What's Tony Thinking

For Those At the End of Their Rope

Here’s an amazing prayer that was written and offered by a lay person during Sunday worship at one of the congregations I served. I’d like to think my brilliant ministry had something to do with such a powerful expression of faith, but I’m pretty sure it owed way more to that person’s own wisdom as well as her time in recovery groups.

Then I want to connect her prayer to the epistle reading for Advent IV, this Sunday, December 22. It comes  from the Letter to the Hebrews, which I regard as super-important, but often overlooked, part of the New Testament.

Here’s that prayer.

God of ancient times and of this autumn morning, God of all times and places, help us to remember how to understand that mystery which is called “grace.”

Grace.

We have forgotten again that your everlasting grace is not something we can earn.

Though we know better, we have saved up the evidence of our good thoughts and good deeds like bright coins in a bank, waiting for the day when we could cash them in.

Our houses and our hands are clean. Our taxes are paid. We voted, we mulched, we cleaned the gutters, we composted and recycled and did our homework.

We volunteered, we called our mothers, we kept our promises and paid our bills; we read only good books, we pulled all the weeds, and stayed away from the TV. We ate sensibly, worked hard, went to bed on  time.

We drove politely. We were sensitive, and of course, when we failed at any of these, we added our guilt to the bank.

Like children, earnestly offering up handfuls of pennies, these are some of the coins we plan to exchange for your everlasting love. We hold them in our hands, demanding our reward, disappointed in the silence.

Didn’t we try hard enough?

Please. Some of us are out of strength for the fight. Our hands are bleeding from holding on so tightly to the ends of our rope. Others of us are feeling competent and in control today, but every one of us needs to know that grace is not the reward, not the end of our efforts.

Grace is the beginning, the astonishing gift that  asks only to be used.

Isn’t that wonderful . . . and honest.

And, part 2, what then of the epistle reading for this Sunday, December 22, the last Sunday of Advent? How does this prayer illuminate it or vice-versa?

It comes from The Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 10: 5 – 10 (though including verses 11 – 18 is a good idea). At first glance you’ll probably just think it’s a bunch of religious mumbo-jumbo. In reality, it is about the ways religion (what I must do to get on God’s good side) can become a burdensome substitute for the experience of grace (God has taken your, and our, side and will never leave it).

The author of Hebrews speaks of “sacrifices, burnt offerings and sin offerings.” In the poem above the analogy for such toasty offerings are all the many things you and I have done, must do, to put coins in the bank, e.g. “volunteered, called our mothers . . . read only good books, stayed away from TV, ate sensibly, worked hard, went to bed on time.”

Of all this relentless effort to get on God’s good side, the letter to the Hebrews says, “No more.” “Over.” “He abolishes the first” (the oughts, the shoulds, the musts a.k.a. “the law,” whether big “L” or little “l”), in order to establish the second, grace, mercy and a new creation. God’s doing. And then, “It by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (5: 9 – 10). Not by our ceaseless efforts (rope and ladder climbing), but by God’s will and self-giving. “Once for all.”

So should you find yourself, as one does every now and again, at the end of your rope, tied up in knots of resentment and confusion, consider letting go. Take a deep breath, let go and look around. For it is an established fact that at the end of your rope is the location of God’s office.

Or as it is put in Hebrews, “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’ . . . “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” (10: 12, 18) Come into God’s presence, “Come all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”