Layers

This blog entry might get a little deep, spiritually-speaking, so if reading deep thoughts isn't your thing, then back out now. It's okay. I won't be offended. Thanks for taking a look just the same.

However, if you dig some deep thoughts and discussion, then go ahead and dive in. The water is deep here, but it might also be refreshing.

So I'm reading Philip Yancey's short book, Church: Why Bother? It's his personal pilgrimage on accepting the Church, faults and all. Yancey uses several remarkable metaphors to describe the ideal church, and one in particular ignited some curiosity in me. In one of Yancey's final metaphors, he describes the Church as God's welfare office, "an institution set up to heal the blind, set free the captive, feed the hungry, and bring Good News to the poor" (67). While I agree with this great metaphor, it also caused me to question its validity. You see, earlier in this book Philip Yancey also made a clear distinction between families and institutions. To paraphrase, he writes:

Institutions are based on status and rank. A soldier in the Army has stripes on a uniform that tell everyone exactly where he or she stands. A student's status begins with the As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs of the first grade. In the business world, salary and job title signify one's status. In institutions, status is based on performance. Families don't work this way. A child "earns" the family's rights simply by virtue of birth. An underachieving child isn't kicked out of the family; in fact, a child with special needs might receive more attention than the other siblings. Similarly, in God's family, we are plainly told, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free." All artificial distinctions melt away under the sun of God's grace.

So institutions are—by design—not the most "gracious" places. Yet in the metaphor of a welfare office, we do see grace. We see an institution set up to provide for those in need. This is what the Church should be. And, for the most part, this is what the Church is.

Though some institutions are good and do provide grace to a hurting world, the Church should be careful not to become an institution for the reasons paraphrased above. Institutions—even a welfare office—run by the rules of ungrace. One has to qualify to receive welfare. One has to prove that they are deserving of that assistance. We live in a world that says, "What have you done to earn my respect and approval?" Can't a person just be loved and forgiven, regardless of their past? I know justice has to play its role, but who made us the judge of someone else's worth?

Consider this: a church offers a free food pantry for the community. No requirements. No background checks. Just show up and receive a week's worth of groceries, no questions asked. That would be an example of grace. Consider that same food pantry, now with their number of clients exceeding the number of food donations. A screening system would have to be set up to determine who has the greatest need for food. Is this grace? Certainly this church would have to determine a system that fairly gives food to those most in need. But grace might extend an extra helping hand, such as offering a month of free financial counseling to the persons turned away from the food pantry, allowing them to better manage the mishandled money that put them in need of a food pantry in the first place. Simply put, grace goes the extra mile.

I also think about our prison system. In America, a person commits a crime, serves their sentence, and then is sent back out into a community that's largely unwilling to help them integrate back into society. Many ex-offenders cannot even return home because those convicted of drug crimes are barred from public housing. This is ungrace. The effects of ungrace?—today, of all ex-offenders on parole, two-thirds are re-arrested within three years. However, grace is shown through programs like the Re-entry Court in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which provides supervision and counseling for ex-offenders.

Officials say Fort Wayne's Re-entry Court works—in its first year, only 3 out of 55 participants in the program returned to prison because it provides the offenders with resources such as counseling to make a life for themselves. Offenders are three times less likely to return to prison if they have gainful employment. In a country where most ex-offenders are released from prison and simply given $100 and a bus pass, programs like these seek to show grace by helping these persons find employment, housing, and support.

I am stuck on this concept right now: Grace vs. Ungrace. There's many layers to it. We live in a world that needs rules and justice. At the same time, those rules sometimes keep a person from receiving forgiveness and a second chance. There's a quote I heard that says, "Some people break the law; others are broken by the law." I, too, judge people by the world's rules. Is this person worthy of my time and energy? Has this person hurt me or betrayed me in the past? We don't often offer clean slates. God does offer clean slates and—though we know this—we can't seem to imitate.

What would your life look like if you offered grace to every one? How would people respond if you didn't condemn? If you didn't hold grudges? If people didn't have to be "worthy" of your time or affection? If you can answer these questions, you might have a glimpse of grace.