Grace 🖊

It has been a while. Like you, I have been preoccupied with how our world has been changing. I hope that I will be seen by my descendents as remaining on the right side of humans and history. At the same time, I have been thinking about my own interactions.

It took me a long time to understand the true message in the story of the prodigal son. It wasn’t for lack of hearing it, I grew up in a church-going family, and the story was as familiar to me as the story of Christopher Columbus discovering the new world or the Pilgrims’ first thanksgiving, which is to say I understood the message I was being taught to hear, but missed the underlying implications for years to come.

To re-acquaint you with the parable:  A man’s younger son asks for his share of his father’s estate early, which his father agrees to. The son wastes the money then swallows his pride to return years later, asking only for a job as a hired hand. Instead, the father welcomes him back into the family, throwing a feast of celebration. His elder son is left astonished and angry, believing that his share is being unfairly taken to reward his wasteful brother.

From this I learned two things. The first, the message that I was supposed to learn, was that I was sinful by nature, but that God would always offer forgiveness. It was a message I got in some way or another every Sunday, and I accepted it while wondering at the depth of my many youthful sins: fighting with my brothers, not putting the tools away, and lusting both after cherry pie and a certain girl two years older than me. Even then, I would not have been so reformist to consider myself depraved, but it seemed clear that I would need ask Jesus to help me clean up my act if I ever expected to cross through the threshold into Heaven.

I also learned another lesson, the one I was not supposed to learn. It seemed I was being told that the older brother should have been ashamed of himself, that pharisee, but I thought he was perfectly justified in being upset that his inheritance was being squandered on his brother. So, fairness can go by the wayside, it seems, if it doesn’t support the message of salvation. That lesson was the more difficult one for me to accept.

It has taken me many years to understand that, fundamentally, the story of the prodigal son is the explanation for the word grace. It is a word I thought I understood, reserved for the priceless gifts bestowed by God on his unworthy children, with the emphasis always on the unworthy part. Chario is the Greek word chosen by Paul the Apostle, and charity, too, seems to have a similar implication. “You haven’t earned this, but here it is, nonetheless.”

But this, it turns out, is not the true definition of grace. It has nothing to do with deserving or not deserving, and more importantly, does not have to imply a gift from someone greater to someone lesser. Grace is, simply, an infinite ability to care for someone, to offer goodness to someone, without regard to concepts such as whether it was earned or not, or as a subtle reminder of “I am righteous and you are not.”

Jesus’ true message in the story of the prodigal was that God’s love for his children is unbounded. If there is an infinite supply of something, then there is no such thing as a “fair share.” Everyone can have as much as they want or need. The elder brother was not wrong, he simply did not understand that he, too, would still get his entire inheritance.

The most important thing I have learned, though, is that Jesus’ message was not simply one of God’s grace for us, but the grace we can offer each other. Grace is the antithesis of a transactional world. Grace allows you to love someone as much as you want, without worrying if they love you that much back, or that your love is being siphoned from someone more worthy. Grace means you can care for others and not need something in return, including praise or recognition. Grace means you have tapped into the infinite potential of what humans can be, which is a remarkable thing to have found.

We live in a country much in need of reform. There is much that has been harmful to others. For our fellow humans, we should seek justice and righteousness. But for each other, in our individual interactions, a share of grace would be helpful. We will always encounter people who say and think insensitive things, or act in selfish ways. In many cases they should publicly be held to account. But in our private meetings, and just as importantly, in the things we say about each other, I recommend the enriching, fulfilling practice of giving grace.