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Unruly Grace
From the series: Stories Jesus Told
Matthew 20: 1-16
Richard A. Rhem
Lakeshore Interfaith Community, Mother’s Trust
Ganges, Michigan
October 28, 2007
My theme these three presentations has been Stories Jesus Told with the purpose
of discovering what the stories reflect about the nature of God. Parables should
be heard to catch their major point and should not be pressed in all their details. I
think in the stories I’ve chosen it is faithful to the heart of the stories/parables to
read off from them Jesus’ understanding of the mystery of God and that has been
the focus of my study of these stories.
The nature of God as it comes to expression in the stories Jesus told – that has
been my purpose. In doing so I reflect as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus, the
way of Jesus. But I’ve enjoyed doing it so much in this setting – an interfaith
gathering place where we seek to be true to our respective faith traditions but
have opportunity to be enriched by other traditions and the unique insights and
perspectives each brings.
In my previous two discussions and again this morning I am inviting you to
reflect with me on the Nature of the Sacred Mystery – Jesus being the stimulus,
the catalyst, but not so much to instruct you in the Christian understanding as to
invite you to reflect with me on the mystery we will never fathom. When we speak
of God as Mystery, we use the term not as a mystery novel where finally the
mystery is unraveled or solved. God as mystery indicates a reality beyond our
human capacity to comprehend. That is not an obvious truth. Given all the words
we speak, all the sermons preached, all the volumes written – one might get the
impression we know a great deal about God. We preachers are probably the
greatest deniers of God as Mystery – we often give the impression that we are
quite well informed as to the nature of the Mystery that is God, but that is a false
impression. Whether dogmatically orthodox or radically liberal, whether
Christian or Muslim or Jewish, whether Buddhist, Hindu or Jain – all God talk is
a probing of a mystery that cannot be fully grasped – at best a relative
apprehension of the Ultimate – and that of course is why the exclusive claims to
the faith, for example, of a Christian tradition are both arrogant and ignorant.
And yet the massive human endeavor we speak of as religion/ the religious quest/
religious observance/ religious behavior – witnesses to the manifestation of the
Sacred Mystery in our human experience. There is, I believe, an insatiable hunger
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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and thirst for communion and/or union with God, with the Mystery that is the
origin, ground and goal of all that is.
Certainly there are those who deny that to be the case for themselves and there
are those who write the religious quest off as a carryover from the age of
superstition that, for thinking folk, is being replaced by critical rationality and
scientific endeavor. But the religious sense of awe and wonder remains for the
vast majority of humankind even when the critical faculties are engaged.
Why is reflection on the nature of the sacred mystery important? Beyond the fact
that it seems simply part of being human to wonder about the nature of God, I
would suggest such a quest is important because human behavior tends to reflect
the image of God one carries in one’s being – one’s mind and heart. We tend to
emulate the Ultimate Reality we conceive. We reflect our understanding of the
nature of God or of reality in our behavior – in our attitudes and actions.
I am a Christian first of all because I was born into a Christian family and
tradition. Over a long pilgrimage I have come to see my tradition in the context of
the great religions. I affirm my Christian faith but not uncritically. I reject any
claim to absolute revealed truth or exclusive claim to the mediation of God’s
salvation. The dimension of the Christian tradition – the New Testament
particularly – that I find most profound is the claim of the Incarnation – God in
the human –specifically in the humanity of Jesus, but not only in Jesus – rather
the human becoming of God and thus the God embodied in the human, again in
Jesus for Christian faith. In the face of Jesus I see the heart of God. In his total
life, in his words and deeds, I see God revealed. I chose the way of Jesus as the
path I would follow – always poorly – and, in these Sunday mornings, as an
invitation to reflect on the Nature of God.
So let me return to my purpose after that lengthy parenthesis – I am inviting you
to reflect with me on the nature of God and, I can even say, the Nature of Reality,
from the understanding of Jesus as it comes to expression in the stories he told.
The first story – The Prodigal Son, which I suggested was really a story about the
Prodigal Love of the Father where salty tears drowned out a returning son’s
carefully crafted speech of apology and request –
God/Reality as Prodigal Love.
And then the second story of the woman of the night who entered the Pharisee’s
dinner party and wept over Jesus’ feet, evidence that at some point he had
touched her life, accorded her human dignity and a sense of worth. She was
transformed by love and loved in return – transforming love. For the story Jesus
told of two debtors who had nothing to pay and were freely forgiven – Jesus
asked the Pharisee, Simon, which one would love most and he said rightly, the
one who was forgiven most –
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Title
Richard A. Rhem
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Transforming Love.
We turn now to the third story which I am entitling “Unruly Grace”. Grace is
simply love in action. Jesus’ stories have portrayed the nature of God as love and
that love moving out to the world to a person, a community, is Grace. The prosaic
definition we often use is “undeserved favor” – but I like “love in action”.
And love in action is unruly. I like that word in this connection – it is a surprising
combination – unruly usually carries a negative connotation – an unruly child, an
unruly guest, etc. – one not playing by the rules:
rules of fairness, rules of contracts, rules that structured social relations.
That is what today’s story is about. Matthew 20:1-16 is a story Jesus used to make
the point of the startling statement in the previous chapter that human salvation
was an impossible human achievement:
The rich young man – What do I lack? Sell all…
Disciples: “Who can be saved?”
Human impossibility – But with God (only with God), salvation is possible
because it is Gift.
The Parable: Matthew 20:1-16
A landowner hires workers to work his fields. It is 6:00 a.m. They contract – a
day’s wage for a day’s labor. But he needs more workers and so returns to the
“unemployed laborer pool” at 9:00, noon, 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., each time finding
laborers looking for work and sending them to his fields without contract,
assuring them only to pay whatever was right. When evening arrived the workers
returned for their pay. The landowner instructed his manager to pay them all a
day’s wage beginning with those hired last. When those hired first – at 6:00
a.m.– got a day’s wage – as they had agreed when they were hired –, they
grumbled because those who came later got the same amount. They protested,
These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have
borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.
Their complaint wasn’t that those hired at 5:00 p.m. got a day’s wage but only
that they didn’t receive more – “you made them equal to us!”
If, before you hear this story in terms of God as the householder and you take it
as a human story, with whom do you identify? Don’t you tend to join the first
hires in their grumbling? It isn’t fair after all. Is not the mantra of the women’s
movement, equal pay for equal work, relevant? Isn’t there something that offends
our sense of justice?
But think about it…
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Title
Richard A. Rhem
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Take the householder’s final word: “Are you envious because I’m generous?” It
was the generosity of the householder that the workers resented. He had fulfilled
his word. The contract mutually agreed on was honored. But those whose
contract was fulfilled were offended by the householder’s grace.
And this surprising fact has profound relevance for religious understanding,
observance, practice.
Again, remember the context – Who can be saved? Jesus’ answer: No one
through human effort of whatever kind
Religion based on the
Performance Principle
Does not save, does not achieve
Peace with God.
In my particular faith family background this is Reformation Sunday, the last
Sunday in October. Martin Luther in 1517 nailed his 95 theses to the church door
in Wittenberg, Germany, protesting the practices of his Roman Catholic Church
that had a full set of observances, practices, and requirements through which the
church mediated God’s saving grace, and in the 16th century the system had
become very corrupt.
Luther was one of those persons who suffered from an accusing conscience – He
found no peace, try as he may, punish and pummel himself as he did. In anguish
he performed and performed and performed some more. Going to his Confessor,
the Confessor said, “Martin, you must love God”, to which Luther responded,
“Love God? I hate God!”
The agony of Luther has been played out again and again, over and over.
There is that about us human beings that wonders about God, desires peace,
union, communion with God. Whatever the roots of religion in the human are –
fear, guilt, wonder, intuitive sense of the sacred – there is the felt need to be put
right with God or the Ultimate Order of the Universe. And it just seems natural
that we must find a way to achieve that being right with God.
And there is the rub –
We can’t achieve it.
We don’t need to achieve it.
It is given fully by a gracious God – Who plays by no rules – Unruly Grace you
see!
The nature of the Sacred Mystery, of God, of the Real is Love expressed as Grace
for creation and all creation’s children.
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Title
Richard A. Rhem
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Isn’t that quite amazing when you think of all the religions and all the religious
observances and practices?
Isn’t it just human/quite natural to assume on the basis of being right with the
Universe, with the Ultimate, with God would be some sort of performance?
And has not the institutional form of the respective religions reinforced that
natural tendency What do I lack?
What must I do?
And the institutional religions are on guard against any suggestion that there is a
Grace that transcends them all, with nothing to do.
I found that out…
The RCA Minister of Evangelism was scandalized and very critical of my
suggestion of universal Grace. He said, “If that’s true, I might as well sell used
cars.”
The Prodigal’s well-rehearsed speech about what he would do to earn a bunk in
the servants’ quarters was simply drowned out by the father’s loving embrace.
The two debtors of Jesus’ story in Luke 7, both owing different amounts, both
had nothing to pay and were both fully forgiven.
And in this story the first hires are given their due while all the rest are simply
graced by the householder’s generosity.
Kristen Stendahl suggests Matthew was writing to a Jewish-Jesus community
that was beginning to receive non-Jews – Gentiles – into the community and how
would they be received? As second-rate Christians?
You mean, some must have said, that we who are the products of generations of
faithful covenant membership have no advantage over these Gentiles coming in
out of pagan darkness?
Jesus’ story says – That’s right because nobody earns salvation – there is no
performance principle, no merit system. God’s unruly grace relativizes all human
observance/ practice/ behavior.
Well, then why do we engage in religious observance? Hopefully because we find
meaning and fulfillment in that observance. Hopefully our religious practice is an
end in itself giving wisdom, insight, peace and joy and the experience of being in
the Presence of the Holy. And for some of us the experience of community –
community where our best selves are confirmed and encouraged, where our
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Title
Richard A. Rhem
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insights are tested and our horizons broadened – a community where
compassion finds expression and serving finds opportunity.
Once we are touched by Grace, transformed by Grace, all coercive, obsessive
religion evaporates and we are transformed. In a beautiful writing by Paul Tillich,
“You are accepted”, I find this expressed:
It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness,
our hostility and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to
us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not
appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when
despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light
breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying, “You are
accepted. You are accepted.” Accepted by that which is greater than you and the
name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now. Perhaps you will
find it later. Do not try to do anything now. Perhaps later you will do much. Do
not seek for anything. Do not perform anything. Do not intend anything. Simple
accept the fact that you are accepted. If that happens to us, we experience grace.
Salvation – do we need to be saved?
That word has much baggage with it and is used so differently.
Do we need to be saved?
Yes, if salvation is understood as its root suggests – as healing.
We bring as much baggage with us ourselves and most of us manage to mess up
our lives at some point – and then, trying harder doesn’t really help. Finally there
is nothing we can do.
But the Word of Grace is healing – that is salvation – issuing in peace and joy.
So is the universe/ ultimate reality full of Grace? This is the understanding of
Jesus according to the stories he told – In a word, he said God is like that…
And if I hear that and trust that and entrust myself to such a Reality, such a
Sacred Mystery, I will act in kind, and if all who would encounter such Grace
were to act it out would we not create the reality we trust in, the reality we live.
All religious traditions have their own take on this and I’m not knowledgeable as
to how such Unruly Grace would translate in other religious traditions but this is
what I find in Jesus and that’s why I chose to follow his way – poorly to be sure –
but seriously.
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�
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Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Lakeshore Interfaith Gathering
Series
Stories Jesus Told
Scripture Text
Matthew 20:1-16
Location
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Lakeshore Interfaith Center, Ganges
Dublin Core
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KII-01_RA-0-20071028
Date
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2007-10-28
Title
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Unruly Grace
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Description
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 28, 2007 entitled "Unruly Grace", as part of the series "Stories Jesus Told", on the occasion of Lakeshore Interfaith Gathering, at Lakeshore Interfaith Center, Ganges. Scripture references: Matthew 20:1-16.
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application/pdf
2007
Transforming Love