Deadbeats and the Kingdom of God - Part 2

According to the rules of the game called grace, we get what we don’t deserve. This is the part of grace that we like. Most people like the idea of receiving from God all the good things that life has in store - even if we don’t deserve them. But what about those other people - the sinners, the deadbeats, the late comers, not to mention the con artists, the welfare mothers, the street-side beggars - what about them? The problem with grace is that it is so indiscriminate. It isn’t just me, and the people like me, who get the good stuff. Everyone gets what they don’t deserve according to the rules of the game called grace. Everybody wins. Everybody that is, accept God. In the game of grace God is the only loser. In the game called grace, there is absolutely nothing fair.

The cross is the sign of everything unfair. On the cross the child of glory died. Not fair. Even though he of all people should NOT have been on the cross, there he hung. To any intelligent creature, that meant that he was a loser. The losers are the ones that end up dying on the crosses of life. Unless something happens that has the power to turn loss into victory. Unless the God who started the game of grace going also has the power to raise his child up in glory. And, just as the cross contains nothing fair, neither does the resurrection. It is just a gift of God’s power-filled grace.

Grace is greater than fairness. The slackers who work an hour at the end of the day and receive a full day’s wage and receive a full day’s wage? That’s us. We are the ones who receive grace upon grace upon grace. Not because we deserve it. Not because there is something within us that has a right to it. Only because God looks at us and sees not what we see - not slackers and deadbeats. God looks at us, and we all look the same - hurt, lost, sick children all in need of mercy. All children of grace.

One thing that the Way of Jesus Christ has taught me is that we are accepted by God not because of what we do, or fail to do, but because of who God is. And what God gives to us, from God’s very being is not a static thing. It is the transformation of our whole selves.

More to come...