Collect of the Day (proper 23)
The “Propers” are that portion of our Sunday service that is specific to this particular Sunday on the church calendar. As you might imagine, this includes the Scripture readings appointed for this day. The propers also include the collect of the day. And the collect appointed for this day is one that strikes me every year when it comes around.
“Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us.” This prayer is found in a manuscript of liturgical prayers known as the Gregorian sacramentary, which dates from the late 8th century. So Christians have been praying this collect for a very long time.
“Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us.” It always conjures up for me visual images of God’s grace. One image is of the Peanuts character Pigpen. Remember him? Everywhere he went (everywhere!) he was preceded and followed by a great cloud of dust. Or sometimes, with my interest in science fiction, I see a Star Trek image of a personal force field, surrounding an individual. But it’s not a force field, it’s a grace field.
We are surrounded by a field of grace.
What does this grace field do for us? This may sound really obvious, but it’s important. It enables us to be grace-full.
It enables us to be graceful. Full of grace. Many of you are familiar with the prayer known as the Hail Mary. “Hail, Mary, full of grace…” Ave Maria, gratia plena… Part of what this collect says is that “full of grace” isn’t just for Mary anymore. It is for all of us.
God’s grace makes us grace-full. Not, unfortunately in the physical sense. God’s grace won’t get us a place on dancing with the stars. It makes us spiritually grace-full.
As Anglicans, we affirm that the sacraments are a “sure and certain” way through which God bestows grace upon us. But they are not the only way. God pours out his grace with abundance. I like this image of being surrounded by grace throughout our daily lives. We are not just filled with grace; we are surrounded by grace. God’s grace is always near at hand. Similarly Paul, writing from prison, reassures the Philippians: “The Lord is near.”
For theologians, grace is the lynchpin of Christian theology. It is how God shares God’s self with us. Grace is where our lives and God’s lives intersect.
Theologians have written many, many words describing how that intersection takes place. And those descriptions don’t all agree, but all do agree that grace comes to us as an unearned and unmerited gift. Unearned and unmerited.
One way I understand the effect of God’s grace is that it enables us to be better than our best. With God’s grace we, literally, are inspired to be better than the absolute best we could possibly be on our own. An old ad campaign used to claim that in the Army you could be all that you can be. God’s grace enables us to be more than we can be.
God’s grace offers us a share in God’s own life and God’s own power.
I like the image of a grace-field. Although God’s grace does not act like an impenetrable force field. It does not protect us from all physical harm. But I like the idea of God’s grace being outside of us, around us in the space in which we act. God’s grace does not only fill our hearts and affect our feelings. God’s grace empowers our actions. And I like to think that when we act grace-fully that grace-field stretches out to encompass and surround those whom we touch and help.
This grace field enables us to be better than our best. It gives us compassion and the courage and will to act upon that compassion. It inspires us to good works, all good works, as the collect says. Good works even beyond the best of our human nature. God’s grace enables us to forgive the unforgivable.
It is a resource beyond ourselves offering comfort, courage and hope in times of trial. More than we could muster ourselves. God’s grace gives us the gift of wonder… a particularly divine gift… the awe and joy to wonder at the majesty and mystery of God’s creation. And, as St. Paul says in today’s epistle, God’s grace pours peace into hearts… peace beyond all human understanding to guard our hearts and souls.
In the collect we pray that God’s grace field will precede and follow us. Why do we pray that it may follow us? Why do we need God’s grace behind us?
For one thing, to pick up after us. To clean up the messes and hurts we leave behind in our lives. Like a long-suffering parent picking up the trail of a child’s life, God’s grace picks up after us. Grace is the substance of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is grace that makes forgiveness and reconciliation possible. We pray that God’s grace will follow behind us to bring forgiveness and reconciliation to the messes and hurts we leave behind in life.
I have one other thought on the value of God’s grace following behind us. Psalm 139 is probably familiar to many of you. Listen to these verses as the psalmist cries out to God:
Where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea (as far away as humanly possible), even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night,’ Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike (Psalm 139:6b-11).Even if we turn away and try to flee from God, God’s grace will still be there behind us. Even in those times when we turn our back on God, God’s grace is still with us. It’s like trying to outrun your shadow. You can’t.
Roman Catholic theologians have written a lot about grace. They talk about actual grace, cooperating grace, efficacious grace, irresistible grace, prevenient grace, sanctifying grace (which is the same as habitual grace), and sufficient grace.
I’m talking about inescapable grace. God’s inescapable field of grace which fills and surrounds us all, enabling us to be better than our best. Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us.
