There's Only One Catch
"More is at stake in God's kingdom than simply accepting acceptance." - Stanley Hauerwas
2 Corinthians 6.1-2
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation.
There’s a quote from Frederick Buechner that I return to frequently, and it frequents my preaching. Buechner, in proclaiming the wonders of God’s grace says: “There’s only one catch: like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”
The giftedness of grace is important. Because what good is a gift if it isn’t opened and enjoyed?
Perhaps this is akin to what Paul means when he cautions the Corinthians against accepting the grace of God in vain. Grace is just another churchy word used by the church unless it actually does something to us. Grace, at least the grace communicated in the Gospels and the grace made manifest by the gifting work of God in Christ, is active, shaping, and reorienting. Grace beats down upon our lives day after day. Grace takes us from where we are to where we can be.
And this active nature of grace can be missed in the church. Notice how often we say things like “God loves you just as you are.” This, of course, is true, and is a very welcome word to those for whom the church has actually proclaimed the opposite. And yet, God loves us so much that God won’t leave us as we are.
Acceptance is not the same thing as discipleship. Acceptance is a worthy goal and kingdom-like practice, but it is not the whole picture. For, if God’s grace is simply “you are accepted” then it denies the call for the church to be different.
Put another way: If grace is just about acceptance, then why did we kill Jesus for what he said and did?
What Jesus offers in word and deed, what we call grace, runs against the grain of the world. Jesus’ Kingdom is defined and run by grace which means it is ever new. It is a kingdom where people have been created to be gentle in a time of violence. It is a kingdom where people share peace even while the talking heads say we’ve never been more divided. It is a kingdom where people are made new even while the world stays the same.
As Stanley Hauerwas notes, “There is more at stake in God’s kingdom than simply accepting acceptance.”
God’s grace calls into question the powers and principalities that are hellbent on keeping things as they are. God’s grace trains us to imagine how beautiful the world could be. God’s grace reveals to us a future that requires a reorientation of the present.
God’s grace comes to us not because we are accepted, but because we are in need. As Paul reminds the Corinthians, grace comes at an acceptable time to help us. Our salvation has already arrived in the person of Jesus Christ; it is as close to us as the waters of baptism and the bread and cup of communion. And we can’t help ourselves from being changed by this gift.
As soon as we have a taste of grace we begin to see that we can no longer see as we once did.
Whenever we spend time in a place of grace we begin to speak words we did not know we knew.
God’s grace makes a difference and that difference means our lives will be transformed, whether we like it or not.