Grace and the Everyday Life

As Michael has so eloquently put it, once you find grace, it seems like it’s everywhere. We need more discussion on some things I think we haven’t tied up yet. You may be tired of our discussion of grace, but it is our good fortune that grace is never tired of us.

David keeps emphasizing end-of-life grace that comes when you are at the end of your rope. There’s truth in that kind of grace but grace also seems to have an everyday aspect or component to it as well. It also has a transforming quality, which I think we need to understand better to study the difference.

We’ll begin with the story of the lady who anoints Jesus and washes his feet with her hair: 

 Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to eat with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, and began kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner!”

 And Jesus responded and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he replied, “Say it, Teacher.” “A moneylender had two debtors: the one owed five hundred denarii, and the other, fifty. When they were unable to repay, he canceled the debts of both. So which of them will love him more?” Simon answered and said, “I assume the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.” And turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she has not stopped kissing My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” And He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.” And then those who were reclining at the table with Him began saying to themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:36-50)

This woman lived in a time when men were said to say in their daily prayers: “Thank God I was not born a woman.” Not only that: She had embraced an unmentionable sin for so long that it had become her identity. She was identified as a sinner. In the margin reference of my Bible, it says she was an immoral woman. Other translations say she was a prostitute.

When they saw her on the street, people quietly avoided her, kept their distance, believing her uncleanness was contagious. Interestingly, Simon the Pharisee knew her. Everyone seemed to know her. So Simon judged Jesus for what he assumed was ignorance, because surely he could not have had that informed acceptance of her. “If this man were a prophet,” Simon said, “he would have known who and what sort of woman was touching him”, for she was a sinner.

Yet something had transformed her. She had been transformed by grace. A woman like her knew that she did not belong in anyone’s home, much less the home of a Pharisee. Maybe she had heard Jesus talking about how prostitutes will get into heaven before the Pharisees. What brought this sort of woman here? But she came anyway, braving the finger-pointing, the whispers, and the risk of being thrown out. She came to see Jesus. And she came prepared. She came with grace because she had received grace, and when she had learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisees home she brought an alabaster flask of ointment.

How did she know about Jesus? Had she overheard the neighbors’ questioning if he was the redemption of Israel, or did she hear in the marketplace that he healed the diseased and demon-possessed young man (Luke 6:18. She must have known that he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners, because little else could explain why she had such a brazen attitude to come into the Pharisee’s house.

Her actions were a silent rebuke, a scandalous rebuke of the false teaching of her day. No, God’s Kingdom is not for the proud. God’s grace is for the poor in spirit (Luke 6:20), for those who mourn (Luke 6:21), for the tax collectors and sinners (Luke 15:1-2), for the crippled and the blind and the lame (Luke 14:21), for the prodigal son (Luke 15:11), and also for the prostitute.

Jesus had walked and talked among the crowds in the dirty streets, but when he entered Simon’s house, Simon did not task a servant to wash Jesus’ feet, or even give him water to wash his own feet. Simon opened his house to Jesus but not his heart to Jesus, and he withheld the most basic gesture of hospitality.

What would evoke such costly love and worship from this woman? The alabaster perfume and the box in which it was housed was thought to represent probably nearly a year’s wages. Think of where this lady earned her wages—from being a prostitute. This is the response to grace. What is your alabaster box? What is my alabaster box and my expensive perfume? How is it that you and I respond to grace?

Jesus had something to say to Simon: A certain moneylender, he said, had two debtors. One owed 500 denari and the other owed 50. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which one will love him more? No doubt she was the debtor who owed 500 denarii. Her sins before God were legion, but God himself absorbed the cost and canceled her debt. Her sins were forgiven. This is grace personified. Her love was the fragrant flower that grew from the seed of divine forgiveness. She loved much because she was forgiven much.

Justification is not for the self righteous; not for those who prayed: “God, I’m thankful that I’m not like this sinful woman,” as you recall the the Pharisee prayed in the temple. Justification was instead for her who cried out: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (the parable of the Publican in Luke 18). And he said to the woman: “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” Jesus’s words to this prostitute were more scandalous to the Pharisees than to the woman’s past. But his words were true God’s kingdom was for her, and by God’s grace, for those of us who are like her.

I’d like to read an article that offers a cogent analysis: 

Grace Is Not a Thing

MAY 29, 2014  |  JEREMY TREAT

The great American theologian Al Pacino once said, “I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.” Pacino’s statement taps into a tension that we all sense intuitively but maybe have not expressed explicitly. If God is forgiving, then why strive for a holy life? If the penalty has been paid, then why must progress be made?

I believe the tension felt here ultimately comes from a confused view of grace.

What Is Grace?

I used to think of grace as a spiritual substance that God stores in piles behind his heavenly throne and dispenses to his people below. In other words, grace is stuff that God gives apart from himself.

How wrong I was! Grace is not a thing. Grace is not stuff that God gives us apart from himself. He doesn’t run out of it. God gives us himself when we don’t deserve it; that is grace. The oft-repeated definition of grace as an undeserved gift is right but does not go far enough when referring to the grace of God. Grace is a gift, but God is not only the giver, he himself is the gift. God graces us with himself.

But if that’s what grace is, then what does grace do? How does grace work? I’ll tell you this much—grace is not a flowery bow that you wrap around your already tidy religious system. It’s not the cherry on top of your morality pie.

Grace changes everything.

Grace saves and sanctifies. At least that’s the way it is supposed to be. But so often grace is something we look back to rather than move forward by. Confusion results because we don’t get grace; meaning, we receive it but we’re not transformed by it because we don’t understand it. In order to move forward in grace, we need to debunk five misconceptions of grace and defeat three enemies of grace.

Five Misconceptions about Grace

Grace is permission to sin. If God graciously forgives sin, then why struggle for a sin-free life? “I’m good at sinning, God is good at forgiving; it’s a match made in heaven, right?” This common mindset presumes that it’s God’s job to forgive our sin. He’s God—that’s just what he does. But the minute we presume upon grace, it is no longer grace. Grace is not permission to sin, it is the power to overcome sin. By grace God forgives sin and transforms sinners into saints. Holiness is not a prerequisite for grace; it is a product of grace.

Grace fills the gaps. “Do your best and God will do the rest.” According to this understanding, we do most of the heavy lifting on our own, and then God spots us on the last few reps when we’re tired. How nice of God to finish off what we start. The problem with the “grace fills the gaps” thinking is that it vastly underestimates the extent of sin. The Bible does not say we are people who need help crossing the finish line. It says we are spiritual corpses who need to be given life. When you align with the biblical teaching that sin touches every aspect of our being, then you also realize that grace isn’t just needed to polish off your moral achievements; grace is the beginning, middle, and end of the Christian life. The more honest you are about sin, the more your heart will rejoice in grace.

Grace is God letting up on his standards. Most people think that in the Old Testament God was obsessed with holiness and upheld an almost unrealistic standard for his people. “Keep the rules” was the banner of heaven. But then in the New Testament, God must have woken up on the right side of the cloud and finally decided to lower his standards and just love people for who they are. Right? Wrong. Grace is not God letting up on his law but sending his Son to fulfill it. Jesus lived a perfect life, keeping the covenant and fulfilling the law where God’s people had previously failed. By the renewing effects of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit the Christian can live a life of love that begins to align with the holy standards of God’s law.

Grace opposes effort. If it’s “all about grace” then clearly it’s not about effort. Or so it seems. But, as Dallas Willard once said, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” Christians therefore, should work hard, strive, and toil—but we do so not for grace but from grace. Because of the gospel we are motivated not by guilt but by gratitude. And the gospel is the greatest motivating power in the world, propelling followers of Christ to love their neighbor, do justice, and share the gospel. Philippians 2:12-13 describes this type of grace-driven effort: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

Grace is for godly people. As much as people may not say this explicitly, many believe it deep down. It results from the simple misconception that God loves good people rather than that God’s love makes people good. But the Bible is not a story of God looking for good people, but one of God redeeming sinful people. And that should come as good news. Grace is for ungodly people, but it transforms them into godly people. We must understand this, because a decision for Christ apart from devotion to Christ is more about fleeting emotions than lifelong commitment.

Three Enemies of Grace

Pride. Why would anyone turn down a free gift? Because if I don’t earn it, then I can’t take credit for it. This is why grace is a difficult concept for accomplishment-driven people. But the greatest enemy of grace is the idea that I don’t need it. This is apparent in the notion that religion is a “crutch” for weak people. But grace is not a crutch for the weak, it is a foundation for the honest. And if I am honest with myself, I know I need far more than a crutch, I need a new heart. Grace doesn’t prop me up, it transforms me from the inside out. We resist grace because we want the glory.

Entitlement. Entitlement is a three-step process: (1) receive a gift with gratefulness, (2) get used to a gift with routine, and (3) demand a gift as a right. This is a blind spot for many American Christians, and one with dangerous consequences. The minute you think you deserve grace you dissolve its power. Grace makes people grateful, but entitlement strangles out grace.

Self-Pity. If pride says “I don’t need grace” and entitlement claims “I deserve grace,” then this last view is the self-pitying plea that “I’m not good enough for grace.” This sentiment is often expressed by saying something like, “I know God can forgive me, but I just can’t forgive myself.” This sounds humble and self-effacing, but it’s actually quite pretentious. Either (a) you have a higher moral standard than God, or (b) you doubt the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning death. God is a greater savior than you are a sinner. Trust that his grace is sufficient.

A Kingdom Full of Prostitutes

Okay, myths debunked and enemies defeated, how does this play out in life? Let’s take the example of prostitutes. In Matthew 21:31, Jesus tells the religious leaders that “prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.” How is this possible? How can a holy God have a kingdom full of unholy prostitutes? There are two ways: either God overlooks sin or God transforms sinners.

God could have a kingdom full of prostitutes by simply changing his standards and allowing prostitution. This, of course, means that God would then be okay with sexual sin, injustice, the strong oppressing the weak, and so on. But the God of the gospel remains holy, and so he doesn’t merely dismiss sin, he deals with it through sacrifice. The idea of letting everyone into the kingdom without changing them may sound appealing at first, but when you really think it through, this type of kingdom turns out not to be heaven, but hell.

God will have a kingdom full of prostitutes not because he overlooks sin but because he forgives and transforms sinners. Yes, God’s love meets us where we are, but it refuses to let us stay there. This is because when the grace of God takes root in your heart then it produces fruit in your life. God’s grace is not a matter of lowering his standards, it’s a matter of transforming his people.  

Do you actually feel the grace in your life? Is there anything that grace does, or is there anything about grace, that surprises you? What is your alabaster box? What is your expensive perfume? What is your response to grace and the everyday life?

C-J: I want to consider the prostitute, or her profession. It’s an illusion. People say that it’s about a physical encounter and a level of intimacy. But it’s also about an illusion for a price. Depending on how far down the scale you go—from a high price whore to a street corner girl—people view them differently. But it still is about an illusion.

I think that’s what sin is: Something bright and shiny, a distraction. God is always calling us to the truth, and in that equation, people who are enlightened have a different level of awareness—that to whom much is given, much is required. And they assume that when they trip, their fall isn’t as great as the girl on the corner, who’s been doing this so long that she doesn’t know the difference anymore; that the lies we tell ourselves are just as dangerous as what we think we’re deceiving others about—the darkness in our lives, the things we don’t want anybody to see, or we tell ourselves aren’t that important.

But God is always extending the grace. “I know you don’t see this, but we’re going to work on this. I’m going to show you what real love is.” It’s more than forgiveness. It’s an understanding of how deceptive that illusion really is, and the damage it causes so deeply. Like the marrow in our bones that continually is renewed, but defective. I think that’s what those people in the room watched this event. This experience this woman had, they didn’t understand. They they didn’t understand how clearly she had become aware of what real grace is. It’s not just forgiveness. It’s restoration to a depth that I don’t think all can reach. It’s the relationship. It has no measure.

David: I still think we’re confusing and conflating grace with something else. What about blessings? What’s the difference between grace and blessings in life? We have two separate words, with different etymology presumably, so they must mean different things. But we seem to treat them both as exactly the same.

Anonymous: The Bible mentions how God is so generous to and cares for the righteous. He’s with the righteous, he protects them. The distinction is really very obvious in the Bible, but why is there this distinction if God is so just and loves everybody and is gracious to everyone?

I think the word blessing is where we find difference between the righteous and the unrighteous. In Arabic, the word grace is the same word as blessing. So that’s why I have this confusion. When believers in Jordan say somebody’s blessed, that means he has نَعْمة [naʻma]. That’s the word in Arabic for grace. He has naʻma from God. So money is naʻma. Prosperity is naʻma. Health is naʻma. Children are naʻma for the parents.

Could it be that the Bible distinguishes between righteous and unrighteous people by blessings? For sure, it’s not by grace, because I know that God’s grace is for everyone, and especially for the bad, for the unrighteous. That’s for sure. So could it be the word blessing is throwing us off track? 

C-J: I see grace, even when I forgive, as the Holy Spirit operating within me. “Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” A blessing is a gift, whether we’re giving it or receiving it, and yes, some people have more. But I also see those who have abundance as a distraction, unless they are giving generously of what they’ve been given. Philanthropy from the very wealthy isn’t the result of anything they did that deserves that kind of blessing.

But blessing can also be the widower who gave her last mite, the blessing of great faith. Blessing isn’t just about monetary things. It’s a generosity of not just what we’ve received, but extending something not out of our generosity but out of our lacking yet still choosing to give. It’s a choice, not just “I’m obligated to give” or “I don’t need this anymore” or “I have more than enough.”

My understanding is that the type of perfume in that box was what you would use in the anointing of somebody after they died. Maybe she had an insight, her tears resulted from knowing that. It’s not just her sin, but the state of affairs of where they were living at that time. It was chaos. There was war, there was poverty, oppression, and lots of desperate people. The idea of Jesus being the Messiah went beyond the idea of redemption in the afterlife. It’s “Please stop this, please, if you are indeed the Messiah, please stop this war, this chaos, this poverty, and all that it brings. These people who don’t even believe! What’s happened to our God? Where’s that God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?”

She was coming to Jesus, not just out of a revelation but “Please stop this”. I can’t imagine that pain in that woman’s heart at so many levels. And in coming to him in the humility of “There’s nothing more I can do. Please be who they say you are.”

Donald: Can or should we judge others? We do all the time. When you judge others, you’re starting to classify sin: “This is a greater sin, that is a lesser sin”. This is nonsense, because we are told in the Bible that whether it’s a small sin or a great sin, Jesus is there to forgive it. We judge other people all the time, on lots of different matters, whether it’s a matter of sin or not. We tried to understand what the other person’s doing. But we classify sin. 

When I was a teenager, I highly valued the church I belonged to and its organization and the members. But one of my dearest friends was disfellowshipped from it. The church did a whole lot of judging. To me, the thing that we need to be very careful of is how we present Jesus and what he has done for us. We put an organization and rules around it. We add to it because what it is doesn’t seem to be enough. And so we start going down the road of “This sin’s too much, so you’re out!”

Who are we to ever say: “You’re out!” You can be out of an organization, no problem, but disfellowshipping suggests that you’ve gone beyond what an organization can tolerate. The issue of judgment to me is important as we look at grace. How grace-filled should we be? How tolerant should we be? If you harm me, and I harm you, that’s a different situation. But if you do this activity, you’re out!

I think we view grace as filling the gap. We close the gap only so far but can’t make it all the way and God will fill close it for us. That’s quite different from a blessing. In a blessing, there is no gap—you just are favored. 

Michael: I think it’s a misconception, especially among Christians, to equate the word blessing with money or affluence. I want to have a lot of money. I would love to be able to buy a car without thinking about it. But I don’t think that’s God’s perspective. I think the whole idea that affluence and being rich is a blessing from God is absolutely wrong. I think the Bible is perfectly clear on it.

The description that Jesus uses with reference to affluence is that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved. So Jesus is being very clear. All the Calvinist and Puritan and other teachings to the effect that if you pray and sow your seed you’ll get rich is fake and wrong teaching. I think most people are not with what God wants, because it seems that the richer you are, the harder it is for you to be saved.

I want to be rich, but it seems like God’s perspective on things is different from ours.

Robin: Grace is shown in the dictionary as both a noun and verb. Its synonyms include beneficence, blessing, courtesy, thanksgiving, and benediction. So a lot of words are correlated with grace.

Dion: I grew up with boys and a girl who was a tomboy, so we considered her to be a boy. Now I have two girls of my own, aged eight and four, who are extremely sensitive. Sometimes I struggled to relate with them. I may feel that they are simply throwing a tantrum when in fact they’re actually expressing their feelings, or they have something going on in their heads which they haven’t communicated to me.

If I take the time to sit down and talk to them and try to get to the bottom of what the matter is, then I’m able to get past it; otherwise, chaos reigns in the house! Similarly, I feel that our assumptions and preconceptions about what other people are thinking colors and prejudices our thoughts about them and influences our behavior towards them. That’s when we need to call on grace, that’s when we need to sit and communicate with the person about whom we are thinking these thoughts, because there are so many things going on in everybody’s life to which we are not privy that make them behave in ways we don’t understand.

My wife has helped me a lot in understanding my girls’ psyches and our how to deal with them and how to get through to them. It has been very enlightening. If I take the time to spend more time with them, then I get to understand more of where they are coming from and am better able to relate to them. I think that is the grace we need to extend to others, rather than judge them superficially on the spur of the moment. I think that is what grace in everyday life is like.

Simon recognized the woman as a street walker and summarily judged her. But Christ is pointing out that there are deeper elements at play. I think grace lets those deeper elements play out in their turn. We need to understand where those deep elements lie and how to relate to people better.

C-J: I agree there’s a difference between flawed by circumstance and contaminating a group. When people are excommunicated or disfellowshipped, whether it’s a circle of friends or a body of believers, they don’t want that element or those unknown things that Dion is mentioning to contaminate what they consider is their identity, or a part of their identity that they want others to see first about them.

But flawed by circumstances, what I hear Dion saying about understanding what I am looking at? Who am I to…? I don’t know the depth, the circumstances. If we could do that as believers when we go out of our homes, or where we work, or where we have to conform to a different culture—and that could be a business culture, a different belief system, dress, all of that.

But I really believe that we want to categorize. Language and words do matter, but am I attributing the same meaning to it as you do when it’s being used? So for me to fully be able to embrace you, I have to understand the intention of that word and what you give meaning to it, not what I give meaning to it. And so when we’re doing this exchange, we have to lean in, we have to come into that leaving our beliefs and values at the threshold of that door and listen deeply, and put on a different way of being. 

But in God, it’s a level playing field. Grace is about shining that light without all the checking off of the boxes and measuring the degrees of off-centeredness. It’s a clean slate, it’s a revelation, and he brings us into where he needs us to be so that we can continue to grow in the Spirit, not just in my intellectual ability to comprehend the here and now.

Carolyn: I would love to have our churches be a hospital for sinners rather than a place to attain piety. I want church to be where we attain freedom through grace.

Donald: Well stated. My simple concern would be what business we have organizing anything around God’s grace. God’s grace is just that. Why would we put any other parameters around it? Why do we make a hierarchy of sin? God blesses a church—it’s his bride. If a church organization wants to fellowship around the concept of God and his grace, then good. The challenge arises when your church starts differentiating itself from the next church next door.

Once defined, then the church has to remove what misrepresents it—to excommunicate, to disfellowship—as long as it is very careful in saying that the person is being removed from the organization but not from the body of Christ. Who are we to ever think that we know so much that we could remove somebody in that way?

We don’t have the time to figure things out, as Dion doesn’t have the time to to sit down with his girls every time something goes wrong. Even if he does, he still might not be able to figure it out. I don’t understand the whole world, so I turn to the news, which boils it down to what it calls the truth. This lessens our ability to understand each other. 

Reinhard: Of course, organizations have standards in order to operate. Cardinal sin may be unforgivable and venial sin may be forgivable, but I think it’s fair for church leaders to judge people against the church’s standards. As individuals, we judge others based on what we feel inside. We compare them to ourselves, but as long as we judge only in a positive light, that brings us closer to God, but judging in a negative light is maybe a different matter.

When the woman came to Jesus in Simon’s house, Simon kept his thoughts to himself, but God knew, Jesus knew, and forgiveness resulted. There are times in life when you don’t have to say the words, because God knows. This is the tremendous blessing of grace from God. Sometimes even with friends we don’t have to say “I love you” or “I care for you”—they know.

Jesus rebuked the hypocritical Pharisees by visiting the outcasts, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, to show them that he loves everybody. In the parable, the Pharisee boasted of his righteousness and distinguished himself from the publican, while the latter asked for forgiveness and confessed to being a sinner. But God knew them both, deep inside. The grace of God penetrates all levels of people.

We sometimes have to reconcile with ourselves, we don’t forgive ourselves, and maybe we don’t even accept the grace. We worry over our past, but when grace comes to the rescue we must accept it.

Robin: We know what the pronouncement of judgment was on adultery in the Old Testament: It was to take the adulterer out and stone her or him. We are not told whether a show of repentance made a difference or not. There are still civilizations and churches that feel they have to exercise stoning or disfellowshiping.

Though it’s only recorded twice, I suspect Jesus met more than two people in three years who were committing adultery, yet never did he say to pick up stones. I think this teaches us that it is God alone who knows the heart. He knew the individuals, he knew their situations, he knew why they were involved in that kind of lifestyle, and he knew the degree of repentance they would have if they could just feel that God was still ready, willing, and able to forgive and to love them and to be reconciled.

Reinhard: When the Israelites were worshipping idols, in the eyes of Gods that was adultery. Jesus forgives all sinners, but the Bible says that idol worshippers, drunks, and immoral people will find no place in heaven. When they are forgiven, there’s repentance That’s where the grace comes in.

C-J: Adultery is an issue because of disease and inheritance in terms of a society. I agree, sin is sin, and it separates us from God. Murder is no greater than a lie. I think that we oftentimes see it as a morality issue, even if the two people love each other. Homosexuality has always been with us. It is considered an abomination. But I think the real issue about adultery, whatever flavor it comes in, is about disease and corruption and keeping society healthy. It is also about inheritance. In this case of our faith, the inheritance is everlasting life, which comes through forgiveness and grace.

Kiran: I often used to worry that if I make a mistake, God would leave me. Scripture talks about how Mary and Joseph ignored Jesus for a day but then had to look for him three days, then found him in the temple. The message that you have to work three times harder to get back to a relationship with God was the root cause of all my sadness in my religious experience because I thought if you make a mistake then God is gone and you have to really work hard to get back to him.

My mistakes piled up on each other and it felt like it was impossible to restore a relationship with God and I would cry. But it is comforting to know that my mistakes don’t set back my relationship, that he himself offered his relationship to me for free and would keep it no matter how long it takes, how many mistakes. On top of that, he’s going to help me to be in a right relationship with him—that means a relationship where I reflect his character. He is the gift. I always felt that I have to do so much to restore and to maintain the relationship, but the fact that he does everything and I just have to let him do it is a blessing.

Elsa: I’m from a traditional church, so everything I’ve heard in this class is so different. Grace has transformed me to be able to receive it. 

Don: That’s nicely said, thank you, and it’s a good note to end on. 

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