AMAZING GRACE John M. Buchanan

Romans 5:6-11 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
June 15, 1975 Columbus, Ohio
Text: "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners

Christ died for us."

It has taken me a long time to learn that my mind, my ability to reason

and analyze and deduce and conclude is not, by any stretch of the imagination,

the sole and universal arbiter of truth. | It has taken me a long time to learn
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that God does not depend for his existence on my having weighed all the evi-

dence and given him permission to exist. \ Tt has taken me a long time to learn

to trust my heart as well as my intellect.
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The story is told of Captain Eleazar Hull, one of the most famous 19th
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century skippers in the New England whaling fleet. \ rea was the best: | his

ships sailed further with less difficulty and brought home more oil than
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any others. He had no formal, academic training in the science of navigation,
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When asked how he mamaged to guide his ships over the immense expanse of the

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seven seas he would reply, |"we11, I go up on the deck, listen to the wind in
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the riggin', get the drift of the sea, and take a long look at the stars.
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Then I set my course." \

But then the Insurance Companies intervened. \ ey could no longer

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extend coverage to vessels the captain of which had no formal knowledge of

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the science of navigation| With great fear and trepidation three company

executives approached Captail Hull to inform him that he must either go to

“ation school or retire.\ te their delight and puzzlement the old seaman
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iastic about the prospect of learning some science. \ ana so he
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chool, graduated and returned to the sea.

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nen he returned to Port after a voyage of two years, his friends
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ery anxious to know how it had been to sail "by the book."

"Tt was wonderful", Captain Hull resronded. | mmenever I wanted to
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know my position, I'd go to my cabin, get out all the charts, work through

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the proper equations, and set a course with mathematical precision. \ Then
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I'd go up on the deck, get the drift_of the sea, listen_to the wind in the

riggin', and take a long look at the stars ™ (See William Muchl, All the

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Dammed Angels p 16) Then Zd corree? my Computatioms for error.

A charming story, I think: \: delightful corrective to our obsession

with science. | And yet we know better, don't we? | Captain Hull, may have
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depended on his, emotional and @mses@eeewe responses in navigating a 19th
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Century sailing vessel; but the Appolo project literally couldn't have
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gotten off the ground apart from disciplined, pure |: and non-emotional technology.

The result may have been lacking in art and poetry but it was certainly

successful. '
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We are, you and I , children on the Enlightenment.) In a nostalgic

sense we like the Captain Hull's of the world. \ But for our surgeon or

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Airline pilot, we'll chdéée the unemotional technician. | More to the point,
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however, we have been seduced into accepting: the thesis that the scientific
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method really does define any truth that's worth defining, \we have been
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schooled to trust_our minds, or at least someone's mind, and to distrust our
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emotions, our_heart, our visceral responses. \ ntadison Avenue knows it \a
product will be immensely more appealing if its marketer can claim laboratary
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evidence of its superiority. | "Laboratory tests show" jis the new sacred litany,

and the technician, replete with white coat and clipboard, is the hew high priest.

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The trouble is, life doesn't always come at us in ways that fit conven-
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iently into neat categories.\ Life doesn’t dome at our minds only and we ex-

perience a lot of anxiety trying desperately to be rational about events that

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defy rationality./] I found the Freedom Train, for instance, to be a very
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frustrating experiefice; \1s you know if you visited it, a conveyer belt

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moved the viewer through a series of railroad cars, each containing a
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collage of Americana. | The viewer was literally eeeetved by immages, pictures,
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art, artifacts, documents, baseball bats, Lincoln's top hat, Kennedy's rocker:
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all the while listening intently to a collage of souna:| fife and drums,
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the roar of cannon, {tne cheer of the crowd, | the Battle Hymn of the Republic,

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(vs have a arean" \ "Ask not what your country can do for you""|\"This day,
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December, 7 1941". \ ay heart, my emotions kept responding to all of that;
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but my mind, my intellect, kept wanting to stop the conveyor and read the
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eaptions \ At the end of each car I wanted to stop and digest it but on we
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were pulled into one more emotional assault >
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egies oa of rite. \ mings don't always
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fit into place; | tim doesn't always allow careful analysis.\ And if we
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walk through life, dependent only on our minds, our powers of logic, we
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will miss a lot - the beauty of religion, for instance: [ime Gospel of

Jesus Christ to be precise.
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The Gospel addresses itself to the whole man,\not just the intellect.

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You do not have to be a college graduate to hear it. \ You do not_have to be
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a scholar to respond to it.\ In fact, there is something intrinsic to the
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Gospel that is stripped away when our approach is totally academic. \ mat is
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why we have such a monumental amount of difficulty with St. Paul.
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Our text this morning, F-would submit, is the theological equivalent
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of a quick trip through the Freedom train. | Christ died for the ungodly...
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God shows his love for t&s in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for

us. \ justacted by his blood. .j.saved by him. {re rejoice in God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.” 7
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Slow down, Paul! JLet us think about that for a minute! \What do you mean
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rungoaty"| Saved from what? | What is justification anyway? (ie are offended
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by that assault on our intellect :\ we demand time to discuss, and weigh evi-
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dence and see if it fits into our view of the world.
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The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not essentially intellectual.) I say
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that with great care because under the guise of the Gospel people have become
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anti-intellectual.| For too long and for too many people today, Christianity
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implies the shutting down of our reason. | The Gospel has been used to defend

ignorance: \the faith, in the hands of a William Jennings Bryan for instance,

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has been used to oppose science and academic inquiry. \ Christians must bear

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the responsibility for the shameful truth that the Gospel has not held its
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own in the classroom and the halls of the academy. \: am not suggesting that
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the Gospel is for the dull: \on the contrary the Gospel inspires and forees
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us to think and probe and reason.\ What I am saying is that it addresses the
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whole man: | mina and emotion: \\ that it is both art and science. \ And that
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just as the art of Vincent Van Goygh will not bear up under entirely logical
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scrutiny, but ™% is great art nonetheless, so the Gospel must be felt as well

as - or perhaps more than - understood. \Van Goggh's trees, after all, don't
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really look like trees.\ But who would suggest that he has not captured some-
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thing of the reality and truth of a tree?

So, St. Paul, is trying, in the letter to the Romans, to describe that
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which is not explainable by logic atone:\ trying to write reasonably about
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that which is essentially unreasonable - the death of Jesus Christ for un-
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is
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deserving men. | The name is "grace \ tne unlikely, wildl
irrational proposition that Almighty God, creator of all that is, loves us,
and has saved us eternally through the death of his son on the cross.
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One of the most refreshing things that has happened in our culture in
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years, in my estimation, has been the appearance of substantial theological
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themes within an area not at all associated with logic and reason: amely pop
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music. | The most fascinating of all was the appearance a®.the top of the
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charts of "Amazing Grace", an old revival nym.\ It isn't very sophisticated:
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it will not stand_up under much careful scrutiny: + ve _\uye
"Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
IT once was lost, but now am found

Was blind but now I see."

I'm not sure how to account for the popularity of tats Vereen that

it deals with the basic thrust of the Gospel, unadorned, unsophisticated,
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straightforward, |r not sure it 5 important to account for it, except as
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it might teach us that people may have become tired hearing about the death
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of God and the secular city and found themselves responding, not very ration-
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ally, to the ideas of divine love and eternal salvation. \ tn any_event
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"Amazing Grace" is not unlike our text this morning:|and the doctrine of
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Grace is, after all, the keynote of Christian Faith, Christian life, Christian
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Hope.
What do we mean by grace? \ wnat is the reality we are trying to express
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in the phrase "saved by grace"? | If what I have been saying has merit, then
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grace must be experienced as well as understood. \ so let me, again, use a story

rather than an explanation.

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A young girl survived an automobile accident that claimed the lives of

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her parents.| She was whisked away from the mourning community, the funeral

and burial \ She did not understand what had happened, but in the home of

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friends she began to suffer greatly from the separation and the loss of love
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and affection. | She became_quiet, withdrawn and gradually unresponsiveé*- to

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wer,
any stimulation from the ctetsen (natty, she was placed in an institution

where she withdrew totally from the world around her.
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One nurse was given the task of trying to help this desperately iil little

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giri.| but, how to proceed? | Coercion wouldn't work: \ that would increase the
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child's fear and push her further gnay..\ She could not ignore the child bee
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cause the little girl already saw the world as uncaring and rejecting | All
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she could do, really, was be present, with good will and determined respect
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and patient love.
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At first it didn't work The child screamed at her at times, at other
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times ignored her totally, at other times accused her of deceit. \ me nurse
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persisted, day after day, week after week until the child came to see that
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she did care. ONe day, hesitantly, tentatively, she reached out and took the
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nurse's hand. \ Eventually, a relationship emerged which led the child out of
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her isolation and back into a trusting rapport with the world.
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The little girl was saved_ from the prison of fear and separation.
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She was set free from the bondage to «#@\f in which she was trapped | She
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was given the gift of new life. \ But she did not and could not do it by her-
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self. | sxe needed strength beyond herself. \She needed someone with patient
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love to break through the vicious cycle of suffering, fear and withdrawal.

That someone was the nurse. \ The chitd was saved by grace {(‘wmerstee love
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that reaches into our lives from beyond our own resourees."")( From "Affirming

the Grace of God," Wayne K. Clymer, The Protestant Hour , 6/14/70

That is what St. Paul is talking about in our text this morning \ The
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"Amazing Grace" of God which we have seem in Jesus Christ and which we ex-

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perience in the company of his people, the Church. \in Christ God has done

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for us what that nurse did for the chi1a.\ Paul struggles for the images

powerful enough to express it: ("It may be", he observed, "that someone might

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dare to die for a good person.\ But God has shown us how much he loves us: it
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was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for a

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Well now, that assali{ts our rosie. Putting it is the contest of human
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relationships, we are sometimes made very uncomfortable when we receive an

extravegant and undeserved gift. \z may be more blessed to give, but under
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some circumstances it is far more difficult to receive. Uren of Rl. is a so
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The late Karl Barth put it this way:

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aperoe™ ~ we "We dislike hearing that we are saved by grace. We do not appreciate
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i. \sut » that God does not owe us anything, that we are \beun’d to live from
er wrt i his goodness alone, that we are teft with nothing but the great humility, the
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paea uw thankfulness of the child presented with many gifts." (Deliverance to the
Love
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6c* Saca¥ 7 i. Besides, we prefer to be logical, business-like about this natter.\ We're
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Bye > not at all comfortable with these claims of unconditional eternal love - nor
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yes? with these demands for ungonditional, total obedience \ We'd like.to negotiate.
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ae me We'll take a little love, a little strength, a little comfort when we need it:
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we and in return we'll be good, obey the rules and go to church on occasion.
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That's fair enough. \ That makes sense.
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But it doesn't work. \ Fon the good news of the Gospel is that God really
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does love us totally, whether we're good or not good, whether we go to Church
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or play golf on Sunday morning, whether we're liberal or sgonservative, rich
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or poor. | The Good news is that God's Grace is snazing; | thot it will not be

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reduced by our need to be reasonable and logical.
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If you were the guardian of the little girl in the story, you would

have regarded her healing as an event worth celebrating \ You would not be
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casual about it: | you would know that you could never repay the nurse -
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but you would be eternally grateful to her: | you would love ner\ she would
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be special to you, as long as you Lived. \ So Paul tries to _get it down in

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words that strain with emotion: | "we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

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through whom we have now peaeived our reconciliation."

Sometimes life takes a turn that simply defies our need to be resonable .
Sometimes things happen about which we can find nothing to cay. | If you have
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witnessed human birth you have experienced something which will not be des-

eribed in terms of biology alone.\ If you have witnessed human death, you

know that there is nothing logically sound which comes to mind to say on the

occasion. \ there are times in life when even the most sophisticated among us
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ean do nothing but give vent to the reality we are experienccing:\and so we
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weep, or embrace - or laugh the laugh of indescribable happiness.

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So it is with the gospel. \ 1m Jesus Christ, we @re to believe, God
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has loved us, made us free, given us new life, and the wildly happy gift of
eternal salvation.\ Tn Jesus Christ, we dare to pelieve, Ged has not simply
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inserted a new preposition into the academic arena, but has come to be
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among us as savior and friend and father.

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What a good thing to reclaim thet:\ ana embrace it and interupt our
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frantic need to be reasonable just long enough to laugh the laugh of a

prisoner set free or to wee the tears of a erippled man who can_walk, or to
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sing those most mmreasonable lyrics.
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Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound.

Amen

Father, we depend on you to give us faith. Help us, in the midst of our
need to be reasonable, to hear the good news, to believe the promise, and
+o live lives of happy gratitude, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

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