Songs for Lent

How about an 80s (or is it 70s?) flashback? The words are still as powerful as ever.

But like Peter I can't even stop and pray one hour with you,
and I bet I could deny you too
but nothing lasts except the grace of God by which I stand in Jesus
I'm sure that my whole life would waste away, except for grace, by which I'm saved.

Grace is loving someone more than they deserve?

Seen on a church sign in Seattle last Friday: "Grace is loving someone more than they deserve."

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Is that a fitting description of grace? What's your initial reaction? Or would you even pause to ponder it if you drove by the same sign?

Personally, I think they got it wrong. For a couple reasons.

The first issue would be this word "deserve." The above definition begs the question of how much love do people deserve?

It may help you to know this is a Lutheran Church. And if I may interpolate, Lutherans, being generally reformed in their theology, come at it from this place: Since we're all sinners, and since the wages of sin is death, the only thing we deserve is the wrath of God leading to death. It's the old "that saved a wretch like me" theology. We're all worms destined to destruction, yet God chooses to love some of us, and save some of us, and this is "Grace."

On the same token, we all mistreat each other. We all hurt each other. We're all jerks to each other. Some more than others, mind you. Usually those other people are bigger jerks than we are. So we show "Grace" by loving them, even when they're such jerks that they don't deserve it. Thus, we arrive at the church's sign: Grace is loving someone more than they deserve.

I think that's all missing the point. We have to go back further than "the wages of sin is death." We have to go back further than the fall. We have to go back to creation. Which reminds us that all humans were "made in the image of God." Later, the psalmist, reflecting on creation, wrote that humans are just a "little lower than the angels." And all good theology flows from Christology - looking at the world through the lens of Jesus Christ. What do we learn by bringing Jesus into the conversation? "For God so loved the world. . ." That Jesus so loved this world, he would allow himself to be beaten, crucified, and killed in order to save it. "Greater love has no one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends." And "God demonstrated his love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Okay, our Reformed brethren (and sistren (?)) are saying. That's the definition of grace - we were loved, even when we didn't deserve it. We deserved wrath (as if those two could be played off of each other).

I would push back and say because we're created in the image of God, we deserve nothing but love. Although that may sound pompous, so maybe a better way would be putting it because we're created in the image of God, we're completely loveable. God's wrath does not negate his love; I believe God loves us even when he's upset about what we're doing.

Therefore, grace cannot be loving somebody more than they deserve, because we all deserve love and nothing else.

Personalizing it, since God loves me and God loves you, I deserve to be loved by you and you deserve to be loved by me. No matter what you do to me, you still bear the image of God, you are still loved by God, and therefore you deserve to be loved by me. I cannot love you more than you deserve, because you deserve the full measure of my love. That's biblical. Even our greatest enemies deserve the full measure of our love, since Christ loved even those who crucified him. The posture of the Christ-follower is a posture that loves all others, not more than they deserve, but because they deserve to be loved.

I could also quibble with the "more than" part. . .because I'm not sure you can measure love. Can you love someone as much as they deserve, nor more, no less? Can I give you 26% of my love, because that's what you deserve? Can I give my wife 100% of my love, and my enemy 50% of my love? Biblically, love is an either/or. You either love someone or you don't. There aren't different levels of love. I either love you as you deserve, or I don't. I either face you and say "you are beloved," or I withhold love from you, which, in effect, says "I don't really love you, I'm just sort of acting like it."

So, why does any of this matter?

Because it makes a difference in how you treat your neighbor. Saying "I'm loving you even though you don't deserve it" always comes from a posture of separation, of exclusion. It subtly sneaks in the thought that somehow we're superior;"aren't we special for showing them grace." Even "God loves us more than we deserve" so often leads to unhealthy posturing. How dare any of us, loved of God, created in the image of God, grovel and say "I'm such a loser, such a worm, God hates me. . ." If you begin from the place of "nobody deserves love, but God loves and so shall we," your worldview is the polar opposite of what I believe is the correct understanding: we all carry around the imago Dei, we are all already loved, and always have been loved by God, we are all deserving of the full measure of love." In other words, we begin from a place recognizing worth and value in each other, rather than forcing ourselves to "love people more than they deserve."

So than what is grace? Perhaps a more truer definition would be, at least of us, loving someone in spite of how we may currently feel about them. Or recognizing that all are the beloved of God, no matter how they think about or treat us.

And from God's perspective? Perhaps simply that love is his nature, wrath a temporary action necessitated by our rebellion. But wrath never supersedes nor overcomes love. God sometimes, of necessity, shows wrath, but he is always love. Because God created us, we deserve to be loved.

The Gospel according to Mandy Patinkin, and one more word about Jerry Falwell

On the ipod, two songs come out back-to-back (as I'm mowing the lawn). Both are from Mandy Patinkin's Album "Dress Casual."

The first - "Trouble in River City," the jaw-cramp-inducing sales job from Meredith Willson's The Music Man. The second - "There are Giants in the Sky," from Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods.

I couldn't help but notice the juxtaposition. The first is a sheister attempting to sell band instruments using the ages-old "Fear-based" method. Create a fear, then attempt to fill it with your product. The second is about grace and love - a young man finds himself surrounded by giants in a land far far away, yet finds safety first in the motherly love of the female giant, and then eventually finds grace and mercy back in his own home. The first speaks of danger and protection, the second of fear and love.

Jerry Falwell fell well into a long line of preachers who use the first method. Stir up fear. Talk fast and loud and play on emotions of uncertainty and fright. The fear of hell if you sin. The fear of America falling to terrorists if we allow gays certain rights. The fear of our children living in a hellish America if we allow feminists to speak. Go back to the revival preachers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Hellfire and Brimstone preachers are famous in our land. Even our billboards have God saying "Don't make me come down there!" as if God is the angry parent, and if we don't shape up then he's gonna give us a whuppin!

So they create fear - fear of hell, fear of gays, fear of feminists, fear of God, fear of the unknown - and they they sell you their nicely packaged product ("I heard there's going to be a boys' band!"). In this case, their product is a certain religio-political worldview. Vote a certain way. Believe a certain way. Behave a certain way. Fight back against the gays and feminists and democrats in the name of Jesus! Pray this prayer and you'll be safe from hell! (Get you kids in the boys' band to keep them away from the pool hall where they say things like "so's your old man!") Fear based religion. Fear based political work. I made you afraid. Now I'm going to sell you my product.

Compare that to "Giants in the Sky." Where Jack finds himself in a strange land, in great danger, and someone "comes along the hall to swallow you for lunch." And you know your own fear - "your heart is lead and your stomach stone and you're really scared being all alone." And the answer "And you scramble down and you look below. . .The roof, the house, and your mother at the door, The roof, the house, and the world you never thought to explore. . ." It's about coming home. It's about grace. It's about finding love and acceptance. It's the story of the prodigal son who comes home to find his father waiting at the gate, and then running to meet him on the way.

Which is the biblical image? I have to say the latter. While I dare not judge the eternal state of Falwell's soul, I grieve for the way he (and those like him) chose to sell a God of fear and hatred, for the way they tried to sell that God through fear like Harold Hill tried to use "the presence of a pool hall" to sell his band instruments. The Bible speaks to the reality of judgment, yes, but the overall message is one of grace to people who are broken and lost, who just want to come home, who find that God has been patiently waiting all along. Would that the Church could speak that message - one of love, compassion, and healing, waiting for the wanderers to come home again. There might just be a little less anger and division out there.