As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain…Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way……In purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love;
2 Corinthians 6:1,4,6
Have you ever been given a gift that was intended just for you? Of course; we all have. I have enjoyed gifts from family and friends over the years; the ones I still use give me a sense of pleasure – and value – because someone cared enough to give me something they thought I could use or enjoy. So I have clothes, art, tools, kitchen utensils – any manner of things scattered around the house, given with thought, kindness, and generosity.
All of these gifts have been given to me for my own use, or to use to the benefit of others. What I don’t have laying around are gifts that were given to me that I was supposed to turn around and give away. Gifts are intended for the recipient, right? On the face of it, anything else would seem strange.
But what if you were given a gift that you could only use if you turned around and gave it to others? One that if you kept it to yourself, would basically render the gift worthless? How would it feel to be given such a gift? I think it might make me feel a sense of responsibility: I’d have to figure out how to turn around and give it away. I’d have to figure out whom to give it to. I’d have to figure out how to know I’d been an effective steward of this gift.
I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles with this possibility, because I –all of us – have in fact been given exactly this kind of gift: the gift of grace. And I would like to offer some reflections on what I think that gift of grace means, and how it separates people who genuinely follow Jesus, as opposed to simply publicly offering those words.
I was raised in a house of words. My family includes a number of journalists. My father, an Episcopalian minister, wrote sermons every week for many years. When he left the church, he wrote books. The dinner times we had with him often centered on wordplay, puns, the source of words and their connections to old languages. When we would travel the countryside, camping over summers in the years our family was still together, license plates, billboards, store signs and yes, even the old Burma Shave signs gave us words to play with, dissect, use and, occasionally, abuse! So I think, often, on the words that are used in biblical passages, and find significance and meaning in how the words were developed, what they meant at different times, and what they mean today.
Paul was a prolific writer, it seems. In the midst of his ministries to the Corinthians, we have in his reports reflections on three important things that speak to me as part of the essence of what it means to be a Christian.
Paul urges us not to ‘accept God’s grace in vain.’ What does that mean? The first thing that comes through in Paul’s teaching is that God’s grace is a gift: one that is always available, but a gift nonetheless. As with any gift, we have the freedom to accept or reject it. But what, exactly, does ‘grace’ mean? It comes from the Latin grātia, meaning ‘kindness, favor, and esteem.’ So grace is a gift: one given not on our merits, but because the one giving the gift simply wants us to have it – out of kindness, and a sense of esteem – an awareness and acknowledgement that we have worth.
The second thing is that Paul pointedly affirms that if we are to be co-workers of God that we ‘commend ourselves.’ What does it mean to commend? We use it today as a way of honoring others: “She received a commendation for bravery.” In that manner, we would never ‘commend’ ourselves; that would seem to come from ego. But earlier usage is connected with Latin commendare, which is ‘to commit to and entrust,’ especially when to do so is to change one’s actions. So in the original application of these words in the 14th century, people would commend themselves – often in writing – to a belief, a cause, a goal or an action.
The third thing is that there are pretty clear conditions for what to do once we have accepted the gift of Grace and commended ourselves to the responsibility of it. Those conditions are purity, understanding, patience and kindness. Now, I am a fantastic example of a human being…not because I am an impressive physical specimen – I am not, and never have been – but because I am deeply fallible. I have made terrible mistakes where I hurt myself and hurt others. Sometimes those have been accidental, but other times they have not, because I was acting out of my own sense of woundedness, isolation or even intentional thoughtlessness.
At the same time, even in the midst of my imperfections, I am capable of deep understanding, great patience, and, often, kindness. Those capacities are always imperfect, because I am imperfect. But they are capacities deepened by the degree to which I am able to commend myself to them, and that degree is how I view the ‘purity’ in Paul’s directions. I hope ‘purity’ isn’t an absolute index of success for me as a human, but the degree to which I am able to transcend my human limitations and offer understanding, patience and kindness is the degree to which I am able to purely express God’s grace.
I will tell you that, for me, those four words – purity, patience, understanding and kindness – are an effective summation of what it means to me to have a relationship with Jesus. I believe it is important to develop understanding of others, because to do so I must know where limitations exist in me that prevent me from seeing who they truly are, in both light and darkness. I believe that patience is required – and patience comes from a word that means ‘one who bears the burden – because if I expect something from someone, I must provide for them to do so to the best of their abilities. If I do not, I am not really seeing who they are. I am simply reinforcing their burdens – their own limitations.
I believe that kindness – a word that means ‘to produce’ or ‘increase’ – is probably the single most important way to express my beliefs in the world, because it is by acting with kindness that I have the experience of growing closer to Jesus – closer to my ideals. And finally, the degree to which I see myself as a channel for God’s love and Jesus’ examples to us, and the degree to which I permit myself to express that love and kindness without contaminating it by my failings, is the degree to which I am able to purely represent those qualities in the world.
Accepting God’s grace means I have to make new decisions every day about what I do about it, because it’s a gift I cannot keep for myself. And here’s the thing: as a human being I know I am capable of understanding, patience and kindness, but I view those capacities as limited by my humanity. Fortunately, they are deepened to the degree I am expressing God’s grace. So a little grace….a little understanding. More grace….more kindness.
It’s not that accepting grace magically transforms me or opens up some kind of valve somewhere that lets patience flow through me like water. To me, it’s more that if I accept the gift of grace, I must accept the responsibility of grace. If I keep grace to myself, I am hoarding it, and if I hoard something given to me that I am supposed to give to others, I have misused it. I have deprived others of God’s gifts, acting through me. How can I justify that?
These days, it’s not an easy time to claim God’s grace, to see ourselves as God’s co-workers, or to claim discipleship of Jesus. It’s easy to say the words, but it’s challenging to live them. The world has a lot of darkness now; probably no more than at any other time in history, but it seems like it’s becoming more visible. And that darkness is visible in people, evident in choices they make about thoughts, words, and deeds.
I think it’s painful to witness darkness. I think that it’s painful not just because it’s easy to see the impact of darkness as it damages people, seeks power, sows confusion and lies, tears families apart and is rewarded by establishing fear in people. I think that it’s painful because as I see it in others, I also see it in me as well. It is arresting and humbling to remember that, while I consciously seek to make different choices than people I see in the news, on the highways, or in daily interactions I am never that far from turning away from God’s grace, spurning the responsibilities I have accepted – commended myself to – as one of God’s co-workers. That awareness helps me have understanding for the choices I and others make when we turn away from God, even as, at the same time, I condemn the damage those choices create. Each day offers an opportunity, a reckoning, with what I understand Jesus has asked me to do, and what, in fact, I’ve actually done.
Part of that reckoning, I think, involves a decision about what I do with grace. And I don’t think it’s enough to witness darkness. I believe I must bear witness: visibly account for what I see – but with understanding. And I think that God’s grace requires us to respond to the act of bearing witness to it: we must then turn around and, in our own thoughts, words and deeds, do our best to show the kindness that others are not.
So this brings me to what, for me, is the essence of counterfeit Christianity. I read, in Paul’s words, an effective way to understand who is, essentially, dishonoring God: people who claim a relationship with Jesus who then turn around and act without kindness. It’s kind of simple for me: no kindness, no Jesus. And I believe that, as a Christian, I must call out that disparity, name that lie. To me, that is part of the responsibility of grace. And I choose to call it out by recognizing it, acknowledging it with understanding, and then, to the best of my human limits and abilities, offer patience and kindness in return, even in the face of counterfeit Christianity. In fact, I think that modeling kindness to someone who is pretending to be a Christian – a counterfeiter – is the best way to address it.
As humans, we are endlessly reminded of our fallibilities, our limitations. And many of us seek ways to improve ourselves. One of those ways is through affirmations. Social science tells us that if we do something on a daily basis – even if it’s only once a day – for three weeks, that thing or behavior becomes coded into our brain: we come to expect to do it, think it, or act on it. It becomes a normal part of our lives.
So I will leave you with this: as you consider accepting the gift of God’s grace, I challenge you to see how kindness, on a daily basis, can improve your lives, the lives and experiences of those around you, and to help you grow closer to God. No kindness, no Jesus. And I know that, because we are human, we will fail. But the next interaction, choice, or decision you have or make is another opportunity to bear witness to God’s grace, the incredible gift that we have been given, and places in the world where it is sorely needed.
What I believe is that we, in our capacity for kindness, provided with patience, tempered by understanding and offered as a channel as we seek to live lives according to God’s plans, can make a significant difference in the world. It is a way to keep Jesus alive and active in our hearts. And it is a time when the world needs exactly that.
Amen
Stephen Bolles
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2/22/19