Ash
Wednesday Service 02/13/13 RWJ UMC
Sermon: “Cheap
grace”
Scripture Lesson: Psalm 51:1-17
Gospel Lesson: Mathew 6:1-6, 16-21
Good
evening brothers and sisters! Welcome to this Ash Wednesday service! This day,
is the day in the Christian calendar which marks the beginning of the Christian
season of Lent. On this day, millions upon millions of Christians worldwide
have gathered for worship serves like this, to prepare their hearts, their minds,
and their souls for this Christian season.
To
explain a little bit about Ash Wednesday, Ash Wednesday falls 46 actual days
before Easter Sunday. Most of us though often think of the 40-days of Lent.
This is because the 40-day liturgical period of the Lent season traditionally
does not include Sundays. Those Christians that would fast during the days of
the Lenten Season for example, would then break there fasts on Sunday’s only
during Lent. Most people in America that I know though who observe the Lenten
Season tend to stick to whatever sacrifice they have chosen to make the whole
season, including Sunday’s. During Lent it is the tradition of our Christian
faith to embrace more deeply the Christian spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting,
simplicity, submission, service, confession, and worship. We gather for this special
service of Ash Wednesday, as traditionally it was seen as appropriate to humbly
and in morning come to God in sackcloth and ashes. We put ashes on our
foreheads as a sign of repentance, as a sign of humility, as a sign of
sacrifice, as a sign as I said of mourning, and as a sign of our faith in Jesus
Christ. In some cultures Ashes are sprinkled on the heads of Christians, but in
the Western world we mark with Ashes on the forehead. This tradition has
existed for centuries.
With
that little introduction of Ash Wednesday, and the Lenten Season, I want to
talk to you all tonight about “Cheap Grace”. “Cheap Grace” is a theological
term that was created by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Just
a little bit about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a German pastor before
and during World War II in Nazi Germany. In 1933, Bonhoeffer went on the radio
in Nazi Germany, and declared to the whole German nation, that “Adolf Hitler is
not my Fuher” or leader, “But God is my Fuher”. Bonhoeffer was part of the
confessing movement of the Christian Church, which very much still exists
today. Bonhoeffer
was killed by the Nazi’s shortly before World War II ended, as he had been
jailed as an enemy of the Nazi German State. Bonhoeffer said, I “confess
Christ,” and Bonhoeffer warned of this Cheap Grace. Well you might be thinking
to yourself right now, just what is Cheap Grace. Here is what Bonhoeffer said
Cheap Grace is:
“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 said back in the World War
II era in Nazi Germany that, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our
church. We are fighting today for costly grace.”
You are probably now
thinking, well if you just told us what Cheap Grace is, then what is “Costly
Grace”. According to Bonhoeffer, “Costly
grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift
which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is
costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to
follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is
grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it
condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is
costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price',
and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace
because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but
delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God,” Bonhoeffer said. Costly grace means we
give it all to God.
As I will talk about more
this Sunday, we often give up tangible things for the Lent season, such as
chocolate, the internet, eating at restaurants, something that we really enjoy,
and etc. etc. I think that Bonhoeffer would argue though, is giving up
Chocolate, not Cheap Grace? The Savior of the world dies for us, and we don’t
eat chocolate for the Lenten season.
To me this sounds sort of silly
when I put it this way. In entering into this Lenten season though, let this
time be for us, a time of prayer, confession, fasting, and humility, but also a
time of excitement and a time of change. As you will hear me say more Sunday
and in our Lenten bible study that starts on Sunday, maybe we need to give up
things for Lent that are more long term than 40-days, of no chocolate. Maybe we
need to give up Anger, Jealousy, Hatred, Pride, Greed, and etc. and etc. I
think in the Lenten season Jesus wants us to be more like him. More Giving, more
humble, and more generous, lest we all just have Cheap Grace, and nothing more.
I
would like to close this evening with a really good Bonhoeffer quote. Here is
what Bonhoeffer said about the Christian life, which I think applies apply to
the Lenten Season. Bonhoeffer said, “Each
morning is a new beginning of our life. Each day is a finished whole. The
present day marks the boundary of our cares and concerns. It is long enough to
find God or loose Him, to keep faith or fall into disgrace. God created day and
night for us so we need not wander without boundaries, but may be able to see
in every morning the goal of the evening ahead. Just as the ancient sun rises
anew everyday, so the eternal mercy of God is new every morning. Every morning
God gives us the gift of comprehending anew His faithfulness of old; thus in
the midst of our life with God, we may daily begin a new life with Him. In the
first moments of the new day are for God's liberating grace, God's sanctifying
presence. Before the heart unlocks itself for the world, God wants to open it
for Himself; before the ear takes in the countless voices of the day, it should
hear in the early hours the voice of the Creator and Redeemer. God prepared the
stillness of the first morning for Himself. It should remain His.
In this Lenten Season, may
we all pursue costly grace. In the name our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
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