God's Grace is Enough! (or Don't Panic!)

Wouldn’t life be wonderful if… if it came with a perfect instruction manual that we all managed to follow perfectly and decently in order without fail? …If each of us came, not just fresh from our mother’s wombs, but well before conception with a neatly detailed business plan, accurate mission statement and realistic budget assessment? …If there were no contingencies, no need for “Plans B, C & Z”, no unforeseen consequences, no accidental mishaps? Or would it?
We all want life to perfect. We all want to be perfect. We all want our leaders to be perfect. We all want our communities to be perfect. And we’re pretty good at not cutting anyone any slack, including ourselves.

Wouldn’t the church be better if there were more young people, if everyone could have their favourite music every week, if there were simply more people, more money, more time, a better minister or Elders or Church Councillors? Wouldn’t life be wonderful if…?

It’s at this point that I’m reminded of a book, a fictitious book, but nevertheless a book—not an instruction manual but an omnibus of information about the universe: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from Douglas Adams’ trilogy in four parts of the same name.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a “wholly remarkable book” supplanting…

the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

Perhaps it would, in fact, be better if we were all issued not with an instruction manual but the words “Don’t panic!” neatly stamped on our foreheads and our wrists and perhaps the back of our heads for those who follow us—“Don’t panic!” in large friendly letters, of course.

Don’t panic because you’re not perfect! Don’t panic because you don’t experience the world around you as perfect! Don’t panic because everything isn’t the way that you think it should be or would like it to be! Don’t panic!

Don’t panic that good things come in flawed packages! Don’t panic that life is ambiguous and everything can’t be put into a neat box and shelved properly in its right place somewhere! Don’t panic that we’re all still learning, still feeling our way, still trying to find God’s will! Don’t panic!

“Don’t panic!” is essentially what Paul is saying to the Corinthians in today’s epistle reading. Don’t panic that you don’t have ecstatic visions like that other person you’ve heard about! Don’t panic that the message of the Gospel has come to you in an imperfect vessel! Don’t panic that you’re still finding your way! Don’t panic!

Don’t panic because all this journeying and imperfection and finding our way is precisely what the Gospel is all about!

If you want the sort of religion that promises to make everyone into a clone of each other, that promises to fix everything and make life one long cruise-boat ride, that promises to have leaders without flaws and clear unambiguous rules, that promises untold riches and carefree luxury, then Christianity is probably not for you. Christianity is probably not for you because at the heart of the Christian story is the revelation of the love of God not in might and power, but in weakness and humiliation. At the heart of the Christian story is not a quick fix, an easy solution, a click-of-the-fingers magic trick. No, at the heart of the Christian faith is the revelation of a God who is willing to give up anything, to go through anything, to be utterly powerless and humiliated in order that somehow, someway we would really get the message that it’s not about power and might and possessions and conformity. It’s about love, and grace, and mercy, and hope.

“God’s grace is sufficient. God’s grace is enough.” Ecstatic visions and perfect lives are not the stuff of the life-giving power of the good news we have in Jesus Christ. Perfect leaders, the right kind of music and financial security are not the lynch pins of success in the Christian story. The very nature of God is—the very nature of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ; and in which we are enfolded by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Don’t panic! Don’t panic because it’s not about what you do or what your neighbour does, it’s about who God is and what God has done and is doing. Don’t panic because it’s not about getting it right, it’s about accepting God’s love. Don’t panic because it’s not about being perfect, it’s about being open to God’s will. Don’t panic because it is precisely in our weakness and our vulnerability that we are open to the possibility of catching just a glimpse of God’s amazing love. Don’t panic because it is precisely in and through God’s weakness that we have relationship with God and with each other—real relationship, not some kind of Hollywood or Bollywood picture of what life should be—relationship that’s about being in things together, working with and for each other through the ups and downs of life, struggling to find the way ahead together on difficult issues, and knowing that it’s not about the goal but about the journey that we take together on the way.

All this, all this is God’s gift to us—God’s gift to us in Creation when humanity was conceived as a partner for God for the welfare of the whole Creation; God’s gift to us in Redemption, in Incarnation, in Jesus, when all barriers between us and God were torn asunder by God’s throwing off of all the trappings of divinity; and God’s gift to us in the continuing process of Sanctification, of journeying with God as the frail, flawed, fragile creatures we are, finding our way, losing our way, and finding it again in the graciousness of God.

And so we cannot boast of any successes, and we cannot look for the perfect formulas for success or try to count success in numbers or figures or what we think is what other people want. The only thing we have to offer is what God has offered us… the gift of profound relationship in vulnerability, of the strength found in weakness which is the very grace of God.

There are no instruction manuals necessary to the Gospel, not even a galactic almanac with the words “Don’t panic!” printed in large friendly letters on its cover. All that is required is that we open ourselves to the rich and enduring grace of God and invite others to do the same—“God’s grace is sufficient! God’s grace is enough!”