Spr1210
Matthew 5:1-16
06/24/12
“This Far By Grace”
Those of you over a certain age who are fiction
readers, or fans of PBS’ Masterpiece Theater, will
know the novel Brideshead Revisited. It tells of an
aristocratic British Roman Catholic family from
the 1920s to the 1940s. You could say it was
about the decline of the aristocracy, or the follies
of the rich, but author Evelyn Waugh, a devout
Catholic, was very clear: “It deals with the
operation of Grace, that is to say, the unmerited and
unilateral act of love by which God continually calls
souls to himself.” Every major character
eventually finds grace; some are converted, all
in very diverse ways.
Grace is undeserved favor. It is at the root of God’s
dealings with his errant people; his enduring
covenant-love, mercy, forgiveness,
reconciliation, redemption. We are who we are
and what we are only by grace. Like Waugh, I
want to trace the workings of grace in the lives
of two people. Call it, if you will, a testimony to
God’s gracious leading.
Marian and I grew up in two villages 5 miles
apart on the broad estuary that leads into the
port city of Southampton on the south coast of
England. Her village was mostly rural, at the
heart of England’s strawberry-growing country.
Mine was already in the 1950s more a suburb of
the city, our farms were almost gone, and people
took the bus to work. Marian was raised in the
Plymouth Brethren, a group founded by
Dispensationalist leader J. Nelson Darby in the
mid-1800s. They were and are strict
fundamentalist Dispensationalists, without
clergy, taught and ruled by male elders. Women
keep silent and always wear hats! By the time
she was 10, Marian knew the Bible backwards
and won awards for Scripture Memorization.
I was raised in the Church of England, which is
Anglican (here that’s Episcopalian). I sang in the
choir in our parish church as my father and
grandfather had done before me; I went to
Sunday School, joined the youth group, but in
my early teens (when I could no longer sing
soprano) drifted away. Five years later, I met
and fell in love with Marian. Her love was the
first of God’s evident graces on my life; the
second was also life-changing! My affection for
her drew me to her youth rallies and services,
and eventually to an evangelistic crusade in a
big tent. For the first time, abstract Anglican
language about “Christ the Savior of the world”
was translated for me by preachers who said “Is
Jesus your Savior?” “Do you know the Lord?” I
had never thought the Christian Gospel had
anything to do with me. Now I began to see
what “personal faith” meant. God’s grace had
touched me, very unexpectedly.
I went off to college in London, and by God’s
grace one day walked into a beautiful church
called All Souls. It’s Rector then was John Stott,
who I would discover was one of the great
evangelical preachers and evangelical statesmen
of his generation. (The other was Martyn LloydJones, whose Welsh passion and intellect deeply
moved me, but I was not yet ready to become a
Congregationalist). In Stott I discovered the
existence of Evangelical Anglicanism, learned
that intelligent and cultured ministers could
teach the Bible and not “the rules.” Through
college years, John Stott lit a fire for me that
burns to this day. It was sheer grace that I
walked unknowingly into All Souls that Sunday
evening 50 years ago.
Marian and I married and settled in south
London while I was in graduate school, and we
had to find a church we could both live with.
Through her uncle we were introduced to the
Baptists – in Britain, Reformed in theology,
respectable in behavior, and a thriving church
for the first time gave me a sniff of what a church
community could be.
But it was time to find a job in academia, and the
best offer came from the university in Aarhus,
Denmark’s second largest city. We moved there
in 1969; it was a sweet and comfortable place to
live; we bought our first house and our Danish
furniture, which still looks good 40 years later.
What we did not realize was that spiritually, we
were going into the desert. In a city of ¼ million,
there was one small Baptist church. A great
Lutheran Cathedral in the city center attracted
more tourists than worshippers. Denmark was
already far into the “post-Christian” era that has
swept over all of Europe, Canada, Australia.
So we came to America. In 1973 I joined a
research team in Boston, and would spend
almost 25 years in biomedical research at
Brandeis University. During our first few
months here, Marian went to Newfoundland to
care for her sick sister, and met a group of
highly charismatic Christians. She came back
“full of the Spirit” and “on fire for the Lord.” I
was unmoved, having become a secular cynic
through almost 5 years with no spiritual food.
But Marian dragged me to the little church at
the end of the street, which turned out to be
Southern Baptist. It was another of God’s little
surprises acts of grace: dropping a rather stiff
Brit among transplanted southerners!
At First Baptist, Sudbury, we experienced the
church as community for the first time since
childhood; warmed by this, in a few years we
were leading Bible Studies, Children’s Church,
the Youth Group. There I was first asked to
preach; there I began to sense a call to pastoral
ministry; there I was first made a Licensed
Preacher. The desert of Denmark had done its
job; we were now thirsty for what God could do in
us and with us. Later, exhausted by the constant
running that Baptist faith demands, we moved
to the church at the other end of the street:
Trinitarian Congregational Church in Wayland,
MA.
It was a famous church in the Boston area. Tom
Phillips, the Raytheon CEO responsible for
leading Chuck Colson to Christian faith, had
himself come to faith in that church. Don
Ewing’s sermons were broadcast on radio from
Detroit to Ft. Lauderdale. We knew nothing of
this when we arrived, of course. What we
experienced was a Reformed theology that for the
first time told us that God is in charge, that he
controls outcomes, that we do not need to run at
top speed to get his work done, that our needs
and our problems are small compared to his
power and his sovereign rule over our lives. We
cried, we relaxed, we knew we were finally at
home.
In our ten years there, Marian became President
of the Women’s Guild, I taught high school
Sunday School, and later led a mid-week praise
service and a Bible study, and assisted Don
Ewing in weddings and funerals. But another
change had occurred that was even more
transforming. While at First Baptist, I had
enrolled at Gordon-Conwell Seminary as a parttime student. I had also been stupid enough
(though blessed by the experience) to become
the Interim Pastor of a start-up Baptist chapel.
Of course I had too many balls in the air, and
one was going to drop and smash on the floor.
When I finally realized it was going to be our
marriage, I quit the seminary, without ever
finishing my M.Div. degree.
So the decade at Trinitarian Congregational was
one of resetting our lives, dropping pursuit of
ministry, starting a family. But it was also a
blessed and fruitful time, a time of new
opportunities. Marian worked at the church for
the radio ministry. I became active in two “parachurch” organizations: EANE, later Vision New
England, a 19th C. Boston group that promoted
evangelistic crusades - they sponsored Billy
Graham in Boston in 1982. They were becoming
the umbrella evangelical agency for New
England, connecting and uniting its many
independent congregations.
They started a monthly newspaper, for which I
wrote book reviews, did interviews, and chaired
the editorial board. Their annual meeting,
“Congress,” began as 200 pastors and spouses
and a few speakers at Grace Chapel in
Lexington. By the late 80s it attracted 12000
people annually to the Hines Auditorium in
Boston to hear speakers like Francis Schaeffer,
John Stott, Desmond Tutu, Bill Hybels, Philip
Yancey, Chuck Colson. The other grace-filled
encounter for me was with ASA, the American
Scientific Affiliation, “A Network of Christians in
the Sciences,” where I learned, lectured on, and
ran conferences on bioethics.
God’s grace was still moving us on. And when
we moved out to Trinity Church, a daughter of
Wayland’s Trinitarian Church, we found
abundant room to minister. Marian became
church secretary, and I started teaching adult
classes, and occasionally preaching again. They
made me Adult Education Director, and around
1990 I said to Marian “I think I am ready to reexamine that call to pastoral ministry. I wonder if
that door is still open?” She said “What took you
so long?” I pursued licensing with a
Congregational denomination, and Trinity made
me Pastoral Assistant, as Craig was here while
he was studying. By God’s grace, it seemed the
doors might still open, almost 20 years after they
had seemingly closed.
So came the moment when we prayed “Lord,
the next step would be a part-time, Interim
Pastorate. Can you find us one within 30
minutes up or down the highway from here?” In
a couple of weeks the phone rang, and a Deacon
from the Congregational Church in North
Chelmsford said “we are looking for an
interim…” We spent 10 months there, and were
welcomed and affirmed in ways that brought
tears to our eyes. I also caught a new vision of
what a “community church” could look like.
So finally, we were ready to consider a full-time
call. I got a letter from Wading River, New York,
wondered where in the backwoods of the
Adirondacks that would turn out to be, and
found to my delight it was 8 miles up the road
from Brookhaven Lab., where I had many
friends. We interviewed, accepted the call, I
wrapped up my research group at Brandeis, I
got ordained at Trinity Church. We found a
house here, and started in September 1996.
I can only say that this 16 years have been the
best years of our lives, and being your pastor the
most fulfilling – if the hardest - thing I have ever
done. Much as I loved science, I did not see for a
long time that it was preparing me for
something more significant. Proclaiming the
Gospel, caring for people, reaching out to the
community; baptisms, weddings, funerals…
they make up a remarkable and textured life
that has been called “a strange and wonderful
calling.” To sit with families in times of trouble
and sorrow, to grieve with them the loss of
friends; the next day to hold a baby in your arms
and baptize them – these are things for which
there is no equal. It is a deep act of God’s grace
that allows very inadequate and fallible people
to take the role of pastor and to “shepherd” a
flock. (Read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead to feel
what it’s like!)
But there has been more. In his grace to all of us,
this has been a period when this church has
flourished. As a pastor, I could not be more
delighted with the way you have stepped up to
do what needed to be done, have had new ideas
of what we could do, have “picked up the ball
and run with it.” If I am remembered as a pastor
who encouraged that, I would be very happy!
But these years have done more for us than you
will ever know. You have shown us love,
support, encouragement, care. You have
tolerated our down times, and celebrated our up
times. You have shared a vision of having a
biblically-based church that nurtures our
children, serves our community, reaches out to
people in need. You have shown warmth and
welcome to newcomers. You have given Marian
space and time to minister – starting Faithlift,
being Lamplighter editor, being church secretary.
You have changed my theology: I now believe
that the Christian community, as well as the
working of the Word and the Spirit, is what
makes the Gospel of Jesus Christ credible and
attractive. Historians tell us that this was why the
early church grew: people saw how their beliefs
transformed their communities into ones that
everyone wanted to be part of. God bless you for
that!
Finally, I want to go back to the beginning, and
pay tribute to Marian. We have been together
over 50 years, and she has been with me
through thick and thin. She was responsible for
bringing me to personal faith, she has loved and
supported me all the way. And as some of you
figured out long ago, she is the truly “spiritual”
one in our family, and is usually years ahead of
me!
So now I commit you to God’s grace, which is
able to make you stand and flourish. His ways
are often surprising, and his sense of time is
uniquely his, and not ours! But he is good, and
gracious, and can be trusted, always.
Let us pray…