You Don’t Deserve Grace, But I Do

Zack —  February 4, 2013 — 8 Comments

the-good-samaritan-1907

I’m a big fan of N.T. Wright.

If you read many of my posts, that probably doesn’t come as any sort of surprise. His thinking saturates my theology, as it does for so many others.

Last week, a friend of mine shared a quote from an old interview Read The Spirit did with N.T. Wright that, like so many of the things he says, drove straight to the heart of the issue and exposed the root of the problem.

In this particular quote, Wright was talking about health care. He said,

In your country, for example, there seem to be Christian political voices saying that you shouldn’t have a national healthcare system. To us, in Britain, this is virtually unthinkable. Every other developed country from Norway to New Zealand has healthcare for all of its citizens. We don’t understand all of this opposition to it over here in the U.S. And, we should remember: In the ancient world, there wasn’t any healthcare system. It was the Christians, very early on, who introduced the idea that we should care for people beyond the circle of our own kin. Christians taught that we should care for the poor and disadvantaged. Christians eventually organized hospitals. To hear people standing up in your political debate and saying—“If you are followers of Jesus, you must reject universal healthcare coverage!”—and that’s unthinkable to us. Those of us who are Christians in other parts of the world are saying: We can’t understand this political language. It’s not our value in our countries. It’s not even in keeping with traditional Christian teaching on caring for others.

What I love so much about N.T. Wright’s insights is that so many of them are drawn from history. He has such an elegant way of contrasting our contemporary assumptions about Christianity with the historical reality of the faith.

While the contrast Wright draws in this particular quote is fascinating and worth further exploration, this isn’t a post about the merits of universal health care.

At least, not specifically.

This is a post about the underlying problem that Wright draws out in this quote without specifically saying it. You see, the contrast between us and our ancient forefathers that Wright is describing isn’t simply one of practice.

It’s one of attitude.

When we read in a passage like Acts 2 that, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need,” many of us tend to squirm.

We don’t like the thought of giving away the things we worked hard to get. We especially don’t like the thought of giving away those hard earned things to people who “don’t deserve it” because “they haven’t earned it.”

Now, we could stop here and have a debate about how our money is being “taken” away from us and frivolously given to others, as if in a democratic society we don’t have the right to vote for our leaders, to have a say in public policy, or choose to live elsewhere if we actually think that public policy is so repugnant.

But the underlying issue that Wright brings up isn’t about taxes.

It’s about what “I deserve” versus what “you deserve.”

It’s about grace.

Grace is a funny thing. It doesn’t make sense. I mean, when you really think about it, it’s not just absurd, it’s a little off-putting.

It’s certainly un-American.

Being American is about working hard and getting everything you deserve.

But grace isn’t like that.

Grace is grace because it’s given to people who don’t deserve it.

Let that sink in for minute.

If you grew up in church, then I know you’ve heard it a million times before, but let it wash over you anew.

Try once more, maybe for the first time, to really wrap your mind around the radical and absurd nature of God’s grace.

We tend to transform God’s grace into the very opposite of grace. For many of us, grace is something God has to give us, something God owes us, something we deserve for going down to an altar and saying the right prayer.

But God’s grace isn’t like that.

It’s not given because we deserve it for doing the right thing. In fact, it’s often given because we’ve done just the opposite.

It’s a radical gift that defies our deepest sensibilities.

God’s grace isn’t just about having patience when a child who’s just taken their crayons to a freshly painted wall. God’s grace is about looking at that child after they’ve destroyed both your lives through a lifetime’s worth of bad decisions and saying with conviction, “I still love you.”

God’s grace isn’t just about donating your old clothes to Goodwill. God’s grace is about visiting an old enemy who’s life has fallen apart and cooking them a meal, giving them a place to stay, and listening to their pain.

God’s grace isn’t just about a traffic cop letting you slide for speeding in a construction zone. God’s grace isn’t about looking at convicted murder and saying, “You’re forgiven.”

God’s grace looks at what we deserve, and offers us what we don’t.

When we deny our neighbors basic human rights, regardless of the reason, but especially because we think they don’t deserve it, then we aren’t simply denying them healthcare, food, or shelter.

We are denying them grace.

And when we do that, we become the unmerciful servant who has no claim to the grace God has extended to us.

 

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

 

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  • Katie

    Universal health care only works if you do not have a chronic disease. The “cure” for a rare form of cystic fibrosis is not available in Britain because because it is too expensive, but it is allowed in the states because of the insurances available. There has to be a better way, there has to be a way that life-saving medicine is available to those who need it. Simply having universal health care will not save those who are dying. It helps those who are healthy. However, to those with chronic diseases, like cystic fibrosis, they are left to just hope for the best.

    • Crazispeedemon

      I’m not entirely sure that is an accurate statement. Among the many benefits of a universal healthcare system is that it would make coverage available to those who would otherwise not have the money or go into bankruptcy when faced with a major (or terminal) illness.

      • Katie

        It is true the idea behind universal Health Care is great. However, it is only as successful as the amount of money that is available to implement it. In Canada for example, it is my understanding that in order to cover everyone, there is a limit to the amount of money the government sets aside for each person. Once this runs out the insurance no longer covers care and all expenses become out of pocket. In a country where there is no private health care, this means the person has no help in paying for medical bills. This is why you hear about people coming from Canada to have certain procedures done in the United States. Universal Health Care works best in smaller countries because there are a lot fewer people to cover. Although, even in those countries there are issues. Of course, there are going to be issues with any system. It is a sad fact that due to a lack of funds people with chronic diseases are left out because there is simply no more money allotted for the afflicted person. Even in a country that has universal health care, many people are left with medical bills they cannot pay or lacking the care they need.

  • http://lilablackbird.tumblr.com/ Charlotte

    “When we deny our neighbors basic human rights, regardless of the reason, but especially because we think they don’t deserve it, then we aren’t simply denying them healthcare, food, or shelter.

    We are denying them grace.”

    I just want to throw this quote all over the place. What a great thought.

  • david wyman

    Oh gee, Zack. It never even occurred to those of us who are suspicious of many forms of universal health care that Europeans all have it. Or that Christians ever built hospitals. Thanks for pointing that out, because we never would have run across it otherwise. We must be just too stoopid to take all that “history” into account. We clearly just don’t understand grace, or generosity, or any other Christian virtues.

    In fact, all of Christianity and Christ’s teaching just eludes us. It’s just fortunate that we have humble folk like yourself around to set us straight. We’d forgotten those key verses in Luke where Jesus insists that his followers lobby the Roman government for more bread and circuses, so that Caeser could get all the glory.

  • Drew

    Zack,

    I’m not sure if you were going this far, but it does answer some of the questions below. The beauty of what the church did, was not that it lobbied for politics, but that is found an “kingdom” alternative, private hospitals (this of course has not been warped). They did not pick a political party that would do these things (relinquishing much of the responsibility from the actual church), but they found a 3rd way (much like Christ did with the cross. Jews would have never thought their “king” would come to die a lowly death next to sinners).

    I don’t think the post was a call for everyone to be democrats, or that we are all stupid for not knowing our history (though I think many of us forget it, hence why it repeats itself). I think he is challenging the modern church in America to consider a grace filled approach to loving the world. One not tied to republicans or democrats, but one that is distinctly “off-putting”, the Church’s way.

    Maybe Zack was not saying that, I could just be reading my own 2 cents into it. But I think that the call of the Church is to be a people in between the times, between pharaoh and the promise land. This requires a radical faith in a God who has been faithful in the the past and therefore we can have faith for our present and future. To the world it looks crazy, vulnerable, weak. But Christians can be that way because we have a God who comforts, heals, delivers, provides, and saves, regardless of our own merit.

    loved the post.

    Thanks zack

    • drew

      this of course has *now* been warped

  • Sam

    Well written. Of course one could argue that the christian faith urges us to take care of the poor or the sick and that the state is not necessary for this although i think its a rather effective way of doing it (I am from Sweden). And that is what I think should be what we base choice of healthcaresystem. Which system provides the best and most inclusive coverage.

    Some argue that there is a risk that you dont get healthcare if the state run out of money or if they do not want to pay for a extremely expansive treatment and that is of course true. However that is also true for healthinsurancecompanies. The insurances also tendens to have a lot of “small letters” with specific requirements you have to meet to get the money when you need them.

    To argue that a system that leaves a large part of the population without healthinsurance is better than universal healthcare with the argument that there might be a situation that it does not cover a specific extremely expansiv treatment does not make any sense. Moreover you can still have private insurances for those that wish to have “double protection”