I once heard a campus minister define grace as God's Riches At Christ's Expense.
As backronyms go, this one excels because while it's not particularly insightful, it does manage to misportray one of the fundamental mysteries of the Christian faith. So while it's not theologically sound, is it at least clever? Also no.
I dislike this sermon in a bottle because it pushes the notion that grace is all about Christ stepping in and getting a divine whoopin' with God's righteous paddle that he had meant for us. Grace is so much more than that.
What is grace?
To begin with, grace brings heaven down to earth so that it can join us in our dance halls, throw darts with us at the corner pub and celebrate all the joys and drudgery of being human. At the same time it lifts us to heaven so that we can walk through fields beyond the reach of angels. In this dance that she choreographs grace closes the distance that separates us from God and from one another.
So it is grace that comes in the darkness as everything falls apart, puts her hand on your shoulder, and says, "I'm here. It'll be okay." It's also grace that says "I'm really upset by what's happened, and I need to know if you're ready to talk about it yet, because we can't ignore it."
When your car breaks down on the highway at 11 p.m. on a summer night, it's grace that gets out of bed, drives through the darkness and comes to the rescue. Grace ihabits summer afternoons of simple delight, as you play in the creek chasing mudskippers or trying to build a dam; and she also lives in the silent meditation that comes with burning driftwood at night on a beach empty of all but you and Old Man Tide.
Grace lies in wait at the end of a long trail, in the cabin with a warm bed, a kettle of soup on the fire and a candle in the windowsill, egging you on one more mile, one last road, one final step. But she walks with you too, and she has been known to pick up and to carry hikers when they've gone as far as they can, have nothing left to give, and collapsed in the snow mere feet or entire leagues from their destination.
You don't earn grace; in fact sometimes it seems unreasonable or unfair when she lavishes her kindness on others who seem less deserving or less needy than ourselves.. Grace can even feel brutal. People who know her well speak of her cruelty when they meet her in the loss of loved ones, in the death of dreams and in pains so deep that they can be expressed only as an endless howl that comes from the soul.
I have found grace to a divine, golden thread that is woven through all the cloth of our life, ineffable, incomprehensible, impossible to explain but through metaphor, and yet powerful enough to transfigure any experience and every moment into a flash of lightning. In her hands a sow's ear becomes a silk purse, even as that purse remains the ear of a pig.
Grace is always free. Free for the asking, yes; but always freely given.
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