Grace is a Pumpkin Spice Latte in August
As we explore the new normal we find ourselves in during the COVID-19 pandemic the Mount Olivet community has been sharing devotionals to keep our community connected. Here’s my offering for Wednesday, September 2, 2020.
Last Thursday I was in Clarendon picking up a new suit. I was officiating a wedding the next day and I had waited until the last minute to get myself together (really, I forgot I needed a suit). As I walked backed to my car along Clarendon Boulevard I made a split-second decision that would change the rest of my week. A decision that would change my outlook for days to come. I walked into Starbucks, on one of the last days of August, and ordered a Pumpkin Spice Latte.
Over the past few weeks, I have been reading more than usual. Maybe it is because I know once the kids go back to school, I won't have the time for leisurely reading in the afternoon or perhaps I am in the middle of a stack of engaging books. Either way, I am loving what I am reading. My favorite author right of late has been Robert Farrar Capon. Capon was an American Episcopal priest, author, and chef.
Capon wrote, “The life of grace is not an effort on our part to achieve a goal we set ourselves. It is a continually renewed attempt simply to believe that someone else has done all the achieving that is needed and to live in relationship with that person, whether we achieve or not. If that doesn't seem like much to you, you're right: it isn't. And, as a matter of fact, the life of grace is even less than that. It's not even our life at all, but the life of that Someone Else rising like a tide in the ruins of our death.
There's something you should know about me: I absolutely love pumpkin-flavored coffee, and, in my opinion, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is the pinnacle of pumpkin-flavored beverages. The coffee I am drinking as I write this is dishwater when compared to the glory that is the Pumpkin Spice Latte.
Last Thursday I did not set out to find a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I did not down the hill in Clarendon knowing I would find the holy grail of fall-themed beverages. But when I put my mask on and opened the Starbucks door that is exactly what happened.
And Grace works the same way. We can seek out the Grace of God through prayer, meditation, worship, and the reading of scripture. We can climb mountains, thinking that if achieve a pre-set goal we will obtain a predetermined Grace-filled outcome.
Grace comes to us in the ordinary - in bread and wine, and in water. The Amazing Grace of Jesus Christ catches us with our guard down and we are never the same. It is the Grace of God that injects a spark of joy into our lives, changing us from the inside out and we cannot help but be changed. We view the world differently. We engage our neighbors and community differently.
The Gospel writer penned that “From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.” Grace is not something we have to seek out. Grace is yours now. It is yours now in bread and wine, and in water but also in the ordinary of our daily routines – in a new suit, in a book, or in a Pumpkin Spice Latte before the first day of fall.