The Graciousness of God

When Rachel Held Evans died in May of last year, at the age of 37, it was not just her family, friends and acquaintances who were saddened. Thousands of people across the nation who’d never met her face to face also felt a deep sense of loss. The bond was forged because of what Evans had written about the Christian faith in her popular blog and books.

One of Evans’ most-talked-about pieces was an essay on how making church “cool” wasn’t going to win back millennials: “When I left church at age 29, full of doubt and disillusionment, I wasn’t looking for a better-produced Christianity. I was looking for a truer Christianity, a more authentic Christianity…I had questions about science and faith, biblical interpretation and theology. I felt lonely in my doubts. And, contrary to popular belief, the fog machines and light shows at those slick evangelical conferences didn’t make things better for me. They made the whole endeavor feel shallow, forced and fake. …

“What finally brought me back, after years of running away, wasn’t lattes or [pastors wearing] skinny jeans; it was the sacraments. Baptism, confession, communion, preaching the Word, anointing the sick — you know, those strange rituals and traditions Christians have been practicing for the past 2,000 years. The sacraments are what make the church relevant, no matter the culture or era. They don’t need to be repackaged or rebranded; they just need to be practiced, offered and explained in the context of a loving, authentic and inclusive community.”

Such was the power of her words that a writer for The Christian Century called her “the most influential mainline theologian of her generation, the C.S. Lewis of her time.” The Atlantic magazine dubbed her a “hero to Christian misfits.”

Katelyn Beaty, editor at large for Christianity Today, commented that Evans “wrote unflinchingly about how hard it is to trust God, to forgive church leaders, to wrestle with Scripture.” Another follower wrote, “She showed us how to hold multiple perspectives in tension. She made people feel safe to talk about doubt.”

Here’s where this summary about Evans meets today’s Epistle. In her book, Searching for Sunday, she says that she remained a Christian despite all her doubts and objections to traditional theology “because Christianity names and addresses sin. It acknowledges the reality that the evil we observe in the world is present in ourselves. It tells the truth about the human condition — that we are not okay.”

Which, of course, is what Paul says in different words in Romans 5: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. … But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

In Searching for Sunday, Evans spoke of the stark language in prayers of confession, which acknowledge plainly our sinfulness, and likened them to the kind of introductions that are typical at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings: “My name is Sam, and I’m an alcoholic.” In the way that those introductions equalize attendees at those meetings, Evans said, prayers of confession equalize worshipers in church.

These prayers, said Evans, “remind us that we all move through the world in the same state — broken and beloved — and that we’re all in need of healing and grace. They embolden us to confess to one another not only our sins, but also our fears, our doubts, our questions, our injuries and our pain. They give us permission to start telling one another the truth, and to believe that this strange way of living is the only way to set one another free.”

But, Evans noted, our churches sometimes feel more like country clubs than AA meetings, especially when we mumble through rote confessions and merely exchange pleasantries with fellow worshipers.

She said she suspects this habit stems from the same impulse that told her she should drop a few pounds before joining the Y (so as not to embarrass herself in front of fit people), “the same impulse,” Evans said, “that kept my mother from hiring a housekeeper because she felt compelled to clean the bathroom before the Merry Maids arrived (so as not to expose to the world the abomination that is a hair-clogged shower drain).”

“The truth is, we think church is for people living in the ‘after’ picture,” said Evans. “We think church is for the healthy, even though Jesus told us time and again he came to minister to the sick. We think church is for good people, not resurrected people.”

Stan Purdum writes about an experience he had at a country church he pastored years ago. He decided one Saturday in October to harvest the black walnuts that were falling to the ground, encased in tough green husks as large as baseballs, from a large tree behind the parsonage. He headed outside with two bushel-baskets, which he soon filled with the nuts.

Purdum knew the nuts themselves were deep inside these tough outer skins, and that they couldn’t begin to dry until the husks had been removed. He attacked the first husk. It was tougher than he expected, but eventually the sharp knife sliced into the skin and penetrated until it hit the nutshell. He then turned the husk over and hacked a similar cut into the other side, with the clear juice from the meat of the husk running onto his hands. He had hoped the outer skin could now be peeled off, but it resisted his tugging and twisting.

Finally, after five minutes of high-energy labor and some prying with a screwdriver, he shucked the outer layer off and revealed the nut inside. It still had strings of the outer flesh clinging to its surface. It took another half-hour to free the second nut, and at that point, he gave up.

When he washed up, however, he found that the husk juice had left dark stains on his hands that would not come off, not even with undiluted bleach.

In church the next morning, before starting the communion ritual, he told the congregation of the walnut adventure, and that despite appearances, his hands were clean. The whole congregation had a good chuckle at his expense, and nobody seemed to mind being served communion by a stained-hand pastor.

After the service, one of the older farmers said, “You know, there’s a way to get the nuts if you still want them. Just dump ’em in your driveway and leave ’em there for a few days, running over them with your car as you come and go. This will remove or loosen most of the husks. The rest will be loose enough to pry out manually — but wear gloves,” he added.

Fortunately, God doesn’t require that our hands be clean before welcoming us. The Gospel message tells us that God sent his Son not to condemn us, but to save us (John 3:16-17).

And so we come before God with the AA-type statement: “My name is John, and I’m a sinner.”

And God responds with, “Your name is John, and you are redeemed.”

That’s what Paul tells us in this morning’s Epistle: “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” He’s the servant upon whom, Isaiah said, “the iniquity of us all” — our moral garbage — is laid, and he carries it away.

Paul concludes: “But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (5:11).

Rachel Held Evans, despite her persistent doubts and knee-jerk cynicism, discovered the reason to stay with the church — “because Christianity names and addresses sin” — and directs us to the Lord, who cleanses and redeems us.

For God is good – and gracious.