Grace

If Romans can be summed up in a word, that word is probably Grace. Funny, though, how modern theology has done away with much of that word's meaning. Now Romans becomes the source of those big words like justification, sanctification, positional redemption, and probably
hundreds of other '-tions' I doubt would be worth a men-tion. Oops.

It's about the human condition. "The law becomes forbidden fruit"; St Augustine wrote of
such an experience. He recalled going with several friends to steal pears from a yard on the
other side of the fence. It wasn't the pears that tempted them, but the fence. They wanted
to see how far they could go without getting caught; likewise the law becomes some sort of
challenge or dare.

"I can will it, but I can't do it", says the apostle Paul. So many times my heart and mind
says one thing, and then my body does something else. It is in addressing this problem that
Paul writes the letter of Romans; there is a powerful tension between what we are and what
we know we are to be.

Trouble is, we "traded the glory of God", settling for the mundane instead. But the glory
never quite left, I daresay. Everything in the created world, plunged as it is into decay,
still bears the 'echoes of Eden' and will one day be absorbed into the new creation. And
because we are still his, God decided to do something about it, to restore, and even more
than that, resurrect a dying world.

Sometimes we forget that if everything still bears God's glory, then everything must still,
in some way, be holy. Holiness has become a foreign word of sorts, used to denote something
of mystical, perfect, pure quality. But if I'm not mistaken, it really means 'set apart' or
'consecrated'.

Paul wrote, "everything is holy, but we contaminate it." My friend Sudarshan once told me,
"religion is pure, but homosapiens shat on it." Only now do I realize the almost identical
nature of the two statements; and yet Suda has never read the Bible.

Indeed the heart of all men has a moral compass by natural design. God made us in his image,
and whether we like it (or know it) or not, our deepest yearnings are from him and for him.
It is this knowledge of righteousness that tells us not to "give sin a vote", though human
as we are, we tend to act otherwise.

But then God's call stretches beyond the level of sin; he deals with it not by drawing our
focus to a target that calls for extermination, but to a life that heads in the opposite
direction. "Take your everyday ordinary life... and place it before God as an offering." He
asks for our entire lives, even the most mundane parts, and commands that we turn to him, to
stop worrying about getting rid of what's bad, and start worrying about doing what's good.

Probably it is to this end that Jesus 'saves'. Salvation is simply not an act of rescuing us
from sin, and "getting our butts into heaven", as McLaren put it. Unfortunately, many of us
have missed out on the real life here and now, and this is what Romans addresses.

It calls us to be willing to live in the risk of faith, for indeed all faith is a risk
(though not all risks are acts of faith). We are called to throw away all the baggage we've
brought with us, to enter into God's freedom. Of course, we always carry some of these
burdens, never leaving all behind. But as we walk on, we find that they must be released,
one by one, until we are able to soar. Steven Curtis Chapman described this pictorially when
he wrote of the disciples' "empty nets lying there at the water's edge."

In dying for us while we were still sinners, God "regards us not as we are, but as we shall
be. And not as we shall be merely, but as we are becoming," someone once wrote (quoted in
Philip Yancey's Reaching for the Invisible God).

When we live in the freedom of God, we become what we're meant to be. It has been quoted
many times, but remains a classic: C.S. Lewis wrote that we're like an ignorant child that
wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because we can't understand what is meant by a
holiday by the sea. It's as though we're birds set free, but don't fly because we don't know
the meaning of freedom. Another headache for God.

But he is patient. "If it's God's promise, you can't break it." He "works everything into
good," and reminds us that "nothing can get in the way of his love." In awakening us to this
new (though it's in fact the oldest) reality, he grafts us into the vine, and we must "be
humbly mindful of the root" (sounds very Yoda-ish!).

This analogy is parallel to what Paul wrote, that "there is only one God... [who] sets right
all who welcome his action." Whether we believe it or not, all religions eventually point to
this God, for all come from God. Religion, after all, means 'reconnecting with God'. His
grace works beyond what even Christians dare to imagine, and he will judge all "by who you
are", each according to the grace given to him, and the measure of which he has allowed to
work a life-change in him.

In other words, we're all on equal footing here; not even Christians get some lee-way
advantage. So much for the 'if I accept Christ as my Lord and Saviour, I will never need to
worry about judgement' tagline.

Paul's closing chapters here deal with a problem very prevalent in our society, all over the
world it is the same: we don't know how to mind our own business. Paul's exhortation is to
"discover beauty in everyone" and "welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see
things the way you do."

The illustration of two believers fighting over eating meat was really humorous, in a way,
but then it strikes really close to home. Don't troubles like these pervade the church? Is
it OK to keep long hair? Listen to rock music? Tattoo? This is not the place to discuss
these, but sometimes we tend to make a big fuss over the petty issues, leaving the larger
ones to sit there and rot.

I really don't believe God will be half bothered about the food we eat, the clothes we wear,
the music we listen to, or the way we write; his interest is in what our lives have
produced. And on that basis alone will we be judged. A million 'Sinner's Prayers' said,
makes no difference if our lives do not reflect God.

Paul tells us to do whatever we choose to do "for God's sake" and to "give glory to God" in
our actions and choices. Michael William once spoke on doing God's will, citing Mary and
Martha as an example. Martha's problem was not in her action, but that she complained about
Mary. We live with our choices; all have equal potential for glorifying God, and for
bringing joy to him, to ourselves and to others.

"Do you have any business... interfering with God's welcome?" -- here Paul gets a little
confrontational. In its direct context, it seems to warns us against intolerance towards
other Christians. But I wonder, what if it may also apply to so-called non-Christians? What
if we see followers of other religions in heaven? What would we think? Honestly?

C.S. Lewis writes of an encounter between Christ (symbolized as Aslan) and a follower of the
'wrong' religion in The Last Battle, seventh book of the Chronicles of Narnia. This man's
heart was truly seeking goodness and righteousness, and what he sought, he found. I daresay
a 'pagan' with a preoccupation with doing good, has a better chance of gaining the heavenly
life than a 'Christian' who has allowed his or her life to be corrupted with bitterness and
other traits contrary to the Spirit.

Whatever the case, it is imperative that we stop worrying about inter-denominational and
inter-religious differences, and start worrying about where we're headed, individually, and
as a community. And we must bear in mind Jesus' illustration of the Good Samaritan. In
Dallas Willard's words, the only good Samaritan then, was a dead Samaritan. God is far more
tolerant and gracious to others than we are or likely ever will be. Think Jonah and Nineveh.

U2's song 'Grace' describes grace as "travelling outsite of karma". It defies possibility,
probability and expectation. It shakes the world, yet the world seems not to have moved. And
it remains the most surprising element of all that God has done and is doing.

As I was reading just now, I thought this would be a good time to enter my 'testimony'. Not
a biography, do not fear, but just an overview of what God's been doing in my life,
highlighting several milestones.

At the age of seven, I accepted Christ. I never understood what it meant though, except some
vague belief that I would be going to heaven etc. My Christian life was static, and at the
age of 10, I began to dread going to church (only for a while), though it was at this time
that I started saying grace before meals ;-)

It was when I was 13, and began taking quiet time seriously, that my life took a sudden
turn. Scriptural truths became clearer, and devotional guides became easier and easier to
understand; I renewed my commitment to God as a Christian at this time. A year later, I
undertook the daunting challenge to read the Bible in a year (it was a church programme) and
succeeded. I'd also successfully completed a course in evangelism at that time.

However, after this sudden spiritual peak, everything seemed to fall apart in my 15th year.
I fell into deeper sin that I ever had, in large part due to peer influence and the
computer, and God seemed a distant reality. Quiet time was gone.

Then last year, some things happened. I was elected president of the school Christian Union
(unofficial to this day), and attended the National SCF Leaders Camp in STM (whee!). Here I
reconnected with God again, or rather, he reconnected with me, and by his grace I shook off
the stranglehold of sin that had kept me in virtual slavery for a number of years. It was
freedom.

DNA fanned the flames that were lit during NSCF, and one of the results is this blog you are
now reading. My theology and faith have also undergone some dramatic 'renovations.' But then, over the last few months, my relationship with God seems to be getting rather shaky again. Satan, if there's anything that can be said about him, never gives up. But neither does God. It's been a year of tug-o-war, and I realize the reason God doesn't just yank me away, is that I may grow into his kind of person.

C.S. Lewis would call this year an 'undulatory' year, full of peaks and troughs. Some of
life's greatest lessons I've learnt this year, at the cost of some of my greatest mistakes.
I can only imagine DNA will hold even greater surprises this year, and I eagerly anticipate
all that lies ahead in this great adventure of life. God is leading, and that's all that
matters.