Hello friends.
This is Mark Gladman,
Brother Frederick James.
Your friendly neighbourhood Monk & Dox.
Welcome back as we continue our series,
God is.
Today we're going to focus in on the idea that God is grace.
And so as we do,
I just invite you to still yourself.
And to bring your mind,
Your heart and your body fully into this moment.
Allow yourself to take a deep breath in.
To settle into this space and this time where there's nothing you need to do,
Nothing else you need to be.
Except for present.
And attentive.
And ready for what the Spirit might be saying to our hearts today.
Grace is one of those words.
That spiritual people and in particular Christians often use.
So often that we can forget how strange grace is.
We sing about amazing grace.
We preach about grace.
It's on coffee mugs and little wall plaques.
I wonder whether we've made grace way too small.
We often think of grace as something that God does from time to time.
God forgives.
And gives us another chance,
Makes an exception and overlooks a failure that we've fallen into.
We think grace is God deciding for reasons we don't entirely understand to be nice to us.
What if Grace?
Is not just something God does from time to time.
What if grace is what God is like.
What God's character's like,
What if God is God?
Grace itself.
All of us carry some sort of version of God around.
Inside of us.
It might be a version that we've inherited or taught or one that we put together over time.
But it's a day And quite often,
This God watches and assesses us.
This God knows what we've done because this is a God who keeps track.
Depending on how well we perform.
This God in our minds often responds accordingly.
Good behavior,
Approved.
Failure,
Distance is created.
Repentance restores that relationship.
Obedience and you earn a blessing.
Sin and you've created a debt.
And grace becomes the moment when God decides not to enforce the full penalty of that.
And this is the picture.
That so many people carry and it's a picture.
That's probably one of the most profoundly damaging images of God that I've heard of because underneath that.
Image is the assumption that God's basic posture towards humanity is conditional,
That I have to get something right before I can be really safe with God.
That I have to become acceptable or clean myself up or prove that I'm serious.
Or have to deserve the welcome of God.
And if I have all that stuff right,
Then maybe God will say.
.
.
Yes,
But what if that's backwards?
And here's what I'm proposing.
What if grace.
.
.
Comes first.
Think of all the stories that Jesus tells.
The shepherd goes looking for the lost sheep.
The woman goes searching for the lost coin.
The father runs towards the returning son.
Jesus calls people before they have their lives sorted out.
He eats with people who haven't earned a seat at the table.
He touches people who've been declared untouchable.
He forgives people who haven't managed to make themselves worthy of forgiveness.
Again and again in the life and ministry of Jesus and in the stories that he tells.
The movement is always the same.
Grace comes first.
The welcome,
The invitation,
The relationship,
All of that comes first.
Transformation.
Always comes.
Lighter.
Always.
We imagine.
That we need to change so that God will love us.
But Jesus seems to suggest something Well,
It's a radical proposition.
That God's love is what makes transformation.
Possible.
But it's important to understand too that grace isn't God lowering the bar.
Grace doesn't mean nothing matters.
Doesn't mean that evil doesn't matter or that actions have no consequences or that we don't need to change.
In fact,
I think it's the opposite,
Because of grace,
Grace.
Is what makes genuine change possible.
Because you think about it,
Shame really doesn't transform people.
Fear can control behaviour.
Punishment can produce compliance.
But love?
Love can actually change a person.
And I've seen this firsthand in many of the work vocations and ministries that I've been a part of.
And what I saw was that when you discover that you're loved without having to,
You know,
Perform for it,
Like you're some sort of acting monkey.
Something inside you becomes free.
Free enough to become different.
You don't spend all your energy protecting yourself or constructing an identity.
You don't have to prove your worth instead.
You can begin to become everything that you already are.
Everything that it was intended that you would be.
I mean,
Think about a child,
A healthy parent.
Doesn't love a child because the child has won enough medals or gets an A in mathematics and so therefore gets a hug.
They don't have to make the bed perfectly before they belong at the breakfast table.
They belong way before they achieve.
And while their achievements might make their parents happy and from time to time their behaviour may need to be corrected.
Their belonging isn't something that they own.
Have to earn from scratch every morning.
Belonging isn't attached to those things.
And I think this is the thing.
That Jesus was trying to reveal to us about God.
Employees.
Applying for a position in God's household.
We are creatures already receiving existence as a gift and salvation isn't about getting God to accept us but about awakening to the acceptance that has been there all along.
And this.
.
.
Might be the most important thing I say today.
Grace is not God occasionally deciding,
I'll let this one go.
Grace isn't God suspending God's normal character.
Grace is.
God's character.
And if God is love,
Then grace isn't surprising.
If God is love.
Then generosity isn't an exception to the rule.
If God is love,
Then mercy is not some sort of concession.
If God's love.
Then forgiveness isn't losing an argument with justice.
I think forgiveness.
Is just what divine love does when it encounters human brokenness.
It moves towards it to bring about restoration.
And so there's a question that's been sitting with me as I've been chewing on all this.
Isn't waiting for us to deserve.
Because I think so much religious language.
Can turn God into some sort of reward.
Be good enough.
Pray enough.
Believe correctly.
Repent sufficiently.
And you get gold.
But God isn't some prize.
For achieving in some sort of spiritual,
I don't know,
Activity.
God is the ground beneath the hole.
Journey.
And grace.
Grace is not a reward.
Because you've happened to make progress.
On some part of the journey.
Grace is what makes the journey possible in the first place.
You don't walk towards God in order to be loved,
But you walk.
Because you're already.
Loved,
And you don't become worthy of grace.
What you become is increasingly capable of seeing it.
Receiving it.
And accepting it.
And this is where Grace becomes incredibly uncomfortable,
In fact even scandalous,
Because if grace is really grace.
Then we don't get to control who receives it.
We can't make God generous only so far as we're comfortable with that generosity and that level of generosity.
And who that generosity goes towards.
Jesus keeps pushing grace towards people that we would rather keep at a distance.
The wrong people,
The latecomers,
The failures,
The outsiders,
The people who haven't done much.
The people who've done too much.
People whose stories make us uncomfortable and Jesus seems to be saying they're included too.
Whole side.
Grice is scandalous.
Because it refuses to operate according to our merit economy.
If I was to ask the question,
Do you believe in grace?
I think most of you would say yes.
But there is a more difficult question than that.
Do you believe that God is gracious towards you?
Yes,
You with all.
The things you regret,
And the things you hide,
And the things you haven't fixed,
And the things you wish you were different,
And the parts of yourself that you still don't understand.
Can you imagine that God's fundamental posture towards you isn't disappointment,
Or suspicion,
Or prove yourself?
But is love and welcome and generosity and come.
That's what grace really means.
It's the kindness that's woven into the very being of God.
And grace isn't God's plan B or a loophole in the system.
Grace is the character of the one God.
Who created us.
And the work.
Well,
The work isn't convincing God to say yes to us.
But learning to believe that God has already said yes.
Because grace is the way God has been looking at us all along.
And may that amazing grace and peace and love be with us and hold us today.
And always.
Until tomorrow,
Friends.
Peace.
Be with you.
