John 8:31-36
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
I came across an old file this week, with an even older story in it, that struck me as particularly relevant for Reformation Sunday. From what I could tell thanks to some help from Google, it was written by a woman named Anne Hѐbert, and was part of a book by an old, recently deceased religion professor from my undergraduate alma mater, which, I suppose is how it ended up in my file of things worth saving. His name was Carl Skrade. This story, called “The Garden,” has been re-written in a couple of different ways it seems, and I have taken a few liberties with it, myself. It goes like this:
In the beginning, there were more than just Adam and Eve. In the beginning, God made a whole bunch of us. He made a whole bunch of us because he wanted us to have a lot of fun, and he said you can’t really have fun unless there’s a whole gang of you. So God put us – all together – in a place called Eden, which was a combination garden and playground and park, and told us to go and have a great time.
At first, we did have fun just as God had planned. We rolled down hills, we waded in streams, we climbed up trees, we swung on vines, we ran in meadows, we frolicked in the woods. We were filled with joy. We laughed a lot. Life was good.
And then the snake slithered his way into Eden with the good news. The snake told us we weren’t having real fun because we weren’t keeping score. Back then, we had no idea what “score” was and even after the snake explained it, we still couldn’t see what was supposed to be so fun about it. But, the snake insisted and said we should give an apple to the person who was best at all the games. Now that sounded like fun and it made sense that keeping score was the only way to know who was best and who, as a result, should get the apple. The reason it sounded fun, was of course, because secretly, we were all sure we were the best.
Things were different after that. We yelled a lot. We argued. We pointed fingers. And we spent more time making up rules for all of our games and keeping score than we did actually playing. Except for the frolicking – there are no rules for frolicking, which makes it impossible to score – so we just stopped doing that all together.
When God saw what we were up to, God wasn’t happy. God was sad. God was mad. God was wroth with anger – very, very wroth. God said we couldn’t use the garden anymore because we weren’t having fun. We told God we were having lots of fun and that he was just being narrow-minded because it wasn’t exactly the kind of fun he’d originally thought of.
God wouldn’t listen.
He kicked us out, and said we couldn’t come back until we stopped keeping score. To rub it in (“to get our attention,” he said), God told us we were all going to die and that our scores wouldn’t mean anything anyway.
God was wrong. Really, it was life in the garden that didn’t mean anything. Fun is great in its place but without scoring there’s no reason for it. We were lucky to have figured that out. We’re all very grateful to the snake. The end.
It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But it’s a great story. It’s an interesting satire on creation and the garden and what humanity did with the promises God offered. But it’s ridiculous. No one would admit to being grateful for the snake. No one would suggest you can’t have fun without keeping score. No one would imply that being banished from the garden was a good thing. Or would we?
I think this is a story Martin Luther might have told back in the early days of the Reformation. Luther was trying to get people to realize what we had done with the promises of God. Luther was trying to change the way we – and the Church – looked at life as followers of Jesus. Luther was trying to get us to reconsider the many ways we were making up rules and keeping score and not being true to God’s intention for our lives.
In Luther’s day – back in the 16th Century – people were keeping score with rituals and rules and riches, too. You could pay cash for salvation. You could visit a holy shrine as a way to earn your way into heaven. You could be sure God’s grace was for you by explaining to others why it couldn’t possibly be for them. All of this made Martin Luther sad. It made him mad. Like God, in the Garden, Martin Luther, was wroth with anger – very, very wroth.
And it really wasn’t much different than what was going on in the days of Jesus, either. Just like those who got kicked out of the garden so quickly, the followers of Jesus were screwing up by keeping score, too. The Pharisees were finding fault, the Sadducees were slinging stones and the Scribes were scribbling down their rules. All of it was about who was right and who was wrong; who was earning God’s favor and who was reaping God’s judgment; who was winning with the most points and was losing with the lowest score, you might say.
But God’s rule book is all about getting us back into the garden. And I believe God is more saddened than he is wroth with anger when it comes to our situation. We were always meant to be happy and joyful and fulfilled and free. What Jesus taught us and what Martin Luther reminded us is that grace is ours for the taking. It’s God’s original intention for our lives. Grace is the gift that clears the tote board. Grace levels the playing field. The grace of God evens the score.
Because of grace, we don’t have to hold onto guilt – we can trust in God’s forgiveness, even when we can’t forgive ourselves. Because of grace, we don’t have to bear grudges – we can forgive and forget and move on. Because of grace, we don’t have to compare, we can just be ourselves; we don’t have to play dirty, we can play fair; we don’t have to keep up with the Joneses, we can live within our means. Because of grace we can give with gratitude because we get to, not because we have to. Because of grace we don’t have to be afraid of the future, but we can enjoy the life with which we’ve been blessed.
But this kind of grace is a hard-sell, still, for the people of God, isn’t it? We are still very much about keeping score in almost every realm of our lives, aren’t we? You can’t turn on the TV without being scared by the statistics of this virus, whose numbers are on the rise again. And all of that makes us measure the stock market and worry about 401k’s and bottom lines. Pastors and Church Councils and congregations of all stripes are watching attendance numbers and wringing their hands over the offering plate. In another election like the one overwhelming our nation, again, we are consumed by the polls that have us counting and comparing and losing hair and sleep and friends, sometimes, because of it. We count calories and chemo treatments and lab results and test scores of all kinds. We count birthdays and anniversaries with all kinds of mixed emotions. And we count days, months, minutes, and years since we’ve seen our loved ones last or until we might get to see them again.
It’s exhausting. And all of this counting makes it so easy to lose sight of what has already and will, ultimately, save us, in the end… what will really get us back to the Garden (or back into the household, as Jesus says it this morning)… the Truth that will make us free, I mean.
Several years ago, the Reverend Billy Graham was in Indianapolis for one of his revivals. Before the big event, he held a special, smaller revival just for pastors and church leaders. And I remember a Pastor friend of mine saying that, during a question and answer session, another pastor in the crowd asked Billy Graham what the one thing was that people in the world needed to know.
And Billy Graham said that the one thing people needed to know was this thing about grace. And supposedly, Billy-Freaking-Graham said that Lutherans were the “sleeping giant” of the Christian faith because, if the Lutherans could just unlock and tap into and find out how to best share their foundational understanding of God’s grace, they – WE – LUTHERANS – could change the world.
That is a special charge and a holy responsibility to wonder about on Reformation Sunday, in these days, when the church and the world, still, seem so Hell-bent on keeping score so much of the time.
So let’s remember that God’s grace means to be true freedom in our lives and for the world. And that only by living in it and by sharing it with others will we catch a glimpse of those days we used to know – back in the garden, before anyone tempted us to know otherwise, before we became slaves to the sin of keeping score, and making-believe that we have the right to judge others or the power to save ourselves. The truth is, there is real freedom in acknowledging that we can do neither. And when we start living differently because of this truth, we might just wake the sleeping giant of God’s grace and to let it loose in our lives and for the sake of the world where we live.
Amen
