Grace

Ever read a Tom Clancy novel? He has this ability to take seemingly unrelated stories and weave them together at the conculsion. While you are reading, the scene changes from one part of the story to the other. About midway through the novel, the stories start to connect to one another and by the end, you can see the whole picture.

I heard a sermon like that Sunday. We had a guest speaker, David Leer from David Lipsomb University. He began by reading the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), and told us that the sermon was about the older brother. The reading of the text was very animated. However, before long, he was talking about how images from the Bible appear in comic strips. (Including one called Lumpy Gravy which I had never heard of)

After about 20 minutes or so, I'm ashamed to admit that I was thinking, "Ok, you need to land this plane", I really wasn't seeing the point. Then, at the very end, he was talking about how the older brother was angry and wouldn't join the party for his younger sibling. And he asked "Would you go to the party?" Then he landed the plane, in my lap, when he said "You would go to the party, because you realize that you didn't earn your grace either". Wow...hit me right between the eyes.

Don't those of us who are Christians feel that since we try to live a good honest life that to some extent we've "earned our grace" while others are receiving a gift that they didn't deserve? Are we the older brother, the Pharisee,or the workers that started at the beginning of the day?

I think these stories are telling us, we haven't earned our grace either. I guess that sermon was better than I thought.