HEIRS OF THE GRACE OF LIFE Arthur M. Romig

I Peter 3:7? Broad Street Presbyterian Church
November 19, L978 Columbus, Ohio
Text; "What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it,

why do you boast as if it were not a gift?"{1 Corinthians 4:7),

",..Ue ave children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of
God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him
in order that we may also be glorified with him." (Romans 8:16~17),

To me one of the beautiful phrases in Scripture, as well as one of the great
mysteries of life, is in the phrase used by Peter in writing to the early church:
"You are joint heirs of the grace of Life,” You will perhaps recognize it as a
phrase used in our marriage service,

A few yeats ago I was browsing in a bookstore and bought a book entitled
"The Last Caprice” by Robert 8. Menchin, It deals with wills, Peculiar wills,
vindictive wills, wills written on ail sorts of paper - a menu, a dance program, a
hospital chart, ete, Conditional wills tell of a Californian named John Quincy
Murray who died in 1929 and gave $3,000 to two granddaughters on condition they give
up bebbed hair, rouge and powder, jewelry, dances and movies and that they wear
their dresses “long at both ends", He left $1,000 to his grandson provided he would
forego dances and motion pictures and that he would never grow a moustache, A
Vienna banker made a large bequest to his nephew and stipulated he should ‘never, on
any occasion, read a newspaper, his favorite occupation,"

There have been many peculiar wills - such as to maintain cats - as well as many
wonderful things done through wills for those who become heirs to a fortune, One
interesting case I noted was in Oakland, 1922, where 203 persons entered the court
of Judge E,S,Robinson to claim a share of $350,000 left by a San Francisco night club
owner, Joseph Bisagno, Among the heirs were society women, Waitresses, matrons,
boctblacks, headwaiters, actresses, hat check girls, judges, attorneys, physicians,
businessmen, city officials, cafe owners, bartenders; all "friends who had been kind
to me!

One of the more interesting cases was that of a New York tailor who died in
1880, He left instructions in his wilk something like this: "I own 7L pairs of
trousers and I strictly enjoin my executors to hold a public sale at which these
shall be sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds distributed to the poor of
the city. I desire that these garments shall in no way be examined or meddled with
but be disposed of as they are found at the time of my death; and no purchaser te buy
more than one pair," The sale was held and the 71 pairs of trousers were sold to 71
different purchasers, As cach purchaser examined his purchase he had to cut the
thread to open cic pockecs which were sewed up and there he found a packet contain-
ing $1,000 in bank notes,

So we humans do whimisical things to our heirs and with the possessions over
which we have control,

The Scriptures tell us and we know from our experience that we are all heirs in
a very real sense, Heirs of One who has given to us the very best things of life
and life itself, The most precious thing we have indeed is Life, And how did we
secure this? Certainly not by the whims of an arbitrary giver who wishes to have
some fun with a helpless human, Certainly, also, not because of our deserts, How

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did I earn or merit a sound body and a clear mind? If you doube the clarity of my
mind I can just as easily put the question in the second person and ask how did you
earn your clear mind? Tt was given you at birth, It has developed, to be sure, as
you have used it through the years; and the more you use it the better it becomes,
But the gift of body and mind was truly a gift and not a reward for merit, So Paul
asks the Corinthians ''What have you that you did not receive? If then you received
it why do you boast as if it were not a sift?" And to the Romans Paul writes: ‘Je
are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs
with Christ,"

But Peter in his epistle adds just another factor, We are “joint heirs", LI
do not stand alone as an heir, I stand with others and jointly share the inheritance.

On this Thanksgiving Sunday I am grateful that I have the companionship of
others, For years I have been sustained by loved ones - Father, Mother, Brothers,
Sister, Wife, Children, Grandchildren, What would life be without them? Even if I
owned the whole of the inheritance, and all the wealth of the world, it would mean
nothing without being able to share it, Among my privileges is to visit the elderly
and the sick, There is hardly anything move difficult for me to bear than to see
a person who seems to be all alone and without friends, On the other hand, thouch
aged and weak with years I have seen great joy in the eyes of one who spoke of a
good friend, or of the life partner through many years,

We can be tu.ankful we are not the sole heirs of life with all its joys if we
had no one to enjoy them with us; such joys would only be sorrow and the taste of
them bitter in the end,

I found my spirit lifted some time ago when I visited with a woman 80 or more
years old, confined to bed as sne was, She spoke of her good life, She spoke of
her family companionship, She praised God for the fullness of her life even in her
weakness, There was no grumbling, no complaining, no feeling of being misused
because she was sick, She understood something of having inherited a life she had
not earned,

What an inharitance you and I have! The culture of the ages - Beauty of Greece,
Wisdom of the Sages, Order of the Romans, Democracy for tho English, We are only
just beginning to appreciate the patience of the Orient, sensitivity of the Asian,
indian, the strength and classic grace of the Chinese, the simplicity of Japanese
art, These are all ours, But added to them is the wealth of the New World, and the
inventiveness of the American people, Wealthier than most kings, spoiled by
abundance it is easy te forset our dependence upon others, We are joint heirs for
the good things cf life,

But life is one of race, It is undeserved, We in America ought to understand
this better than anyone else. When we read the news and saw pictures of Viet Nam,

I recalled our trip through that country, true in most cf the Orient, ‘Two meals a
day ~ and no snacks is the regular thing, Regularly beggars vould go through the
garbage dumps for little scraps, We talk of hunger until we are tired of hearing
that haif the world goes to bed hungry, But no hunger is very important until it is
your own hunger, For months on end during the winter and spring the farmers of

China would eat nothing but kafir corn (we feed it to hogs and not very good feed

at that), a few salted turnips and occasionally some sweet potatees, Only on special
occasions - holidays, birthdays, weddings, funerals ~ might there be some pork or
mufton,

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I have seen coolies of Southwest China carrying out goods over the ruts, wince
With pain and take out their opium pipes for a smoke at the rest stop, just to stop
the pain of ulcers, or deep seated disease, I have been approacued by beggars - one
after another along a stretch of road leading to a market or temple - one every fers
feet. I have had the coolies at a railroad station fight to pick up my bags in
order to carn a few pennies, Yes, I have seen people dying of hunger and pain, for
two years during the Sino-Japanese War I administered relief, food kitchens, road
building sewing projects to keep a few thousand out of the millions from starving. I
have shared the one towel with twenty others before a meal when half the people had
sore eyes, trachoma perhaps, because there was not enough money to buy another
towel, As the guest from America I was to be treated with praper courtesy and
allowed to use the towel first, I have seen the strength and steicism with which
those patient people saw their houses bombed and cities burned,

Then I returned to this bountiful land - rich by comparison even in war time,
I did not deserve the plenty, nearly as much as those who had worked so long and
hard for a few bites of bread, but I enjoyed and continue to enjoy the fullness of
our country, Was the gold in the hills placed there by our labors? Was the oil of
Texas and Alaska stored there by man? Was the fertility of our wonderful prairies
a result of our goodness or effort? Uere the gigantic redwoods and the forests from
Maine to Washington the result of my foresight? Does the fact that I can eat turkey
today and steak tomorrow if I want to make me better than Mr, and Mrs, Kung of
Terghsien where I grew up, descendants of the great Confucius, whe could have only
a bowl of noodles and a few mouthfuls of pork on their thanksgiving day?

Until we .ave lived with scarcity, the kind that brings death by starvation,
we don't quite understand the grace of life - the undeserved and unearned gifts of
God, How grateful I am for a warm house, I have Spent months in Chinese homes
where ice was forming on the pond outside and ice was also forming in the wash
basin inside the house, How grateful I would be when I returned home to find a fire
in the one black iron stove in the living room though all the rest of the house
remained cold,

Perhaps I am privileged above most of you, I have lived with those who had so
little, yet were strong and good; and therefore, I believe I understand something
of the fullness of life that we enjoy. We are heirs of the grace of Ehe full life,
But even more we are heirs of the Life in God,

You see I have also lived in a Chinese village of about 500 people where there
were only about a dozen who could read and write. Superstition controlled their
lives, Ona tree near the entrance of the village were hung egpshells, feathers,
the skin of an animal, Lictie paper streamers, and a multitude of other worthless
objects just to keep the uvil spirits avay, I have seen the streams of people goine
to the Taoist Temple on a feast day, there to throw their few coins at the foot of
the idols, in worship to appease their displeasure or to ask a favor, I have seen
the priests making their incantations over the sick, the dying, the blind, the
deformed, burning incense before the Kuchean god or god of wealth, EI have seen the
charms children wore to drive off the spirits, but the same children diseased and
deformed, The demented left to be the laughing stock of the town and to die
neglected, Unwanted baby girls Left on our door step were fortunate, They would
be cared for, Others were left exposed to die on the common graveyard outside
the eity,

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We are children of God and we know ict. But we are no more God's children
_~ than are those of the town of Yuankiang who didn't know it and were bound by
~ their superstitions and ignorance, The Grace of life - not earned by me - but

enjoyed by me!

God forgive if I forget that God himself has suffered that I might be free,
"Heirs of the grace of life,’ And I give thanks, though my thanks will not be
complete until I see God's children everywvnere enjoy the fullness of God's gifts
and know that they also are "joint heirs of the grace of life,"

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