Living Gracefully
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Luke 15:11 - 24; Eph. 2:8 - 10
October 23, 2011
David C. Wright

          I found this story on the internet.  Mathieu Boya was practicing his golf swing on a pasture adjacent to the Benin Air Base in Benin, Africa, a small country located on Africa’s west coast.  One particular drive sliced hard to the right, striking a flying bird which plummeted onto the windshield of a trainer jet, whose pilot was taxiing into position for takeoff.  The pilot lost control of his aircraft and crashed into 4 parked Mirage jets, totally demolishing the entire air force of Benin!
          Boya was jailed for “hooliganism” and his attorney said that he had no chance of winning in court.  The country wanted Boya to pay for the damages- $40,000,000 to replace the jets.  Since Boya made only $275 per year, he figured it would take 145,000 years to pay off his debt to society!
          Whether this incident actually happened, or is just an internet myth, I was intrigued by the fact that it describes a person who has incurred a debt so large that it is impossible to pay it off.  In one of Jesus’ parables a character finds himself in the same situation, and ultimately it is the same situation in which each of us finds ourselves!
          This best-known parable of Jesus is usually known as the parable of the prodigal son.  A better name for it might be the story of the grace-filled father.  Read Luke 15:11-24.
          11  Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons.
          12  The younger of them said to his father, "Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them.
          13  A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
          14  When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
          15  So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.
          16  He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
          17  But when he came to himself he said, "How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!
          18  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
          19  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands." '
          20  So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
          21  Then the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
          22  But the father said to his slaves, "Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
          23  And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;
          24  for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
          Let’s talk about the story a little bit.  The younger son asked for his portion of the inheritance.  Although fathers sometimes divided their property prior to their death, allowing their sons to manage it, the father still maintained control over it, and the profits generated from it helped to support the father in his old age.  But that wasn’t good enough for the younger son.  He wanted what was coming to him, NOW!  His father couldn’t die fast enough for him.  In effect, he treated his father as though he were already dead.
          For inexplicable reasons, the father consented to this request.  The son burned through all his father’s hard-earned shekels in no time.  And then the son got hit with the double-whammy of a famine just when he ran out of money.  During times of famine, work is scarce, so he ended up sinking as low as a Jewish boy could possibly sink- tending pigs.  Even so, he was still desperately hungry.
          Verse 17 brings us to the turning point of the story. 
“When he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;  I am no longer worthy to be called your son;  treat me like one of your hired hands.’” (Luke 15:17-19)  I love that little phrase, “when he came to himself.”  He remembered who he was and whose he was and that provoked a change of heart.  He repented, acknowledging his sin against his father and against God.  He turned away from it and back toward his father, intending to plead for mercy.
          So, he left the pig farm and headed home.  I’m sure he wondered what his father would do, the one he had treated so horribly, whose hard-earned lifetime of savings he had selfishly squandered.  His father, presumably scanning the horizon in hope of the return of his lost son, spotted him from far away.  He was filled with compassion, we’re told.  He ran to him- something a proper Middle-eastern gentleman would never do- and he embraced him.  He gave him sandals, signifying that he was a free man, not a slave.  And a robe and a ring- signs of authority.  And then the father planned and led the biggest party anyone could remember!
          That is grace, my friends.  The son did nothing to earn the good gifts that the father lavished on him.  He simply humbled himself and accepted them.  Now grace can be hard for us to accept in this culture of the self-made person, a culture that praises those who have lifted themselves up by their own bootstraps, and frowns on those who need charity!  A Peanuts comic strip describes our attitude about self-sufficiency very well.
Lucy and Charlie Brown are having a conversation while Snoopy trots along beside them.  Lucy says, “Sooner or later, Charlie Brown, there's one thing you're going to have to learn. You reap what you sow! You get out of life exactly what you put into it! No more and no less!
Snoopy stops to ponder her wisdom, then trots along, thinking, “I'd kind of like to see a little more margin for error!
          Many of us operate on that “You reap what you sow” principle.  But grace turns that belief on its head!  With grace, we reap what we didn’t sow!  The bounty is simply given to us.  And grace is the only way back into the good graces of our heavenly Father.  We humbly accept his good gifts of forgiveness and salvation and we’re made right with God; we’re taken back into relationship with him, just like the younger son was taken back by his father.  That’s family.  That’s grace.  And that’s the good news of the gospel.
          But it doesn’t end there.  Accepting God’s grace changes us.  We said it earlier this morning in the Lord’s Prayer.  “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  We accept God’s grace (the forgiveness of our sins) and we give grace to others (as we forgive those who sin against us.).  That’s what I call graceful living.
          The story is told of a grandmother who was celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary.  Her granddaughter asked her the secret to her long marriage.  “Well,” she said, “on my wedding day, I decided to make a list of ten of my future husband’s faults which, for the sake of our marriage, I would overlook.”  The granddaughter asked, “What kinds of faults?”  The grandmother replied, “To tell you the truth, my dear, I never did get around to listing them.  But whenever your granddad did something that made me hopping mad, I would say to myself, ‘Lucky for him, that’s one of the ten!’”  That’s grace, isn’t it?  Overlooking the faults of others.
          Do you have a critical spirit?  A tendency to see the mistakes of others, rather than their gifts and strengths?  A tendency to demand perfection from others?  Ask God to give you a more graceful spirit that overlooks the faults of others.  You’ve probably got enough faults of your own to work on, if you really need to be correcting faults, anyway!
          On several occasions, I’ve had the joy to be hosted by a graceful person in their home.  I’ve noticed that when something is spilled or broken, the graceful host acts as if there is nothing to it, quickly cleaning up the mess, and turning the conversation to something else.  They are communicating to you that you are more important than the offense.  That’s grace!
          Grace also works itself out in the practice of forgiveness.  When you are wronged, don’t hold onto the wrong done to you and carry it around as a grudge.  Don’t talk about it with others.  Learn to let that wrong go.  Be reconciled to the other person, if that is possible.  That’s grace.
          Grace listens well to others, too.  How are you doing in that area?  Are you able to listen to the concerns and feelings of others, rather than being the one to talk all the time?  That’s grace.
          Christian counselor, David Seamands, once wrote, “Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major cause of most emotional problems among…Christians are these:  the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness;  and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people…” 
          Grace.  It can transform us, turn us around, and bring us into relationship with our Heavenly Father, like it did for the young prodigal son.  And it can help us become more graceful people, too.

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