If you are acquainted with the writings of Kathleen Norris,
you may have noticed that inside the title page of her set of essays, Amazing Grace, she quotes a line from an
old hymn. It’s from Robert Robertson’s
hymn, Come thou fount of every blessing
which, you may think mercifully, we rarely hear these days. But that one line is very striking: O to
grace, how great a debtor… It invites
us, I think, to refresh our understanding of this central theme of God’s love
and of Jesus’s teaching.
I don’t know a definition of grace that really gets it. As is often the case, we get a better idea by
saying what it is not. One writer says
that grace is the opposite of karma.
Karma is getting what you deserve – although such a slick definition
would probably make Hindu or Buddhist devotees shudder... But with grace by contrast we may receive
what we didn’t deserve… or perhaps not receive what we did deserve. Grace is God’s “nevertheless”, and perhaps
the most vivid picture of grace in the scriptures is the father of the prodigal
son, seeing his son coming home, while he
was still far off, it says – the father was waiting for his son to come
home – then clothing him in the best clothes, ordering a feast – while the
older son, indignant and affronted, can see only what this brother deserves -- punishment
and relegation to servant status.[1]
In the Greek of the christian scriptures “grace” is the
lovely word charis (χαρις). Of
God’s fullness have we all received, writes John, and grace upon grace (χαριν ἀντι χαριτος). Full of
grace and truth, writes John of Jesus.[2] The law
was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The law prescribed what people deserved –
grace describes what we get when love and wisdom intervene alongside justice. Where
sin abounded, writes St Paul, grace
did much more abound.[3] Indeed, that may be a good definition of
grace: much more…
It is the privilege of Jesus’s disciples, and our calling,
to find ways by which grace can be released in a world preoccupied with
punishment and retribution. We don’t
suggest that the justice system should suddenly start handing out rewards. When we talk about grace, which is difficult,
even incomprehensible to many, it has much more to do with our hearts and our
attitudes in a world of brokenness, irrational hatred and desperate burdens of
guilt. We live differently because we have become
different. We have come to see how
woundedness is part of the human condition which we share. We are learning to set ego aside, not because
it is bad, or wrong, but because the self on which God lavishes grace and love
is the self God creates and recreates daily… at another level altogether from
the ego. We are called to share in God’s
delight and love for the world God made.
And when we find ourselves being changed by the Spirit of God, it is
just that – receivers of grace, we become givers of grace from our hearts.
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