When I first got a bike, I was absolutely terrified of it. I wanted to learn how to ride, but it was so scary. Sadly, my family didn’t believe in training wheels and no one believed in helmets back in the day. So, we all had to just figure it out and get hurt along the way. That is not how I liked to roll as a little one. I was daintier than that.

My family did their best to help me learn within the context of my outsized fear. I remember my brother Paul helping, but he must have gotten tired at some point and he set me up in front of our house to “practice” balancing. He put the kickstand in place and he knew that I was safe where I was, so he went inside for something and I was alone to practice my balance staying perfectly still. Now, I did not know about the kickstand and apparently neither did I know much about the laws of physics yet, because I sat there on my beautiful bike feeling powerfully adept at my balancing. And that balancing was hard work. I was so busy doing all the things I needed to do to balance, like shifting my weight just so and slightly adjusting the peddles just right. I was so brilliant in my balance … or so I thought. Sadly, Paul came out of the house shortly thereafter and cleared up my confusion. It was a real let down to realize that I had not, in fact, been doing anything of major consequence in terms of balance. It was all done by the kickstand.

To me, this story says everything about how God’s grace works. We can make believe that our striving for God, our striving for goodness is what makes the difference. We can be so busy doing a lot of things that we think will make us feel like we belong in this world. We can chase goals as if they are the things that will create meaning in our lives. We can worry a lot about our supposed inadequacies or mistakes. We can also judge and point fingers at others when we take a break from beating up on ourselves.

It is pretty normal to think our belonging, our inclusion, our salvation is our job to earn. And we think this for good reasons! Not only do we want our efforts to be powerful in some way, we’re also given this message all the time from our culture and the stew of advertisements we simmer in. Afterall, a local pastor went viral for a hot minute for telling his congregation that if they didn’t tithe 10% or more, they were basically going to hell. That’s some serious pressure.

Well, friends, I’m glad to tell you that God is your steady and powerful kickstand. While you’re busy doing all you’re doing to win, to measure up, to be lovable or at least acceptable, the great I AM of the universe is holding you steady. You cannot earn this. All the great, incredible, absolutely dexterous moves you may be making to stay upright and balanced are not doing anything at all to earn your place in the world. It is given. It is complete.  

You are not just worthy of love, but you are held in love by the very essence and living power of life that is God, in whom we live and move and have our being.

In the gospel, Jesus tells his followers that his path will make them free. The confusion came in when they didn’t even know they were not free. Perhaps they didn’t know the nature of the rat race that they were in, because they were so accustomed to the cycles of how they were hustling for their own sense of belonging and OKness. Jesus’ invitation is for us to see that our belonging, our inclusion in God’s world and God’s family, is provided. It is done for us and that is freedom.

In the Jeremiah text, God tells us that the covenant he made with the Hebrews went from something in our human hands that we could break to something so interior to us, so innate within us that we cannot break it. This is grace, God’s unbreakable kickstand that holds us fast.

I understand if you don’t really feel like God is doing God’s job of being the kickstand. It doesn’t always feel that way, particularly when we are caught up in all our machinations to earn our worthiness and maintain our own balance. When that’s the case, we need to reorient ourselves to God over our own machinations. There’s lots of ways to reorient ourselves. Prayer, scripture, calling a friend who’s also a person of faith, going to church, listening to your favorite music that reminds you of God, or go outside for a hike. Lots of options. But here’s one more I heard this last week and it’s a quote attributed to St. Bonaventure, a 13^th century Franciscan monk. He wrote, “God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere.”

I’d like us to take a moment in the midst of this sermon to close our eyes and imagine this circle that is God. Again, God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere.

As you imagine this, where are you in relationship to God’s circle? Are you inside the circle? If not, you’re making the circle too small! Same with everyone else, btw. Same with the planet and all that she holds. Same with the universe. The circumference is nowhere! Now, where is the center of the circle, if it is everywhere? Is it not exactly where you are? And over here. And over there, as well. God’s center is where you are. And that same is true for everyone and every place in our wondrous creation. We all live at the heart of God’s existence. All of us precious.

If that is so, what good are our worries about our value and worthiness? What good are all the many, many things we do to keep our bicycles upright while the truth is the kickstand is firmly in place and always has been?

Both times I visited Larry in ICU before he died, I asked him what message he wanted me to give to the church, in the prayer request I’d write afterwards. I thought he’d say something like, “Tell everyone hi!” or “Tell folks I miss them and I can’t wait to get back to being with everyone!” This was certainly a true thing. He missed you from his hospital room. But instead, what he told me to tell you is that, “Jesus loves you.” Christ, the fullest expression of God in this world, loves you. That’s what Larry wanted you to really let into your souls, because he understood deeply at the end of his life that this truth is enough. He knew that Christ’s love and grace is the great kickstand in our lives. And he wanted you to know that into your bones.

Reformation Sunday is the day that us Lutherans tend to toot our horns a bit because we are named after Marin Luther, the great lion of the Reformation that ultimately launched all other Protestant denominations. Now, Luther was a hardcore medieval monk who tortured himself to live up to the expectations of the church, society, and what he assumed were God’s demands on him. But through his study, his personal spiritual journey, and growing awareness of the corruption of the church, he came to see with blinding clarity what Paul proclaims in the Romans text. “… since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴ they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”

This teaching of grace is at the center of our teaching as Lutherans. While Lutheranism is full of great teachings about God and the human experience, the centrality of grace is the tenet of our faith that will perhaps most directly change your life as you allow it to settle into you to soothe your fears and judgements. Grace will help you settle down all the ways you work to keep your balance when there’s really nothing for you to do but notice that the God of the universe does indeed hold you fast. You are indeed at the center of God’s loving heart, along with everyone else who are also at center of God’s loving heart. This is true of all the folks we love and all the ones we don’t. Doesn’t matter. We’re not in charge of God’s grace and that’s what makes it grace.  

So, I invite you to again close your eyes and notice where you notice your need to hustle, your need to prove yourself as being adequate, or where you see this in others. I invite you to notice how it feels in your body and to visualize again God as a circle, where the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere. You, yourself live in the center of God’s love, God’s reality and know that Jesus loves you, as Larry said. Let your breath slow, let your shoulders loosen, let the burdens soften, and allow yourself to believe that you are deeply, truly, and profoundly loved, forgiven, and included without exception. It is given and it is done.

AMEN