Further thoughts on Grace

A previous short note on this subject generated a good bit of discussion. I asserted that the catch-phrase "cheap grace" is one of those handy terms that is misleading: grace is always free -- not cheap which implies some bargain-rate cost -- it is a gift, as Paul affirms: if it cost us something it wouldn't be a gift. (It cost the one who gave it everything.) The proper "cost" to us lies in discipleship, which is subsequent to the acceptance of the gift. Perhaps the free gift of grace might be thought of as something like the gift of a craft-kit, a knitting or embroidery project complete with yarn, or thread and canvas, together with a pattern in a neat plastic bag. Work will be required to follow that pattern to produce the final objective, ultimately both a gift from another and the work of one's own hands. Thus, as Paul says, we are saved by grace but also work out our own salvation -- even as we know that it is really God at work in us to empower us to action. (Phil 2:12-13)

Today's morning office reading from 2 Kings seems to me to be a short summary of the personality types who variously fall along the grace / works spectrum. Naaman clearly expects that he will be asked to do something extraordinary both to obtain healing (= salvation) and to give thanks for it. The true prophet demands only the simplest of tasks, and asks no thanks -- and Naaman accepts after a brief protestation on both counts. He represents, I suppose, the normal human who knows -- or thinks -- that important things are costly, but is willing to accept correction, and continues to give thanks and ask forgiveness for any subsequent missteps.

Then there's Gehazi. I can't help but see in him a kind of parsimony as to God's grace; that it really should be more costly. And so, on his own initiative he sets out to wring some profit from the man from whom the true prophet asked none. The ultimate irony is that the ailment of Naaman then falls upon him.

This suddenly reminds me of the themes in Cocteau's La belle et la bête: the cost of the plucked rose, the tedious and irksome discipleship of the magical kingdom where one is waited on hand and foot, La Bête's desire only for freely given love that would transform him -- even as he tries to purchase it with jewels and finery (all rubbish when compared to the surpassing freedom he desires), and the interchange that transforms greedy Avenant into a beast slain by Diana as he assumes the beast's likeness.

Clearly there is a deep taproot of mythic and authentic truth at work in this interplay between freedom and service -- salvation and ministry. May we rejoice always in our salvation, and work with willing hands and hearts to do God's will, as servants and disciples who do not tally cost, but serve as freely as the gift is given, whereby we are empowered to serve.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG