Lord of heaven and earth, bless us with a thousand tongues to sing the glory of our hope in Jesus Christ. He did not see even his own life as something to be withheld in his love of the broken and sinful. Grant us his grace that we may so pour out our lives that all may receive your kingdom without regard to race, gender, or any other way in which we separate ourselves one from another.
On Friday President Barack Obama revealed himself to be not simply the leader of the United States as president but along with Jimmy Carter one of the most articulate voices of Christianity ever to sit in the White House. A fellow pastor's little daughter listened to the President with her Dad and hearing the President she said to her dad, "When he is done being president he should be a pastor."
President Obama celebrated the life of the Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the intersection of life and faith in the pastor's life. He spoke of the history of the AME Zion tradition and how it had a long history as a community of faith and putting faith in action dedicated to establishing a Christian community for blacks even when it was against the law for all black communities of worship, part of the underground railroad, people who worked for voting rights and the Civil Rights movement, people who gave care to the poor and the needy of the community. Costly grace put into action in the service of God.
The message Barack Obama spoke was an incredible expression of the Christian understanding of God's grace. I have heard many a pastor bungle his or her way around an attempt to express the nature of the Gospel and the nature of grace. Some make it into something we only receive by accepting Jesus, in effect a new law to receive by which we receive God's grace. Others turn it into a meaningless wishy, washy platitude of love where everything is sweet and nice.
The president's expression did not fall into either of those traps. He spoke about a grace that is wholly undeserved, a grace that cannot be paid for and cannot be cheated. A grace that takes us as we are and transforms us into expressions of the very gospel itself as our lives are poured out with Jesus' risking and living for others. Lives risked by grace on the bridge at Montgomery, AL, lives risked in voting rights campaigns to expand democracy to all, lives risked in churches burned, destroyed and rebuilt when when hate comes knocking at the door. Grace is costly, horribly, terrifyingly costly.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer confronted the reality of the cost of grace in Germany in World War 2 when as part of the Confessing Church movement he and others acted in opposition to the Nazi rule. They spoke out when evil befell the Jews and the other minority groups were labeled as outcasts and unclean. He, repentingly, participated in a plot to kill Hitler and all the while believing that taking life was wrong but that more life would be saved through such action. Bonhoeffer insisted that the Gospel was grace because it gave to us our very lives delivered from sin and with absolute freedom and knew it was costly because never again would he be able to ignore the plight of his neighbor and their need in the face of destructive oppression. Of grace he wrote, "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate." Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging in Flossenburg just before the camp was liberated by the Allies.
President Obama understands grace and how vulnerable and how powerful we become when we truly give ourselves over to living by the grace of God's love. He reminded us of the grace these nine people in Charleston found in welcoming a stranger into their midst. A stranger they welcomed so openly that it almost stopped him from the path of destruction he was pursuing. And when he didn't turn away the nine each stayed there with him praying for him and each other.
God now uses the example of the of the nine in Charleston and the power of the Gospel proclaimed by our fellow Christian, Barack Obama, to pull us forward towards the possibility of a better world. It will be costly to achieve and more suffering no doubt lies along the way but by God's grace it will be ours.
Clementa Pinckney found that grace.
Cynthia Hurd found that grace.
Susie Jackson found that grace.
Ethel Lance found that grace.
DePayne Middleton Doctor found that grace.
Tywanza Sanders found that grace.
Daniel Simmons, Sr. found that grace.
Sheronda Coleman-Singleton found that grace.
Myra Thompson found that grace.
Barack Obama has found that grace and "Dang, that man can preach. "
May we always have that grace.
P.S. On the ELCA clergy page dozens of us were moved in the same way by the beautiful, gracious and amazing job the president did and many agreed with a child if he wants it Barack Obama could have a heck of a career as a preacher.
On Friday President Barack Obama revealed himself to be not simply the leader of the United States as president but along with Jimmy Carter one of the most articulate voices of Christianity ever to sit in the White House. A fellow pastor's little daughter listened to the President with her Dad and hearing the President she said to her dad, "When he is done being president he should be a pastor."
President Obama celebrated the life of the Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the intersection of life and faith in the pastor's life. He spoke of the history of the AME Zion tradition and how it had a long history as a community of faith and putting faith in action dedicated to establishing a Christian community for blacks even when it was against the law for all black communities of worship, part of the underground railroad, people who worked for voting rights and the Civil Rights movement, people who gave care to the poor and the needy of the community. Costly grace put into action in the service of God.
The message Barack Obama spoke was an incredible expression of the Christian understanding of God's grace. I have heard many a pastor bungle his or her way around an attempt to express the nature of the Gospel and the nature of grace. Some make it into something we only receive by accepting Jesus, in effect a new law to receive by which we receive God's grace. Others turn it into a meaningless wishy, washy platitude of love where everything is sweet and nice.
The president's expression did not fall into either of those traps. He spoke about a grace that is wholly undeserved, a grace that cannot be paid for and cannot be cheated. A grace that takes us as we are and transforms us into expressions of the very gospel itself as our lives are poured out with Jesus' risking and living for others. Lives risked by grace on the bridge at Montgomery, AL, lives risked in voting rights campaigns to expand democracy to all, lives risked in churches burned, destroyed and rebuilt when when hate comes knocking at the door. Grace is costly, horribly, terrifyingly costly.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer confronted the reality of the cost of grace in Germany in World War 2 when as part of the Confessing Church movement he and others acted in opposition to the Nazi rule. They spoke out when evil befell the Jews and the other minority groups were labeled as outcasts and unclean. He, repentingly, participated in a plot to kill Hitler and all the while believing that taking life was wrong but that more life would be saved through such action. Bonhoeffer insisted that the Gospel was grace because it gave to us our very lives delivered from sin and with absolute freedom and knew it was costly because never again would he be able to ignore the plight of his neighbor and their need in the face of destructive oppression. Of grace he wrote, "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate." Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging in Flossenburg just before the camp was liberated by the Allies.
President Obama understands grace and how vulnerable and how powerful we become when we truly give ourselves over to living by the grace of God's love. He reminded us of the grace these nine people in Charleston found in welcoming a stranger into their midst. A stranger they welcomed so openly that it almost stopped him from the path of destruction he was pursuing. And when he didn't turn away the nine each stayed there with him praying for him and each other.
God now uses the example of the of the nine in Charleston and the power of the Gospel proclaimed by our fellow Christian, Barack Obama, to pull us forward towards the possibility of a better world. It will be costly to achieve and more suffering no doubt lies along the way but by God's grace it will be ours.
Clementa Pinckney found that grace.
Cynthia Hurd found that grace.
Susie Jackson found that grace.
Ethel Lance found that grace.
DePayne Middleton Doctor found that grace.
Tywanza Sanders found that grace.
Daniel Simmons, Sr. found that grace.
Sheronda Coleman-Singleton found that grace.
Myra Thompson found that grace.
Barack Obama has found that grace and "Dang, that man can preach. "
May we always have that grace.
P.S. On the ELCA clergy page dozens of us were moved in the same way by the beautiful, gracious and amazing job the president did and many agreed with a child if he wants it Barack Obama could have a heck of a career as a preacher.
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