The Outrage Of Grace

This is what we are going to do. We are going to pretend just for a moment that we are first century Jews. We live in a poor and dusty land. We scrape a living together by working hard. We are committed to our families because family is our lifeline, our best chance of survival. We are oppressed both politically through Rome and spiritually through our religion. Our religion has become a heavy yolk of tradition and regulations. There are rules for everything. How to wash your hands, how not to eat, when to work, when not to work, what to wear, what to say, when to say it.

The meetings at the synagogue reinforce the oppression. It seems that rabbis and rulers add new rules, or new steps to ensure God's favor every week. They read from the Torah and then tell parables to illustrate their point. One of their favorite parables they have repeated all of our lives in order to serve a warning for those who ignore tradition and law is the Parable of the Ungrateful Son. It goes something like this.

"There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father.
As he approached his Father's House, I saw his father waiting, with his hand on his hips and a stern look upon his face. When he finally reached his father, he fell to his knees, grabbed his father's feet and said 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.'
His Father looked down at him and said, I have but one son, who is here with me. You have left my house and dragged our family reputation through the mud with you. You are an ingrate and are not worthy to be a servant of my servants! Depart from me, I never knew you.
As the ungrateful son left, the older, beloved son embraced his father and said 'Father, thank you for showing justice and for protecting the family name'.

Our teachers tell us that the father in the story is Yahweh, God. The ungrateful son is the Jew who doesn't appreciate what Yahweh has provided, one who ignores the rules, the tradition. The ungrateful son can be used to for one who has broken any part of the law. This is the burden that we first century Jews share.

Lately there has been talk of a new rabbi from Nazareth who has been traveling from town to town. We have heard that he has healed the sick, forgiven sins, and is a new kind of teacher. His teaching have our religious leaders nervous. Some have even said that he might be the long awaited Messiah. Finally on day this teacher comes to our town. We all gather to see what the fuss is about. Deep down we hope that he will free us from our oppressors. Under the shade of trees just outside of our village we listen to him teach of The Kingdom of Heaven. One of us asks "Rabbi, what is the Kingdom of heaven like?". He smiles, and says

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like this; There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them...."

We are a little disappointed. This teacher with such a big reputation as a great teacher is telling us the same old parable we have heard so many times before. Yes, Rabbi, we know, The son spends the money unwisely and ends up feeding sheep wishing he could go home. We know. He continues...

"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father."

He pauses, look at us with a smile, like he is going to shock us with what happens next. But we know the story, we know the moral of the story is to follow the rules and God will reward us, yet he continues still.

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him..."

Wait..he's not telling it right. No good Jewish man would have compassion for such a son. Not to mention that no good Jew would run after him, what kind of Rabbi is this? What will he say next?

"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate"

This hit us like a punch in the gut. We wonder how this could possible have anything to do with God. Our faces show our confusion and his face almost seems to shine. He is delighted to purposefully mess up the age old story, and particularly excited when he speaks about the son receiving a welcome he doesn't deserve. Our minds race with the implications; Is he saying God is willing to welcome those who choose to ignore the rules and spit on tradition? It sounds promising, almost hopeful to our ears, but it flies in the face of everything we know. We don't get it. On one hand it makes sense, but accepting it would mean that our Scribes, Rabbis and Pharisees are wrong. Dead wrong. We ponder, we question, we discuss among ourselves what this all means.

What if God is like the father in his story?

What if we are forgiven completely?

What if we can be free of the burden of our religion?

How will this change our lives?

Grace At Work

Grace

It's the name for a girl.

It's also a thought that could

Change the World...

-U2

Over the last couple of years I've been on a road of reformation. Reforming my beliefs, reforming my actions, reforming my mind. The results of this Great Reformation have been varied. One of the best by products of this reformation has been a rediscovery of Grace.

I started this reformation thinking I needed to be more transparent in my life. Then I realized that instead of transparency, I need to just live in what C.S. Lewis describes as One Room. All my life, I am the same at work, home, shopping or where ever I go. It goes beyond transparency. My Faith, my relationship with my wife and kids, my work, my friends - can I be the same person in all areas of my life? Well the answer was no, I can't. Not alone. Not by trying to obtain the fruits of the spirit through elbow grease and hardheadedness. Not by searching for that some sort of secret formula, as if the Spirit works like math. Around that time I was able to study and teach the Gospel of Matthew to our Sunday School class. I was struck by Grace all over again. Me trying really hard to make everything right was just another form of religion. Jesus didn't care too much for religion, if you recall. I began to study, read, absorb as much as possible about Grace.

Grace dominates sermons, studies, books, songs and conversations in Christianity, but do we really understand it? The big question for me wasn't if I understood grace, rather it was do I live grace? Am I demonstrating grace? Am I applying grace. For example, if my role as a father is to teach my children the nature of God, what am I teaching them about God's grace? Do they look at me as the loving father who has made an effort to communicate with them, to give them tangible demonstrations of my love, to use their mistakes and shortcomings as opportunities to improve? Or do I demonstrate a hard line, vindictive, wrathful father whose love and favor is conditional upon certain expectations being met? The former begots love and growth. The later begots, well, religious-like devotion out of sheer fear. When faced with these questions, I soon realized that I had some growing up to do.

Grace is what everyone wants. You heard it said that everyone has a God-shaped hole that can only be filled with God. I believe everyone has a soul deep longing for grace, that can only be filled with a grace that comes from God. Karma makes sense when you think about it. It is the logical end result of our fallen nature - you get what's coming to you. But grace is what we want. forgiveness, mercy, love no matter what we have done. Unmerited favor is what we long for. If you think about it, we use the word -or the root word - quite a bit. We are grateful when someone is nice to us. One who is kind is said to be gracious. We give waiters, cabbies and others who perform well a gratuity. We offer congratulations when someone achieves success. We are gratified after a good meal. I like it when i get something gratis. We can use the original Greek word and be charitable and charming. We also use the word in it's opposite meaning: fall from grace, disgrace, ingrate, persona non grata - a person without grace

One of the things that stood out most to me when reading the Gospel was the fact that every conversation Jesus had, he intentionally left a piece of himself with the listener. I wondered what would happen if I fought through my laziness of mind and let grace have its way with me in all that I did. So, I started at home. My prayer each day was this: Let me be the type of father that when my kids think about God, they approach him with gladness and love, not fear and afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing. And let me demonstrate the grace that Jesus showed the church to me wife. That is, after all, what I was instructed to do during my wedding ceremony. It's been a journey. It's been tough. I haven't been perfect to say the least. But I'm doing much better than I had been. Not by force of will though. You can't just summon grace from somewhere deep within you. I can't grit my teeth and love these spoiled rotten kids even if it kills me. It has to come from the spirit and being self conscience that I have the opportunity to share the grace that was freely given to me to the people I care most about.

Next came the baristas, gas station clerks, Wal-Mart employees and call center people. They get enough crap, I'll give them grace. That, actually, has been fun. Now, they still do things that drive me crazy (I'm looking at you Wal Mart employees), and in some cases instead of grace, the most I have been able to show in some situations is neutrality - which is better than pre-reformation me. It's still a work in progress, but the change in my own life has been amazing.

The next logical place to move with this grace has been work. Grace at home made sense, At some level I already love them unconditionally; or as close to it as I possible can. Grace with strangers was different. Maybe because it was because sometimes it is ignored or unnoticed. But, that is kind of what grace is about. 9 Lepers left grace to celebrate, only one truly understood. Letting Christ's grace move through me is it's own reward, and is the very least I'm expected to do. But grace at work, that has proven harder. Because coworkers are some where in between family and strangers. Some are friends, some are not. Some have lifestyles that make my Baptist sensibilities really uncomfortable. And that has been the lesson for me. If I was truly going to live by the example of Jesus and leave a piece of me with every conversation, then I was going to have to throw away some of my old thinking.

The first thing to go was morality. I don't mean I became immoral, but I stopped trying to act moral. We've been lead to believe that if we live good enough at work, we will attract people to Jesus. Here is my theory; Morality has never won anybody to Jesus. Nowhere in the New Testament are we call to be moralists. But Lane, we are told to "live a life worthy of your calling". True, but the ability to do so comes from grace. The problem with "acting moral" is that it tends to lead to judging others. And it leads to separation. We call them "the lost" and "The world". we acted shocked when "the lost" behave like, well, a person who is lost. How many people have entered the kingdom because of my stance on gay marriage? How many souls have been snatched out of hell fire because I was outraged at the levels of alcohol consumption among college students? Well, I'm not sure, but I suspect not many. But I do know this: every soul that has entered into the Kingdom has done so because of grace. I do what I do because of grace, not because of a mandate to be different than "them". Next, I had to stop expecting people to behave like me and just accept them for who they are. And they are broken, flawed, far from perfect, hurt and wandering losers. Just like me. Luckily for us, Jesus is for losers.

Again, bringing grace in my brief case to work with me has been a challenge. I haven't been perfect, far from it. the are good days and not so good. There are conversations where I have to take a breath and make a conscience decision to watch my mouth. It has been good though. But it brings up another problem. Can grace work as a business model? There is a point where capitalism and Christian spirituality clash. How can I demonstrate grace to the nth degree and still make money for my boss? How do I treat people under me who are problem employees? At what point does grace say "you know what, your fired, have a blessed day"? How about the occasional disgruntled employee who comes back in the office days after being let go and creeps everyone out? Is there a gracious way of filing a restraining order? How can I apply grace to, say, contract negotiations? I can easily see where grace is the standard operating procedure as it applies to relationships in the work place, but can it be the business model as well?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it easier or harder to demonstrate grace if you work in a service type industry or own your own business or are an executive?

The thing about grace is that it is more than amazing. It is outrageous and it is dangerous. It upsets the apple cart of human policy regarding rewards and justice. There are times when it simply doesn't make sense, even to those of us who have experienced it first hand through Jesus. And most problematic, it flies in the face of the American Dream at some point. But if there were more grace at work, what would it do for us?