DO Prevenient Grace

Prepare the way of the Lord!  The prophets declare.  During Advent, we are accustomed to hearing those words.  Getting ready for what is coming next.  Christ, incarnation of love, will be born.

During Lent, we listen with earnestness.  Easter is coming.  The liturgical year circles through preparation and feast, fast and celebration.  Our spiritual lives cycle on a larger scale as well.  However, we are not always the primary actors.  We can not always make all of the preparations.  Where have you noticed that God is already moving and preparing?

Last week, Pastor Jim began our month of long exploration and reminder of who we are as Methodists as he gave us an overview of John and Charles Wesley as well as Dr. Albert Outler’s later theological understanding of the Wesleyan quadrilateral.

Today, we continue that exploration with prevenient grace.  The first of three kinds of graces in United Methodist theology.  Prevenient grace is God’s gift, undeserved, that God has already been at work in all of creation preparing for all of us.

In this season of beach and mountain vacations, some of us find it hard to believe that anyone would go before us in any capacity!  Now, that is much that divides us as a people.  But perhaps, nothing as much as those who prepare for vacation and those who wing it!  Some of us are packed weeks in advance and know where we will eat on our trip.  Others of us are still figuring out exactly where we might be going next week.  No worries, still hours left until Monday morning!  Prevenient grace – undeserved, unmerited, unearned favor of God goes before us.

Not just like those who plan out their Disney vacation weeks ahead or check into their international flight days, but God who has been seeking us out, preparing our hearts to be in relationship with God, and knowing us intimately, since we were.

Francis Thompson, the Catholic English poet, was so taken by this concept named it for us – God as the hound of heaven.  God, who not only prepares for us, but seeks us out with the tenacity of a hunting hound.  Have you ever heard this?

Perhaps, we also think of persistence of widow who knocks or Sheldon Cooper who knocks!

Thompson was a younger contemporary of Charles Dickens.  He began his career as a medical doctor and turned to writing.  The Hound of Heaven captured his religious experience as found by God: (excerpted)  “I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways.  Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.”

But God does not give up on Thompson as God does not give up on us.   Thompson ends the poem this way: “Now of that long pursuit   Comes on at hand the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: ‘And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard? ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest!  Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’  Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!

As a dog seeks a squirrel, as a hound goes after a hare, Thompson gives us the image of God seeking us, drawing near, unhurrying, following us with Divine grace.  This prevenient grace is not turned away by our actions or sin, but with unwearyingly commitment follows us until we find ourselves in God.   God’s prevenient grace is present in all of creation: natural order, human conscience, our relationships, creation, family, community, sacraments, intellect, science, pangs of guilt, curiosity of discovery, all of who we are.

The time before we have fully embraced God’s grace can be like the rapids of our lives! Living from avoiding one rock and crash to another without knowing how to steer the raft we are in.  This week at VBS, our children will be discovering about the Rolling River Rapids. The imagery of rapids evokes fear in many of us, because we do not know how to maneuver the topography.

The man with the unclean spirits in the gospel lessons, we often read as being out of his mind. We may find ourselves silently thinking, I am glad I am not like him (praying like the pharisees in the temple).  But when we

see the world through eyes of prevenient grace, we find that God was already preparing a way and seeking the man who ultimately told the whole town what Jesus did in his life.    From the beginning of his narrative, the man ran to Jesus, looking for a way out of this life.  He no longer wanted to live a life tormented by the unclean spirits.  He knew who Jesus was and knew Jesus could lead him to a different way.

Think of all the ways God must have used other people to prepare this man for that moment.  Even before, he was released from his demons!  There is no timeline on prevenient grace. For some of us this is our childhoods and others of us the turning points of adult life and others dramatically on our deathbeds.

United Methodist theologian, Theodore Runyon, writes, “Wesley likened the process of salvation to a house. Prevenient grace serves as the porch, justifying grace as the door, and sanctifying grace as the rooms of the house where we are called to dwell.” The journey is different and unique and yet, there are somethings about discipleship that are methodical.

People began to ask the Wesley brothers – how can I come to know this unmerited, undeserved favor, you call grace?  How can regularly encounter God?  How can I be assured of meeting and knowing God of whom you speak?  John Wesley collected his sermons – the basic forty-four into a book that he distributed to his preachers and class leaders for equipping purposes.  Among them included the sermon:  The Means of Grace.  He writes: “I use this expression, means of grace, because I know none better; and because it has been generally used in the Christian church for many ages; — in particular by our own Church, which directs us to bless God both for the means of grace, and hope of glory; and teaches us, that a sacrament is “an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same.”

The chief of these means are prayer, whether in secret or with the great congregation; searching the Scriptures (which implies reading, hearing, and meditating thereon); and receiving the Lord’s Supper, eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of Him.  This is where we dependably meet God.

Two summers ago, after my time with our youth mission trip in West Virginia, I visited my aunt and uncle.  I was gifted Minutes from the Methodist Conferences beginning from 1773 published in 1813 that has been in my aunt’s family, from generation to generation. The methodical queries of how class meetings, local gatherings, and preachers were following the discipline remains consistent from then to now.  As the circuit riders covered ground and rode from place to place even before the days of the American Revolution, the gospel was being spread.

The earliest recorded numbers in 1773 are listed here.  Preachers and laity doubled within the year!  These could not have happened without the prevenient grace of God going before the commitment work of the circuit riders and the hospitality of the class leaders.  And truly these were men AND women.

In the earliest days of Methodism, it was male and female preachers who telling those assembled in the preaching houses, the fields, in the kitchens, and wherever else 2 or 3 were gathered.  Approximately 100 women preachers were licensed by 1803.

Arguably, the first of which was Mary Bosanquet, starting a community as early as 1762 in Leytonstone for “destitute children and adults.”  They lived grace that came first with often, conversion and revival, that came later.  In a letter that came from Londonderry (the one in England) Wesley writes, (June 13, 1771) “I think the strength of the cause rests on your having an extraordinary call.” He was later convinced that a woman’s call was no more extraordinary than a man’s.

God’s grace has been preparing your heart and soul for that which is coming next.  Prevenient grace is already at work in your life, but also in work of those you love and those you are not sure how to love.  God, who has been working through the Methodist movement, God, who has been working in spite of the Methodist movement, open our eyes and hearts this week to see you at work all around all in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

Prepare the Way of the Lord!

This is the Gospel of the Lord, thanks be to God, Amen.

REFERENCES

Thompson, Francis and G.K. Chesterton. The Hound of Heaven and Other Poems. 2011.

Runyon, Theodore. New Creation. John Wesley’s Theology Today., 1998., 27-28.

Wesley, John. Forty-Four Sermons, 1944.

Minutes of the Methodist Conferences held annually in American from 177-1813. 1813

Schmidt, Jean Miller. Grace Sufficent.1999.

 

Old Testament Lesson:  Malachi 3:1-7

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.  But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?  For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.  Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.  For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?”

Gospel Lesson:  Mark 5:1-20

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”  For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.  The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

Meditations

Sunday: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” Malachi 3:1. God’s love always precedes us. When we tell stories of our lives, our community, our culture, our world, we see the love of God always preceding our reach towards God.

Monday: “Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’” Malachi 3:7. Consider where God is inviting you to return to practices of wholeness and relationship.

Tuesday: “And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain;” Mark 5: 2-3. Who is God calling you to stop restraining and let go towards God’s love?

Wednesday: “When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him;” Mark 5:6. Those who have gone astray recognize when God seeks them out. Pray for all who have gone astray, for it is all of us.

Thursday: “They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid.” Mark 5: 15. We often read this story and try to picture who are the demoniacs and the villagers. What if we have been all the characters at different points? How would our faith grow, our empathy increase, and our grace deepen?

Friday: “But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’” Mark 5:19. Jesus refused to leave the neighborhood. His presence was already with them. Consider how Jesus has changed your life.

Saturday: “And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.” Mark 5: 20. Pray for where God is calling you to proclaim how much Jesus has done for you.