One of my favorite—and most quoted—authors in creative Christian writing is Frederick Buechner, who has been at it for a long time. Since the next three weeks will be about the Wesleyan understanding of that crucial thing “grace” I thought I’d see what Buechner has to say about it. As usual, he does not disappoint.
“Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.
The grace of God means something like: ‘Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.’
There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”
With these lyrical musings as our baseline, over the next three weeks we will look at John Wesley’s understanding of grace in its three manifestations: Prevenient Grace, Justifying Grace, and Sanctifying Grace. This Sunday is Prevenient Grace—the grace comes before, that is “previous”—the work of God within us to bring us to the point of receiving the gift that God gives of new life and the assurance of God’s love never letting us go, no matter how bad things get.
Prevenient Grace is recognizing that God knows us better than we know ourselves, loves us better than we love ourselves, and knows better than we do what we need and who we are and what we should do. So God works within us—God who created us, knew us before we were born. God makes it possible for us to say “yes” to the opportunity presented to live as God would have us live, and to accept the forgiveness of sins Jesus brings about by taking on sin on our behalf. Wesley believed and taught that we don’t come to that on our own, but God is bringing us to that. Even that stage of the process is grace, is gift.
NEW TESTAMENT Philippians 2:12-13
12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
NEW TESTAMENT Ephesians 2:8-10
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
NEW TESTAMENT 1 John 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.