While We Were Yet Sinners . . .

But God proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Before I could walk on my own my mother would hold my hand when I took steps, giving me just enough support so that I wouldn’t fall.  That simple gesture provided to wobbly children is an important addition to their development until they have the strength to go solo.  Sometimes children need a hand.

When I was still a pre-schooler my father was the rector for a private boy’s school in Brazil.  Quadrennially, the secondary school athletes at the school would participate in an Olympiad of sorts.  One year our school hosted the games and the teams from the various schools paraded through our city in their school colors accompanied by much fanfare.  I was too small to see above the crowds gathered on the street so my father, not a tall man himself, lifted me up so that I could see.  The blue and yellow uniforms of our school were vivid in the sunshine of that day and are still a striking memory for me.  Sometimes children need to sit on someone’s shoulders to see what there is to see.

In the first church I served, Jimmy, a man in our community, began attending.  Jimmy was unusual in many ways.  He never qualified for a driver’s license.  In his forties, he had never married and was living with his mother.  Holding a job was beyond his capabilities but he could carry on a conversation of sorts and he did have an unusual talent for the piano.  He played by ear and his melodies were traditional hymns which after a while all began to sound a little bit alike.  He frequently asked me if he could play during the Sunday School opening assembly and I had been reluctant to allow him to do so other than a few times.  However, Geneva, who had taken on the task of picking him up for church and then driving him home afterward, mildly reproved me.  I gave in.  Sometimes the church makes allowances for people as an act of grace.

Making allowances, giving people a hand, or boosting someone on our figurative shoulders, is in many ways at the heart of the church’s mission.  In Paul’s letter to the Romans he makes this central theological point, “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”  In other words, God’s grace is a given.  Grace is a hand up.  Grace is a boost.  Grace makes allowances for our frailties, our shortcomings, our weakness, or perhaps our lack of opportunities.  Grace comes for us, indeed, before us - before we ever respond.

John Wesley gave a name to this action of God.  He called it prevenient, or “preventing,” grace - the attribute of God to act on our behalf before and completely independent from whether or not we respond.  If someone has ever showered you with blessings which led you to think or say, “I don’t deserve this,” then pay attention to this - what we deserve has nothing to do with the blessing of God.  Blessing is a given - given before and whether or not we respond.  This grace is the attribute of God which affirms that we are beloved of God regardless of our inability, our inadequacy, our poverty, or any other deficiency on our part.  

When Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan the Spirit descended upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved . . .”  God’s voice was an affirmation to Jesus that God’s grace was a given before he began his ministry.  Likewise, when Christians are baptized, we are affirming that each one is also beloved.  Baptism is God’s prevenient, or affirming, action of grace given for us.  Like a hand given to help us walk, a set of shoulders to boost us up, or allowances made so we may be full participants in the community.

When Patricia Brennan went to high school, her textbooks were old and battered.  Some of the covers were missing and pages were torn or marked up.  The books had been previously used by students from another high school only two miles away who were at the same time using new textbooks.  Why the difference?  Patricia was attending what was then called the “colored” school, while the users of new books were all “white” teenagers.  At Patricia’s school, they had athletics - basketball, football, baseball, etc.  But they never had new uniforms.  Instead they made do with the hand-me-downs from the high school down the road.  The county school board didn’t see the necessity of equipping the colored school to the same standard as the white school.  They didn’t provide a hand up, a boost, or of allowances for the conditions that the colored students had to endure.

Nevertheless, Patricia went to college.  She overcame the deficiencies of her high school and succeeded in her career and has been a leader in the community where I live.  But I can’t help but imagine what more she might have done if the school board had been more affirming of her potential, and that of her fellow students?  What if she had been given a boost, or allowances to make up for the gaps between her school and the one down the road?  How would a measure of grace affirming her belovedness have boosted her potential in opposition to the negligence which she and her classmates had to endure?  And what of those who did not have the internal drive that Patricia had?  Would they not also have benefited from more affirmation?

In response to the Civil Rights Movement, our nation developed a public policy of “Affirmative Action” as a measure of grace for those who have, because of our society’s negligence, or even oppression, had to deal with significant challenges to their opportunity to reach their potential.  However, in recent years there has been a growth of ill will on the part of some against this affirmative action.  Interestingly, there seems to be agreement that it is a good thing to have diversity in education, the workplace, and society in general.  But most people, regardless of race, think that being judged on one’s merits is also a positive thing.  

But consider:  What if we don’t all start from the same place?  What if the starting line is such that persons who are identified as white are already at the 25 yard line of a 100 yard race?  What if people who are white have a financial advantage in the accumulation of wealth?  I am not suggesting that every white person has the same opportunity.  There are many white people who can testify to their lack of privilege, but these are anecdotal stories.  As a whole, people of color are generally starting far behind white people.  

For instance, African-Americans are half as likely to benefit from an inheritance as white people.  African-Americans are less likely to have a college education and thus tend to earn less income and have significantly less money set aside for retirement - leading of course to having less money to pass on to their children, thus starting the cycle all over again.  And when we consider that African-Americans are six times more likely to be involved in the criminal justice system one can easily see how the disparities are accentuated.  How can we judge people on their merits when some start so far behind in the first place?

Certainly Christians should see the theological context for affirmative action.  If Jesus Christ showers us with grace while we were yet sinners, shouldn’t that create in us empathy for those who need a boost themselves?  

When the people of Israel were being formed into a God-led community, God put a priority on their developing empathy.  “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”(Ex.22:20).  Such empathy for those who have suffered oppression is, or should be, a Christian attribute.  The apostle Paul evokes this quality of empathy in his argument in 1 Corinthians 10.  In speaking about “food offered to idols,” Paul states that Christians may eat whatever they wish with a clear conscience since such idols are nothing.  However, if such eating could cause someone who is weak in the faith to stumble Paul argues that we should refrain from partaking for the sake of the other’s conscience.  I have made the same argument about drinking alcohol.  Christians are free but we are not to use our freedom to the detriment of other people.  In fact, Paul makes this rather astonishing statement, “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.  Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other.” (1 Corinthians 10:23-24) 

If we take this instruction seriously and truly seek the advantage of the other, then there should be no objection to taking affirmative action for those people who have experienced prejudice and oppression for generations.  To seek the advantage of the other requires changes to public policy - changes that give a helping hand, which give a boost, and which make allowances for those who have historically been denied opportunities.  Since we all are recipients of God’s affirming action on our behalf, how could we ever deny our own and our society’s similar action on behalf of others?