Jack-O-Lantern Grace: How Wesley’s Means of Grace Can Lead The UMC Toward LGBTQ+ Affirmation

Jack-o-lantern from GettyImages.

Grace for Methodists is like decorating with pumpkins for Halloween: almost everyone could identify that the one is an essential part of the other, but few would be able to thoroughly explain why. Unlike jack-o’-lanterns, however, grace is not only a meaningful decorative addition; grace is the core of our Wesleyan faith—an essential element that enabled the early Wesleyan/Methodist movement to unite both personal piety and acts of mercy, evangelical preaching with social responsibility and justice. In this brief blog (adapted from a UM History & Doctrine Paper of mine), I’ll explore the essential role that grace held within John Wesley’s own faith journey, and how he articulated his evolving understanding of it through various sermons. As this blog hopes to show, without grace salvation is impossible—and not just receptive grace, but a grace that calls us to participate in it as we continue in the pursuit of holiness within ourselves and within all social institutions. I’ll conclude with a brief remark on the role that grace ought to play for us United Methodists today as we find ourselves on the precipice of schism. Hopefully our jack-o’-lanterns of grace will continue to illuminate the special historical tradition called Methodism as grace lights the way for our future.

Wesley’s Early Faith: A Need for Grace

            What is simultaneously remarkable -- and also just typical human behavior-- is the fact that Wesley doubted himself and changed his mind, all the while articulating confident theological documents for an emerging movement within the Church of England (condescendingly referred to as “Methodism”). Throughout his book Wesley and the People Called Methodists, Richard Heitzenrater notes that Wesley constantly doubted the assurance of his faith. One such occasion was shortly after Wesley’s return to England from the American colonies in 1738 when he began communication with a Moravian by the name of Peter Böhler. At this point, Wesley’s certainty was shaken after a near-death experience during his travels across the Atlantic. “Peter Böhler had convinced him that the deficiency was not one of degree—Wesley’s problem was not weakness of faith but plain unbelief” (Heitzenrater, 84). To make matters worse, when John’s brother, Charles Wesley, was “sick in bed” and joined the small society that Böhler had set up in London, Charles experienced the assurance of faith that John lacked (and which Böhler demanded). This sudden assurance and “peace with God” that Charles experienced, who was previously opposed to Wesley preaching a doctrine of sola fide (faith alone), apparently “put John into a state of ‘continual sorrow’ and heaviness of heart” (Heitzenrater, 87). But, three days after Charles’ testimony, John experienced this assurance of salvation for himself, and thus the “strangely warmed heart” phrase that has been forever embroidered onto the history of Methodism was born.

            This experience of assurance (called the “Aldersgate experience”), however, did not extinguish John Wesley’s doubts. As an Oxford academic, John appreciated the sciences, and his personal experience of doubt after the Aldersgate experience seems to have served as evidence in the ongoing experiment of his life that it was not his faith that was deficient (as Böhler claimed), but rather the theology of the Moravians. It’s at this point that grace becomes essential both in Wesley’s personal faith and for the emerging Methodist movement. Salvation became not only a one-time event (not the instantaneous conversion of the Moravians), but a way of life—the total restoration of the imagine of God in us (Outler and Heitzenrater, 13). It’s in this tension with the Moravians’ theology and his own lived experience that “Wesley [began] to work out the relationship between justification (what God does for us, forgiveness of sin) and sanctification (what God does in us, holiness of life)” (Heitzenrater, 115). As his understanding evolved, Wesley saw that assurance did not guarantee perfection or holiness; therefore, assurance alone is insufficient evidence that one is truly a Christian. It is only by the grace of God, which is continually at work within us (sanctifying grace), that we mature and grow in holiness and are perfected in love. And this is telos of Christian life: to daily “advance in the knowledge and love of God [our] Savior” (“Christian Perfection,” 73).

The Means of Grace

Within this evolving understanding, one begins to see the relationship between grace and salvation more clearly in Wesley’s thought, and the demand for social engagement becomes more evident through this relationship as well. Grace was not only a matter of personal justification (the offer of forgiveness of sins), grace was also, and necessarily, sanctifying, the continual process of regeneration and growth in holiness. So also, salvation can be said to be a “a present thing” and “the entire work of God, from the first dawning of grace in the soul till it is consummated in glory” (“The Scripture Way of Salvation,” I.1). But how; by what means does one become more holy, sanctified, walk the way of salvation? Before addressing this question, it’s important to note the relationship between faith and works: what one does does not guarantee salvation; rather, the inner “religion of the heart” motivates one to do good, to perform works of piety and mercy, which are themselves the fruits of salvation already present in the heart of the person (“The Means of Grace,” I.4). Now, back to the question of the means of grace, the vessels through which the perfect image of God is regenerated within us. Fortunately, Wesley provided a definition: “By ‘means of grace’ I understand outward signs, words, or actions ordained of God, and appointed for this end—to be the ordinary channels whereby he [sic.] might convey to men [sic.] preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace” (“The Means of Grace,” II.1).

In a perfectly circular fashion, the means of grace, also called sacraments (lowercase “s”), are “an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same” (“The Means of Grace,” II.1). One partakes of Holy Communion, for example, not merely for the sake of the ritual, but with the understanding that through Communion, as with all means of grace, we grow in our knowledge and love of God. Through that outward sign of grace, the inward grace, which motivates us to pursue the outward sings, is kindled; the circle of grace continues round. Throughout “The Means of Grace” sermon, Wesley provides a litany of these means: prayer, reading Scripture, and Communion. These means are properly called “works of piety,” and they make up one half of the Wesleyan understanding of the Christian life. In his sermon “On Visiting the Sick,” Wesley cites Matthew 25:36 (“I was sick and you visited me”) to describe how “works of mercy” are the other essential side of the life of faith and the complementary means of grace.

As with Wesley’s argument in his sermon on “The Duty of Constant Communion,” he argues in “On Visiting the Sick” that Christ himself commands us to visit the sick (and constantly partake in Communion)—they are both ordinances of God. Both of these means of grace have been instituted by Christ. Wesley challenges his listeners by stating that “the continuance in works of mercy is necessary to salvation” (“On Visiting the Sick,” I.1), and he goes so far as to claim that those who neglect works of mercy, “lose, by a continual neglect, the grace which they had received” (I.2). But this claim is not as radical as it may first appear for it is grounded in the second half of Matthew 25, where Jesus says that God will turn to those who did not feed the hungry or visit the sick and say, “‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (vv. 45-46). The stakes, for Wesley, seem to be so high that one’s very soul hangs in the balance (at the very least, it’s a powerful rhetoric). But again, it’s important to remember that throughout this argument, salvation does not depend on works of piety or mercy, rather works are the logical fruits of the sanctifying process. 

Conclusion

In summary, salvation for Wesley is both a present thing and the total fulfillment of God’s grace; it is both the assurance of salvation and the process of regeneration, aka “sanctification.” Grace enables salvation. Or, in Wesley’s words, “grace is the source, faith the condition, of salvation” (“Salvation by Faith,” 0.3). Through the justifying grace of God, humanity’s sins are forgiven, and we continue on toward the regeneration of our souls through the sanctifying grace of God. The process of sanctification enables us to move toward being perfected in love. To be perfect for Wesley means “perfect love;” “It is love excluding sin; love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul” (“The Scripture Way of Salvation,” I.9). One can see how Wesley’s understanding of Christian perfection, works of mercy as a means of grace, and salvation necessarily placed Methodists on the forefront of social movements in the past. To be in proximity with the disposed and marginalized is not only an ordinance of God, it is a means of grace, an essential manifestation of, and participation in, the salvific story of God.

Today, the fruits of The United Methodist Church have been soured by continuous and contentious debate in which LGBTQ+ persons are structurally marginalized. If we are to claim the heritage of Wesley, to take grace, and therefore salvation, seriously, then United Methodists are called to embrace and affirm LGBTQ+ people and our presence in the Church. If the telos (inner aim) of our lives as Methodist Christians is to grow in the love of God and neighbor, for love to fill our hearts and the whole capacity of our souls, then the systematic exclusion of LGBTQ+ Methodist Christians is antithetical to the very foundation upon which our tradition has been formed. By embracing the grace upon which Methodism was built, we can find our way forward.

Works Cited

Heitzenrater, Richard P. Wesley and the People Called Methodists. Second ed. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013.

Wesley, John, Outler, Albert C., and Heitzenrater, Richard P. John Wesley's Sermons: An Anthology. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991.