Theological Truth: Our worth is grounded on who God is and what God has done in Christ.
Good morning! Glad to see you here. And may I commend you on your choice of Sundays to attend? “Why?” you may ask? Because we get to hear from the prophet Joel today! It’s a big deal: The only Sunday in our three-year lectionary cycle that makes Joel the first-option Old Testament reading. Not that Joel’s prophetic words are completely foreign to us. If you like Ash Wednesday (and I know many of you do!) you’re familiar with scary words from Joel, “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near,” (Joel 2:1) and so forth.
Lent begins with Joel’s warning for all the inhabitants of the land. But today we hear from a subsequent part of his prophecy—the assurance that Lent leads to Easter. Joel proclaims the reassuring truth of God’s abundant providence—life-giving rain, threshing floors full of grain, vats overflowing with wine and oil, wheat aplenty for all. But even better, God’s Spirit will be poured out on everyone, sons and daughters, old and young, male and female, slaves and free. Worthy and unworthy. Saint and sinner alike. “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (2:32). Everyone.
This is a big deal. As Lutheran biblical scholar Scott Hoezee points out, heretofore the Spirit of the Lord had been poured out on a more limited, task-specific basis. Kings, priests, and prophets were the only ones anointed for God’s purposes and filled with God’s spirit. But Joel prophesies that “in those days,” the Spirit of the Lord will be poured upon all of us. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Everyone gets inspired, not just a king here or a prophet there. Everyone gets anointed by God’s spirit.
In the coming of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit, Joel’s prophecy has come to pass. “Those days” are now “these days.” This reality is now. We celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit and this adoption by grace into the family of God at every baptism saying, “You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit…and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
And who is eligible to be baptized? Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. Anyone who asks for it. As a priest, there are times I have to say “no.” But when it comes to funerals and baptisms, the answer is always “yes.” Funerals, because the dead and their loved ones deserve God’s merciful loving care. Baptisms, because the mercy, grace, and never-ending loving embrace of God in Christ is a gift, not a reward. This new life—this way of living and loving—is offered by God as gift to us all, saint and sinner, worthy and unworthy. Because all of us are both. As a friend from Rotary recently commented as he talked about being involved at his church, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m involved in church not because I’m a saint, but because I know I’m a sinner.”
Martin Luther famously said we are simultaneously saints and sinners. We’re all a mixed bag. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us is worthy of the saving love freely given to us all in Christ. But stating that we are unworthy can be problematic. I remember a day school teacher insisting that we either stop saying the General Thanksgiving during chapel or change the wording. She objected to children saying the phrase, “we your unworthy servants.” She worried it could instill a negative self-image or trigger feelings of shame. We kept saying the General Thanksgiving…but we also had fruitful conversations about the source of our worthiness.
Why is it so important to wrestle with this paradox of being both saint and sinner, worthy and unworthy, and how does grace factor into it? Because without grace, we rely on our efforts. We measure ourselves against and set ourselves above our neighbors, and we miss out on the only true and dependable source of our worth. Jesus tells today’s parable precisely to warn of the dangers of self-earned worthiness: “to those who trust in themselves…and regard others with contempt.” (Luke 18:9) Jesus understands the human love of self-sufficiency and our prideful tendency to convince ourselves of our worth by favorably (but without complete honesty) comparing “us” to “them.” Grace changes that equation.
The Catechism defines grace as “God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved” (BCP 858). The truth is that we are not worthy…not on our own merits. We need to rely on a Good greater than ourselves. The gospel truth is that the universal, eternal, indiscriminate, all-inclusive, unmerited, unearned, mind-boggling, life-changing love of God in Christ invites us into a deeper, more dependable and trustworthy basis for our worthiness, a worthiness not based on what we do, but what God does. It’s not a matter of who we are, but who God is. Grace bridges the divide of saints and sinners. In the economy of grace, there is no “us and them,” there’s only the level field and firm foundation of God’s unearned, undeserved favor towards us, for everyone.
Jesus concludes, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14) The level playing field and firm foundation of God’s favor towards everyone leads to a holy, healthy, and unifying humility. Humility comes from the word “humus,” the word for earth, ground, soil, compost. The ground we all stand on. The ground of our being. To humble ourselves is to recognize the power of grace and grace alone to save us.
Gratitude is the best way I know of to remain grounded in this holy humility. When we intentionally start looking for examples of how much more God has given us than we have earned or deserved, we stay rooted in this economy of grace. We remain aware that all that we have is gift. We are more generous towards others and more joyful in our lives.
This coming week, I encourage you to take up this simple gratitude practice. Pray the first part of the General Thanksgiving: “Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving kindness to us and to all whom you have made.” (BCP 101) And then ask yourself, “What are the blessings of this life I am most grateful for?” Make a list or write them down on ribbons and add them to the collection in the back of church. May we have such an awareness of God’s mercies, that we realize there’s no need to exalt ourselves and every reason to recognize and receive God’s unearned, unmerited favor toward us. This is a holy, healthy humility that unites us to God and everyone. This is the grace of God—the source of our joy, our hope, and our worth.
— Fr. AJ Heine, Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost, Year C, October 23, 2022
Readings: Joel 2:23-32, 2 Timothy 4:6-8 16-18, Psalm 65, Luke 18:9-14
