Since God first reached out to humankind, we have tried to describe what our experience of the Divine is like. Our best word to describe how God deals with us creatures is Grace – the undeserved attention and love that God shows to us. Different churches have described Grace in different ways. Over the course of the last two Sundays, we’ve considered how the Methodist or Wesleyan tradition describes the way God’s grace works in our lives. At the start, we considered what it means that we are loved by a God Who finds something worth redeeming in every person, and Who reaches out to each of us even before we know what this means. We Methodists have called this Prevenient Grace. I appealed to the fairly rustic image of automobile restoration, making the claim that before God every one of us is a project car in need of major work, but by prevenient grace our Creator finds the potential behind our dents and rust spots.

Last Sunday, we said that God’s power to redeem us continues with what we call justifying grace – that by opening our hearts to the power of Jesus Christ to save, we are placed in right relationship with our Maker. We said that this joyful experience, having our sins forgiven by the merits of a sinless Savior, could be described as total restoration – like a classic car that has been utterly rebuilt, somehow made better than new by the vision and work of a master Craftsman.

Today we look at the third way that we in the Methodist tradition speak of God’s grace at work in our lives – and you might say that this is the grace we receive that “goes the distance.” You see, John Wesley believed that the salvation experienced in justification was not in itself the end of the Christian journey – no, it was just the doorway, the beginning of a life shaped by continual discovery of God’s amazing grace. We Methodists claim we are not only saved from something (the burden of sin), but we are also saved for something (lives that glorify God by growing in grace). God saves us, restores us to lead lives that move from grace to grace, increasing in the knowledge and love of Christ, all the while becoming people who reflect better and better the love that Christ has placed in our hearts. We call this on-going experience of the grace that follows salvation “sanctifying grace,” or sustaining grace.

In this way, John Wesley spoke of the Christian life as a continual pilgrimage – a journey. God is never done with us as long as there’s room in our hearts to love more like Jesus loved. Early Methodists talked about holiness of heart and life, meaning a full integration, over time, of the change that God works within our hearts with our conduct in the world. Wesley himself called this process of change, this lifetime journey toward holiness, moving on to perfection in love. Perhaps the most controversial and misunderstood of Methodist beliefs, perfection in love doesn’t mean that a person by his or her steady effort can become perfect, without sin or flaws. Not at all. By going on to perfection in love, John simply meant that God is never done with us, always at work within us, enabling us to better to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and our neighbors as ourselves. This is the goal of Christian life.

To that end, John and those around him at Oxford embarked on disciplined lives that led toward freedom, meaning and joy. Worshipping, reading the Bible, giving generously to the poor, working to improve the lives of those in need, and meeting with others to find encouragement in the doing of these pursuits – these things didn’t seem like religious duty or a burden to these men. To the contrary, such pursuits seemed liberating, helping them move on toward living life at its best. From this daily, disciplined living came our nickname, Methodists, because Wesley’s first converts seemed so methodical in their efforts to enable Sanctifying Grace to work within us.

To me, this is the greatest strength of our Methodist tradition: the belief that we are on a shared journey together, that being saved by grace is only the beginning, not the end, and that we were saved for a purpose – to let our light shine before others, that they might see our good works, and give the glory to Whom it belongs – to our Father in heaven. About this, Methodist bishop Reuben Job once wrote:
“with Christ dwelling within, there [can] be no other road to follow than the road to perfection, the road to God. [As Galatians 2:20 says] ‘it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.’ Once self has been moved from the center of life and that center is filled with Christ, Christian perfection does come within reach. Not because of our goodness, efforts, or merit, but because Christ dwelling within us provides both direction and power to travel this high road of loving God and neighbor. […] This is the road to perfection. It is a road all are called to travel, and none is called to travel it alone. The thought of perfection, apart from the intervention of God in our lives, is at best terrifying. But with Christ dwelling within, giving direction, courage, and strength, the journey becomes not only bearable, but enormously challenging and deeply rewarding” [Reuben Job, A Wesleyan Spiritual Reader (Abingdon Press, 1998), p.207].
For my part, I like to say that ours is a faith in the road and for the road.

Because of the way God works to sanctify us, to make us vessels of holiness for those around us, we might well ask: how are we doing, along life’s way? Are we now more useful to God, holier examples who point others to Christ, than we were five years ago? If not, why not? Do we not believe that God not only has the power to transform our hearts to be more Christ-like, but also has the Will to do so? God can and will enable us to claim love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, generosity and self-control as fruits of Christian living. God will enable us, if we are in management, to treat those below us with dignity and Christ-like kindness, for that is how our Lord treated those who were subject to his authority. If we are not over others, we will seek to treat those who serve us justly and humbly. We will take a cool drink to those who cut our grass, or tip generously those who clean our hotel room or who wait on us at table, because we know it is hard to support a family on $15,000 a year (and more people are doing it all the time!). We will walk justly, remembering that the plight of those who have lost their job, have lost their insurance, or who have lost (or are at risk of losing) their homes matter to God, and so they matter to us. We will walk justly and love mercy.

This way of salvation will lead us away from the dry, dessicating draft of Sunday religion, by which we gather to congratulate ourselves on being saved, as if this were all put here for us. In fact, the Church exists for others the way a fire exists for burning! Generations before us built St. Mark’s not so we could come here to rest and soak in the Good News – they laid the bones of a Body we must build up to reach those whom God has yet to awaken. We have building yet to do, sisters and brothers, for generations not yet reborn!

Or, to put this in bold, automotive terms, the Lord does not touch our lives with saving grace to turn us into “Trailer Queens.” Now, you may not know what a Trailer Queen is. I recently have begun fellowshipping with a close-knit community known as The Roanoke Valley Mopar Association. In doing so, I have learned a great deal – including the proper name for the vehicles that come to shows hidden away in their very own RVs. Trailer Queen is the mildly derogatory term used to describe an immaculate show piece that is not subjected to the indignity of driving, oh no, but instead is rolled out of its trailer, gleaming in the sunlight, its proud owner brushing a few flecks of dust from its fenders before hastily placing signs around it saying something like “this car protected by Smith and Wesson. Back away!”

On the other end of the spectrum is the modest, matter-of-fact car called the Daily Driver. You’ll find them in every Kroger parking lot, as well as in the lot out in front of this church. In their inner-most recesses, some have Cheerios; others have a dent where a door was thought to be closed, but wasn’t. These are road cars, you see, made to be driven. Much like the little English roadster outside in the Narthex, belonging to veteran trail hiker Homer Witcher, we Christians were made for the road, intended to be daily drivers by the One who created us. We don’t come here to show off our polish – we come to seek the company of others like us, whom God is sending out along the lanes and byways where his children live.

Doing justice, practicing love, pointing others to the source of all that brings meaning and purpose to life – you can only do this on the road. This is what we were created to do, called to do, and knit together as a community to do. You may feel that you are ready to discover more of what God has in store for you, out on the road. I hope so. If this is so, let us pray:

Lord, we know our lives didn’t just happen. We were made by One who loves us, and so we were made to live joyfully. That we often can’t manage to find joy in our lives may say something about who we’ve been living for, who we’ve been trying to please. Our selves are so hard to please.
But you offer us another way – a way that seeks justice and loves mercy. The way of the one who submitted himself to others, so that he might free them, and free us all, from the desire to seek the advantage, to work the angles, and to grab what we can when the getting's good. We know there’s a better way for us, Lord. And its name is Grace.
So let your grace rain down on us, we show cars and rust buckets, family haulers and Sunday drivers. Revive us, sanctify us, and place before us the road that leads to You. And that way, not only will the destination bring us joy, but so will every mile we travel to reach You.
In the name of the one who is our Saving Grace, Amen.