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THE SCIENCE OF GRACE #3
FEEDING THE HAND THAT BITES YOU
It’s the most beautiful word in the Christian faith,
maybe – and yet hard to define. What exactly IS grace? It’s a good thing,
a wonderful gift, but what is it? It’s the amazing thing in a great gospel
song, but what is it we’ll be singing about for those “ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun”? What is it that makes us go from blind to
seeing, from lost to saved?
Two words the preachers often use are these: “unmerited favor.” You deserve
bad, but receive good instead. And as we begin today, I’d like to borrow
a few anecdotes from Tom Brokaw’s bestseller, The Greatest Generation.
There are so many courageous, uplifting stories in this masterpiece, but
Brokaw does have one chapter title with the single damning word: “Shame.”
A Martha Settle had her master’s degree in history and a good job teaching
school in Washington, D.C. when World War II broke out. But there was
so much political cronyism in the school district that she quit and went
to work in the capital’s War Manpower Commission. But it was a case of
“from the frying pan into the fire,” because she encountered so much entrenched
racism there that she resigned that as well, and decided to join the newly
formed “WACs” – the Women’s Auxiliary Corps.
And as a young African-American soldier, this young volunteer saw things
that just stun us here a half-century later. Stationed in Des Moines,
she and other black soldiers watched in amazement as white German POWs
were cordially invited into the officers’ club . . . the same club she
as an American could not attend because of her skin color. The PRISONERS
were welcome – Hitler’s henchmen – and she was told to mind her place.
The base they were stationed at had a band – but no black musicians could
join. So they formed their own. The base tried to ban that, too, until
Eleanor Roosevelt intervened. Black girls could only swim on Fridays,
and they always cleaned the pool right afterward.
A soldier named Johnnie Holmes was one of the 1.2 million African-Americans
who joined the armed forces during World War II, nearly a tenth of America’s
black population. He remembers vividly having Army doctors at Fort Knox
run “medical experiments” on the black soldiers. He and others were strapped
into dentist chairs and had their teeth drilled with no novocaine. And
he, too, had to watch as German prisoners of war being held in American
camps could freely breeze into the same military PX that he was not allowed
to frequent. One German POW, fighting for the Third Reich, had been born
in the U.S.; he actually hailed from Chicago. But now as a Nazi major
who had returned to Deutschland to fight for Führer and Fatherland,
he said, incredulously, in perfect English, to Johnny: “What are you doing
here? This is a white man’s war.”
By the way, Johnny finally got into combat – after having to beg to fight,
as most black soldiers did – and was hit by shrapnel from land mines.
He returned to Chicago as a broken-down 25-year-old vet, wasted down to
98 pounds. His first day home, out of uniform and trying for a job, the
lady at the front desk looked up at him and snapped: “What are you doing
here? We don’t hire” – and then the “N-word.” “Get outta here.” Just a
little P.S.: Holmes’ platoon lieutenant was a UCLA kid named Jackie Robinson.
And yet these amazing people, who endured such horrific slights, who had
every right to simply “flip the country off” and retire in rage and resentment
to their own corner, toughed it out and became heroes. They served the
very country that certainly did not deserve their loyalty. They offered
grace and a kind of quiet forgiveness to these ignorant people who had
no right to expect grace from them. One of Johnny Holmes’ close friends
showed great nobility in simply waving off the endless insults. A stalwart
veteran of the celebrated 761st Tank Battalion, he said some 50 years
later: “When you get over there and the nation’s in trouble you ain’t
got no black and white. You only got America.” This from a man who trained
at a base where the drinking fountains and toilets said: “Whites Only.”
Well, you know, I extrapolate from those sad stories, and I want to say
this: grace isn’t just getting what you don’t deserved. It’s when someone
you’ve treated badly turns right around and fights for YOU.
We borrowed a few memorable soundbites from a recent Adventist Review
special edition, and an article entitled “Meaningful Grace,” by Jan Paulsen,
president of my denomination. And he has this as an unattributed quote:
“When a person works an eight-hour day and receives
a fair day’s pay for their time, that is a wage. When a person competes
with an opponent and receives a trophy for their performance, that is
a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for their long
service or high achievements, that is an award.”
So far so good. And we’ve all scored in those three
areas: wages, prizes, awards. That’s actually the economy of this world:
wages, prizes, awards. But here’s the rest of Paulsen’s quote:
“But when a person is NOT capable of earning a wage,
can win no prize, and deserves no award – yet receives such a gift anyway
– that is a good picture of God’s unmerited favor. This is what we mean
when we talk about the grace of God.”
Wow! And can we all say “Been there, done that”? Have
we been handed the keys to a heavenly mansion that we can never earn as
a wage, receive as a prize, or achieve as an award? Friend, this is what
heaven’s grace is all about.
Paulsen goes on in this wonderful essay to remind his church family –
and all of you listening in during our Wednesday visit – that “salvation
is ENTIRELY of grace.” It’s not fifty-fifty; it’s not ninety-ten. It’s
not even 99.9 . . . and we put in a tenth of a single point, in terms
of obedience or good works or loyalty. It is ALL grace. Every bit of it.
And he backs up that pillar of faith with some words by a guy named Paul.
Here’s Ephesians 2:8:
“By grace YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED.”
But do we at least put in that tenth-of-a-point? Paul
answers that too, in verse 9:
“NOT by works, so that no one can boast.” He tags this
on to verse 8: “This [is] NOT from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Maybe you’ve heard the story where a group of theologians
were sitting around discussing the question: “What one thing does Christianity
have that distinguishes it from any other world religion?” As things livened
up, the apologist C. S. Lewis happened to wander in. When they put the
question to him, he didn’t even take two seconds to think about it. “Easy,”
he said. “Grace. Class dismissed.” And you perhaps have read his chapter
entitled “Faith” in the book, Mere Christianity, where he talks on the
radio with listeners about wages, prizes, and awards. If we think that
Christianity, he writes, is something like an exam, where we hope to get
good marks and DESERVE good marks, “that has to be wiped out.” If we think
that the Christian faith is a kind of bargain system, where we do our
best to be good, and then God adds up the points and gives us a mansion
of a certain size, where God “owes” us and has to deliver on His side
of the contract, “THAT has to be wiped out” too.
In fact, he puts a couple of bombs into his metaphor – and remember that
he wrote much of this radio material during the heavy fighting of World
War II.
“I think,” he writes, “[that] every one who has some
vague belief in God, until he becomes a Christian, has the idea of an
exam or of a bargain in his mind.” And get this, please: “The first result
of real Christianity is to blow that idea to bits.”
But you know, we need to keep borrowing dynamite from
heaven’s quartermaster, because the recurring ideas of “doing our part,”
or experiencing sanctification, living a life of holiness – all good concepts,
all parts of discipleship – so often begin to creep over into the “bargain”
side of the battlefield. A hinge starts to emerge under the Christmas
tree: our salvation “hinges” on how well we respond, how much we allow
the Spirit to control us, how faithful we are in “follower-ship.” Now,
“follower-ship” is a wonderful thing, and discipleship is a necessary
fruit of our salvation. But, as Paulsen says in his article:
“If salvation could be earned or if we could add to
our salvation, grace would cease to be grace.”
As soon as I am contributing to the gift, it stops being
a gift and turns into a wage.
Back to those heroic people in Brokaw’s book, who didn’t just extend grace
– “unmerited favor” – to the undeserving people abusing them. They actually
fought for those same people; they defended their liberties. The all-black
761st Tank Battalion was in combat for 183 straight days, including the
Battle of the Bulge; they scored, among them, eight Silver Stars, 62 Bronze
Stars, and a stunning 296 Purple Hearts. They sacrificed their blood and
their lives for the freedoms of the very people who were denying them
THEIR own liberties. And just so, Jesus did that on the Cross. He died
forgiving the men who were driving in the nails.
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