Quite often in the Church we talk about grace. For the longest time I did not really understand what we meant. While people assured me that I was receiving it, I did not “get it”—at least in my head. Perhaps this is not surprising grace is a tough concept for us to comprehend. To our human brains we may even think grace is irrational, that it does not make sense. For grace is that love that God has for me, for you, and for everyone else—and that love has no condition attached to it, no string tied onto it, and no rider that stipulates some quid pro quo.
How can it be that God—the source of all creation—wants to love me no matter what? How can that even be possible? I mean I see all the times I mess up, but God still says, “I love you the same.” God says this to you and to all. This does not compute in my feeble mind. While most of my adult life and certainly my life since pursuing ordained ministry has been spent trying to understand this un-understandable gift from God, it continually slides through my fingers like grains of sand. But, the real question I keep bumping up against as it pertains to grace is “Do I have to understand grace to participate in it?” I mean do I have to get it with my mind to receive it and share it? Today, I think we have some help in answering this question.
As you probably already know, today is the Feast Day of Willibrord. Okay, I’m just kidding only Church nerds knew that today we celebrate this bishop who lived in the 7th and 8th centuries. Willibrord’s life and ministry though serve as a helpful analogy for comprehending a little bit better this concept of grace. What the Church best remembers about this Anglo-Saxon bishop focuses around his missionary work to some pagan people in Holland near Frisia in a place called Utrecht (you-‘trect). While this in and of itself is important work, what is helpful for us in our analogy for grace needs a bit larger context.
A hundred years before Bishop Willibrord made his way to the Netherlands the Anglo-Saxon people themselves were first hearing the Good News of Christ Jesus. This was the first time they would have known the gospel, experienced the sacraments, or joined in Christian fellowship. In some ways these gifts the Church offered the Anglo-Saxons are like the gift of grace that God offers to all. While grace remains beautiful, significant, and profound as it is received, what stands out even more about grace is how powerful it becomes when it is shared. In other words, the unconditional love of God is best experienced when it is both received and shared. Just like, the Anglo-Saxon people discovered that the best way to experience Christianity was not only to accept it from Romans, Celtics, and other continental Christians, but also to go and share it with their neighbors along the North Sea.
Grace does not make sense in our heads. However, when we experience the unconditional love of God from neighbors, friends, and family we may catch glimpses of it enough to “get it” in our hearts. Even more though we understand it by passing along unmerited love to those whom we meet. Like the Anglo-Saxon Church who received the Good News of Christ Jesus and then shared it readily through Willibrord the bishop, may we first obtain God’s love and then freely share it with family, friends, and neighbors!
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