Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 30, 2025

This Is What Grace Looks Like

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Luke 22:31–33, 54–62

In Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow, Jayber is the local barber and resident theologian of the small town of Port William, Kentucky. It’s a town like a lot of towns, defined in large part by its size — or lack thereof.

Jayber Crow describes it this way:

“You would need to draw a very big map of the world in order to make Port William visible upon it. In the actual scale of a state highway map, Port William would be smaller than the dot that locates it. In the eyes of the powers that be, we Port Williamites live and move and have our being within a black period about the size of the one that ends a sentence. It would be a considerable overstatement to say that before making their decisions the leaders of the world consult the citizens of Port William. … And how many such invisible, nameless, powerless little places are there in this world? All the world, as a matter of fact, is a mosaic of little places invisible to the powers that be. And in the eyes of the powers that be, all these invisible places do not add up to a visible place. (Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow, p. 139)

To live in an invisible fashion is painful. There is a spiritual desire to be seen. To be invisible in the world is dehumanizing.

In Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Emily dies in childbirth. She joins the saints, who for the purposes of the play are together in the cemetery of Grover’s Corners. From this perspective, she looks back at her life, and it pains her, because from the vantage point of the beyond she realizes how seldom we see people. We are so distracted. Emily says,

“[Life] goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. … Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners. … Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking … and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths … and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

And then Emily asks, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?”

The stage manager response: “No, saints and poets maybe, they do some.”

To not see and not been seen is a spiritual deficit.

To be seen is a basic spiritual desire, to be recognized as you are for who you are.

But I think there is something worse than not being seen. And that is being seen when we don’t want to be seen.

In his book Good News from North Haven, Michael Lindvall tells of the Reverend Mitchell Simpson. Reverend Simpson was pastor of the Johnston Memorial Church. One Sunday morning, Mitch put his wireless microphone on and didn’t notice that it was in the “on” position. As the congregation gathered in the sanctuary, they could hear him rustling papers on this desk. From his office window, he saw the Bengtsons. They were Congregationalists, and everyone knew the Congregationalist church was in the middle of a real donnybrook. Mitch opened his office door. The congregation looked up at the speakers in the sanctuary. He saw an Elder in the hallway and said, “Sam, the Bengtsons are visiting with us today. Be nice to ’em.” He closed his office door and said to a very attentive congregation, “Maybe some angry Congregationalists will fire up this worn-out congregation.” Reverend Simpson had been drinking coffee since six o’clock that morning, so he stepped into the men’s room. The congregation learned that the microphone works well throughout the church building.

Like people in an elevator who watch the numbers, everyone in the sanctuary lifted their heads to watch the speakers. Only when Mitch Simpson stepped into the sanctuary did he realize that he had been broadcasting live and in person. They had heard his careless comments and they had heard, well, they had heard him. It was more than he could take. He resigned the next week. “He absolutely crumbled when fifty-seven Presbyterians became accidentally Omniscient — and saw him” (Michael Lindvall, Good News from North Haven, pp. 133-139).

We want to be seen, but most of us have limits to what we want seen. Peter knew something about that.

We all want to be seen, except when we don’t. We all have moments, decisions, feelings that we want to keep hidden.

Jesus had been arrested, and most of the disciples had scattered, but Peter was brave enough to keep following. We have reminded ourselves the past two weeks that following is what a disciple is called to do. There by the sea Jesus said, “Come and follow me.” And Peter did. And there on the sea Jesus said, “Come.” And Peter did. And still Peter is following. But the text says something noteworthy. Peter wasn’t just following; he was following at a distance. Did you notice that? If I understand the text, the distance is not a statement of geography. It’s a distance of the heart. The distance is not measured in feet or yards but in commitment, in trust.

Too often faith is presented as belief or non-belief, in or out, yes or no. But that’s really not the truth of it, is it? I don’t know many people who believe or don’t believe. Mostly folks struggle to believe. They hold fragile faith, growing faith, withering faith, battered faith, striving faith, searching faith. We follow this gospel life, but often we follow at a distance because our trust of this gospel is almost always less than certain and sure. We believe, help our unbelief.

Peter follows at a distance, and the distance allows a bit of control over his discipleship, a bit of risk management. They say, “Hey, we recognize you. You are one of his followers.” And Peter responds, “Oh, no, no, no. I don’t even know him.” I imagine even Peter is surprised by his response. Peter knew this moment would come, and he believed he would respond differently. He assumed he would stand up. He said, “Jesus, I would die for you.” But when the moment comes, he folds. He discovers that he is not the person he thought he was.

In Anne Tyler’s novel Back When We Were Grownups, Rebecca is a widowed woman who lives in her husband’s childhood home with her father-in-law. The first floor is an event space, where she hosts graduation parties, retirement gatherings, and wedding receptions.

She’s in her mid-fifties and mothering the children and grandchildren that resulted from her deceased husband’s first marriage. And she has this sense that she, as she says, somewhere along the way “turned into the wrong person” (Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups, p.3).

I think that is what happens to Peter. He had an image of the man that he would be, of the faith that he would trust, but when push came to shove, he turned out not to be the person he assumed he was.

And in that moment, in that moment of denial, in that moment that is no doubt Peter’s worst moment, Luke says Jesus turns and looks at him. Luke is the only one to say this, but Jesus turns and looks. Jesus sees the truth of who Peter is, and it’s more than Peter can handle, and he runs out and weeps.

We all need to be seen, but at the same time, all of us have those moments we wish we could keep hidden.

But Peter did not have that luxury. In his worst moment, Jesus turns and looks at him. Of course, Jesus could not have been surprised by what he sees. Jesus said it would happen just this way. He said to Peter, “I know you. I know your courage, and I know your fear. I know how you want to be faithful, but I also know all the things that get in your way.” It’s easy to assume that the look Jesus gives Peter is a look of disappointment, even shame. But I don’t think that’s it.

When Jesus turns to look at this stumbling, failing disciple who follows only at a distance, in this look Jesus is bridging the distance. He crosses the gap that Peter cannot cross. The look of Jesus is not so much a look of judgment as it is a look of grace. The look of Jesus dissolves the distance. Jesus says to Peter, “I know the worst moment in your life, and I still refuse to give up on you. When you cannot come to me, I will come to you. My grace will not leave you behind. There is no failure in your that will cause me to let go of you.” It’s not a look of shame; it is a look of love.

Walter Wangerin was a pastor, and he tells of ministry in his first church. The organist, a woman who had been on the organ bench longer than he had been alive, she was dying of cancer. He said,

“I went to visit her. I didn’t know what to say, so I said everything. I entered chatting and covering my anxiety with noise. I spoke of the tulips and soft grass. I spoke of the birds singing and the singing we had done in worship and spoke of the day she might return to the organ bench; and she turned a black eye at me and held up a boney finger and said, ‘Walter, shut up.’”

“So, I did,” he said. “In all my words I had been covering up the dignity of her dance with death.”

“I visited again but said nothing. I sat all afternoon until the shadows stretched across the floor, and with the shadows came the spirit, and I spoke the words given to me: ‘I love you.’ She said, ‘I love you.’”

“That’s all that needed to be said.”

I don’t know when it will come to you, but you will have those worst moments, those moments of shame or self-disappointment. Those moments when you did not turn out to be the person you thought you would be.

And in that moment God will see you, but it is not a look of judgment so much as love. It is grace.

Grace is not some sweet attribute of God. Grace is the tenacious faithfulness of God as God holds on to us in the very moment when we give God reason to let go of us. In grace God knows the whole story of us, God sees all of us, the good and the bad, and God holds on. When we can’t get to God, God comes to us. That’s the whole story of the gospel. You are loved. The love of God calls you by name. It is a love that will never let you go, never. No matter what.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church