Understanding Grace

At the church where I'm employed and attend, we focus a lot on grace. At first this struck me as nice, but maybe a little too nice. I kind of wondered why the focus of sermons and studies wasn't more balanced, also discussing such theological issues like consequences, failings, etc. But as time has passed, I understand better the necessity of learning about grace.

Let's be honest — grace is not easy. To show grace and to receive grace are hard things to do. Our society functions much like a business. You have to earn your keep. Your main goal should be to get ahead and make lots of money. We aren't quick to trust others. We've been mislead before and now we're jaded. Think for a minute about this scenario: you see a street panhandler near your local Wal-Mart. You just want to get home and here's this person asking you for money. How do you normally react to a scenario like this? Many people wonder how the panhandler will spend the money he or she is given. Some will think that the panhandler should seek assistance through a local mission instead of begging. Others will be angry that this panhandler isn't working and isn't doing anything to earn any money. Some will simply be too scared or intimidated to approach the panhandler. All of these reactions, though normal, speak to our human nature in this world. It's a world with little grace to be found. At the heart of our reactions to this hypothetical panhandler is this: we want to have control. We want to have control of where we give our money and even over the way others spend "our" money. If we deem a person undeserving, then we won't give them our charity. This is reasonable, but it's surely not grace.

We think in terms of earning and deserving. These are normal, reasonable methods of judgment, but it's not the way of grace. In fact, Martin Luther bluntly wrote that "Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has." The reasonable way is helping only those who deserve help. The reasonable way is giving to those who are really, truly in need. But does this really add up? Who really deserves anything? And what about those that don't deserve help, or haven't earned the right to assistance? Maybe we should just send them to the gutter with a get-a-job-,-you-lazy-chump kick in the butt. The way our minds naturally operate might not be the right way of thinking at all.

It's not very easy to adopt an attitude where we see everything we have as given to us by God in the first place. It's even more difficult to relinquish control of our money and power. Our identities are based so much on where we work and what neighborhood we live in. What kind of car we drive. What clothes we wear. Again, these might be reasonable things to judge each other by, but it's not grace.

So what if we don't have the high-paying job that we could have had? So what if we don't drive a car that's less than 5 years old? So what if that person has more than me? Grace is about acceptance without limitations. Grace is about speaking positively about people you don't like. Grace is about giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Grace is also about keeping our judgments to ourselves. Grace is not easy at all.

I believe we all have a deep longing to be accepted, whether it's by a family member, our peers, or even a mysterious God that seems so distant. The news of grace is that it's already been offered to us. Embrace it. Soak it in. There's freedom in grace. Here's the kicker: it's when we truly let our guard down and admit that we're human and judgmental and misguided that we can really accept grace. C.H. Spurgeon wrote, "We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all." When we can look at ourselves and say, "Wow, I've really got my attitude and priorities twisted," that's when we're ready for grace.