Grace? Grrrr!

We’ve been talking about the mysteries of godliness and the iniquity of good and evil. For the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about the subject of grace. Michael mentioned last week that he was raised a Catholic but the Catholics never talked very much about grace. I think we could all say the same, because churches in general don’t talk very much about grace. Why? Because it makes us uncomfortable. 

We don’t know what to think of it and do with it. We would rather talk about our sins, our shortcomings, and how to overcome them; about how to exercise the will and how to get the Holy Spirit to guide our will, how to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. We’re more familiar with those kinds of things. Grace makes us uneasy, confused, and even angry. 

It elicits very strong emotions in numerous stories in the Bible and the parables Jesus told. Someone has counted 124 unique sins mentioned in the New Testament. They include the usual suspects—lust, greed, gluttony, anger, hatred, and so forth. But grace is mentioned 170 times, yet we hear so much more about sin than we do about grace. 

What is the gospel of grace? Why does the gospel of grace engender such strong emotions? Paul says: 

 But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24) 

He goes on to say what that ministry is—to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. His ministry, summed up in these very few words, was to testify to God’s grace. We’ve talked about the Great Commission to share the gospel. We link evangelism and even proselytizing with the sharing of the gospel. David objected to this last week, it seems rightly so; because the gospel we so readily share is the gospel of our religion, of our beliefs, of our understanding, of our doctrines, but we are called to share the gospel of the kingdom; The gospel of grace. There is no truer gospel. John says:

 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about Him and called out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who is coming after me has proved to be my superior, because He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14-17)

The gospel of grace is personified in the Word, “full of grace and truth.” This is God’s gospel. It is of divine origin. It is a gospel free from fear and guilt. It is not Man’s gospel. It’s not made by Man. It is not the gospel of the law that was given through Moses. It is grace, immaculately conceived and immaculately received. 

We are so inclined to share our own Man-made gospels, our religious beliefs. Jesus says: 

“‘And in vain do they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:9)

But as we saw in the calling of Mary (Luke 1), Mary is a carrier of the gospel of grace. She is (the angel says) “full of grace” and the Lord is with her. But we are all Marys, called to bear the gospel of grace. 

Using the metaphor of pregnancy that Anonymous talked about so nicely last week, we see that pregnancy is a natural and a normal occurrence. It comes about by mixing the seed of a man and the seed of a woman. It is a natural product and produces a living being bearing the genes and the DNA from both the man and the woman. This is a product of Wo/Mankind. This is a product of Wo/Man’s initiative and Wo/Man’s effort. That’s what makes a pregnancy. 

What Mary is bearing, however, and what we are called to bear, is not a product of Wo/Mankind. Bearing grace is something immaculate. It is the product of the Divine. We cannot make it ourselves by mixing seed with seed. We can only receive it from our divine source, and we can only pass it on. We are a carrier, a conduit, a channel of something that is living. As John said in the passage quoted above, because of his fullness we all received “grace upon grace.” That’s double grace. That’s grace squared. That’s supersized grace. 

This is the gospel of grace. This is the good news. This is the gospel that relieves fear and guilt, and this is our mission. The gospel of grace is that there is no sin too great for God not to forgive, and I’d say that’s pretty good news. But we want to preach a gospel that makes people be like us, whereas what God wants us to preach is a gospel that enables people to see themselves as God sees them. In other words, to be like him. 

Paul talks about being adopted into grace:

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:3-6)

Adoption is something that the adopted child has no control over, no say in. So too we have no say in the gospel of grace. Paul again: 

 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

“By the grace of God, I am what I am.” It is not our initiative. It is not our doing. We are what we are by God’s grace, and that’s the gospel truth. Recall when Moses was negotiating with God about leading the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, Moses asked God” “What should I tell my people about who sent me with the good news that they are going to be freed from bondage, with the good news of salvation?” “Say: ‘I am‘ sent you,” God replies.

When people ask us who sent us, our response should be similar. Grace made me what I am. I come with a message that you can be free from fear and guilt and that you can be smothered by grace. The gospel of grace is the gospel of forgiveness and healing, well illustrated here: 

 Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the Sea of Galilee and came to His own city.  And they brought to Him a paralyzed man lying on a stretcher. And seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man who was paralyzed, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” And some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming!” And Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then He *said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, pick up your stretcher and go home.” And he got up and went home. But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. (Matthew 9:1-8)

The chapter goes on to record several other healings—of rulers, of a dead daughter, of a woman who had an issue with blood, of blind men, of dumb people, etc. This chapter is full of “grace upon grace,” as John put it. Why then does grace cause so much anger and engender such strong emotions? Jonah proclaims he’d rather be dead than witness God’s grace to the Ninevites. The angry elder brother of the Prodigal refuses to come into his father’s house. Cain murders his brother Abel. 

We see the anger of the Pharisees at the grace Jesus extends to the paralytic. Jesus forgives, he doesn’t condemn. Why does that produce such anger? Should you anticipate that if you spread a genuine gospel of grace that it will also stimulate an angry response? Is God’s grace about God’s goodness for sinners, or is it to be a reward from God for our good behavior?

Grace destroys the manipulative power of guilt. It destroys the tactic of using shame to manipulate tired souls. It seems like we’re letting the sinner get away with something. Nobody paid anything for grace. Paul tells Timothy:

 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was granted to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, (2 Timothy 1:8-9)

We are called to a holy calling not based on our behavior or works, but according to God’s purpose and because of grace. We’re given grace, we’re given forgiveness. But we’re also given a calling, not based on man’s work, but based on God’s plan for humankind and by God’s grace. 

We’ve talked about the Great Commission and what it means. We’ve already seen the angry, self-righteous person as a person who is hoarding grace. Jason thinks that maybe we’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. He proposes that if you receive grace, you cannot hoard it. It flows through you spontaneously and naturally. He sees the angry and self-righteous “hoarder” of grace as never having actually received or accepted grace. They’re not hoarding grace: They’re devoid of it. They’re denying it. 

What are your thoughts about this important subject of grace, particularly about the gospel of grace. Do you resent God’s forgiveness of others? Does God’s giving grace to bad people make you angry? Why does God’s grace elicit such strong emotions? Are you comfortable with the gospel of grace? Can you see the contrast between the gospel that we take to others and the gospel of grace? And how would an understanding of the gospel of grace change your thoughts about how to fulfill the Great Commission? 

Anonymous: I think grace elicits hard feelings—I wouldn’t say anger. Sadness, maybe. That’s my experience. It makes me feel very unworthy and it saddens me that I want to be more loving to God in return for grace but I can’t. That’s the only negative feeling that grace causes in me. The gospel, being the good news, is enough to bring it to people. You are so excited, you tell people: “You won the lottery!” It’s like telling someone who doesn’t have a child: “Hey, your wife is pregnant!” or “You got a baby boy!” or whatever—something really good. It’s good news. 

I think a world that is suffering so much really yearns to hear something good. Unfortunately, when we have troubles in our lives, or in our loved ones’ lives, we don’t know how to communicate grace to them. We usually take another route, telling them to pray more or just be more loving towards the person who’s causing them all this trouble. “Maybe if you can be a little more forgiving. Maybe if you read your Bible just a few minutes today. Keep in contact with God.” 

What else can we tell them? How could we talk them into comfort. If they’re burdened and sad and complaining, and living in hell? How can we help them by the message of grace? What do we say? I could say “I was bad and God forgave me. He’s always there for me. I know. Just surrender.” But is that practical enough for someone who hasn’t experienced not only God’s grace but even the knowledge of God or his Bible, his Word. How do you do that?

Donald: I’m trying to understand grace. Why is it so difficult for us? What causes us to not just accept it at face value? Is that human behavior? Is it just “I earned this. I didn’t earn that. And either I have it because I earned it or I don’t have it because I didn’t earn it.” I think of the contrast today in terms of those who are blessed and those who are suffering. Where does grace fit in? I just don’t understand. 

I guess if we’re talking about grace in terms of God’s grace and my forgiveness, that’s one thing. It’s another thing about being blessed while others are having such difficult times. It’s very complicated to me, and hard to understand. 

Why do organized church bodies have such a difficult time with grace? Is there something about it they don’t like? Is it because it removes the middleman—it’s a one on one, it’s me, Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t necessarily require an organized religion (though God certainly blesses the idea of organized people on his behalf). 

C-J: For me, it isn’t about grace. We all understand when we meet somebody and there’s a disconnect and we say, “I’m really sorry, I wasn’t listening carefully. I want to honor you, please forgive me and help me to understand.” That’s relationship, and it means community. So for me, I think that grace as we’re describing it in a faith based community is about how to explain to the unbeliever that grace isn’t just forgiveness, it’s a relationship of personhood, and not have them think that you’re nuts (“Oh, you have an invisible friend?! How do you know he’s around? How do you know that this act should be attributed to this invisible entity?” 

As for the relationship versus religion: We are the ambassadors for this invisible entity, how it transforms, how it translates. Speaking for myself, I get it wrong frequently. But even if I kind of self-justify that, the Holy Spirit is so patient and gentle that eventually I come to the place where “It doesn’t matter what you think, Connie. You are committed to the relationship that God has with you. And that is forgiveness and love. Go back and say, ‘Help me to understand, we can do this better.’” 

Whatever I’m trying to justify in my head or protect myself by doing this thing like, “Okay, that’s it, I’m done with you. I’m not going there again.” It’s really about trusting this entity to truly be a lamp unto our feet. It’s more than believing—”I choose to believe the sun will come up, I choose there is this God, this energy.” It’s not really just about that, because there’s no way to prove it, other than to engage in it. It’s that energy of the relationship uses me as a conduit as an avatar, if you will, whatever language you’re comfortable with. 

And so grace comes to my actions that it’s revealed. Now there comes a point where the other person has to embrace that by faith, not of themselves, or by a religious community that says, “First you do A then you do B then you get baptized.” No. It comes by the Holy Spirit being accepted, invited in, “I don’t know even what I’m doing. But by faith, whatever that is, I will be guided. I may be disappointed but I surrender. I surrender to this chain of command, to the leadership.”

Now they’re humans, so they’ll make mistakes in terms of pastoral care or doctrine. All of those things. Are you going to go to this church or that church? Which ritual are you comfortable with? How much are you going to give your life over to it? Are you going to completely dedicate it in pastoral relationship, as a member of that leadership? Are you going to dedicate it in the way you raise your children and the choices you make in your life? There’s a wide spectrum there. 

But the relationships always begins and ends with I love you, thy will be done, I receive what ever you can give me, whether it hurts, whether I understand it. Each person you bring into my life, each circumstance, I have to believe that this is a blink of an eye, in terms of what I’m aware of. And the rest is a choice to be in relationship with God and with others. 

What’s happening in the Ukraine really upsets me and I know it’s going to have a massive tsunami effect on the global community. It may not happen today but it will happen, because we are all in relationship with one another. God says that the first thing we are to do is pray for one another, not just those in our tent (a metaphor for our family, our community.) 

In Eastern cultures, if you come into a tent, you are given hospitality. They don’t ask you, “Are you a good person or a bad person?” before they enter. “Will you rob me? Will you kill me? Will you hurt my family? Will you betray where we are and what we’re doing?” It’s a mandate of trust for that season, for that meal, for that moment. And we are metaphorically in a global community, which makes us to some degree in other people’s tents. 

We trust the government, we trust the church, we trust our own bloodline. We trust our educational system to tell us the truth. But in the end, it is our personal responsibility to seek out truth through many streams information, to choose who we will trust and how much. As individuals, we are limited as to any moment in time. When we were children, we believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. As we got older, we trusted our leaders, our parents, our teachers. 

It’s always about relationship. It is an act of faith, and it is communal.

Chris: Donald asked what makes it so hard. Dan shared with us some of Jason’s thoughts about essentially not being able to hoard it, it just flowing. For me, grace comes down to one word that makes us struggle with it: The word is control. When you think of an institution—an organized institution, whether it’s a school, a specific denomination, or a religion, or this or that—they all, whether they know it or not (and I propose they know it) look to have some sort of control. 

I have fundamental beliefs, traditions, and rituals within my religion, through which I’m able to at least have some control over the concept of God, some control over the concept of grace, and maybe some control over who really deserves grace or not, which brings in that struggle. When you give up control, I believe grace no longer becomes an issue. I think grace can can naturally do what grace does, because grace is just there. It exists because God exists. It exists because of what Christ did, and the example that Christ showed us. Christ didn’t try to control. He just let happen what was meant to happen, which was, in my opinion, grace.

C-J: It’s interesting that men use the word control and women use the words trust or faith. I think that says a lot about culture. Language is very important. But for some people, they need to be a part of the choice. Women are taught to be subject to the grace, whether it’s their husbands, their fathers, their employers (who usually are male), we are taught as women to trust that they will do the right thing, and when they don’t, we are told “Be patient. Do the right thing and they will see the benefit of doing the right thing themselves.” 

Now, does that always happen? No. But the training is different. Men are taught to go fight for what they know is right, to stand up and use their voice. Today, women are learning to say those words—”Use your voice.” 

When you have control, you’re not in submission. Women understand that. When you trust, you are in partnership. And the relationship with God is partnership. And so I think it’s harder for men unless they’re in control of leadership in ritual and tradition and physical space. But it really comes down to trust and “Thy will be done.”

Bryan: I must have been channeling the discussion Don and Jason had last week. I jotted down some notes after class last week, coming to the conclusion that if grace is like a river that flows from heaven, a gift given freely, then is it a gift we are meant to own? I think probably not—it’s more a gift that we are meant to use and let flow through us. 

So then if we don’t own it, are we meant to try and define it or categorize it or change it? Again, I would say probably not. Bonhoeffer’s definition of “cheap” grace basically, I think, says that if you take Christ (or salvation or forgiveness or relationship) out of grace, then it cheapens it. But is that really grace at all, or is it more man’s attempt to make grace into what he wants it to be, to make it fit what he wants it to be, to be able to use it, however he wants to use it? 

Those who hoard or try to hoard grace are trying to dam a river that changes its flow, that changes the output, which changes what people downstream have available to use. We’re not meant to try and change the flow. If grace is a flow through us, then I think we should utilize it. Take from it what we want or what we need, and let it flow through us to those downstream so that we all get the same benefit as it passes through us.

Michael: I agree that the concept of grace is very challenging. My understanding is we’re equally offered grace. You don’t have to earn anything and you don’t have to do anything to get grace. Where it gets challenging, for example, is that someone who has dedicated their life to church, to God, to praying, to paying alms, to following the laws, and to not causing any harm is offered the same amount of grace as Hitler or a priest who abuses children. It’s very hard to take that in, to accept it, because it’s not fair. But still I think that’s God’s way. 

C-J: I don’t think it’s grace that is hard, I think it is the inequity in reality. It’s like, “Wait a minute, I do everything right and this guy is a crook, and look at the life he or she has!” That’s not the grace we’re talking about. We’re talking about grace that is easily received because it’s pure love. It is unmerited and you know when you’re receiving it. 

But the rest of where we live, there’s a lot of inequity. So if I do everything right and I’m still poor, if I’m still scrubbing somebody else’s toilet, if all these things are just the same, it’s hard to say, “Lord, I believe and I have received, but this is hard. This is hard, Lord, I need an extra portion of grace so I won’t hate these people. I need your love to help me to have enough love that I can forgive them. Lord, forgive them for what they do.” 

That’s where I think people trip up. It’s not about being good, surrendering, “Now, I can’t drink, I can’t do this, I can’t of a long list of things, I can’t be in control.” I think it’s just the inequity of where we’re born and what we’re born into. It is not hard to receive the grace of salvation. It’s a blessing and people know it pretty quickly. It’s the other stuff.

Carolyn: I am truly excited about this conversation because all my life grace was not the same as what we are talking about today. 

What do I say when the Great Commission says “Go and tell!” To me, grace is such a joy that I can say “I am saved by the grace of God” and really mean it. To me, this is the Great Commission—to be able to share the river. You’re the conduit and you give it to somebody because it is such a joyful thing to know you are saved and you are comfortable with your Lord and the Holy Spirit is directing you. 

It doesn’t mean you’re not going to fall and falter. That can be corrected so easily because we have our hand in Jesus’ hand. I am a simple person and I love the story of grace because it covers everyone, no matter what.

Donald: In connecting all these dots—the concept of control, the concept of trust, the concept of the river—maybe the reality is those who find the blessing of God’s grace are the ones that need it the most. Those who have the blessings of life don’t feel that they have the need. And so in reality, the river may come down, and you might say, I’m going to pass it through. 

I just don’t know how I would ever pass it through to somebody traumatized by war. But the people in the war are actually experiencing grace that I can’t understand (I would hope) because their world is upside down and if anybody needs grace right now it is those who are impacted by this horrific action. Maybe grace comes in different forms in different people. But we all know that people that in great need are comforted by grace in a way that we covet.

Reinhard: Grace has a broad meaning to me. I think the concept of the river is true. There is grace, in the form of goodness—we share salvation with other people, we forgive people, and so on. We utilize grace, especially for salvation, for the relationship with God, and for our eternal life. In the parable, Jesus talks about the older brother of the Prodigal who felt that his treatment was unfair, like the workers who worked full hours while others worked only one hour yet were paid the same wages. I think he’s talking about salvation. I think that God accepts all sinners who come to Him. 

When we receive this grace, especially of salvation, we cannot feel the unfairness or the mistreatment by God, because God accepts everybody who wants to come to him. So to me, again, the grace God gave us, especially for salvation for all, we cannot feel jealous of people who maybe did little to deserve it. 

Churches, of course, have their own guidelines and rules that members have to adhere to. I think that’s fair. Going out to evangelize and proselytize is not for everybody. Some just believe in God and that he might save them. So there’s a personal conviction for us who know God, who believe in God, to worship God in our own way and then probably deep inside the Holy Spirit will speak to us about what we should do as a follower of God. Do we have to go out as the Great Commission? Or do we just have to be good to other people? 

I think God wants us to channel our goodness to other people. We’re talking about human relationships, because there is a lot of unfairness out there, including war, but how we, as Christians, as believers of God, try to channel all this grace, goodness, forgiveness, and so on, is key. God treats people the same whether they work one hour or 10 hours, and that’s God’s prerogative. 

Salvation is for everybody. Grace is free. But we have to utilize the grace, we cannot abuse it. We cannot just do anything we want against God’s law. Of course, we will always come up short in our lives, but we must try to keep our eyes focused on God and repent. God knows how much we have contravened His will, but God will always accept us as long as we go to Him. 

Sharon: What is the concept of grace privilege? We talk about ethnic privilege, we talk about other privilege. Is there such a thing that those of us who are multiple-generation Christians take and use for granted the grace that we know we’ve been given in the freedom of Jesus Christ? Is there such a thing that we actually think that we’re superior because somehow we have a sense of privilege? That maybe others who are more recent Christians, or not Christians, where that judgment comes in—that concept of privilege? Are we humble enough and emptied enough of ourselves to realize how sinful we are and that our need for grace is just as predominant as anyone else who has access to the atonement of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Greg: On Facebook, a great philanthropist (whose name escapes me) was remembered for saying the biggest problem in the world is that people think that somebody else doesn’t have as much value as they do themselves. I think at the root of it is human pride and lack of compassion. It skews our priorities, so we think we have more value than the next person, and makes us unwilling to extend grace to them. 

Somehow, we have that concept that justice should acknowledge that we have somehow performed better, and have more value thereby; when in fact, at the core of it, as with the prodigal son, the love is there from the Father for everybody. If we want to, we can join in on that. The older brother had a hard time with joining in that love of the Father who valued his prodigal son despite what he had done. 

If we too can learn how to value other people, regardless of who they are, where they are, what they’ve done, and extend to them that grace, because the love of God flows through us, I think that makes the difference. It’s not an easy thing. I think it only comes with a transformation that that comes from a relationship with God.

David: I will be controversial, as usual. I beg to disagree, respectfully, with Reinhard, for once. I really don’t think that grace is a broad topic at all. I think it’s incredibly narrow. And I think the difficulty we’re having in this conversation today is we’re treating grace as being so broad. We’re encompassing blessings, love, forgiveness, and a whole bunch of other things. That makes it very, very difficult to grasp. 

Part of the problem is the way Scripture talks about it. “Grace upon grace” implies that instances of grace happen all through this life, and I think that is a misinterpretation. To me, grace is so very, very narrow. It’s what you get when you are at the end of your tether. It’s not when you win the lottery. You’re not at the end of your tether when you win the lottery. It’s when everything is down and there is absolutely no hope left for you. 

Of course, the ultimate end of the tether is the end of life. That is when you are likely to be your most humble. It’s hard to imagine feeling proud at the very point of death: You don’t know what’s in front of you, it’s the end. The very phrase coup de grâce—the blow of grace—tells you that grace is not mid-life, it is when you’re at the end of your tether, when you’re about to die. 

Maybe you’re given the mid-life grace of a glimpse of God, a glimpse of the future; but if so, that is no ordinary blessing. Take Mother Teresa, whose private letters revealed that she was upset that she really didn’t feel she had God’s grace. But I bet she felt it when she died. 

I think we are still misunderstanding grace, quite seriously.

Kiran: Why is it hard for me personally to accept grace? I think one of the problems I, and some of my friends, have is that our devotionals tell us to look first at ourselves, to examine ourselves. When we do, we find ourselves faulty. The second step is to look to God to fix us. But the emphasis is more on the first part and less on the second, so what happens when I see something wrong with me is I want to fix it myself. I don’t want to believe that I can never fix it. I may go so far as to break myself trying to fix myself. 

It’s a vicious circle. Whether it is an issue of trust or control, I don’t know; but I don’t want to admit that I cannot fix myself. Surrendering to God and letting him fix me is like a baby in need of a change of diaper. If the baby stays passive, it’s quick and clean. If the baby tries to change herself, it’s a mess! 

I was in the hospital for a couple days during my recent trip to India. I wanted to help myself when I couldn’t even lift my arms. I had plenty of willing caregivers but I didn’t like it because I didn’t want them to be uncomfortable, though they said it was a pleasure to take care of me. Or perhaps I thought I could take care of myself and it was embarrassing to let somebody else take care of me. 

So the issue is to realize that I cannot fix myself. I have to embrace God when grace fixes me, and when I do the grace focuses no longer on me! I worry less about myself and Iook more to other people who are struggling as I used to struggle 

I think that’s the gospel: Helping people to turn their eyes from themselves toward others or to Christ. The issue is where we look.

Michael: I disagree with David’s assessment of grace coming strictly at the end of life, at the moment of death. I wouldn’t disagree that it does come then, but I think that is too narrow a view. I don’t think it would make grace more interesting and important if it was so narrow. I do agree that we broadened it a bit. For example, I don’t think grace is a human judgment, like in a blessing. It is not a blessing to be rich. We cannot say: “They have grace” or “God blessed them.” That’s a human judgment. 

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