Give us grace

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

The Book of Common Prayer, p. 215

This is the collect appointed for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, which is Sunday, January 26, 2020. It strikes me in a certain way how the author uses of the word “grace” in this collect.

Grace, according to the catechism within the Book of Common Prayer, is “God’s favor toward us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.”

If you replace the word “favor” with “love,” and it then is easier for our 2020 ears to process this concept.

I remember first learning about grace while in Sunday School in the thoroughly-rural Evangelical Lutheran church where I spent most of my Sunday mornings, attending Sunday School and participating in worship.  Most Wednesday evenings I was there to take part in various choir rehearsals. Without going through too many pages of my therapists’ notes, I will say that, as I child, I never thought I met the standards of my peers in most regards, including appearance, athleticism, masculinity, musicianship, to name just a few.  And if there was the chance that I didn’t hear my peers opinions of me the first time, then they were very quick to remind me.  These judgments came at different times and places, and happened at home, school and at church, unfortunately. So it would have been pretty hard to not get their point.

My younger self, who had become a believer of what my peers said, had gotten used to the idea that I didn’t really deserve love, compliments or even acts of kindness.  

So when I learned about this promise of grace where the love of God comes to someone like me, a pinpoint of hope began to shine in my life.  No matter how much I believed those voices.

I like to think that the people who voiced their judgments those years ago have truly grown up, matured, perhaps even ventured outside of the county, continuing on their personal evolution.  In this scenario they are more open-minded, perhaps even discovering that some are more like me than they had realized.

But, somehow, sometimes, I can still hear those voices.  And that pinpoint of hope can start to waver.  The trick, I’ve found, is not believing them.

I guess the moral of this little bit of writing is that we must remember that the love of God is a pretty powerful thing. We are reminded that just by being loved so deeply and freely by our God, we are recreated or reborn, in some way, into a renewed person.  With each perceived imperfection, we are loved again.  

The catechism uses the words “enlightens our minds, stirs our souls, and strengthens our wills.” I can’t think of a time in my life where this isn’t just what my spirit ordered!

-Brian