The Fall, Forgiveness, and
Grace
The late Dr. Ed Dowey of Princeton Seminary gives this good
synopsis of the grand document from which this church derives part of its name,
one of the confessions of our denomination, the only confession of the PCA
denomination and of the old PCUS denomination. It is the basis for this month
of sermons. “The Westminster Confession (of faith,
not of sin) was written by a congress of Puritan clergymen of the Church of
England that met in 1643….Their task was to construct a Presbyterian Church
order for the entire
In the beginning of the world, God spoke, and the earth,
skies, seas, creatures, and people were created. Calls to worship remind us of
that voice of God and our response to it.
Everything God offered freely, but with boundaries. As when conflicts in
families, businesses, or between nations are apparent, broken trust and boundaries
have been at the root of sin now as in the days of Genesis. Human beings fell from grace, so-called
because they had been given a free home, unearned in
Pastor and author Jim Wallis tells a story about his father
that made him feel extra proud. A crisis arose in his home church over two
teenagers in the church that had gotten themselves,
shall we say, in trouble. The girl was now expecting a child and they were both
being ostracized by their church for their foolish and sinful actions. “The
elders convened an emergency meeting to decide what to do. ‘Bring them up
before the whole church and we will denounce their behavior!’ said one of the
church’s most spiritual leaders. [His] father, who was the chief elder,
objected. ‘Why would such a thing be necessary?’ he asked. ‘People need to know where we stand,’ the
elders declared. ‘Do you think anybody doesn’t know where we stand?’ [his] father replied. ‘These two need to know how wrong this
was,’ asserted one elder. To which his dad replied “Does
anyone here doubt that these kids know they’ve made a terrible mistake and what
a mess they’re in?’ [The arguments continued and all the elders insisted on a public
rebuke.] ‘Okay, okay,’ his father agreed. ‘We’ll do it. ’’Really?’ his
surprised colleagues asked. ‘Sure, let’s bring them up in front of the whole
church and declare their sins before everyone. Then let’s bring everybody else
up, including me and each of you, and declare all of our sins! And since I’ve
done so much counseling with so many of you and your families, I’ll make sure
nothing is left out.’ At that, the plans for confronting the young people were
dropped and a discussion of how to be supportive in their difficult situation
ensued, which some would say is just what Jesus would
do and what that church and every congregation should do in the first
place. Practices of judgmentalism and
punitive punishment are the order of the day until the light of truth shines in
the dark corner of our own lives. Then we cry for grace, and forgiveness and
compassion. The Westminster Confession addresses our fall from perfection and
expectation; it addresses God’s plan to redeem us through personal repentance
and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the cross at
One more story: pastor
and author William Willimon encapsulates these themes with his description of
the book SAINT MAYBE, written by Pulitzer Prize winning author Anne Tyler. The
young hero is Ian Bledloe, a first year college student with a girlfriend. His
ordinary world begins unraveling. His older brother Danny has just married a
woman named Lucy who has two children from a previous marriage. Because he
observes that she is out at night alone quite often, he jumps to the conclusion
that she is being unfaithful to Danny. When she gets home late one night as Ian
is babysitting her children, he is inconvenienced enough by her tardiness that,
in anger, he tells his brother what he suspects. In rage and remorse his brother drives away
and ends up plowing into a wall, where he dies. Lucy is filled with such grief
over the news that she overdoses on sleeping pills. The children are put under
the care of Ian’s mother who is clearly not up to raising children at her stage
of life. Ian is filled with guilt over his shared suspicions that may not have
been true, and he wanders, lost, into a storefront church called the “Church of
the Second Chance.” He had heard worshippers singing hymns and praying. Once
inside, there was an altar call of sorts. “Have you asked for forgiveness for
the wrongs you have done?” the preacher publicly asked Ian. Ian said he had
asked but hadn’t received much of a response. He then blurted out the whole
ugly story of his recent past in front of that little storefront congregation,
ending with a question of the pastor: “Don’t you think I’m forgiven?” “Goodness no!” the Reverend Emmett said
briskly. Ian was shaken. Wasn’t this the whole point of Christianity? To tell
people God loves then and forgives them? “You can’t just say, ‘I’m sorry God,’
Reverend Emmett replied. Why anyone could do that much! You have to offer
reparation—concrete, practical reparation, according to the rules of our
church.” Ian protests that the bad he has done cannot be undone, and the pastor
says Jesus helps us to undo what can’t be undone, only after we have done what we can to make amends.” Rev. Emmett then
looked straight at Ian and said to this freshman in college “See to those
children.” “What!” Ian protests. Drop
out of college? Give up on education. What kind of stupid religion is this?”
The story unfolds with him doing just that; at long last he adopts the children
when he is of age and he becomes a cabinet maker to support them all. His
mother, who virtually disowned him, said that her staid, predictable Presbyterian
Church never asked her to drop out of
school or to abandon her way of life. A changed Ian, totally devoted to those
children and to God said, “Well, maybe it
should have.” In closing, Willimon observes that: “The novel makes clear
that reconciliation to God is never cheap. Many of us say that we would like to
be close to God, but at what price? We want reconciliation, but we also want
success, as contemporary culture defines success. Freedom from the powers that hold us is not
easy; it comes from an inner determination to do better and from specific,
costly acts of commitment in the midst of a community of friends who hold us
accountable. The Church of the Second
Chance gave Ian the support he needed to live a new life: he fixed the meals
for those children, devoted himself to their education, watched his parents age, celebrated family milestones and connected with
his neighbors. At the end of the story the oldest daughter, the one who seemed
to give him the most trouble, said to someone else that in her mind “Ian was
like a saint ..maybe.”
May your children, your friends, your church family, and God
look at your life, your offerings of
grace, your redemption from the Fall in Genesis, and all the other times you
have failed and one day say that you, too, “are like a saint …maybe.” Amen.
Jeffrey A. Sumner