Means of Grace: A Year of Weekly Devotions

by Fleming Rutledge, Laura Bardolph Hubers (Editor)

Overview

“I bring you news of a living reality that changes everything. Jesus has come; Jesus will come. Whatever your own personal darkness, it has been and will be overcome.”  

Means of Grace is a weekly devotional culled from the sermons of beloved pastor and theologian Fleming Rutledge, organized according to the framework of the liturgical calendar. Each entry, compiled and edited by Rutledge’s friend Laura Bardolph Hubers, begins with a biblical passage and ends with a short prayer. 

Those familiar with Rutledge’s work will recognize both her genuine empathy for human experience and her deep reverence for God. Anyone longing for the wise pastoral guidance of an adept veteran preacher—one who views Scripture not as bland life lessons or timeless teaching but as “the living God present and acting in the story of redemption”—will find here a meaningful companion through the seasons of their spiritual journey that they can return to year after year.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802878700
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Pages:	279
Sales rank:	1,079,974
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Fleming Rutledge is an Episcopal priest, a best-selling author, and a widely recognized preacher whose published sermon collections have received acclaim across denominational lines. Her other books include Help My Unbelief, Three Hours: Sermons for Good Friday, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, and The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, which won Christianity Today's 2017 Book of the Year Award.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Advent
          First Sunday of Advent: Mark 13:33–37
          Second Sunday of Advent: Matthew 3:1, 7–10
          Third Sunday of Advent: John 1:19–34
          Fourth Sunday of Advent: 2 Peter 3: 8–15a
Christmas
          Christmas Eve: Luke 1:26–38
          First Sunday after Christmas Day: Matthew 2:13–23
          Second Sunday after Christmas Day: Ephesians 2:1–10
Epiphany
          Epiphany: Judges 6:1–23; Psalm 111:10; Luke 5:1–11
          Baptism of the Lord: Isaiah 42:1–9
          Second Sunday after the Epiphany: John 2:1–11
          Third Sunday after the Epiphany: 1 Kings 18:20–19:18
          Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany: Isaiah 28
          Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany: Romans 4
          Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany: Jeremiah 17:5–10; 31:31–33
          Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany: Romans 1:18–3:31
          Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany: Romans 11:25–36
          Transfiguration Sunday: 1 Corinthians 13; Luke 9:28–36
Lent and Holy Week
          Ash Wednesday: Psalm 51
          First Sunday in Lent: Psalm 19
          Second Sunday in Lent: John 4:1–42; Romans 5:6–8
          Third Sunday in Lent: Mark 10:45
          Fourth Sunday in Lent: Jeremiah 33:1–3; Romans 4:13–25
          Fifth Sunday in Lent: Romans 3:9–25
          Liturgy of the Palms: Luke 19:28–44; Luke 23:1–49
          Maundy Thursday: Luke 22:39–46
          Good Friday: John 18:1–19:42
Easter
          Easter Day: John 20:1–18
          Second Sunday of Easter: John 20:19–31
          Third Sunday of Easter: Job 38; 42:1–6
          Fourth Sunday of Easter: John 10:11–30
          Fifth Sunday of Easter: 1 Corinthians 15
          Sixth Sunday of Easter: Psalm 16; John 10:1–18
          Seventh Sunday of Easter: 1 John 1
          Day of Pentecost: Isaiah 32
Season after Pentecost
          Trinity Sunday: 2 Corinthians 13
          Second Sunday after Pentecost: Psalm 130
          Third Sunday after Pentecost: Romans 1:1–7
          Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: Genesis 22
          Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: John 6:22–71
          Sixth Sunday after Pentecost: Psalm 145; Deuteronomy 26:6–11
          Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: Ecclesiastes; 1 Samuel 16:7
          Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: Genesis 15
          Ninth Sunday after Pentecost: Romans 6:1–14
          Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: Genesis 2–3
          Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: Romans 8
          Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost: Hebrews 12
          Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Romans 3:9; 7:15–20
          Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Romans 5
          Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Ephesians 4:1–16
          Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Mark 9:14–29
          Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost: Romans 1:16; 8:1–4
          Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43; Romans 8:12–25
          Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost: 2 Kings 5:1–19
          Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost: Isaiah 45
          Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost: Daniel 3
          Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost: Revelation 7:9–17
          Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost: Romans 12
          Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Peter 4:12–19; 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11
          Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: Mark 13
          Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost: Matthew 25:31–46

Editorial Reviews

This brilliant collection from Rutledge’s sermons leads us into the beauty of the church calendar, in which time itself forms us in the truth of the gospel. That the themes of Rutledge’s sermons naturally lend themselves to the pattern of the liturgical year is a testimony to the depth and range of her theological insight and her profound care for the church. Rutledge is not only a gifted theologian and homilist, but a profoundly gifted wordsmith as well, and her luminous prose gives insight on each page. I will be using this book for my own devotions, and I commend Rutledge’s wisdom to the whole church.”
— Tish Harrison Warren
author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night

“A church year’s worth of biblical meditations by the great Fleming Rutledge? Yes, please! Rutledge is one of the best preachers of our time because of her relentless focus on the boundless grace made available to us in Jesus Christ. With a preacher’s heart, an incisive mind, and a lively theological imagination, she opens the gospel to us week by week. What a gift.”
— Alan Jacobs
author of How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds

“I cannot think of a more reliable guide to escort us through the church calendar with weekly devotions than Fleming Rutledge. Her love of holy Scripture and the sacred calendar combined with her half century of preaching expertise make Means of Grace a precious gift. From Advent through Ordinary Time, the words of Fleming Rutledge are indeed a means of grace to help us behold the glory of Christ.”
— Brian Zahnd
author of Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God

“Fleming Rutledge’s preaching and writing ministry has impacted me profoundly over the years. With immense theological rigor, pastoral sensitivity, and adept cultural attentiveness, she reminds us that God has spoken clearly and definitively in Jesus Christ. Means of Grace is a resource I know I will frequent every year.”
— Rich Villodas
author of The Deeply Formed Life

“Fleming Rutledge picks you up, dusts you down, gives you a good talking to—but in such a way that leaves you more alive, more excited to be a Christian, more thrilled with God. Her fearless writing communicates to the reader that if you leave the kid gloves aside, you’ll meet the real God—not the one lazy or complacent sermons have shown you before. Tolle lege as Augustine did—pick up and read—and you’ll be invigorated by these injections of grace.”
— Samuel Wells
vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London

“Means of Grace is exquisite. Fleming Rutledge’s offerings here, curated and edited by Laura Bardolph Hubers, plumb the depth of human experience and electrify the Christian imagination. They re-enchant us, turn our gaze toward God, and anchor us in the good, the true, and the beautiful. Through them, grace reorients us. Rutledge is among the best preachers and teachers of our time—a wise soul. I can think of few others who can expertly guide us through the liturgical Christian year in such a robust and nurturing fashion. I need faithful and trustworthy leaders of depth, wise ones to look up to; Fleming Rutledge is such a person. Contemplate the words within these pages for your own good—and the good of others.”
— Marlena Graves
author of The Way Up Is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself

“Everyone who reads or hears Fleming Rutledge knows of her extraordinary way with the English language. She has clarity, deftness, wit, and grace. But what also shines through is her masterly command of Scripture, which, under her sure hand, becomes a powerful magnet for our attention.”
— Cornelius Plantinga
author of Reading for Preaching

“Perhaps Fleming Rutledge’s greatest contribution to the moribund mainline church is her unflagging, exhilarating insistence that the entire structure of Christianity stands or falls on the foundation of three little words, ‘And God said . . .’ Fleming trusts deeply in the power of the word to have its way with preachers, hearers, and readers alike. For that reason, I can think of no better friend than Fleming to follow into the strange, new world of the Bible where we are met by a living, loquacious God determined to be in conversation with us— even us. Fleming’s work has long equipped me to climb into the pulpit every Sunday and dare to preach. Now, in the gift of this new devotional collection, arranged according to the liturgical year, her unyielding engagement with Scripture and her pastoral concern for the human situation will prove for readers what Fleming has been for me, a means of grace.”
— Jason Micheli
pastor, author, podcaster, and blogger at Tamed Cynic

“Fleming Rutledge is an astonishingly good preacher. Rooted in her conviction that the Bible is ‘the authentic breathing voice of the Word of God,’ she consistently draws out profound insights, new challenges, and joyful surprises from familiar and unfamiliar texts. Her sermons invite her hearers to expect God to speak specifically to them—to gain eyes to see how God is already creatively at work in their lives, and then gain courage to participate with God in that work. Laura Bardolph Hubers has given the world a beautiful gift with this devotional edition that will introduce many to Fleming Rutledge’s sermons, and, in turn, to the living, merciful Word of God that they proclaim.”
— Caleb Maskell
Society of Vineyard Scholars

“I’m tempted to say two realities govern all of Fleming Rutledge’s work—God and his gospel. But we might say it’s just one—the grace of God at work in our salvation. Yet this is no cheap grace, no easy feat, no quiet spirituality for those who can muster the energy for self-improvement and self-actualization, but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who by the will of the Father in the power of the Spirit snatches hopeless sinners out of the jaws of sin, death, and the devil in the agony, judgment, and triumph of his cross and resurrection. And it is precisely this disruptive grace that we are blessed to reckon with on every page of this set of eloquent and energetic devotions. Laura Bardolph Hubers has done first-rate work in gathering and editing this collection of Rutledge’s work for us.”
— Derek Rishmawy
blogger at Reformedish

“These selections are powerful testimony to Fleming Rutledge’s grasp of the Gospel, her clear-eyed diagnosis of our condition, and her full-throated praise of the Cause of Grace.”
— Katherine Sonderegger
William Meade Chair of Systematic Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary

From the Publisher