God's Grace...Just Melted Ice Cream?
Jesus doesn't want more Christians. Jesus wants more disciples.
Hi Laura,
As you know, it is Holy Week, a time bookended by the “Hosannas” of Palm Sunday and Easter’s “Up From the Grave He Arose!” In between are the days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, less celebrated and more somber. It’s probably the busiest week of the year for you and me and all who are helping prepare these services. It’s a special, holy week, one that marks our days and reshapes the ways we live them.
Your last letter stirred up a lot of memories for me! Like the time I did a summer Field Education placement in East Bend, NC, and a sweet elderly woman graciously invited my wife, Kate, and me to join her and her family for Sunday dinner. “At our table, there is always room for one more,” she told us, as though Jesus Himself was pulling up a chair for us to have a seat. I was also reminded of the young mother who found a place at the Table of a United Methodist congregation because her son, who has intellectual disabilities, could be baptized and receive communion (sadly, unlike her experience had been at other places). That was a church in which all were welcome and who always had room for one more. Laura, you are right, “ALL is a powerful word.” And, I got to be part of the Open Table Ministry in Durham also. I remember setting up those tents in the hot North Carolina summer sun, sweating and drinking sweet tea. It was difficult for me, however, not because the work was strenuous but because I hadn’t had much experience with unhoused persons, and the experiences I did have weren’t especially positive. That was an incredibly stretching experience for me. I was often uncomfortable and frequently humbled, which was an act of grace as well, saving and transforming me. I am so thankful that God’s grace isn’t only reserved for others. I’m so grateful that God’s grace is available for me, even me.1
Speaking of memories, do you remember the time in seminary when Dr. Stephen Gunter and Imam Abdullah Antepli had a lunch conversation about Christianity and Islam? They shared their respective faith traditions, identified common convictions, affirmed important differences, and then they asked one another questions. I’ll never forget when Imam Antepli asked a question both he and the students with whom he worked had been wondering about Christians: We Muslims pray five times a day, are required to give alms, make a pilgrimage to Mecca, and fast from sunrise to sundown during the month of Ramadan. What practices do followers of Jesus take on?
I confess his question - What do Christians take on? - has haunted me ever since. Not in a Ghost Busters sort of way, but more in a Holy Spirit-convicting presence. Or, perhaps, the question has been leading me like the cloud and pillar of fire that led the Israelites to The Promised Land, helping me unlearn old ways and acquire new ones. You see, I think I had misunderstood grace. I knew the grace of God that had saved me from; I was still learning about the grace of God that was saving me for.
Laura, you and I are part of a tradition that began with a very strong and very particular way of following Jesus. John Wesley and the other founders of United Methodism committed their lives to being held accountable by other Christians, to worshipping regularly and practicing “acts of mercy” such as tithing, visiting the incarcerated, caring for the sick, and starting both schools and hospitals alongside new churches. They understood God’s grace as being highly participatory, one that saved souls and transformed lives, systems, communities, and the whole world. Those early Methodists were marked and shaped by Jesus, and they committed to living their lives in particular ways - ways that, in fact, earned them the name “Methodist.” A Rule of Life if you will.
Somewhere along the way, however, the commitment to following Jesus in these ways began to wane among those who followed after them. That’s what happens, of course, with any organization, team, or otherwise. It’s hard to pass down Culture from one generation to the next. As fans of Duke Basketball, you and I know the great lengths Coach K, and now Coach Scheyer, went to instill a championship ethic into his players every season. And, as pastors and parents, you and I also know the challenges of passing The Faith from one person to the another, from one generation to the next. So many of our parishioners know the pangs and pains of this as well.
I think part of the loss may be credited to an overemphasis on the grace of God that saves me from my sins and grants me eternal life, and an underemphasis on God’s grace that calls us for a deeper and fuller commitment, a grace that changes how I live. The great preacher Fred Craddock once shared, “Grace can be said too easily. Some people preach grace to the point that there is no justice or no merit or no work or no activity or no challenge. It’s just kind of slimy, easy, and cheap…just melted ice cream.” I think he’s right. Jesus doesn’t want any more Christians. Jesus wants more disciples. And…to be honest…I think that’s what many of us - those who follow this substack, those who’ve weighed, measured, and found their experience with Christianity to be wanting, those dreamers and makers who are committed to making the Church more - are searching for, a fuller, deeper, more meaning-full faith. A faith of justice and merit and work and activity and challenges worth giving our best selves for.
(I bolded that whole thing because it got me all fired up. That’s the kind of faith I want to live! Those are the kinds of people I want to team up with! That’s the kind of church I want to be a part of!)
In the scriptures, Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”2 Him being The Way necessarily implies that there is a way His followers should live if they want to follow Him. You and I are saying a fuller, embodied, United Methodist way of following Jesus is living lives of grace, holiness, connection, wholeheartedness, and service. This is the commitment to living our life in a particular way that we are taking on. And, to be sure, that means pursuing a wider, Open Table of Grace.
An Open Table is first and foremost Jesus’ table. And, as you said so well, Jesus ate with friends, saints (who were the people not many others considered ‘saints’), sinners (who were both the ‘obvious’ ones and the sinners who thought themselves to be saints), those who would deny Him, and those who would betray Him. If there was room at Jesus’ table for folks like them, then surely there is a place for someone like me. One of the most important truths the Open Table of Grace reminds me is that Jesus invites me, even me, to come have a seat. Even if others might make snide remarks or label me a “sinner,” Jesus calls me friend.3 (It also warns me to not be so quick in calling others “sinners”!) To take on a commitment to grace is to first receive grace for ourself. Often it can be easier for me to give others grace than for myself. A wise pastor I had once said: When we have Communion, we don’t reach out to take God’s grace; we open our hands to receive it.
The other truth Jesus’ Open Table tells me is that it makes God sad when people choose to not be part of the Table. Some choose to be part of it altogether.4 Others choose to get up and walk away.5 In the Gospel of John, Jesus prays that His followers may be one, just as He and God the Father are One. Our world, our Church, our country are so very divided. It may be more important than ever to do the difficult work of remaining at tables with those whom we disagree, even vehemently. And while that is true for colleagues at work or when serving on town boards as appointed or elected officials, it is even more important for Disciples at such a time as this. I had a wise professor once say, breaking Communion is schism unless we are forbidden to do that which Jesus commanded or are commanded to do that which Jesus forbade. More and more, I think he’s right. What is a more faithful witness to Jesus, being “right” or being “with” - even and especially so with those whom we do not agree?6 What is more medicinal to a fractured and broken and divided America? Seems like too many Christians represent the wider culture than they do Jesus. It makes me sad how easily folks break away from the Table these days - from parishioners to pastors to churches.
Even though it will inevitably make me uncomfortable. Even though I’ll still try to hang-on to my self-righteousness. Even though it will undoubtedly force me to become more humble. I am committed to The Way of grace. I am going to choose to lean in, especially in those moments when I feel like I’d rather lean away. Grace is re-shaping my life. And I am looking forward to God widening the table of my heart, one leaf at a time.
Thanks for listening, Laura. I am grateful for you.
Your friend,
Jared
Yolanda Adams, Even Me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doU7Hyx5dvo&t=115s
John 14:6, NRSVUE.
Luke 5:30; John 15:15.
Matthew 22.
https://apnews.com/article/congregations-leaving-united-methodist-church-lgbtq-bans-70b8c89ea49174597f4548c249bab24f
Mark 3:1-6; Luke 14:1-6.