"So how do I get to your house?" Whether it is a friend coming over for the first time, or a repair person needing directions, chances are someone has asked what route they ought to take to get to your house. In some ways the answer ought to be relatively simple. You take street X, to Street Y where you take a left, then you pass the service station…and you get my point. What makes giving directions difficult however is that people begin their journeys in different locations, thus necessitating different sets of directions. In addition there are often multiple ways one could take in order to arrive at the same location. Even on-line resources such as MapQuest will offer several routes from one point to another. Each route will get you from point A to Point B…the only difference being the scenery along the way and the time it takes to arrive.
I offer this opening illustration in order to help us gain a sense of what our faith tradition means by "Means of Grace." Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. Please notice carefully that I did not say that the Means of Grace are different ways to be reconciled to God (or saved if you like). Reconciliation and salvation are gifts of God that come through the work of Jesus Christ. As the Gospel of John tells us, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Means of Grace then are the routes one can take in order to access the love and grace of God that comes to the world and comes to us through the work of Jesus. Just as there are numerous different roads and turns one can take to arrive at our homes, there are many different ways in which one can approach God in Christ and take hold of the life that is offered.
Some of you may ask why this is important. If God loves and saves us, why do we need to have Means of Grace through which we encounter the grace of God and through which the grace of God encounters us? Isn't it enough that we have faith? The short answer is no. The Christian life is not completed by having faith. The Christian life is composed of faith plus movement, or sanctification. Sanctification is essentially the process of becoming more "saintly", meaning become more and more fully human as demonstrated by Jesus. The Means of Grace are practices through which not only is our faith strengthened but we become more and more Christ-like. As most of us who have lived for a while understand, our faith and our sanctification are works in progress.
For those of you who grew up in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox traditions, the Means of Grace were generally limited to the sacraments; those rituals in and through which God's grace was dispensed to the people. In this way of understanding the Means of Grace, grace was seen as a spiritual commodity which could be given or withheld by the agents of the church. We can see this in the history of the church where it either offered or withheld the sacraments as a weapon to coerce individuals to toe the line. In other words the church said that if you do not follow our rules we will withhold the very grace of God from you. This view was challenged by the Reformers who believed that the Means of Grace, and thus grace itself, were open to all.
For those of you who grew up in more evangelical protestant traditions the Means of Grace were probably not limited to the sacraments (because your tradition might not have even had the concept of sacraments) but to preaching and prayer. These two practices were seen as the means by which we connect to God and God connects to us. As the reformers claimed, these means are accessible to all because all can read scripture and all can pray.
What we will explore over the next few weeks is the view that the Means of Grace, while including the sacraments, scripture and prayer are in fact more expansive than these alone; that in fact the Means of Grace are all around us thus offering us a myriad of opportunities to deepen our faith in and following of Jesus Christ.
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