Scot McKnight, a friend who teaches New Testament and Religion at North Park University has a category of preaching and teaching that he refers to as "grace grinding". Here is Scot: "There is a kind of writing, preaching, and talking about grace that instead of offering grace and extolling the goodness of God, seems to use grace as the backhand of God that is used to grind humans into the ground as it talks about grace. I'm having a hard time being gracious about this. It is the sort of communication that does extol grace, God's good grace, but it makes that grace an angry thing God has to do because he is gracious. God, being so loving but downright ticked off with humans for their sins and stiff neckedness and hard-heartedness, is still gracious to us. That sort of idea. This is a massive distortion of what God actually does to us. James tells us, don't forget, that if we ask God in faith that God gives to us simply or unbegrudgingly -- and the grace grinders tend to make God a begrudging God of grace rather than a delightful and pro-active God of grace." These are comments from some time ago from Scot's blog called JesusCreed.
As I think about this issue that Scot raises it occurs to me that this grace grinding approach can come from any number of ways of misunderstanding the gospel. This Sunday we looked at the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) - using it to correct three misunderstandings of the gospel that can lead to what Scot talks about as grace grinding.
Misunderstanding One: God's love is defined by his justice. Not so. The gospel arises out of God's love - not because of the logic of a schema devised to satisfy his justice but because of a heart set upon reconciling women and men to himself (Romans 5:8). God's goal for new creation is not a world where the scales are balanced but a world where justice is transcended. Miroslav Volf's quote is helpful here: "Justice demands nothing less than the undoing of the world, past and present, and the creation of a new world.... A world of perfect justice is a world of love. It is a world with no rules in which everyone does what he or she pleases and all are pleased by what everyone else does; a world of no rights because there are no wrongs from which to be protected; a world of no legitimate entitlements because everything is given and nothing withheld... a world with no equality because all differences are loved in their own appropriate way; a world in which desert plays no role because all actions stem from superabundant grace. In short, a world of perfect justice would be a world of transcended justice because it would be a world of perfect freedom and love. The blindfold would be taken from the eyes of Lady Justice and she would delight in whatever she saw; she would lay aside the scales because she would not need to weigh or compare anything; she would drop her sword because there would be nothing to police.... If we see human beings as children of the one God, created by God to belong all together as a community of love, then there will be good reasons to let embrace - love - define what justice is."
Misunderstanding Two: Rules make-up the basis of our relationship with God. The story of the prodigal son corrects this understanding by showing us, quite dramatically, that love - not rules - forms the basis of our relationship with God (his tireless love for us). The father in this story never lets go of his relationship with the son who leaves and brings shame upon himself and his family. The son broke the rules and imagined that the relationship was lost as he indicated by devising a way to come back to his father's homes as a hired hand. But the father's "eyes that searched for and finally caught sight of the son in the 'distance' tell of a heart that was with the son in the 'distant country'... the father kept the son in his heart as an absence shaped by the memory of the former presence (Volf)".
Misunderstanding Three: Repentance is a way to earn God's love. Repentance is necessary and fundamental to move us away from sin and autonomy and towards God and joyful life. It is not a way to earn God's love; on the contrary, God's love is the occasion and setting for repentance. "After failure in the distant country, the son reconstructed his identity as a 'son-not-worthy-to-be-called-a-son'. By the sheer joy of his father's embrace, without a word, his identity starts to be changed again.... With a command.... the father reconstructed the prodigal's identity. He ordered a robe - the best one - put on him, a ring placed on his finger, and sandals on his feet, and then, as the prodigal was transformed before our eyes, he called him 'son of mine' (Volf).' Reading the parable with a keen eye to how the social norms of this society would have pressed the father to do the opposite of what he does, Volf points out that the father reconstructs the identity the son had made for himself (a hired hand) by claiming him as his son who had come home. The relationship is the occasion and the context for confession and reconciliation. Brilliant!
Questions for discussion (a note to community group facilitators: there are a lot of questions here to choose from.... the idea being that you will choose the ones you want to work with and will be the happiest to work with).
1. We remarked in the homily that we do not attempt to preach one size all application sermons at Grace. Instead, we try to offer the gospel and the wisdom of God's word in a way that challenges us to find analogs which we can apply to our life. For example, if I know that rules do not define God's love for me then I can imagine that this might be in some way a model for how I ought to relate to others. Can you think of ways that this truth, by analogy, can help you in your relationship with God and others?
2. If you think of repentance as a way to earn God's love how might you view the sins of others? What attitude might you likely take towards them?
3. Do you ever find yourself "grace grinding" yourself or others? What makes you do that? What role do you think a desire to be in control may have in your own tendency to grace grind?
4. Do you think you sometimes construct a new identity with God (like that of a hired hand)? If so, what makes you do this? How can you keep from doing this? If you feel that you need to construct an identity like the prodigal son did with his scheme to become a hired hand, do you think this might make you want to force others to do the same if they fail you?
5. What sort of analogy does the parable of the prodigal son offer you when you think of your relationship with your children (if you have children or hope to have them)?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment