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Debt
and Grace
December
26, 2007
"Nothing
is more repugnant to capable, reasonable people than grace." – John
Wesley
As human beings we are so averse to a certain sort of indebtedness. Not
money debt- sadly we attract that one like flies to a certain
substance. The indebtedness we assiduously avoid is a less tangible
one.
Have you ever received a really extraordinary gift? It was hard wasn't
it? Maybe it was a nice watch or a type of electronic device or perhaps
a handbag that you longed for, but would never purchase yourself. Or
maybe it was just a big, fat check in an amount you could not quite
fathom.
So while you were happy to open the package, wasn't there something
that was attached to the surprise and the happiness and that something
was a sort of "oh-no" sound.
And the "oh-no" sound had this trailing behind it… "What do I owe?"
Or it could just be as simple as this... "I don't deserve this." Which can
be another version of fear of owing something.
It is hard to receive anything – harder yet to receive the things that
are freely and generously given. Like grace.
Money debt , for example - is a far more comfortable, owing (pardon the pun) to its structure
and its impersonal nature. We do after all, live in the most
transactional society. It is one big "if
this, then that" sort of programming algorithm.
Personal generosity allows for no such order it would appear, no such
balance. It's that troubling notion of receiving; there's your problem.
Receiving has a certain reflex to it… Kind of like playing catch or
Frisbee; it is in my hand, now it is in your hand, you must throw it
back and so forth. Frisbee dynamics everywhere would be transformed if
everyone got the Frisbee and then said thanks and walked away.
Which I am afraid, brings us back to grace. Deep sigh. Oh that pesky
grace… there is no accounting for it, is there? Ever so unstructured,
so imbalanced it appears and is not subject to any modulation. What a
pain!
As John Wesley so wisely noted many years ago, capable people do not
really have a taste for this sort of thing. It is almost unseemly in
its free flow and capricious movement.
How then can we respond to a God who loves us so much, who gives to us
so freely? One can see the problem that we face. So while we may
profess our faith and try to live it… well maybe not so much. This is
hard work, this grace and receiving business.
As if the enormity of the grace weren't challenge enough, God ups the
ante and delivers us this grace with peculiar bookends.
God as
a baby? It is unthinkable in some ways! So tiny, so vulnerable,
so… so needy! And yet evidence of life force like no other. And
evidence of grace heaped upon grace. Imagine the clutch of His tiny
hand around your finger. We all know what that feels like with a baby,
imagine if the baby were Him.
As if that is not the most, excuse the entirely avoidable pun –
inconceivable turn of events, let us fast forward to the other bookend.
Next stop is death on a cross. What? So if this is actually God, why is
He struggling through the narrow, steep and stony paths of Jerusalem,
with wood lashed to his back, wounds oozing, making his way to
Golgotha?
The utter absurdity of God as criminal! It can't be, can it? Once
again, our King shows up –first as a baby and now as someone about to
go down and go down hard. What kind of God is that?
The Crèche and the Cross provide the container for the dynamics
of our redemption. This state makes it both very easy and yet
incredibly hard to work with.
Enter in grace, ever flowing grace upon grace. That is the very God
that we need. The God who comes to us always in vulnerability, wanting
to heal and not to punish, wanting to console, wanting to support,
wanting to teach, wanting bring new life.
The God as mighty King metaphor can't work as easily. Think of the
mighty King, the supreme leader of men… Sitting upon a throne; awaiting
the prostrations of his minions, with their taxes and their homage.
They cower before the King.
No our God is different. Our baby God, our dying God works in a new way.
The gifts bestowed are from Him to us, are given freely and we are
already saved. The instructions are fairly simple, and as a result, are
very difficult to follow…
Love the Lord God. Love your neighbor. Serve others. Live in peace.
Forgive, forgive, forgive. Receive what God gives and in turn, give it
freely to others. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So the gifts are bountiful and the payment is… wait, can't I just write
a check? You mean I have to go out and actually live in this love?
Give? Receive? Let go of power? Control? It sounds pretty risky.
And indeed it is.
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