Meditations on Grace

"How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!"

Romans 11:33

I recently had a discussion with some good friends of mine about a quote given by a well-respected Christian author. The quote read: "Too many rules is legalistic but too much grace is enabling." I understand the point that the author was trying to make, and I don't disagree with the heart of the argument he was giving regarding discipline, but it still made my skin crawl. I don't fault the author for it as, one friend reminded me, our language does use the word grace in this context rather frequently. But my hope is that the world can recognize that this definition falls terribly short of what is intended when "grace" is referenced in the New Testament.

As I speak to this, please know that I do not see myself as an expert but as a life-long sojourner whose awe broadens with each new city I discover. Everything that I write is a humble attempt to make sense of the nonsensical. I just wanted to throw that qualifier (or dis-qualifier) in there before I continue.

While legalism and grace do, I think, stand in stark contrast to one another, New Testament grace in its truest sense never ENABLES a person to indulge in what law forbids. It does sometimes supersede the law and it always forgives even the most heinous offenses, but grace includes the healing balm that frees the one that it touches. It doesn't simply turn a blind eye to evil or offer some free passes and leniency here and there. It looks evil head on and actually reveals just how ugly and wrong it is. But rather than ignore it or condemn it, grace surprisingly lets it be while revealing an incomparably better way. That may not be what you expected me to say, but it's the truth. Grace allows the wretchedness of evil to play out to its ultimate conclusion. It even absorbs the evil into itself so that it can identify and empathize with the pain of the one that has been wrecked by it. But grace doesn't stop there. It's much more relentless than that. In its allowance of evil, it embraces the one caught in evil's grip and teaches a new way to live. Without force, manipulation or coercion, grace simply opens blind eyes and deaf ears. It restores all that was destroyed. 

Having said that, the methods that grace uses are vast and mysterious. There is no one way that its infinitely creative methods chooses to work (because it will not manipulate or control to achieve its sovereign will, it has to think outside the box). There is no structure or boundary that can keep the arms and legs of grace from dancing where it will. The law, however, is a stone temple. It's a statue that has no heart and no mind of its own. Grace is a person known to the New Testament as Jesus of Nazareth. He is living and breathing and sees the beautiful people behind their behavior. He knows, for example, that the woman caught in adultery doesn't need to be stoned as commanded by the law. She's a fellow human being, after all! What one among us has not hurt another person through our selfishness?

He knows the Samaritan woman at the well, the social outcast that can't keep a husband, doesn't need to be shunned as the mores of the time demanded. He sees all of the ugliness and baggage that has been attached to her existence and he still says that abundant life can flow from her innermost being. Grace doesn't know how to disqualify.

He also sees through the empty exterior of Nicodemas, a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews who comes to speak with Jesus under the cover of night. In the true spirit of grace, Jesus doesn't tippy toe around him with niceties and say, "You're doing a great job following all the rules and keeping God's chosen people in line! Well done there, lad." No, he invites him to open his eyes to the way of the Spirit of God, which is free and moves with the unpredictability of the wind. He tells him that God's way is not to condemn under the unbending demands of Israel's instituted tradition, but to save the offenders of this law through love, mercy and self-giving. Grace isn't a one-size-fits-all teaching method. If there are 7 billion people on the planet, then there are at least  that many expressions of grace in action.

Paul called the law a tutor for children, and it is. But it is a tutor that, by itself, has no heart or brains to realize that its students aren't produced by a robotics manufacturer. That is why the writer of Hebrews called its enforcement "inferior". Jesus didn't come to set up a new system with a proper balance BETWEEN law and grace. He came to offer grace upon grace upon grace and in so doing, he fulfilled the fullest extent of the law with a righteousness that EXCEEDED that of the Pharisees. It was a righteousness called Love. In 1Corinthians Paul also teaches about love inviting us to leave childish ways behind. One of the brilliances of the cross of our crucified Christ is that it exposes the childish nature of adhering strictly to the stone-carved letter. The fact that the law could legitimately condemn a man to death for "blasphemously" referring to God as his Father and leader of this compassionate inclusion of "sinners" brings such immaturity to light.

I heard recently that the Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying, "Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively." That sounds like our Lord.

I'm reading a book by Annie Dillard called "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek". She has just finished talking about a certain kind of wasp that kills honeybees by squeezing its abdomen in order to drink the sweet honey from its mouth. While observing this, the wasp was then captured by a praying mantis who began eating the wasp. While the wasp was being eaten, he continued drinking the honey from his bee. Following this description, Ms. Dillard says:

"Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance! Nature will try anything once. This is what the sign of the insects says. No form is too gruesome, no behavior too grotesque. If you're dealing with organic compounds, then let them combine. If it works, if it quickens, set it clacking in the grass; there's always room for one more; you ain't so handsome yourself. This is a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent."

Now THAT is a good description of the indescribable grace. Grace doesn't water down the written code. But, by nature, it is much grander than the law. It holds it in it's inescapable grip and transforms its slaves into free sons and daughters. There's no one too gruesome, no behavior too grotesque. The lavish heart of grace just doesn't know how to give up. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

Easter Thoughts

“My beloved responded and said to me,
‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along.

‘For behold, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.

‘The flowers have already appeared in the land;
The time has arrived for pruning the vines,
And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.

‘The fig tree has ripened its figs,
And the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance.
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along!’”

Song of Solomon 2:10-13

I love Holy Week. I think I really began to enjoy its annual occurrence about four years ago. I remember it was Easter Sunday and I was scheduled to work the morning shift of my desk job at the tennis club where my husband is a teaching pro. Being a holiday, there weren't many people coming in, so I was alone for most of my 6.5 hour shift. It was the first time I'd ever skipped church on an Easter and I thought I'd be a little sad to miss out on the festivities with my fellow brethren. But as the sunlight poured through the pro shop windows and I sat in complete silence perched on my stool, I became incredibly aware of something…or Someone in attendance with me. Grace. This Jesus…this resurrected Lord was surrounding me, embracing me in the Beloved. I almost didn't want to move because I was afraid that the slightest breath would distract me from the consciousness of that moment. Everything around me seemed alive. The distinct smell of tennis balls was something more than an ordinary day at work. It was the fragrance of life somehow. When I finally dared to move, I went up on the balcony overlooking the empty courts and I stretched out my arms and in a voice just above a whisper I declared, "Jesus is here." Something about the silence was so full and so breath-taking. Nothing in me had the ability to interpret what was happening, all I could do was know that it was happening.

At the time, I was reading something by C. S. Lewis. I can't remember for certain, but I think it was "The Great Divorce." The subject on my mind was to do with the intermingling of time and eternity. I've always felt such an interesting connection with Clive (Jack) Staples Lewis. I don't even always like or agree with or understand what he writes, but in my imagination he is a sort of Grandfather to me, or maybe a Great Uncle. His thoughts have the ability to draw me in and take me on a journey that pulls me outside of my normal realm of thinking and invites me to question the unquestionable and to explore this existence as a plain of infinite possibilities.

That morning, after preaching to my congregation of tennis courts, I returned to the desk and looked at the picture of C. S. Lewis that was on the back of the book. I've studied his face hundreds of times, but this particular time, my eyes filled with tears and I kissed the small, square, black and white photograph. Something in that book that he had written decades before I was even born had led me into a moment of sheer presence. It was presence with my Creator, with the resurrected Christ in me, with Uncle Jack and with…tennis balls. As Robert Capon would say, it was a surprise "beyond all liking and happening."

The feeling and intensity of that morning faded, but the faith that was birthed, or perhaps resurrected, remains a constant companion even when I forget that it's there. And it has taught me to stay awake, stay sober in the reality of here and now because that is the only place where this surprising gift of fuller presence finds us and knocks us down with its hugs and kisses and assurances of love. Faith surely isn't a feeling or an intellectual certainty, but is much more a knowing; a knowing that includes doubt as well as the very real substance of pure eternity that resides in every human heart.

Since then, Holy week has intrigued me. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Resurrection Sunday…the events that we remember on these days are so beyond our ability to comprehend. They burst with truth and reality and they are surely worth meditating upon throughout all of the 51 other Holy Weeks throughout the year. But as a creature caught in time, I like the anticipation and build up surrounding this week and the way that nature celebrates it with us in the newness of the Spring season. 

My favorite verses for Easter are the ones from Song of Solomon that I posted at the top. They reveal the mystical romance that is present in the cross and resurrection. In death and in suffering, in rejection and in confusion, our great Lover joined us in a holy matrimony of violent flesh with forgiving God and the silence of the grave became, not the end of our story, but the bedchamber from which new life could be conceived. And now, when all hope seems lost from our perspective; when suffering seems to be our defeat or when we think we've committed an unforgivable atrocity and the darkness of the tomb closes in, suddenly a melody comes out of nowhere to awaken something new! Arise, my darling! Or as John Mark McMillan beautifully puts it: affliction is eclipsed by glory. 

The grave has become the very place of life. Who can understand this? I sure don't. But I hear it. And moment by moment I know that this unfathomable Lover is transforming His Beloved, of which we are all a part.

May the magnitude of these days seduce us out of our fear and into their Truth.

Discipleship: A scary word?

...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3: 10-11

So, I haven't given up blogging. I know that my posts are few and far between. My problem is that I have about a thousand thoughts that I'm meditating on daily and I almost become paralyzed over what I should attempt to put into words.

I gotta say, the Holy Spirit really is an amazing teacher (and I don't mean that I'm just sitting around listening for my own nuggets or personal 'words from the Lord', but rather that I listen to a plethora of voices from scholars to mystics to friends and family and the scriptures, and as I hear them, the Spirit guides my thoughts into new realms of understanding) but man, He goes fast. The minute that I think I'm settled into an idea and that it can't get any better…it does.

So, the things that I have been pondering lately are judgment and discipleship. I haven't been pondering them much in relation to one another (although I think I'll have to get to that) but rather, as separate ideas, they are both at the forefront of my mind. Now don't get scared. I acknowledge that these two words are pretty weighty. If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you've been hit with them in one way or another. But the one I want to focus in on for this post is discipleship. I'll eventually get around to writing about my developing thoughts on judgment, but for now I don't think my understanding is ripe enough to produce a yummy piece of fruit for anyone that may be listening. All I'll say for now is that the Rose Colored Gospel (the rose being Jesus) has convinced me that judgment is always, always restorative. There is nothing to fear from the throne of Grace….but most especially condemnation and shame are not to be feared. Yes, even "unbelievers", whom we often think are and will be condemned by the Father, in reality are not. It is their own unbelief in their acceptance by him that condemns them. Condemnation is dark and ugly and deathly. But the epistle from John says that God is light and that in him is no darkness at all. But I digress. I'll get back to writing on that when my thoughts have ripened a bit more.

Discipleship…

Now I don't mean to imply that I "get" discipleship any better than judgment. I don't think I have a handle on it as much as it has a handle on me and has drawn me in for a closer look. 

For about two years I feel like I've been on a bit of a religious detox. I realize almost daily that it is still not completely out of my system (meaning my system of thinking and seeing god, myself and the world), but I am happy to be in recovery. Everything I thought I knew with certainty has crumbled like a house of straw before the breath-taking beauty of the heart of God revealed in the the cross of Christ. Only Jesus is left standing, and yet even he does not look to me as he used to.

When this "detox" began, discipleship was a word that made my stomach churn. "To be a disciple, you must count the cost…", "To follow Jesus is to lose your life…", "If you want to be my disciple you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me…" 

These phrases were absolutely fraught with bondage for me. To use this language was to say to me, "You're not doing enough. You're a disappointment. You still have such a long way to go. You're not really a Christian." Discipleship was the impossible measuring stick that I was tired of being compared to and always found wanting.

So the day that Grace came to me and spoke to me of my perfection in Love, of my absolute acceptance, of my sonship (daughtership sounds weird) and my blameless, spotless standing before the Father and that this has ALWAYS been the case (it did not become so the day that I "accepted Jesus" or believed and prayed just the right thing or was baptized or was "filled with the spirit", but rather was true from the moment God knew me…which was always, as I've never existed apart from him. And to be known by him is to be loved by him and to be loved by him is to be perfected by him.) I was not in any hurry to jump back into a hog pen now that I was home. 

Many people consider and talk about the prodigal son ending up in the awful hog pen because of his horrendous sins and transgressions, but I posit that the jealous older brother's hogpen was much worse. It's worse because he thinks he's home. For all of his "lack of sin and transgression" he cannot see that he's sitting in shit in a completely different country. But the father stays with him. I was the jealous older brother. But once I got a whiff of sweet, savory grace from the heavenly country, anything that smelled like the invisible hogpen I'd come from was to be avoided at all costs.

Jesus' sayings on being a disciple still stank. I was still hearing them with ears of shame.

Here's why my perspective on this was so skewed. When you believe that God is out there in Heaven somewhere offering grace and forgiveness to those who will accept it and casting into the hell of eternal, conscious torment those who refuse his way and ignite His wrath; or when you believe that he is some divine bookkeeper who, even once you've accepted his "forgiveness" keeps record of wrongs and rights in order to hand out rewards and punishments at the end of time; or when you believe that you are a sinner who must become holy and clean yourself up and confess every sin in order to be pardoned and remain in his "grace"…well hearing Jesus' words on being a disciple sounded about as appealing as becoming a martyr for allah, mainly because the disciple that Jesus describes looks nothing like the god that he seems to be asking us to serve rather than imitate. How is one to "Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect" if this father shows vengeance and wrath and is constantly pointing out people's sin…and yet Jesus asks his disciples and followers to do the exact opposite?

Aaah…you begin to see the predicament that evangelical Christians are in today. Shall we do as He says and not as He does? Or shall we believe the Good News that God the Father really is exactly like Jesus the Son, and always has been and always will be? This is the predicament I found myself in. It's scary to let go and believe that God is like Jesus. You almost don't know what to do when you're no longer motivated by fear and judgment. Then there comes this overwhelming realization that everyone in the world is home-free, whether they believe it or not. God sees everyone the same way that He sees me, in the perfection of His love: redeemed, reconciled, forgiven. It is his utmost desire that they know this truth. This is where my desire to be a disciple has at last been ignited. 

I believe this is what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. What causes a man to stop murdering in the name of God and suddenly lay his life down for others in the name of God? What causes him to stop carrying out judgment upon the world to rather serve the world? Listen to his own words in his letter to the Galatians:

"For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. But when God who had set me apart from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might reveal Him in the nations, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood…"

Do you see what he said? God was pleased to reveal His Son in Paul. So when Jesus stopped Paul dead in his tracks and said, "Saul, saul why are you persecuting me?" Paul realized in this revelation, that Jesus was the son of God, and in seeing Jesus, he somehow saw himself there too. His own sonship was awakened as he realized the true nature of who his Father was. His Father was like Jesus, not taking life in wrath and religious vengeance, but laying down His life in love.

(And take notice, Paul wasn't persecuted because he went around preaching a new religion to convert people to. He wasn't saying, "Hey guys, there's a new god in town to worship and I'm right and your wrong. Now turn to Jesus or else." If that were his mission, he wouldn't have been killed. All kinds of retributive gods were worshipped at the time…what's one more? The thing that upset the religious culture was that the nature of this God he proclaimed was infinitely forgiving and merciful. This is weakness in the eyes of the world. Without fear of retribution, how do we keep the religious order? Without fear, how do we keep the social order? This was a way of life that was just too risky and must be silenced. The threat of such a "weak" and "foolish" god was too much.)

This huge revelation is the vital component that absolutely must precede discipleship and free us from all religion. Once you know who your Father is, you realize that you're like him too! And so you want to learn from him so that you know how to follow him and recognize his voice as opposed to all the other, more familiar  religious voices. It's no longer about earning rewards or approval. Reigning with Him in His kingdom is going to require a brand new mind. A mind that recognizes Heaven in the things that this world considers weak: things like forgiveness, mercy, the poor, the meek, the sick and the marginalized.

The word "disciple" now sounds glorious to my ears! Now, don't get me wrong, it is still a very intimidating concept. The fact that the highest honor for a disciple of Jesus is martyrdom doesn't escape me. It isn't even a journey that I feel I've begun to embark upon yet, except for in my dreams. I live in the wealthiest country in the world, my husband and I recently bought a 3 bedroom 2 bath house, we have two vehicles and my first priority as a mom are my two sons. I get frustrated when I don't get enough sleep at night and I get bent out of shape when plans I have for the day or week get interrupted by distractions. "Self" at the expense of another is still a very real, very stern master and while it demands my service, it also delights in beating me with guilt. 

This is why the realization of Christ in me as my true identity is so very crucial. Without understanding first that I am a daughter to the one whose nature is like Jesus, then I can be easily tricked into thinking that my selfish impulses are the true me, and then I lose all hope of escape. But Jesus' first word of instruction to disciples are to come and rest. As we take his yoke (teaching) upon us and learn from him, he assures us that he is gentle and humble in heart. If he is infinitely patient, then we can be patient with ourselves as we learn this new way of life and discover the abundance in loving and serving another, even if we do so in baby steps. He is giving us a tutorial of who we really are and invites us to follow him as he shows us the ultimate beauty of the human race. 

I'm certain that when Paul first awakened to sonship that he had no idea how much love would eventually come awake in him that would cause him to subject himself to "imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times…received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times…beaten with rods, once…stoned, three times…shipwrecked, a night and a day…spent in the deep..have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from [his] countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; …in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure…" And in his letter to the Philippians in chapter 3, we hear his heart expressed in wanting to continue on to eventually win the prize of martyrdom! And not for the sake of boasting or becoming some heroic icon, but for the simple sake of identifying with Jesus in this most incredible, freeing, selfless love. To know what it is to love another that much! That is the prize! Not some mansion in the sky that is bigger than everyone else's. I find this so incredibly beautiful. The way in which he learned to love as a result of knowing his origin in Christ leaves me just breathless. And it gives me such hope that I may learn to love in such a way. Seriously, I dream about it. Everyday I find myself asking Jesus to teach me, to teach me in some small way to be a disciple today.

I am not expressing this as a point of boasting over such a pious dream, but simply to share and invite you into my awe of Jesus and those who have truly dared to follow him and my desire to grow up into this love. 

We're all in this together. If we can learn anything from our Lord today, this very moment, let it be these two things: Jesus calls us to be and make disciples…not rabbis. We are free to keep our "Student Status" indefinitely. So learn on! And also, humanity is beautiful and is worth our labor in love :-)