I've been thinking about the grace of God, and the sometimes lack of graciousness in his followers. Why are we stingy with God's grace when it comes to others? There are a few passages that always troubled me: the parable of the landowner in Matthew 20 who hires workers throughout the day but pays them all the same when the day is done, and the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18 (who was forgiven a giant debt by the king, but refused to forgive the tiny debt of a fellow slave).
The parable of the landowner in Matthew 20 gave me pause as a young Christian. It seemed so unfair that all of the workers would receive the same pay for very different amounts of work accomplished. Did their work mean nothing? Why should they be content with such disparity?
The unmerciful servant story caught me dead in my tracks, because there is no mistaking the symbolism in this story. Jesus was pretty clear: your debt is huge, it was forgiven--you must not be stingy in offering that forgiveness to others.
What do these stories of Jesus teach us about the character of God? His mercy is wide. His love is boundless. We need to extend grace and the benefit of the doubt to others.
I just finished reading Love Wins by Rob Bell. I've been obsessing about this book for weeks. I was struck by the thirst for blood exhibited by some in the evangelical community based merely on the promotional material for the book--before it was even available for sale. Why the eagerness to condemn Rob for a heretic? Because he was open to the wideness in God's mercy? He was accused of playing fast and loose with Scripture. He was accused of being a Universalist. I read his book, it's not a theological treatise--it's an exploration of the character of God. I find that I agree with most of this book. And it has left me pondering our response to God's grace to us and our lack of grace toward others.
And it brought to mind another event that creeps up on me from time to time, it slams into my solar plexus, sucks the air out of my chest and leaves me feeling sick. I had one pastor for most of my childhood, his name was Petros Roukas. He taught me almost all that I know about the Bible and theology (and I've been to seminary). He was a little Greek man, passionate about Scripture, and absolutely certain of his beliefs. On September 22, 2006, he drove to a park and shot himself in the head.
There are a few things in my life that I have labeled "the things of which I do not think," because thinking of them for very long immerses me in questions I cannot answer and doubts I fear to name. Petros's death falls soundly in that category. Rob's book has highlighted more than a few of these questions and doubts. He names them and brings them out into the light for review. What is the eternal fate of a man that faithfully taught Scripture for decades, but also struggled with a depression so crippling that it brought him to the point of taking his own life? What does it mean for the hundreds of us who were baptized and instructed by him?
Many would like to think that the points Rob raises are esoteric and theoretical. But they are all too real in the context of ministry--and in life. We all have those "things of which we do not think"--those painful memories that take our breath away in an instant. Rob raises a lot of questions, he doesn't answer them all as cleanly or definitively as I would like, but I appreciate the fact that he takes them on.
