Cheap Grace

Deuteronomy 30:9-14New International Version (NIV)

9 Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, 10 if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The Offer of Life or Death

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

How many of us here would like to be abundantly prosperous?  That truly sounds fantastic!  From our work to our children, from our livestock to our crops our scripture for this morning tells us that God will make us abundantly prosperous.  Alright, I will just sit back and wait for my spoils to come to me.  It is like winning the God lottery.  Jesus died on the cross, took care of my sin, I can continue on with my life, knowing full and well what God has done for me and wait to collect on my prosperity with no effort from me.  Of course, you can tell that I am being sarcastic but it is likely that we all have had a similar thought.  Without a doubt, we have said, thought, or done something that has caused us to cheapen our freely, God-given grace.  That is where we will center our message for today: grace.  

When it comes to my kids, I try to do my best to be forgiving when they misbehave... I know, I know it is difficult for many of you to think that is even possible for my kids to misbehave because you are blinded by their cuteness.  I forgive them in the hopes that the act of my forgiveness causes this great epiphany and they all of a sudden realize the error of their ways due to my forgiveness.  As teachers, coaches, and parents we know that there are some holes in this theory.  In principle, this sounds fantastic, that is in principle alone.  In theory, our forgiveness is releasing the burden off of someone else’s shoulders and that newly found freedom ought to correct the behavior.  Again, only in theory.  If you punch me in the arm really hard for no reason and I simply forgive you with no consequence, are you more likely to do it again or is my simple act of forgiveness enough to stop you from doing it again?  As I currently raise three kids, let me correct that... As Chey and I current raise three kids, 99% of the time the simple act of forgiveness does not change the behavior of my children.  But, when my kids have wronged one of their siblings and are caught we do our best to make the apologize.  This apology though is like pulling teeth.  Griffin is getting old enough that he is becoming less naive.  He can rattle off an apology quicker than Clint Eastwood can unholster his gun in the movie A Fist Full of Dollars.  Griffin has come to believe that simply saying, “I’m sorry” and then quickly moving on is an apology.  Which I guess in a way it is.  It is saying the minimum and moving on with life.  But shouldn’t there be some, little bit of guilt there?  While I know he is saying what I what him to say in an apology but there is no feeling or shame or guilt.  I don’t want him to dwell on it but I want him to stew on it for bit rather than yelling I’m sorry while you run by Guthrie and knock him down only to do it again in five minutes.  

I would venture to say that most, if not all, of us have heard a clergyman give the sermon about the different between knowing what it is like to be forgiven versus what it is like to repent.  To repent means to turn away from the action that is causing us or someone else some sort of pain or grief.  To be forgiven doesn’t require any action but to repent means to change the direction of your life.  Some of you may remember a few weeks when I was telling you about a quote from Og Mandino’s book that raised the question about prophecy and prophets ending after Paul.  Mandino asked the question “Do you think all prophecy stopped after Paul?”  I think one of those said prophets is Deitrich Bonhoeffer and among many of his great theological points is this idea of cheap grace vs costly grace.  Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ."  I feel like I have done that in some of my sermons.  In order to reach a broader, more inclusive audience I have loosened what it means to be a disciple.  On the one hand, I try to include others into Christ’s flock by loosening the standards to be there.  I have cheapened grace.  The church as a whole has cheapened grace but we have done so with the best intentions making this such a delicate line to tiptoe.  Contrary to cheap grace, “costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'"  Having such a high standard of discipleship makes us feel like God is nearly unattainable, we have a tendency to spend more time thinking about our inability to live up to such a standard instead of using that time and energy to spread this costly grace. Bonhoeffer sums it up beautifully, “The price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organised church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptised, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving... But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard.”

So there we have it: instead of taking the time to bring the world to Jesus, we have taken Jesus to the world.  We have cheapened grace.  We have sacrificed the discipleship of Christ in order to make Christ’s sacrifice apply to this world.  Will God forgive us? Undoubtedly.  But the better question is whether or not we will repent?  Look at where we are as a society... Look at the drug abuse, the hatred for one another, the division in this country, the two polarizing candidates we have for president, the deep, deep lack of respect and trust for our neighbor, our service men and women are committing suicide at the rate of about 20-22 per day, are among the many issues we have facing us today.  We often wonder where we have gone wrong.  What got us to this point?  I often wonder if things are worse now than ever simply because of social media and our ability to find news out at the push of a button.  Are things really worse now than they have been in years past?  Most people I talk to tell me yes.  My best guess is that cheapened grace is what has gotten us here.  Is there hope? Yes, very much so.  Can a costly grace still be inclusive? Of course, as long as we can shed our own pride and prejudices to help take others to Christ.  What we have been doing is no longer working.  As a society and country we are forgiven but are we willing to repent.  That is the question.  Amen.