WEBVTT 00:00:00.119 --> 00:00:03.951 Well, like I said, we are starting our Lenten journey. 00:00:03.951 --> 00:00:18.347 You know, I found this curriculum, this material, in Cokesbury, our United Methodist publishing house, and I looked at it and I went oh, this is going to be exciting, I really want to do this. 00:00:18.347 --> 00:00:18.829 Well. 00:00:18.829 --> 00:00:25.765 So I went to Gloria and I said, Gloria, I really like this, right, so I want to do it. 00:00:25.765 --> 00:00:28.803 But if we can't do it well this year, I want to save it. 00:00:28.803 --> 00:00:32.792 And she said we're due for something new and creative. 00:00:32.792 --> 00:00:35.343 So here we are. 00:00:35.343 --> 00:00:37.808 Are you liking new and creative? 00:00:37.808 --> 00:00:39.411 At least half an hour in. 00:00:39.411 --> 00:00:49.148 I hope you're enjoying it as we start this Lenten journey and it should be fun. 00:00:50.420 --> 00:00:55.171 So the material we're working from is this author Matt Rall. 00:00:55.171 --> 00:00:59.152 He's a pastor over in Louisiana, one of our own pastors. 00:00:59.152 --> 00:01:08.643 He wrote this book called the Grace of Les Miserables and it's built around the original story by a man named Victor Hugo in France. 00:01:08.643 --> 00:01:28.822 He was writing in the 1860s, about the time in France, about probably 50 years before that, up until about 10 years before, and it's the story with a backdrop of French turmoil and and revolution happening in the 1800s. 00:01:28.822 --> 00:01:39.325 And you'll remember from your history class, or maybe I'll be reminding you, that a lot of our own democratic ideals and understandings. 00:01:39.325 --> 00:01:45.694 We, you know we became the democratic experiment here as a new nation after our own revolution. 00:01:45.694 --> 00:01:49.329 Those ideas, that thinking, was originating in France. 00:01:49.329 --> 00:01:56.948 In fact a lot of our founding fathers went over there to learn about democracy as they were figuring out how they were going to implement it. 00:01:56.948 --> 00:01:59.823 So the backdrop we have here. 00:01:59.823 --> 00:02:10.733 We can remember that the French were looking at what had happened here and now trying to apply a lot of the thinking that they had originated in their own country. 00:02:10.733 --> 00:02:16.733 And what you might also remember is that it was a really big stage show. 00:02:16.733 --> 00:02:26.992 It continues to be a big stage show Late 80s, into the 90s and on continuing with some really powerful music that people have really enjoyed. 00:02:26.992 --> 00:02:28.522 And in fact we watched. 00:02:28.522 --> 00:02:36.847 What they did was filming a live version of the stage show last week and had a really good time with it. 00:02:36.847 --> 00:02:44.663 So that gives you a little bit of the backdrop of the story that we're going to be working with for six weeks and for today. 00:02:44.663 --> 00:02:48.252 Each week we kind of delve into a character. 00:02:48.819 --> 00:02:53.891 Today we delve into the main character, jean Valjean. 00:02:53.891 --> 00:02:57.650 He is, like I say, the main character. 00:02:57.650 --> 00:03:06.491 The story, at least in this stage version, opens with him doing really hard, hard labor in prison. 00:03:06.491 --> 00:03:15.445 He had been arrested and convicted for stealing bread for his niece and his nephew who were going hungry. 00:03:15.445 --> 00:03:20.368 The sentence for stealing bread for his hungry niece and nephew five years. 00:03:20.368 --> 00:03:26.305 But he had served 19 because he kept trying to escape. 00:03:26.305 --> 00:03:33.165 So finally he escapes one more time and after the escape he ends up in this church. 00:03:33.165 --> 00:03:34.991 He is stealing from the church. 00:03:34.991 --> 00:03:37.262 He gets caught and what happens? 00:03:37.262 --> 00:04:00.405 But the bishop forgives him, tells the police that are there, that no, it was a mistake, and in fact gives him two candlesticks of a certain amount of value I don't know, maybe like these right here and lets them take them to to start something new in his life. 00:04:00.405 --> 00:04:08.981 So he goes, he makes his way in the world and stage version, movie version we catch up with him many years later. 00:04:08.981 --> 00:04:11.948 He turns out to be quite successful. 00:04:11.948 --> 00:04:18.607 He is a man of certain wealth, he's owning factories and is even the mayor. 00:04:18.607 --> 00:04:24.160 But all the while he is being pursued by Inspector Javert. 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:26.343 He is being pursued by Inspector Javert. 00:04:26.343 --> 00:04:28.908 Inspector Javert is somebody who's obsessed with justice. 00:04:28.908 --> 00:04:31.694 If this was your sentence, you need to live out your sentence. 00:04:31.694 --> 00:04:37.514 You did wrong. 00:04:37.514 --> 00:04:38.399 You need to pay the price. 00:04:38.579 --> 00:04:47.721 Valjean had assumed a different identity so he had been able to live kind of in the public, but without being caught or seen by Javert, understood to be who he really was. 00:04:47.721 --> 00:05:02.300 But that threat lives throughout the whole story because Valjean is always in this place of being exposed to be who he was, this person who had escaped jail, escaped his pen, his punishment. 00:05:02.300 --> 00:05:10.403 The complication really starts coming to a head when he learns of this young woman, Fantine. 00:05:10.403 --> 00:05:24.833 Fantine had a baby, didn't have the money to be able to provide for the baby, left it with this other innkeeper couple and was now trying to work and working in one of Valjean's factories. 00:05:24.833 --> 00:05:33.954 The workers in the factory, along with the guy leading the factory, really mistreat her for different reasons. 00:05:33.954 --> 00:05:43.954 She ends up losing the job, ends up having to live on the streets doing sex work, donating her hair, donating her teeth. 00:05:43.954 --> 00:05:51.586 She really is this example of somebody completely victimized by the world around her. 00:05:52.728 --> 00:05:56.793 And in the midst of that Valjean is convicted. 00:05:56.793 --> 00:06:06.694 He has conflict in his own heart because he knows helping Fantine brings attention to him and his possible being revealed for who he was. 00:06:06.694 --> 00:06:19.990 But then it even gets a stronger concern complication, because they arrest and are about to convict a man for being Jean Valjean when he knows he's Jean Valjean. 00:06:19.990 --> 00:06:32.220 In other words, somebody else is going to serve his punishment for him, and so, just as Javert has his sense of justice, valjean's got his own sense of justice. 00:06:32.220 --> 00:06:45.454 Can I let somebody pay the price for my actions, especially given that my revealing myself might lead me into being punished? 00:06:45.454 --> 00:06:49.863 You know, having to live out that crime, a punishment for a crime. 00:06:49.903 --> 00:06:52.851 That was iffy to start. 00:06:52.851 --> 00:07:05.327 Well, he does stand up and claim who he is, and in the Broadway version it is with a powerful song that you're going to hear this morning, so I hope you're excited about that. 00:07:05.327 --> 00:07:28.817 He avoids being arrested, though, and hides out in the church again, manages to raise Fantine daughter, Cosette, and his story arc kind of culminates with his unconditional love saving Cosette romantic love life partner at great risk to himself, an amazing sacrifice. 00:07:28.817 --> 00:08:00.009 His story arc finishes with those two people recognizing it was him who had made the sacrifice to save Marius Cosette love, and so he gets the blessing of being able to be understood as the person who had loved that deeply, that unconditionally, and for us reading the story, especially us Christians, we would say he learned grace, the value of grace. 00:08:00.009 --> 00:08:05.471 We need an intermission. 00:08:05.471 --> 00:08:14.723 I'm sorry to do so much summary like that, but it's first week and y'all need to know the story for it all to make sense. 00:08:14.723 --> 00:08:19.040 But hopefully you're understanding too this theological concept of grace. 00:08:19.502 --> 00:08:25.093 God's unconditional love is really at the center of all of this. 00:08:25.093 --> 00:08:32.332 We're pretty good at understanding in our heads what that word means. 00:08:32.332 --> 00:08:38.375 I have a relatively good relationship with my spouse, with my kids. 00:08:38.375 --> 00:08:48.940 I know what it means to live unconditionally, to live unconditionally. 00:08:48.940 --> 00:09:02.869 And yet, as for claiming it as a life philosophy, a way about living your day-to-day not just with those closest to you, not just to those you consider to be good, but with everybody. 00:09:02.869 --> 00:09:10.370 Grace for all God's children, we might wrestle with that a little bit. 00:09:10.370 --> 00:09:18.490 Unconditional love, that's good for God, all right, I don't know if I can pull it off. 00:09:18.490 --> 00:09:22.672 That's a little more complicated. 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:34.302 This is where I turn to our passage for today, paul's letter to the Ephesians, the people in Ephesus, paul's letter. 00:09:34.302 --> 00:09:40.094 It's really to this community, this new church, Christian community. 00:09:40.094 --> 00:09:47.549 And remember, christianity is just kind of getting off the ground, especially in this sort of organized way. 00:09:47.549 --> 00:09:51.870 It kind of was just a movement when Jesus was around. 00:09:51.870 --> 00:09:58.609 Now they're trying to formalize it, create these communities, so these teachings that Paul's doing in these letters. 00:09:58.609 --> 00:10:02.691 They are foundational teachings, right? 00:10:02.691 --> 00:10:19.513 In many ways, some people feel like Paul actually is the one who birthed the church, because he's the one who did that work to help us understand how we were going to live together, how we were going to be church together, how we were going to live out what Jesus taught us about life together. 00:10:19.573 --> 00:10:22.400 So important, important theological lessons. 00:10:22.400 --> 00:10:36.777 So this particular lesson I can summarize in one, phraseed by grace through faith, saved by grace through faith. 00:10:36.777 --> 00:10:41.344 Big words, am I right? 00:10:41.344 --> 00:10:49.380 Saved, that's a big word when we're talking about that as part of our condition. 00:10:49.380 --> 00:10:51.203 Saved, what am I being saved from? 00:10:51.203 --> 00:10:53.629 I didn't choose to be born. 00:10:53.629 --> 00:10:56.714 Why did I need to be saved in this place? 00:10:56.714 --> 00:11:10.568 What do you mean by saved Grace, a concept we already sort of wrestle with Right Going to be wrestling with it this morning even more. 00:11:10.568 --> 00:11:15.349 And then faith, grace through faith. 00:11:15.349 --> 00:11:21.184 If grace is unconditional love, then where's faith come? 00:11:21.184 --> 00:11:25.491 Do I need to have faith in order to get grace? 00:11:25.491 --> 00:11:34.888 Are you telling me that God won't love me until I have faith Because that's a condition, isn't it? 00:11:34.888 --> 00:11:42.874 It's a massive theological statement that he makes in just this short, short way. 00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:46.587 Good questions for us to wrestle with. 00:11:46.587 --> 00:11:47.110 I think? 00:11:47.110 --> 00:11:49.559 Do you like to wrestle with questions? 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:51.965 Questions for us to wrestle with, I think. 00:11:51.965 --> 00:11:52.746 Do you like to wrestle with questions? 00:11:52.746 --> 00:12:05.023 Ooh, y'all might be in the wrong church, because I love this stuff If you want it easy, I don't know what you got to do here. 00:12:05.043 --> 00:12:07.748 So why do we have trouble accepting God's grace, right? 00:12:07.748 --> 00:12:09.932 Isn't this Valjean's kind of thing? 00:12:09.932 --> 00:12:10.714 He has trouble. 00:12:10.714 --> 00:12:17.505 He lived in such a horrible existence, a graceless existence, and then grace comes to him, but he doesn't trust it. 00:12:17.505 --> 00:12:18.725 He wrestles with it. 00:12:18.725 --> 00:12:30.349 We wrestle with this idea of unconditional love, which is sort of weird when you think about it, because who wouldn't want unconditional love? 00:12:30.349 --> 00:12:36.251 Right, we're going to take that if it's offered to us. 00:12:36.251 --> 00:12:48.164 With the story of Valjean, maybe we can understand why he would mistrust grace, coming from such a graceless experience. 00:12:48.164 --> 00:12:55.394 But it does make me wonder why we might wrestle with grace. 00:12:56.941 --> 00:13:05.572 Most of us have done okay in life Ups, downs, maybe more ups than downs. 00:13:05.572 --> 00:13:16.606 We have at least as much reason to trust the world, to trust God, to trust the people in this world, as we do to mistrust all of those. 00:13:16.606 --> 00:13:28.710 So why do we often wrestle with grace being true, being real, being meaningful? 00:13:28.710 --> 00:13:37.599 Is it because we have trouble living it? 00:13:37.599 --> 00:13:39.928 Is it because we have difficulty offering grace to everyone? 00:13:39.928 --> 00:13:46.128 God can do it, but I'm not sure I can pull it off. 00:13:46.128 --> 00:13:51.312 I mean that cynicism would be hard to argue with. 00:13:51.312 --> 00:13:59.525 Some people are really bad in our world, really broken in our world. 00:14:02.349 --> 00:14:07.293 I remember a pastor joke I got you heard of dad jokes. 00:14:07.293 --> 00:14:10.876 I'll give you the pastor joke for today. 00:14:10.876 --> 00:14:15.549 Man gets out of his car after having an accident. 00:14:15.549 --> 00:14:17.969 He's very frustrated, he's very angry. 00:14:17.969 --> 00:14:23.809 He goes to the other driver and he says why can't people learn how to drive? 00:14:23.809 --> 00:14:26.769 You're the fourth car I've hit today. 00:14:26.769 --> 00:14:42.602 Some people are broken and hurt, not in a good place, and we've been hurt by these folks. 00:14:42.623 --> 00:14:54.436 It can be difficult to offer grace to all and yet I wonder if our difficulty with grace, our difficulty in truly believing in grace, is something else. 00:14:54.436 --> 00:14:58.691 We have another reason to distrust God. 00:14:58.691 --> 00:15:07.293 When we think of grace and we think about loving everyone, we often envision the worst of us. 00:15:07.293 --> 00:15:10.847 Right, and I turn to the choir when I say it. 00:15:10.847 --> 00:15:18.433 We often envision there's a reason, they're behind a wall. 00:15:18.433 --> 00:15:22.847 I'm just teasing, but we do. 00:15:22.847 --> 00:15:24.486 We think of the worst of us. 00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:26.869 You know, we're going to test the theory Love everybody. 00:15:26.869 --> 00:15:32.950 Well, we don't think about the ones we love first, we think about the ones we don't love so much. 00:15:32.950 --> 00:15:35.648 And we go and we try to test this theory of grace. 00:15:35.648 --> 00:15:36.711 Would this really work? 00:15:36.711 --> 00:15:39.448 Can I really love everyone? 00:15:39.448 --> 00:15:43.871 And then we go and we start making up some sort of rubric to figure it out. 00:15:43.871 --> 00:15:50.128 All right, this sin, right here, is a five, this one's a two, this one's a 37. 00:15:50.379 --> 00:15:52.407 So you're getting these people, maybe? 00:15:52.407 --> 00:15:53.860 Oh, but you're and we're. 00:15:53.860 --> 00:15:59.508 I'm going to need a spreadsheet to figure out what really qualifies. 00:15:59.508 --> 00:16:06.211 And we're able to get around, see, and we're laughing a little bit, but you engineers out there, you've tried to do that, haven't you? 00:16:06.211 --> 00:16:11.087 I know engineers, you've tried to figure it all out. 00:16:11.087 --> 00:16:16.750 And we end up in this place where we're trying to create this system. 00:16:16.750 --> 00:16:25.527 But we also have to recognize that by loving everyone, it means all the people, even the good ones. 00:16:25.527 --> 00:16:32.750 And have we ever really asked ourselves is anyone really all good? 00:16:32.750 --> 00:16:36.905 Where are the lines? 00:16:36.905 --> 00:16:40.149 Who gets to make the lines? 00:16:40.149 --> 00:16:44.971 What are the people that we are willing to offer grace to? 00:16:44.971 --> 00:16:55.059 The ones we're willing to love, and where's that line to where we don't need to, to the ones we're willing to love, and where's that line to where we don't need to? 00:16:55.059 --> 00:17:05.912 To me, it's even a slippery slope to go to the next stage when we say how can God? 00:17:07.017 --> 00:17:07.679 love everyone. 00:17:07.679 --> 00:17:16.347 How long does it take for that question to lead us to the mirror? 00:17:16.347 --> 00:17:17.250 Is it possible? 00:17:17.250 --> 00:17:30.136 What we're really saying is how can God really love me unconditionally? 00:17:30.136 --> 00:17:31.808 You know we are our biggest critics. 00:17:31.808 --> 00:17:32.355 We are our biggest critics. 00:17:32.355 --> 00:17:34.541 We are our own biggest critics. 00:17:34.541 --> 00:17:35.204 And you know why? 00:17:35.204 --> 00:17:41.007 Because we know what we've gotten away with, am I right? 00:17:41.007 --> 00:17:44.083 We know what we've gotten away with. 00:17:44.083 --> 00:17:53.065 We know what we continue to get away with the bigger things, the not so big things. 00:17:53.065 --> 00:18:00.006 Only we know how imperfect we can be, how imperfect we truly are. 00:18:01.147 --> 00:18:18.690 Is it possible that when we consider the possibility of the reality of God's grace and being able to live God's unconditional love for us and for everyone, that we aren't always sure that we believe it about ourselves? 00:18:18.690 --> 00:18:26.768 We're not sure that we are fully worthy of unconditional love? 00:18:26.768 --> 00:18:35.848 To me, this is why Paul's words in Ephesians are so powerful, so important. 00:18:35.848 --> 00:18:39.405 Look at what it says Saved by grace through faith. 00:18:39.405 --> 00:18:48.009 Why does our unconditional love, god's grace, have to come through faith? 00:18:48.009 --> 00:18:55.426 Because you have to believe it for it to be real. 00:18:55.426 --> 00:19:05.705 If we want it to be real in our heart and real in our lives, then we're going to have to believe that it is true. 00:19:05.705 --> 00:19:10.467 We're going to have to believe that God loves us unconditionally. 00:19:12.935 --> 00:19:14.701 Sometimes people ask me how I know. 00:19:14.701 --> 00:19:21.205 Something from Scripture is true, and I love this passage for an answer to that question. 00:19:21.205 --> 00:19:31.230 What I've learned by reading Scripture is we've been wrestling with this question of our worthiness for 5,000 years. 00:19:31.230 --> 00:19:48.227 I've learned from reading Scripture that we were wrestling with this question for at least 2,000 years, from Jesus' time, and we are still wrestling with it today. 00:19:48.227 --> 00:19:54.846 That is how I know it is true. 00:19:54.846 --> 00:19:56.181 It is true about us. 00:19:56.181 --> 00:19:57.049 It is true about our situation. 00:19:57.049 --> 00:19:57.515 It is true about us. 00:19:57.515 --> 00:19:59.281 It is true about our situation. 00:19:59.281 --> 00:20:01.943 It is true about our relationship with God. 00:20:01.943 --> 00:20:10.686 We wrestle with this question of our worthiness and what we need to do to be seen worthy in God's eyes. 00:20:10.686 --> 00:20:18.598 Despite having teaching from Jesus that said God loves us unconditionally, having teaching from Jesus that said God loves us unconditionally. 00:20:18.618 --> 00:20:23.248 To me, in this way, we can recognize the importance of our belief in grace. 00:20:23.248 --> 00:20:33.154 In fact, it might even be essential. 00:20:33.154 --> 00:20:40.087 I think the journey of faith, at least a piece of the journey of faith, can be marked from the transition in this statement. 00:20:40.087 --> 00:21:00.888 We have to go from that place of God loves me because of this and this and this, to the more difficult side of the statement God loves me despite this and this and this. 00:21:00.888 --> 00:21:09.528 To me, this is the core ingredient for being able to live a life of grace. 00:21:09.528 --> 00:21:25.586 We can't love others unconditionally if we don't love ourselves unconditionally, or at least trust in God's unconditional love for us. 00:21:28.375 --> 00:21:30.461 To me, this is what we see with Jean Valjean. 00:21:30.461 --> 00:21:35.981 He spends the first part of his life in the most graceless state of our world Deep in poverty. 00:21:35.981 --> 00:21:40.279 He steals bread for his niece and his nephew to live. 00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:52.324 For this he's given a five-year sentence, extended to 19, for escaping an unfair sentence, a graceless existence. 00:21:52.324 --> 00:22:04.082 His second stage starts from this act of grace the not the bishop not only forgives the stealing, but gives him what he needs to start over. 00:22:04.082 --> 00:22:06.185 The bishop offered him grace. 00:22:07.587 --> 00:22:14.218 The next moment of transition for Valjean is he's faced with this dilemma does he reveal himself to do the right thing in his justice? 00:22:14.218 --> 00:22:18.749 The right and the wrong to do the right thing in his justice? 00:22:18.749 --> 00:22:34.365 The right and the wrong to do the right thing, even though helping Fantine brings attention, even though he knows a full confession of who he is, will free that other man, but absolutely convict him. 00:22:34.365 --> 00:22:39.748 But absolutely convict him To me, his response to these situations. 00:22:39.748 --> 00:22:46.290 They are his statements of his belief in grace. 00:22:46.290 --> 00:22:53.401 He had to trust that grace was real and that God would be with him as he moved into that earthly jeopardy that lay ahead for him. 00:22:53.401 --> 00:22:57.963 I told you we were going to hear this song. 00:22:57.963 --> 00:23:00.001 Who am I? 00:23:00.001 --> 00:23:11.701 It's this song of declaration that he makes In getting that conviction off of the other man Mistaken to be him. 00:23:11.701 --> 00:23:14.580 He yells out loud. 00:23:14.580 --> 00:23:15.960 It's out loud. 00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:16.682 It is me. 00:23:16.682 --> 00:23:20.465 I am Jean Valjean. 00:23:20.465 --> 00:23:37.028 My hope is that you not only hear that declaration but you might also hear the words God's love, god's unconditional love, is real. 00:23:37.028 --> 00:23:42.026 I pray you hear that declaration. 00:23:54.398 --> 00:23:55.142 (singing " Who am I? 00:23:55.142 --> 00:23:58.723 Can I condemn this man to slavery? 00:23:59.696 --> 00:24:07.621 Pretend I do not see his agony, this innocent who wears my face, who goes to judgment in my place? 00:24:07.621 --> 00:24:08.284 Who am I? 00:24:08.284 --> 00:24:12.084 Can I conceal myself forevermore? 00:24:12.084 --> 00:24:21.261 Pretend I'm not the man I was before, and must my name, until I die, be no more than an alibi. 00:24:21.261 --> 00:24:25.888 Pretend I'm not the man I was before, and must my name, until I die, be no more than an alibi. 00:24:25.888 --> 00:24:26.229 Must I lie? 00:24:26.229 --> 00:24:29.753 How can I ever face my fellow man? 00:24:29.753 --> 00:24:32.481 How can I ever face myself again? 00:24:32.481 --> 00:24:33.965 My soul belongs to God. 00:24:33.965 --> 00:24:37.077 I know I made that bargain long ago. 00:24:37.077 --> 00:24:39.305 He gave me hope when hope was gone. 00:24:39.305 --> 00:24:44.646 He gave me strength to journey on. 00:24:44.646 --> 00:24:46.740 Who am I? 00:24:46.740 --> 00:24:54.580 Who am I? 00:24:54.580 --> 00:25:05.558 I'm Jean Valjean, and so Javert. 00:25:05.558 --> 00:25:10.268 You see, it's true, this man bears no more guilt than you. 00:25:10.268 --> 00:25:13.740 Who am I? 00:25:13.740 --> 00:25:19.921 Two, four, six, oh one. 00:25:19.921 --> 00:25:21.122 Who am I? 00:25:21.122 --> 00:25:24.307 24601!