kindness and grace

The other Sunday an elderly gent, a man in his eighties, came up to me after morning church and said - 

“That was the kindest sermon I have heard in a very long time. Thank you.”

As a review of my preaching, I will take that.

There are days when I am overwhelmed by the loving-kindness of God, and if something, just something of that is slipping out of me - well, that’s a result.

In our debates on sexuality, we could all do with a bit more kindness, couldn’t we?  There are so many young women and men in the world and in the Church struggling with their sexual identity, and we ought to be there offering kindness and grace. John 3:16 is a verse most of us have known since we can remember knowing any Bible at all (Billy Graham always called it the Bible in miniature), but John 3:17 always seems to me to be a key verse in these matters:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Not condemn but save. 

………… 

A lack of grace, thought, basic kindness can suddenly push people beyond the Gospel. We don’t mean to do it, but yet we do it. My suspicion (as far as our sexuality debates go) is that culture, and a natural heterosexual distrust of homosexuality (and it is natural - a majority always distrusts a different minority) has led over the years to a blindness on this subject which truly has made this a justice issue, and has brought us to a time when justice needs to be served. 

Push people beyond the Gospel? The point I’m looking for here is that (without thinking, without meaning, and aiming at a higher goal) our words on these subjects can become barriers. They exclude. They may actually come from hearts that mean to invite people through the gates of heaven, but somehow those words themselves are padlocked doors. When we forget ourselves and let even a whiff of moral condemnation enter our conversations, people get locked out of heaven because our striving for purity (coming ahead of our reaching out with loving-kindness) suggests some folk are not good enough for God. 

All the detail is then irrelevant. We have pushed folk beyond the Gospel - made a people not fit for Jesus. And we wonder why they won’t be our friends…    

Sometimes we just have to get over ourselves - and this works in all sorts of ways. 

I saw an obituary of Billy Graham this week which made him sound like one of the worst people ever, and I read a twitter comment by another Christian friend that was far from complimentary. I don’t for a moment think Billy Graham would have agreed with my theology of sexuality; but then he is twice my age. I was born into a world where being gay was a crime. He lived most of his life in that world. To expect someone of his generation to see things as I do is, perhaps, not realistic. 

And if I follow my calling in Christ as faithfully as he followed his for as long as he did, then I earn the right to press him on certain issues. For now, I thank God for someone who has inspired me all my Christian life, and who will always do so.

Grace and kindness work in all sorts of ways.

Someone on Facebook had a piece about J I Packer and his attitudes to equal marriage this week. The piece was very aggressive, very definite, and very conservative in its theology. For all I know, it may well have been accurate in its portrayal of Jim Packer’s position. 

But I remember spending a little time with Jim Packer around the time he walked out of a Canadian Synod that discussed same-sex blessings in 2002. We didn’t talk about that I think - I certainly wouldn’t have been very open about my opinions at that point in time - but we did talk about other things, and I did dare disagree with him. As we disagreed, generously, Biblically, carefully, he was kind and gracious and very clear about his own position. It was his grace that stood out most, the manner of how we disagreed, and this has always stayed with me as a model to follow.

I’m an evangelical. My heroes are evangelicals. I don’t need them to affirm everything I stand for - my theology comes from my Bible, not my heroes - but I learn from men and women of faith and hope I might be as faithful as they. And as kind. And as godly. And as grace-filled. And I celebrate them gladly for every moment of their lives.

Even the ones I find hard!

Why?

Well - what’s the alternative?

I’ve sat there while people have said things to me which were not kind, but they’ve said them with smiles on their faces because they thought they were being kind. I have even (sometimes) known that they weren’t intentionally being cruel. “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” Shudder. Don’t get me started. 

The alternative is at best to pick and choose, to judge each other and to put ourselves in God’s place as to how and when and whether we are all worthy recipients and servants of Jesus and of his Gospel love. That’s the best. The worst is that we simply push people beyond the Gospel. We leave folk feeling condemned by whatever secret - or not so secret - standard we hold to be essential in addition to faith in Christ. We exclude from our club.

Newsflash: it’s not our club.

Newsflash: it’s not our job to exclude.

So all of us sometimes have to get over ourselves. And be kind. Be generous. Find a little more grace. Yes, I guess we’ll disagree - with open Bibles and open hearts - 

But if God did not send his Son into the world to condemn but to save, perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to condemn - even if we think it will help. It’s not kind. It’s not a sign of grace. Real kindness cares. Understands. Gets alongside and helps. Real kindness appreciates. Says thank you. Real grace sees the value of the person next to it and works as hard as it can to serve and raise up. 

Real kindness and grace are beautiful to the giver and to the receiver, and most of all, to God.