I read John Piper’s book Future Grace some years back when it was still new. Through that book and through my various ruminations on the subject, I came to understand why having people implore me to “have grace for them” irked me at times. Some people (not everyone, of course), request grace as a means of keeping a relationship running smoothly without having to change or stop an offensive behaviour. But that’s not what grace is all about. Certainly a significant component of the grace of God is the removal of our guilt. Forgiveness, or as the evangelicals like to put it, “God’s unmerited favour.” Guilt be damned — by grace.
But grace is more than that. “Grace” is a power word… it’s the agent in which resides not merely the antidote to sin, but the power not to continue in it. This is what Piper called “living by faith in future grace” — we trust that God’s grace will save us from future sin, not just deal with our past.
This is where our understanding of grace went awry, and perhaps it’s what has led us to be less comfortable with habitual sin. By not hearing of the sin until it becomes a matter of history, our understanding of grace as antidote remains intact. We can look at the sin and say that the person is forgiven, and it’s in the past. In fact, we have the notion that anyone who continues to sin must not really be repentant… otherwise they’d stop. In some circles, if it were up to us, we would withhold forgiving grace from those who haven’t yet stopped sinning. Basically this is like having to get cleaned up to take a shower. It extends to those outside the camp as well, to non-believers. This kind of thinking works its way around like leaven through the dough (to quote a phrase) so that we eventually start wanting those outside the church to start conforming to our established norms of sinless behaviour. A friend of mine likes to refer to this practice as “cleaning the fish before you catch them.”
Last week I wrote about our discomfort with sin in the present, and some good discussion followed which pulled my thoughts on that matter into the subject of grace.
The push to change and the silent pressure not to confess sins or struggles creates guilt. We take on the pressure of holding a secret, and expend our energies on maintaining the charade. Meanwhile, the guilt abounds and eats away at us, sapping from us the power to change. When secrecy is felt to be a necessity, guilt is compounded, and shame is heaped on top of it.
On the other hand, a welcoming and supportive environment in which it’s alright to confess our sins and struggles enables us to find others who can empathize, express forgiveness, and aid us in our effort to change. Instead of guilt, we feel the warmth of grace giving us the power to change. No guilt, no shame, no rejection, no chastisement for not measuring up. But a group like that would be very much at risk of the accusation of being a “friend of sinners.”
YOu mean, maybe Jesus came for those who actually need a saviour?
Len — those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are sick. And the hypochondriacs, of course. ;^)
Thanks for thisa post. If I’ve understood you, it would seem that grace has all too often become an excuse not to change anything – a perpetual embrace of status quo. Yet change cannot be false guilt and shame driven, but must be configured by grace, which in supportive environments opens up possibilities for confession, release, transformation and following in the footsteps of the crucified and risen One who was a friend to sinners.
Greg — yeah, but it took me more than 500 words to say that less clearly! ;^)
I think there’s perhaps an inverse connection between guilt/shame and grace/freedom… the determining factor is whether or not the environment is supportive and accepting of the fact that — wouldn’t you know it — people sin. Trying to gloss over that fact ironically robs people from experiencing the grace that could make it (almost?) possible by substituting a very bad motivator. Thanks for summing it up this way.
Got it. Thanks. Sometimes it seems there is no place left for grace, which gets submerged in sheets of pelting false guilt and shame. Sin – not me, that’s everybody else’s problem, tends to be too prevalent an attitude. Gracious environments encourage sin to come to the surface and in doing so, people can actually begin to experience grace.
Sure. But exactly how does one go about creating such a supportive and accepting environment (one that, I assume, encourages change and growth instead of heaping judgement) when one has to use people as the building material? Y’know, people who sin and make transparency and vulnerability difficult to maintain. Not because they intend to – but because they’re people – who sin.
I think it involves a certain amount of being willing to be vulnerable with one another and that involves trust and walking/working through things over time. I was involved with a group not too long ago in which we had that for a brief time. Then some leaders got wind of the fact that we were working well together and they didn’t know exactly what was going on, etc. … so they blew us apart. It was very ugly and trust was betrayed.
However, given time and opportunity for trust to build, I think that it can be maintained. I think that if we go into those relationships with our eyes open and our erasers at hand (in order to edit rather than keep accounts). But everyone in the group has to be committed to it and has to be given a lot of space and time to process what they need to do in given situations. Does that make sense?
It makes plenty of sense. It just feels theoretical.
A few years ago I felt God telling me that I was to purposefully “let all my colours show” instead of hiding. So I did. I spent a lot of time being deliberatley open and vulnerable. (like I am now) Unfortunately, at some point over the last year it blew up in my face. It seems that people (close friends, actually) were willing to deal with my strengths and my weaknesses. They were willing to encourage me (verbally) when I struggled. But they weren’t willing to really deal when my hurts and struggles came out as anger and frustration. When push came to shove, no-one was willing to step up and offer anything other than a verbal “you can do it!”.
I’ve seen about half of my relationship base dry up over the last six months. I’m not sure how to go about trusting anyone with “all” of me, at the moment. I’ve even stopped writing on my own blog. (which, of course, means that my poor husband has to listen to me run on at the mouth about every little thing that catches my attention…poor guy…)
Sonja – leaders got wind of it and blew you apart. Go back to that “underground railroad”, meet at each others homes outside of the church. It’s those small groups that cause us as Christians to grow, I mean really grow! You almost tagged it with “I think it involves a certain amount of being willing to be vulnerable with one another”. Remove the “I think” and change “certain amount” to “a lot” and you have the beginning of an answer.
Cindy-lu – it takes a special person to be able to handle “all” of us and they are few and far in between. Several years ago during our divorce I felt much like you as I “watched” what I thought were my relationship base begin to dry up. Why? Who knows, not being able to cope, some subjects hitting to close to home, not ready or willing to really deal with the “issues” BUT….I slowly developed several very close and deep relationships with new people. Many of them, well all of them still very close even now, even after most of the struggles are over with.