Rabbits, Pens and Grace

You’ve heard the phrase, “multiplying like rabbits,” which attests to the prolific way in which rabbits reproduce their own kind.  I have noticed the same thing with ball point pens.  There is no shortage around my house.  While there never seems to be one at hand when I need to make a note, I need look no further than the desk in the den, the kitchen counter, or table, to find half-a-dozen pens of various species.  There are promotional pens from businesses, churches, and schools.  There are pens of different girths, lengths and colors.  There are cheap pens that don’t write so well, and fancy wooden pens, skillfully turned on someone’s lathe.  We have enough, indeed, seventy times seven more than enough, pens to last us our lifetime of use.

And so it is with grace.  Grace is a concept that is often difficult to grasp.  People say grace at meal times.  Dancers show astonishing grace as they twirl and dip.  Some women are named Grace.  British royalty are often addressed as "Your grace."  But grace, as a religious term, means more than that.  Grace means love given without strings attached – love without conditions.  This is the way God loves.

At least that’s what the apostle Paul says in his first letter to the church in Corinth, “love does not insist on its own way.”  At least that’s the way Jesus seemed to love everyone he encountered.  Even as he hung on the cross he is reported to have said, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”  To the very end of his life Jesus loved the world unconditionally. 

Grace is a word that Christians use to describe that kind of unconditional love.  That means there is enough, and even more than enough, love in the heart of God to love everyone, even those we find difficult to love, who seem mean, unloveable, even wicked.  Like the pens that multiply in my house, there seems no end to the love of God.  And like the diversity of pens that proliferate under my very nose, God meets each one of us as we are, where we are, with exactly the grace we need. 

There is a pen of grace which has your name on it.  But you have to pick it up in order to write your story.  I can’t wait to see how your life in grace turns out.        

Unconditional

          What sets Jesus apart from the rest of humanity was his capacity to love unconditionally.  This is (along with some additional points), indeed, why we Christians say he was the Son of God.  Jesus loved in a way the rest of us only occasionally do, thus there was something fundamentally different about him --- he was Other than we are. 

He had compassion for the crowds.  He showed kindness to the prostitute.  He offered hospitality to the tax collector as well as the poor.  He showed no favoritism among those of different social strata.  He loved all equally, and fully, with no conditions, no strings attached.  Even as he was crucified he loved them all – loved us all – pronouncing no curses on his persecutors.

          One caveat here:  Jesus did reserve some choice words of judgment for folks who were self-righteously religious.  The 23^rd Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel offers us a stark picture of Jesus as one who could not condone the hypocrisy of the overly-religious Pharisees of his own day.  He was appalled at the way they made their religion not a joy but a burden on the people.  I suspect Jesus was upset because these semi-professional religious folks were implying that God’s love was conditional.  One telling quote is verse 15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

          My colleague, Rich Irwin, once said to me that he keeps that verse handy as a reminder that his ministry to people is not to trip them up in have-to’s, ought-to’s, and musts, but to release them for joyful living. 

          As a pastor I must remind myself daily to love people for who they are, not for what they can do for me, or even for what they can do for the church.  That we are loved unconditionally, as Jesus loved, is at the heart of the Christian message, and to love in that way is the essence of Christian discipleship.  Everything else is just decoration.

          Obedience to certain principles of morality and ethics is helpful, of course, but I believe we find our true, authentic selves, not by following principles (no matter how high-sounding), but by responding to being loved unconditionally. 

          Theologian Douglas Adams likens it to his experience of his grandparents.  Parents expect their children to toe the line, to follow the rules, which is all well and good.  But when children fail to measure up, as happens to all of us, grandparents will take them in their arms and love them in spite of their shortcomings.  And when any of us are loved in this way it sets us free to be our best selves.  When we believe there is nothing we can do that will prevent us from being loved, then we are liberated to attempt living at its best, and fullest. 

          God loves, unconditionally, every one of us.  That is the message that Jesus incarnates.  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does, AND there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less.  Go, therefore, and live . . . and love.  That’s why God made you.  This is the way Jesus saves you.