Unfinished Grace

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about grace.  Serving on committees that interview candidates for ordained ministry, I try to pay close attention to candidates' understanding of grace and why it's central to who we are as United Methodists.  In the ordination papers that they submit, many candidates tell some very moving stories about their ministries and the theological lessons they are learning in the trenches.  I've shared similar stories, both in my ordination papers and in plenty of sermons.  So I'm not judging anybody nor am I saying that I won't continue to tell stories that have nice and neat conclusions.

These stories, while moving and good, many times appear much neater on the page than they likely were when they were happening.  Life is usually more open-ended than the stories we tell.  So it is with grace.  This is a lesson that I'm slowly learning in my life as I realize that so much of what I do or work on or plan does not come to a point of neat closure.  Tidy narratives are the stuff of good books and movies, not necessarily our lives.  As I was thinking about this, I remembered one of those messy and unfinished stories from my past.

I met George early on in my ministry.  He was an older man who was loosely associated with the church where I served.  George had once studied religion in college for the purpose of going into the ministry and it was quickly clear that he loved to talk about the Bible.  However, as a young man, he also developed a powerful addiction to alcohol that he couldn't conquer no matter how hard he tried.  He would visit the church where I served for a few weeks and then disappear for 5-6 months or more.  When he came back, the church would always warmly embrace him and show him so much love and grace.  I remember thinking (a little naively) that maybe this would be enough to turn things around for George, to get him involved.  That we could love him and hug him and worship with him enough that he would seek to get healthy - body, mind, and spirit.  In my time at the church, it wasn't to be.

I would stop by George's house from time to time (typically after he had disappeared for a couple of months) and we'd sit and talk for a while.  During one of those visits, we talked about his college experience and his eventual turning away from faith and towards drinking.  He just couldn't see his way past the bottle, and he took to heart a phrase from I Corinthians 6:10 which says: "thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God."  I tried as hard as I could to convince George that God was waiting to forgive, to embrace, to redeem - even from a darkness he couldn't see his way out of.  To no avail - George told me, "there's no hope for me, preacher.  I don't want to stop drinking and God don't want no drunkards.  So you see, we're stuck, me and God."  I left that church no closer to a resolution than I was when I first met George. 

We like to tell stories that resolve, stories that offer redemption, completion, and come to nice, tidy conclusions.  We tell stories like that because so often, our lives are not like that.  Life's a lot messier and open-ended and unfinished, and so we long for that day when God will bring all of our stories to a remarkable, magnificent, redemptive close.  And, who knows, perhaps I planted a seed or two in George's heart that the Holy Spirit will one day bring to fruition.  My fervent hope is that God's grace is big enough for George and for all of us broken people who, on any given day, want our crutches more than we want to be healed.  I'm trying to trust God more as I see and experience more of these open-ended stories, to remember that I may not be there to witness that grace grow and flourish in someone's life.  Perhaps my part is to put seeds in the dirt, as so many have done with me...