The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
A man from Sarasota took an extensive trip, including stops in Rome and Canterbury. When he arrived in Rome, he visited a small, little-known church. A parishioner graciously showed him around, pointing out all of the objects of art and other items of interest. Off in one corner was a gold telephone. His tour guide said, “That phone connects you to God. The call costs $200 a minute.” “Well, I guess that’s reasonable,” the man thought.
After leaving Rome he eventually made his way to Canterbury, and once again found himself in a little-known church. And, once again, off in a corner, was a gold telephone. The tour guide said, “That phone connects you to God. The call costs $100 a minute.” “That’s not bad at all,” the man thought, “to talk to God.”
After his trip he returned to Sarasota. One day he was here in Redeemer and happened to notice a gold telephone. He said to me, “Father, may I ask you about that gold telephone?” “Why, certainly,” I said. “That phone connects you to God. And for only 25 cents. It’s a local call.”
The incarnation, the coming of God in the flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, is a local call. Almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth, the immortal, invisible, transcendent God loves us so much that he became a human being in Jesus. And ever since that incarnation, after he ascended to the Father, the Holy Spirit has been given to all who are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The prophet Joel foretold the coming of God’s Spirit: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my Spirit.”
That prophecy has been fulfilled in Christ, and through Christ God has become near to us, nearer to us even than a local call.
But that is where the analogy to my fanciful story ends. It is not an inexpensive call! If we want God to come into our lives; if we want him to be our strength and comfort; if we want him to be our guide, we must be willing to trust him with every aspect of our lives. We must allow him to be God in our relationships with our spouses and our children, in our business, in how we choose to speak, in what we do with our money. God does not want to be God for us just in our emotions for an hour once a week. If that is all we give to him, then we should not be surprised when our faith is not strong enough to carry us through the chances of changes of this life.
We live in a time when people don’t want to hear that message. Give me a god who loves me without expecting anything in return. Give me a religion that is all resurrection and no crucifixion, all forgiveness and no confession; a religion that makes me feel good all the time, even when I clearly follow the devices and desires of my own heart rather than the will of God. Give me a god who will do exactly what I want, affirm exactly what I believe, with no expectations of me. In other words, give me a god made in my own image.
Diettrich Bonhoeffer calls what I have been talking about “cheap grace.” He says: “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.”
But that is not the faith into which we were baptized, into which God continually calls us. It is a costly grace that requires renunciation of Satan and of all the forces of evil. It requires putting all of our trust in God and following Christ as Lord. Again, Bonhoeffer states that such grace is costly because “it costs a person his life and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life…Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.”
When you come right down to it, we all want cheap grace. It isn’t easy or fun or comfortable to put God first in our lives. But that is exactly what we have to do if God is going to be able to work his grace in us to the extent that he wants.
God is nearer to us than a local call; the meaning that we want for our lives and for which we yearn deeply, is within our grasp; but if we are to have that meaning, if God is going to do his work in us, it is very costly—it costs us our lives given freely to him, that he might give us true life in return.
Six persons are going to be baptized this morning, four of whom are from our Hispanic congregation. It’s wonderful that at these times of baptism the fullness of our parish family can be more clearly seen. May all of these children come to know what it means to give their lives fully to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Que todos estos ninos aprenden en sus vidas para seguir seriamente La Vida de Christo en sus vidas.
Sermon preached by The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
The Baptism of our Lord
10 January 2016