One year, in preparation for the Christmas program, I had my sixth-grade Sunday school students help slide the altar off the platform to the sanctuary floor. About mid-lift, I realized we hadn’t moved the communion ware off the altar. Wine and goblets crashed to the floor splashing and staining the paraments and carpet. The kids were shocked and a bit frightened.
I was impressed when Pastor Steve arrived and started helping us clean up the mess. When the kids asked if he was mad, he said, “Accidents happen.”
If only it were always so easy to extend grace. It seems that whenever our pride, our passion, our convictions, or anything ‘near and dear’ to us is involved, it is harder to see our way to grace.
One can be angry or hurt and still extend grace. God does it all the time for us.
We are called to be the hands and feet of Christ in this world. If you are the only Christ someone sees, what will they see? Will they catch a glimpse of grace?
This message is excepted from “Toppled communion ware demonstrates grace” by Tricia Neische from the April 23, 2018, blog of the Women of the ELCA. Today we commemorate Mikael Agricola, Bishop of Turku, 1557.
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