think that these photographs would be of Nazis doing what Nazis did, and that is killing people. But that’s not what these photographs were at all. These photographs were taken of SS guards on their days off, when they were not killing people. And in their days off, they were doing things that we all do on our days off. They were spending time with their families, like we are doing this Labor Day weekend. I went to a parade in Matthews with my family yesterday and we thoroughly enjoyed it. In those pictures, there were have parades themselves. They were grilling out (which I also did yesterday). They were playing with their children (I did that, too). They were falling in love (I did not do that). They were laughing and singing. As the Zyklon B gas killed prisoners at the rate of 6,000 per day, here were men and women charged with the smooth running of that camp taking time out to enjoy life. In a sense, they were doing then what they were created to do.
So the harrowing question that these photographs raise is, how can they swing their own children on their days off and then go send countless other children to their deaths on the very next day? It’s a sickening question. Now just to get this straight, those SS guards were not just following orders. They were not just ignorant. That’s their defense, anyway. Some have argued that they honestly thought that the Jewish race was inferior and that they were doing the world a favor by killing them. They were good people, some have said, but just horribly misinformed people. I don’t buy any of that. What those SS guards did was evil. In fact, those SS guards themselves were evil. Let’s just call it what it is. So if you doubt the perplexity (for lack of a better word) of these pictures, then consider how the victims would have viewed them. What do you do with a picture of man playing with his own child who has just killed your own child?
I hate to say this, and it may be a bit of a stretch, but those photographs are to Holocaust Jews as these words of Paul are to the earliest Christians. I say that’s a stretch, but there are at least two people who would not say it’s a stretch. One would be Stephen. As you might remember, Stephen delivered a sermon in the seventh chapter of Acts that got him stoned to death. Paul (the guy who wrote this letter and half the other books of the New Testament) approved it, and watched it, and reveled in it. I’ll bet if Stephen read these words that Paul wrote to Timothy (of course he couldn’t because Paul had already killed him), “I was shown mercy and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me,” he would have had very much the same reaction as a Holocaust victim would of seeing these pictures of SS guards who were laughing and to whom God showed mercy.
And, of course, the other person who would not see that as a stretch would be Paul himself. Paul has this long list of vices in verses 9-10 of this passage. Paul wants people to know what sin is, and what being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not. So he writes these longs lists of vices that we’re not supposed to do. Yet in verse 13, he has his own list of vices, vices that he has done. Paul can’t get too judgmental, then, because he’s guilty of most of the things on that list. In fact, of all those vices, of all those sinners, he – Paul according to Paul – was the worst. He calls himself the premier sinner. In Romans 7, Paul talks about how helpless he is to deliver himself from all that sin and brokenness. So for God’s grace to have overflowed in Paul, it had to have been some very amazing grace. I think that’s what Paul is getting at. That’s what Paul primarily preaches, not just in 1st Timothy, but in all of his letters. To teach anything else is something other than the truth.
On July 4th of 2006, I went on a little bike ride. It was called the Fabulous 4th Ride out of Tryon, NC. The last part of it was a ride down the Saluda grade. That’s a blast, by the way. The second to last part of it was a ride up the Saluda Grade, which is not a blast. The Saluda grade is about a ten mile climb that at one time was infamous for getting trains stuck on it because it was so steep. Well I was in good shape, you see, or so I thought, and I just breezed through the first part of that ride. I was told that it was a ten mile climb, which I couldn’t really comprehend, until I got on the hill. It was the most awful thing I think I’ve ever done.
For some reason, I signed up for the same ride the following year. But in the meantime, I trained for it. I hooked my bike up to a trainer all winter and got stronger. I specifically climbed as many hills that spring as I could, because I knew that I had that mountain ahead of me. So the next year came, and like the previous year, I breezed through the first part of the ride. But then I saw the start of that hill, and I somewhat facetiously prayed that my bike would break to spare me the agony of climbing it. But no such luck. So I started the climb. I ticked the first mile off with no problem, and then the next mile. I kept waiting to fall apart, like it did the previous year, but that never happened. In fact, I aced it. I was afraid of it all year long, but I never should have been. I had what it took, you see, to climb that hill the whole time.
I’ll have to tell you that I earned that strength. It came at a fairly high price. I think a lot of us are on that mountain, especially when it comes to being righteous before God. When it comes to being righteous before God, we are on that mountain, and it’s kicking our rear-ends. That prayer of confession that we pray, it’s just true for everyone one us. When it comes to what is most important in life, we often have failed at it. We are a broken people. Leah and I threw out our old couch this past week. Not even the Good Will would take it, so it just went away. It was shot. It had had it. It could no longer do what it was supposed to do. It looked like a couch, but if you sat on it, it was actually just a cleverly disguised dust mop. This may seem offensive, but we’re like that old couch. In fact, and this may really seem offensive, but we’re not completely unlike those laughing SS guards. We also do some terrible things sometimes, and yet we just put a smile on our faces and act like it’s not there.
But it is there, and you know that it’s there. Yet, we have always had what we needed in life. Unlike my bike ride, we have not earned that. It is a gift. It’s called grace. We baptize babies in this Church. In fact, we’re baptizing my own baby in several weeks. John Robertson Maybry has not earned the grace that he will receive at his baptism. He hasn’t even earned my own love for him. Name me one thing he has done to earn my love, let alone God’s love. And of course, it’s obvious that he doesn’t understand that grace yet, but that doesn’t mean that God hasn’t given it to him. He’ll come to accept that grace on his own one day, but that he can accept it is also grace And, of course, he’ll blow it, like his father has, and yet God’s grace is good. If God’s grace is limited, then Paul certainly never would have received it, and neither would we. In fact, Paul basically says that if God’s grace could save a wretch like him, then it can save anybody. Paul would also say the inverse, that if God’s grace could not save anybody, then Paul would be in bad shape, as so would we. The realization that the most important thing we can have in a life cannot be earned, but is a gift, changes everything about us.
Among the barbecue and hamburgers you’re going to consume this Labor Day weekend, you’re also going to consume some bread and juice. You’re going to stand in a line, kind of like an old bread-line, and you will be handed some bread and you’ll dip that bread in juice. The bread will soak up the juice and you’ll eat them together. In the gathered faith of this community, God is present in that bread and juice. The grace that becomes part of us at this holy meal sustains us. God paid a very high price for it, but we get it for free. It’s a gift. And it’s amazing. It saved even the premier sinner of us all. It saved a wretch like Paul, and even as busted as we are, it saves us, too. Even as busted as the whole world is, it’s going to save that, too. So revel in this meal, and, as you soak up the rays this weekend, soak up some bread and juice. Soak up some grace, too, and with everything you have, enjoy it.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
