Finding Paco: Rediscovering a Gospel Grace

¹⁶ Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. ¹⁸ Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. ¹⁹ They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.²⁰ Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: ²¹ “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? ²² These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. ²³ Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. ~ Colossians 2:16-23

Grace. I can’t think of a word more important to Paul, so difficult for the church, so much in need in our world, and so important for this sermon.Paul’s discussion here in our text connects to the wider concerns that he has been spelling out for the church in Colossae. Paul worries about them losing the gospel - being taken captive by human traditions and philosophy. He wants to remind them what it means to be “in Christ” and warn them about the dangerous “elemental spiritual forces of the world” which seek to take them captive.

You may not know that from nursery school onward we are constantly discipled in the elemental spiritual forces of ungrace. Its teachers indoctrinate us regularly. They say: “The early bird gets the worm.” “No pain, no gain.” “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” “You do the crime do the time.” “What goes around comes around.” “Get what you pay for.” “Fair is fair.” These aren’t all bad or even untrue but Paul reminds us that they are shadows (vs. 17) which can quickly become toxic to a life of grace.

The sad truth is that most could say such things in church without any discomfort at all – even about the Christian life. Can you imagine Jesus saying any of these things? Grace may be the force by which God has chosen to change the world through Christ but so many of us are more apt believe these notions of hard work and self-sufficiency which make no sense of the gospel and the reality of grace.

A short story by Ernest Hemingway reveals the desperation for a different reality of grace. A Spanish father decides to reconcile with his son who had run away to Madrid to become a bull-fighter – to prove is worth – leading to a big family fight. The father takes out an ad in the local newspaper which says: “Paco meet me at Hotel Montana noon Tuesday all is forgiven. Love, Papa.” Paco is a common name in Spain, and when the father goes to the square he finds eight hundred young men waiting for their fathers.

If we were honest 800 is just a fraction of the amount of people who long to come home, long to find a father who loves them and who longs for them to return. And yet friends, we must wrestle with a terrible reality. That message is not what people connect to the church. What would happen if we put out an ad that said: “Meet us at Montecito Covenant,10 am Sunday all is forgiven. Love, the Church.” I wonder if anyone would respond to that? Would they believe us? Well, that’s what Paul wants to talk to the church about in order to remind us that our problem is not first and foremost a moral problem but the problem of ungrace.

What does “ungrace” look like? Listen to Paul’s description from Colossians 2.

It’s religious, judgmental, seeks to disqualify others. It’s puffed up, proud, filled with don’ts, commands and regulations. It appears wise and uses a lot of words with “self-” attached (there are approximately 314 words in English), like self-sufficient, self-help, self-imposed, and self-improvement. Yet, with no real change. Unfortunately, more often than not, the purveyors of such ungrace are those who want to be good, do the right thing, go to church, and live upstanding lives. They come to worship, talk the talk but you sometimes can hear the rattle of ungrace in their voice – it sounds very spiritual but it’s often filled with “I”s. Friends, it sounds like pride, Paul tells us in vs. 18.

Mark Twain described such religious people as “good in the worst sense of the word.”

Philip Yancey recounts a story told by a friend of his riding a bus to work. He overhears a conversation between a young woman and her friend across the aisle. The woman was reading Scott Peck’s best-seller, The Road Less Traveled.

What are you reading? Her friend asked.

A book someone gave me who said it changed her life.

Oh, yeah? What’s it about?

I’m not sure. Some sort of guide to life. I haven’t gotten very far yet. She began flipping through the book. Here are the chapter titles: Discipline, Love, Grace, . . .

What’s grace? He asked.

I don’t know, she said. I haven’t gotten to Grace yet.

Friends, in the gospel there is no such thing as “grace yet.” That’s Paul’s whole point in this passage: grace is first and finished.

All of Paul’s language in Colossians about being “in Christ” “rooted . . . built up . . . strengthened . . . buried . . . raised . . . made alive . . .” are generally written in these delightful past perfect participles. Past perfect participles stress the state brought about by an action completed in the past. Friends, the past perfect participle is the grammar of grace. It means that you need not strive for a particular way of being right before God in the present through rituals, hard work, long prayers but rather that your gracious standing before God is already a finished action and that finished action is Christ having come, dying on the cross and rising again. This “reality” Paul declares is “found in Christ,” vs. 17. The reality of our lives, Paul is saying, is that what is true of Jesus is true of you. This reality Paul argues in vs. 19 is that we grow as God grows us. And that despite how it feels in the present – this whole thing rests upon what God has done in the past.

Grace, in other words, is more than a salvation word. Grace is the recognition that daily faith and your spiritual life are not primarily about what you do for yourself but what is done to you and for you. Grace is God in Christ saying “yes” to you. Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:19-20, “in him it is always ‘Yes.’ For in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’ For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen,’ to the glory of God.”

For many, romantic love is the closest experience of such grace – of such a yes. When we enter into such a relationship we are committing ourselves to a love apart from circumstance. It’s the acknowledgement that someone at last feels that I am desirable, attractive, worthy even when I don’t necessarily act appropriately. Someone finally says, “yes” to me.

You see Paul is arguing that Christianity is a “yes” religion. It is the grace soaked reality that God through Jesus Christ says “yes” to us. When I perform a wedding I don’t say to the groom, “Now Rob, you promise that you won’t look at other women. You promise not to think only of yourself. If so, say, “I won’t.” No, in a wedding, as in faith, the best of a life in Christ is with a full-throated “yes” not a “no.” A hearty “I do” rather than an “I don’t.” And what you say “yes” to will determine everything. Your “yes” will handle your “no.” That’s why we don’t have to concern ourselves primarily with the “don’ts.” What you say yes to will determine what get’s you up in the morning, how you spend your money and time, etc.

But it’s not simply your acceptance that God’s gracious “yes” covers. It is also your transformation. Our hard work is submitting to and believing the “yes” of grace. It’s the recognition that any change I experience is as gracious as when I first came to faith.

When I got married to my wife it was not a mutually beneficial relationship. I had no job, my funding had run out from UCSB, and I was mired in student loan debt with only a few dollars to my name. She, on the other hand, had a beautiful house (almost paid off), a good job, and no debt. I struggled to accept this. I remember hearing the pastor say at our wedding, “in poverty and in wealth” and I chuckled. Poverty was all that I brought. After we were married I made sure to be a good husband - to ask if I could use anything that was hers – the car, the microwave, the couch, even the restroom. I worked really hard to let her know that I was worthy of all of this and that I would be very careful with all that was hers. No, I’m just kidding. That would be ridiculous, right? What was hers had become mine. I did, however, try to earn her love and when I did I discovered that I became more neurotic, self-absorbed, incapable of enjoying all the benefits of her love. Focusing on my own contribution rather than on her became toxic. It simply didn’t work. It doesn’t work in marriage and it sure doesn’t work with God. What does work?

Confession of sin is an act of grace. We are declaring what we have done in light of what God has done for us. Bonhoeffoer wrote: “It reminds us that we are allowed to be sinners” even as we receive God’s love. It helps us declare that we are sinners in this place. It enables us to say, “I can’t . . .”

This meal is grace. A definition of a sacrament is an outward sign of inward reality. You didn’t bake this bread, grow these grapes. You don’t even serve yourself. And what is this meal – we remember that we are changed, admitted, grown, by what has already happened. Christ crucified and risen again.