What Can I Do?

"What Can I Do?"

Romans 8:5-11

                There was once a dad who had a three-year-old son named Brandon.

                One day, Brandon sees his dad eating chocolate chip cookies in the living room and says to himself, Daddy loves chocolate chip cookies with milk. So I’m going to give Daddy a glass of milk.

                With that thought Brandon goes into the dining room and drags a chair from the dining room into the kitchen, leaving a trail of scratch marks on the floor.

                Brandon climbs up on the chair and hitches himself onto the counter to pull at the cabinet door. Wham! It smashes against the adjacent cabinet door, leaving a gash where the handle hit it.

                Brandon reaches for a glass, accidentally knocking two others off the shelf. Crash! Tinkle, tinkle! But Brandon doesn’t care. He’s thinking, I’m going to get Daddy some milk!

                Meanwhile, Brandon’s dad is watching all this, wondering if he should step in and save the rest of his kitchen. He decides, for the moment, to watch a little more as Brandon scrambles off the chair, dodging the pieces of broken glass, and heads for the refrigerator.

                Pulling violently on the refrigerator door, Brandon flings it wide open—and it stays open, of course. Brandon puts the glass on the floor—out of harm’s way, supposedly—and grabs, not the little half-gallon of milk, but the big gallon container that is full of milk. He rips open the top, pours it in the vicinity of the glass, and even manages to get some milk in the glass. The rest goes all over the floor.

                Finally done, Brandon puts the milk carton on the floor and picks up the glass yelling, “Daddy, I got something for you!” He runs into the living room, trips, and spills milk all over the place—the floor, the sofa, his dad.

                Brandon stands up and looks around. He sees broken glass, milk everywhere, cabinets open, his dad with milk from his eyebrows to his toes, and starts to cry. Through his tears, he looks up at his dad with that pained expression that says, “What are you going to do to me?”

                His dad only smiles. He doesn’t see a kid that just destroyed his house. Instead he sees a beautiful little boy whom he loves very much. It doesn’t matter what he’s done. Brandon’s dad stretches his arms out to hold his little boy tight and says, “This is my son!”

                Brandon's father could have reacted in one of two ways.  He could have scolded him and gotten really angry with him, sent him to his room and punished for what he had done.  If Brandon's father was, according to the Apostle Paul living in the flesh, then this would have most likely been his reaction to the situation.  To live in the flesh is an attitude, a mind-set shaped by and controlled by the values and standards of the world in rebellion against God and living apart from Him. 

                But he doesn't react that way.

                The father's reaction is more indicative of someone living in the Spirit of the Living God.  To live in the Spirit is to have life and peace.  Living in the Spirit empowers us to leave behind the life in the flesh and freely live in conformity in Christ.  To live in the Spirit is to see the world as it really is; to see the world's riches and power as entities that enslave us and trap us.  It is to see the world as God sees it.

                What can I do?  What can we do to live a life in the Spirit?  We can't save ourselves from the power of sin that pervades all humanity.  We can make a simple decision.  In the words of Andy Dufrane, from the movie The Shawshank Redemption, "I guess it comes down to a simple choice really: get busy living or get busy dying."  We get busy living once we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and become agents of God's grace in the world.  We are to be agents of God's grace in the world. 

                Brandon's father is an agent of God's grace.  He gave his son a great example of what God's grace looks like. 

                God makes each of us an agent of grace and has made our community here in Abington, Pennsylvania a community agent of grace.

                What does this mean to be an agent of grace?  When we profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Spirit of the Living God makes a home inside of us and we have the new life God promises us.  We are recipients of the grace of God.  We don't have to change in order to receive God's grace: we change as a result of experiencing God's grace.  God gives us grace, it changes what we ourselves cannot change, and we live a new life set free to live a life of grace.  We become agents of grace, sharing God's grace with all whom we encounter on a daily basis: at home with our families, at school with our friends, at work with our colleagues, at the soccer field, the ball park, the zoo, on SEPTA, while driving on the Schykill Expressway during rush hour and more. 

                That’s what the church is all about. We are agents of grace, God's grace.  It is a grace that gives voice to the needs of powerless individuals and communities both near and far.  This grace is a voice to powerless communities living in the valley of dry bones, without a hope for a better day ahead, so they can once again participate in public life; so they can once again take an active role in society building up communities, speaking against social injustice and stand up for the alien, the widow and the orphan.  In doing so they, too, become agents of God's grace themselves.

                What can I do?  We can accept the grace of God to live in the Spirit rather than in the flesh.  We can be an agent of God's grace in an unforgiving world; an agent of life and truth just because we are his and he loves us for who we are.