Christ the King-Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

March 23, 2025 / Third Sunday in Lent

Isaiah 55:1-9; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

Author Philip Yancey tells this story about grace:  “I remember getting stuck in Los Angeles traffic and arriving 58 minutes late at the Hertz rental desk.  I walked up in kind of a bad mood, put the keys down and said, 'How much do I owe?'  The woman says, 'Nothing.  You’re all clear.'  I said I was late and she smiled, 'Yes, but there’s a one-hour grace period.'  So I asked, 'Oh really, what is grace?'  And she said, 'I don’t know.  [They must not cover that in Hertz training classes.]  I guess what it means is that even though you’re supposed to pay, you don’t have to.’” 1

That’s not the definition that I generally use for grace – but it’s one that I will happily add to my understanding of God’s wonderful gift:  even though we’re supposed to pay, we don’t have to.  Even though the world says we have to make up for our failures, grace says we don’t – not to be a part of God’s beloved community.  Even though our criminal justice system requires us to make restitution for our wronging-doings, grace means we don’t have to – not to be forgiven by God.  Even though we learned from our playground days that if we slugged someone in the eye, we’d better expect retaliation, grace breaks the cycle and rules out paybacks.  As far as God is concerned, even though the world demands that we pay our debt to society, that we pay what we owe, that we pay for our sins, grace means that we don’t have to.

But grace periods have limits.  If Philip Yancey had returned that rental car one hour and one minute late, I suspect that he would have had to pay for an additional day’s rental.  You’d better believe that if I had been 1 minute past the grace period, I would have argued the charge.  I mean, it hardly seems fair.  The difference between 58 minutes and 1 hour and 1 minute is a measly three minutes.   And maybe a manager would be nice and bend the rules.  But maybe not.  Rules are rules, after all.  And when the grace period is over . . . the grace period is over.  That’s one way to interpret Jesus’ parable about the fig tree.  The vineyard owner had given the unproductive fig tree a 3-year grace period, but still it bore no fruit.  He wanted it to be cut down.  But the gardener argued for an extension on the grace period, and committed to giving the tree a little more TLC to coax it into bearing fruit.  But in a year, he said, if it still hasn’t started doing what it’s supposed to do, then you can give it the ax.  Especially since this parable directly follows Jesus’ dire words about repent or perish, it is often interpreted as a warning against procrastination.  We are the fig trees – and if we’re not bearing fruit (you know – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), if we’re not bearing the fruit of the kingdom, then we’d better get our acts together, because the grace period will expire at some point.  Jesus, our patient gardener, has bought us some time . . . but, the rules are the rules.  So be warned:  you shouldn’t put off till tomorrow what you can do for God’s kingdom today – or else you might be “out.”

That is one way to interpret this parable.  And yet, over and over again in the gospels, we see Jesus rejecting the rules where it comes to God’s love and forgiveness.  We see Jesus stopping the Pharisees from stoning the woman caught in adultery, even though that was the legal penalty for her crime.  We see him breaking the rules of the Sabbath because he believed that human need outweighed following rules.  We see him showing love for the outcast, even though they were outcast for legitimate reasons.  Jesus seems to break all the rules when it comes to grace.  And grace periods are all about rules:  do such and such by such and such a time, and there will be no consequences.  So while this parable might make us think of a grace period, when I read the gospels as a whole, I don’t see them as being about a grace period, but about grace . . . period.  Just grace.  No limitations.

So if God’s grace knows no limits, then maybe Jesus’ desire for us not to procrastinate in repenting, not to put off turning toward him – maybe it’s less a warning and more an invitation.  The prophet Isaiah says it beautifully:  Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!  (Another rule-breaker, Isaiah.  How can you buy something if you have no money???  He continues:) Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.  I will make with you an everlasting covenant.  Let the wicked and the unrighteous return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  What a beautiful invitation to grace.  And if there is urgency in that invitation, it’s not because there’s an expiration date on the offer.  This is an everlasting covenant – a promise forever.  The urgency is this:  why would you want to procrastinate, to put off until tomorrow the experience of God’s abundant love, when you could experience that wonderful grace today?

And yet, that’s exactly what we do when we look around and see only the challenges before us and not the opportunities those challenges provide.  Because if we believe that God is everywhere, which we do, then God is in the challenges.  And from within the challenges, as St. Paul has written in our second lesson, God will provide the way out.  So when we look around and see communities and families and even households bitterly divided and feel hopeless, we must remember that God will provide the way out – by showing us that God’s grace is in all of us, even those with whom we disagree.  Seeing God in one another makes compassion possible.  That is grace.  When we see people increasingly struggling for acceptance, struggling for health, struggling just to get by and begin to despair, we must remember that God is in the struggle and will provide the way out – and that sometimes we are the way out.  We can be the grace for someone else.

There is no expiration date on God’s abundant love and power to heal.  But why wait to see the grace?  Why wait to be the grace?  Why wait?  Why put off until tomorrow the grace that is ours to give and receive today?  

1 https://philipyancey.com/q-and-a-topics/grace/