Grace Under Fire

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Have you ever felt isolated? Alone? Afraid of the future? I would imagine at one point or another each of us have gone through those emotions. At times, and perhaps most painfully, we can even feel alone and isolated while surrounded by people.

Introduction It’s striking, this year of all years, to think about the journey of those followers of Jesus leading up to Pentecost. It’s striking because in the aftermath of Jesus’ arrest in the garden, trial, and crucifixion, the followers of Christ had scattered.

They had withdrawn from the world. They had isolated themselves from the events happening beyond their door and, for a few of them, they had even isolated themselves from one another. The world was a hostile place. The present and the future looked bleak.

Grace from Ruth

There’s a story in Hebrew Scripture that speaks of another time of isolation. The woman, Naomi, and her husband and sons had left the promised land of Israel during great famine. They travelled to the land of Moab where the sons got married and life seemed momentarily promising.

But within 10 short years, Naomi’s husband and both of her sons had died. Naomi, suddenly, was a lone Israelite woman in a foreign land. Well, almost alone. Her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, are still dutifully with her. But even they are Moabites… not Israelites. The daughters have their people and Naomi has hers. And with husband and sons all gone… this place of Moab that had been sought out as a refuge during famine reeks more of a graveyard to Naomi than a continued place of hope. There is nothing left for her in Moab except dark memories.

Naomi knew what it was to be isolated. She lived it. She had gone to Moab with a family and now was preparing to return to Israel without one. The home that they had built together, the fields that they had worked, the efforts that her family had put forth to create a new life… all of it was being abandoned. She even told her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, to go back to their families.

What happens next, however, is surprising. While Orpah obeys the mother of her now deceased husband and goes back to her own family, Ruth does not. Ruth CHOOSES to enter a form of isolation herself so that Naomi does not have to go it alone. Ruth CHOOSES to leave her own people, her own family behind and walk with this self-described bitter old woman back to Israel that had already been abandoned once.

Naomi returning to Israel is not a story of the grass on the other side being greener… but a decision that since the grass is brown on both sides, she might as well go back to the place she grew up in. The depression she is facing is as real as depression that anyone faces today as well. But again, Naomi does not travel the path alone. Ruth chooses to come with. Ruth sends herself alongside Naomi so that she might never be alone.

As the story unfolds, this young Moabite daughter-in-law named Ruth becomes the centerpiece of the story. Her faithfulness to Naomi and her willingness to leave all behind to accompany one who would otherwise walk alone becomes widely known in the village. And by the end of the story, even Naomi has reason for hope again. And the hope came not from her own efforts… but through the persistent efforts of Ruth. The final scene of this story has Naomi once again surrounded by the women of the village, holding a new grandbaby, and beaming with a joy that she had thought unattainable for herself. And unbeknownst to her, that grandbaby would grow up to be the grandfather of King David… and thus also in the family tree of Jesus himself.

Because of Ruth’s grace-filled and love-laden decision to take on isolation, Naomi was able to come out of isolation. Even as Naomi felt the incredible weight of depression and aloneness upon her, there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon. She just could not see the glimmer standing in front of her. But a joy of the story is that she did not have to be able to recognize the hope for the hope to still come to fruition.

Grace in a Car Crash

This last Thursday, as I mentioned earlier, Ashley was in a car crash. “After receiving the phone call about the accident, I jumped in my vehicle and started driving. As I approached the scene, there were firetrucks and police cars and ambulances all over. I drove around on the shoulder of the road trying to get past the long line of cars waiting to drive by so that I could get to Ashley.

Finally, I saw my own car in the ditch with the front end smashed to oblivion. I parked the Captiva and started looking for Ashley. It was an odd sensation. With likely hundreds of onlookers around me in their cars, with firefighters all over and police officers darting around… I felt like I was alone in my search for Ashley. It seemed like much of the world just wanted to get past us. But I could not imagine being anywhere else but there in that moment. That perceived truth brought with it a feeling of isolation even among a crowd of people.

And that was true, at least, until my phone buzzed. It was Noel Black from the Perry Chamber. She had just texted me. “Just saw you as we were passing the wreck. Hope all is fine!! Prayers for all involved!”

Then, a woman who was standing nearby came up to me and introduced herself. She had, unbeknownst to me, been one of the two people who had talked to me on the phone to let me know where Ashley was while they were waiting for the emergency workers to arrive. She had cared for Ashley when I could not be there.

As I shook her hand, I did not think to ask her what her plans had been for the day… where she had been intending to drive to or what she had on the agenda for the day. But I realized that after witnessing the accident she put everything else on hold so that she could be present for the situation at hand. She dropped whatever it was that was going on to care for the strangers who needed help. She wanted to make sure that those who were hurting were not alone.

The isolation that I was feeling as I walked onto that scene dissipated… not because of my own efforts but because of those who were reaching out to me. Did the text or the greeting change what my goals were or what I was doing in that moment? No. I was looking for Ashley… whom I found and talked with in the back of the ambulance before they took her to get checked out. But they did change how I felt in that moment. And that, for me, was an important and powerful moment.

In the hours afterward, I learned of church members who had also been in the line of cars. And that brought a sense of comfort as well. It was good to know that there were people that I love among the crowd. And it made me realize how often we are not as alone as our minds can make us believe we are.”

Grace Under Fire

For the disciples on that morning of Pentecost, nearly 2,000 years ago, we can think back on how they might have been experiencing life at that point. They had walked through some turbulent times. They had started to separate from one another… to go their different ways after Christ had died because… death means it is all over. Right?

Like Naomi as she set out toward Moab with her family, the disciples had hopes of new life when they started the path of discipleship with Jesus those 3 years earlier. And, like Naomi, they felt the painful dashing away of their hopes and dreams when death came into their presence and took not husband and sons away… but their teacher and Messiah.

Now, it is likely that on that Pentecost morning the disciples already had some reason to hope. They had the opportunity walk and talk with Jesus after he rose from the dead. They saw him ascend into heaven! But… you know… that was ten days ago. And it is amazing how quickly we can go from a high in a spiritual life to wondering if it was all true.

But whatever the disciples felt in that morning as they waited for whatever this Spirit was that Jesus said he was going to send… they hear a loud noise and experience a great gust of wind inside the locked doors of their house as the grace of God’s Spirit washed over them and fire appeared over their heads.

God met the disciples where they were at… in their isolation… even behind locked doors… and surrounded them with that Holy Presence amid everything they had been dealing with. And I would suspect that any remaining feelings of aloneness and isolation vanished in that moment. Not because of any decisions the disciples made… but because of the work of the Holy Spirit that was being done around them in that moment.

As we reflect back on the moments in our lives where we have felt alone, even amongst a great group of people, perhaps we might consider where the Spirit was at work in our lives to bring us out of that isolation. Perhaps we might consider the friendly text messages, phone calls, letters, handshakes, hugs, meals, any and all of the signs of care and love that had been shown by those around us that reminded us that we were not as alone as we thought we were.

Those actions were the activity of the Holy Spirit surrounding us in our time of need. Those actions by others were those holy tongues of fire floating over someone’s head, speaking in a language of love that we needed to hear in a pained moment.

And so too as we go out from this time of worship and enter the world again, sharing signs of God’s grace with those in need… might we realize that those flames shine brightly over our heads as we speak God’s grace and love through the simple actions of a hug, a smile, a kind word or a meal.

Because the activity of sharing God’s love with those who need it, whether we realize they do or not, is Holy Work. And on Pentecost especially, we might think of it as grace under fire. Not because we are doing such amazing things while under pressure. But because we are guided by the flames of Holy Spirit, our actions and words reveal God’s grace to others.

This is the truth that was revealed through the disciples at Pentecost as they stepped out of their locked house and proclaimed the Word of Good News to all the world. This is what was revealed through the life of Ruth who chose to enter isolation in order to bring Naomi out of isolation. This is what was revealed by a kind-hearted stranger and a friendly text message to a bewildered husband and pastor at the side of the road.

God’s grace enters when and where we least expect it… when hope seems distant. May we rejoice in the grace that God reveals to us in our times of need… and through us as we see those in need around us.

Be God’s grace under fire: signs of God’s love, inspired and moved to action by the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you, dear church. Amen.