What do the movies Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, and the t.v. show The Vicar of Dibley have in common? They all feature the song Love is All Around. Maybe you’ve heard this goofy love song:
I feel it in my fingers
I feel it in my toes
Love is all around
and so the feeling grows.

Every time I hear that song, it reminds me of two things. This first is bread making. Back when I was in college in the 80’s, I decided to learn to make bread, and I bought a couple of books on the subject. The first book, Mary’s Bread Basket and Soup Kettle, was very simple and straight forward, and I still have it (incidentally, Mary was a famous Tulsan). The other book, Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book, was extremely technical - not to mention California groovy. To this day, I still remember one recipe that did not call for packaged yeast or any other commercial leavening agent. Making the bread was a three-day process, because the yeast for the recipe was “wild yeast” (no, I’m not making this up). Apparently, the air around us is filled with wild yeast, and if the right conditions are set up, the dough mixture will avail itself of this wild yeast and it will rise without any other help.

I think the reason why I still remember this obscure method of bread making is because of the notion of wild yeast being all around us. It reminds me of God’s grace (as does the song I mentioned). Remember, the catechism’s definition of grace is “God’s favor towards us, undeserved and unearned.” Grace is all around us. It’s there whether we choose to accept it or not. But if we do choose, all we have to do is have an open heart and pray. God wants the best for us, although we don’t always understand what that is. That’s what we mean when we talk about being blessed. But part of being blessed is hopefulness: expecting that, if we are faithful and trust in God, we are and will be blessed.


Living in our post-modern, post-Christendom era, it seems that hope and faith are often in short supply. In my last parish we had a business owner, who, when discussing church finance, was always expectant of the graciousness of God (not nearly as common an attitude in northern Illinois as in Tulsa). Someone else once remarked “Is that how she runs the business?” Well, as it turns out, the answer is a resounding yes. This person, despite living in an age of skepticism, had seen the power and grace of God at work in the world about us. This person understands that we are an Easter people.


As a church, if we are going to more than just barely survive, if we want to thrive, we must focus on being an Easter people, a resurrection people.   Kennon Callahan’s book, Ten Keys to an Effective Church, has been a classic for a while now. In it, Callahan says this:

(the Christian message)… begins in fresh, new ways with the open tomb, the risen Lord, and new life in Christ. The disciples thought they had placed their hopes on a sinking ship when Christ’s body was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb. With the resurrection, they discovered anew that they were part of a winning cause.

The Gospel writers knew the end of the story. In fact, they saw the end as a new beginning. Because they knew of Christ’s resurrection, they traced back from the resurrection to tell of the incarnation, life, and death of Christ. It is quite clear that the Christian community that gathered during that first century lived with an abiding confidence in a risen Lord. It is as a result of their acceptance of the risen Lord that we understand what took place on Golgotha.

Christ invites you to live as a risen person. Christ invites you to new life. Christ invites you to live life at its fullest and best…Christ’s death on the cross is an act of generosity and grace. Yes, it is an amazing sacrifice. And yes, in even larger and richer ways, Christ’s death on the cross reveals the generosity and graciousness of God’s love. This grace is even more fully advanced with our risen Lord.

I am encouraging you to have a theology of resurrection as well as a theology of the cross. I am suggesting that you invite people to their risen life in Christ…Help them focus on the meaning of the open tomb, the risen Lord, the new life in Christ, and the winning cause of God’s mission on this planet.

Grace is, indeed, all around us. Our task is to make sure that the conditions are right for God’s grace to work in and through us. What are those conditions? Prayer, hope and faith make for a good start. Those things aren’t as hard as they sound. We don’t have to be perfect or proficient, we only have to be willing to try, even in the face of skepticism. After all, we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain!