God's Grace is Not Equivalent to Getting a Suntan

Preparing for the First Sunday in Lent: One Day before Sunday (Year A)

Scripture

Psalter: Psalm 51

Old Testament: Isaiah 58:1-12

Gospel: Matthew 18:1-7

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Prayer

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Reflection

Is not this the fast that I choose:

    to loose the bonds of injustice,

    to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

    and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

    and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them

    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

    and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you;

    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am” (Isaiah 58:6-9).

My observations over the years is that the church in the West, including we Methodists, have been all too often guilty of preaching, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, cheap grace, and neglecting what John Wesley referred to as perfecting grace. We are guilty of embracing a passive grace where God does it all and the only response on our part is to accept it without consideration of the consequences such grace should have on our lives.

I often compare such passive grace to going to the beach to get a suntan. We lay there on the sand doing absolutely nothing while the sun just beats down upon us giving us its light and heat, while we slowly undergo an epidermal roasting. The only thing we may do in response to our receiving of the sun's “benefits” is to flip over every now and then on our back side.

But God does not lavish his grace upon us so that we may only soak up God’s forgiveness in order to continue to live as if its business as usual. Divine grace is what we need from God in order to be transformed, to be changed, to be re-formed after the image of God incarnated for us in Jesus Christ. God indeed accepts us as we are, but God does not intend to leave us as we are.

We must not use the grace of God as an excuse, as license even, to live as if we are unredeemed. The untenable dichotomy we have drawn between faith and works has often distorted the discussion of God's grace. As Bonhoeffer said many years ago, “The one who believes obeys. The one who does not obey cannot believe.” We must also rid ourselves forever of the other untenable distinction between personal holiness and social holiness. To draw such a distinction and to emphasize one at the expense of the other is to misunderstand what John Wesley meant by holiness. Holiness is at one and the same time personal and social. We cannot have one without the other.

We must always remember that God’s grace is what propels us and sustains us on the exciting and wonderful journey of discipleship; It is not a boring notion that simply reinforces the false belief that God could care less about our bad behavior and the neglect of those in need.

PRAYER: God of the covenant, in the glory of the cross your Son embraced the power of death and broke its hold over your people. In this time of repentance, draw all people to yourself, that we who confess Jesus as Lord may put aside the deeds of death and accept the life of your kingdom. Amen.

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