Grace is Hard

It seems as if the biblical concept of grace is hard to handle. The notion of "unmerited favor" seems to fall outside the boundaries of that with which we are comfortable. Even Christians balk at the idea, thinking that there must be something we contribute, if only our choice or our faith or our obedience or ... something. Roman Catholicism includes merit in its theology. "Congruous merit" is when the person has insufficient merit to require God to act, but sufficient merit to incline Him to show favor. "Condign merit" is when the merit is sufficient that justice requires God to show favor. In Roman Catholic thinking, as in most human thinking, congruous merit is in play when someone shows the slightest hint of being good. That inclines (not obligates) God to show more grace, and the person can work toward condign merit. All of this because, you see, unmerited favor just doesn't compute.

My grandfather who died last year had been fed the Gospel for longer than I've been alive. He heard it over and over from my parents. He heard it at church when they took him along. He read it in books they asked him to read. For over 40 years he heard, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" -- salvation by faith through grace. So it wasn't unexpected, a few years ago, when we were having a family gathering on his behalf, that the subject came up again. What was unexpected was his response. Someone at the table expressed it clearly ... once again. We are saved by faith through grace. My grandfather almost came out of his seat. "Wait! If that's true, then anyone can be a Christian!" It was as if he had heard it for the very first time. And his tone wasn't acceptance; it was scorn. "No one can actually believe that, can they?" was almost palpable in his voice. He rejected it again despite our affirmations. You see, unmerited favor just doesn't compute.

I remember a pleasant little ditty from The Sound of Music. Julie Andrews sings a duet called Something Good. She sings with the Captain about how wonderful it is to finally be loved and how undeserving they are. And she offers some fine, standard reasoning.

Nothing comes from nothing;
Nothing ever could.
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good.

The song understands rightly that nothing comes from nothing (despite the objections of some atheists I know), but then jumps to a conclusion: The only way that good things happen to people is if they are good themselves. It only takes a moment looking around to realize this is wrong. People get away with bad things all the time. One of the stickiest questions for Christians is "Why do bad things happen to good people?" So we know that good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. It was the same error the disciples made when they asked about the man born blind: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind" (John 9:2)? The song and the idea that the only way good things can happen to people is as a result of them being good is wrong. You see, unmerited favor just doesn't compute.

Paul puts it this way:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing ... but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:18, 23-24).

One might be tempted to think that this Good News we offer is just so wonderful that no one should be able to resist it. I know I think that from time to time. It's not the case. Unmerited favor (among other things) doesn't work in the minds of most people. It is too good to be true. The truth is that this is just one of those very rare cases when something that seems too good to be true ... really is true. Unmerited favor may not compute, but it's still true. Perhaps that's an evidence that it's a "God thing."