Grace-filled People

Listen: “You Make Beautiful Things” by Gungor

All of the religions of the world have a version of Karma. It’s the law of reaping what you sow (Galatians 6:7). Some would call it reciprocity. If you sow generosity, it will come back to you. If you sow love, it will come back to you. It also works in a negative way. If you sow hate, you will reap hatred. You reap what you sow. If you behave badly and mess up in a big way, the consequences can be harsh. Karma can feel cold, calculated, and cruel.

And then there is grace. I’ve always been a grace guy. Grace interrupts the cycle of retribution. We get what we don’t deserve. We get forgiveness, kindness, and a fresh start. I think we all need grace. Our world needs more grace. We need more grace-filled people.

Over the last couple of years in my life, I have needed an abundance of grace. I wanted to believe that what I had preached for years was true for me: Grace is freely available from God. However, I was having a hard time giving myself grace.

Grace-filled people made the difference. Some people kept loving me and showing me grace, regardless of my behavior. Sometimes we come to know God’s grace through grace-filled people.

One of my favorite authors said that we all need to have “grace-filled eyes” to see the potential in others, even when they are at their worst. “To love a person,” said Dostoevsky, “means to see him as God intended him to be.” It’s being able to see the inherent dignity and worth of every human person because they are created in the image of God.

Some people are the opposite. They want to isolate, punish, or cancel people with whom they disagree intellectually or with whom they disagree morally. They judge harshly, focus on people’s worst moments, and rarely, if ever, let up on the punishment.

Jesus didn’t behave this way. In Jesus’ day, the world was divided into people who were clean and unclean. People were considered unclean if they were diseased (like lepers), disabled (birth defects), foreigners (Gentiles), or sinful. If you touched or socialized with any of these people, you would be unclean by virtue of proximity. People were focused on avoiding contagious people.

Jesus touched the sick. He ate with sinners. He radically included those who were on the margins. In effect, he healed people through including them into a new kind of community—a community of grace. 

My favorite book on grace is written by Philip Yancey entitled What’s So Amazing About Grace. If you haven’t read it, I would highly recommend it. Yancey is an excellent writer, and his vision for grace is contagious. He writes: “Rung by rung, Jesus dismantled the ladder of hierarchy that had marked the approach to God. He invited defectives, sinners, aliens, and Gentiles—the unclean!—to God’s banquet table.”

To follow Jesus means to be an agent of grace instead of an avoider of contagion. Jesus taught that we all need grace, even the angry, self-righteous, “morally superior”  crowd needs grace though they can’t see it. Those who receive grace are called to give grace, and deep down, we all need it and long for it.

In one of Martin Luther King’s most famous sermons, “Loving You Enemies,” he challenged people to practice non-violent grace. MLK famously reflects on Jesus’ teaching and said, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

I love what Bono from U2 said about grace:

You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; or in physics, in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you sow, so will you reap” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff. (The Poached Egg, Bono Interview, “Grace Over Karma”).

I second that!

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2021