Surprised by the man on the borrowed donkey: Ordinary Blessings. Denise Ackermann
ordained by God for all, thus commonplace. To say: “Blessed are those” is to acknowledge the working of God’s grace in our lives.
Tagging grace as “ordinary” will, I anticipate, raise immediate objections. Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) in his acclaimed work, The Cost of Discipleship, writes: “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.” He continues in scathing fashion:
Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like a cheapjack’s wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sins and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury […] Grace without price; grace without cost! […] Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system […] Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything remains as it was before.
In contrast, costly grace, according to Bonhoeffer is “[…] a treasure hidden in a field […] [that] must be sought again and again […] asked for.” He continues:
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore, the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart.
Where does this leave “ordinary” grace? Is it cheap? Bonhoeffer is right. We can cheapen grace. If we trade on God’s goodness and generosity, we cheapen the notion of grace. If we claim the fruits of grace without being willing to acknowledge their source with gratitude, we cheapen grace. If we refuse grace’s call to discipleship, says Bonhoeffer, we cheapen it. Why would we cheapen grace? The simple answer is that we are alienated creatures who choose to reject any dependence on Ultimate Reality. We deny our finitude and alienate ourselves from one another, from nature, from history and, in the end, from ourselves, as American Catholic theologian David Tracy warns. Grace is both a gift and a painful revelation of who we are. The story is familiar – we are made from and for God. We are also made to be in relationship with God and one another. The truth is we have become estranged from each other, endangering our existence together. Despite this, God sustains us because, although we are faithless, God is faithful. God speaks a word of forgiveness in Christ that is free, pure, fresh, unmerited, and is effective grace.
But cheap grace is not what I mean by grace being “in the order of things”. I have described grace as ordinary because I have been overwhelmed with surprise at just how prevalent it is, pervading my reality. It is as ordinary as the air I breathe. And I have also been surprised by my inability to have known this truth sooner. But as I said, what is ordinary is also extraordinary. Christians can speak of God’s relationship with human beings only through a constant awareness of the free grace of God, given once and for all in Jesus Christ. What could be more ordinary and extraordinary than a man borrowing a donkey, a man who is Emmanuel – God with us?
Do I recognise the working of grace in my life? At times I do, and at others I am oblivious to its presence, for grace is both simple to see and not obvious. We recognise a grace-filled life when we see it, and we will know moments when grace overwhelms us. However, the very ordinariness of grace defies explanation and tends to cause us to overlook its presence. Trying to describe a plume of smoke drifting through the air to a blind person is as difficult as seeking to encapsulate grace in words. Tracy describes the nature of grace:
Grace is a word Christians use to name this extraordinary process: a power erupting in one’s life as a gift revealing that Ultimate Reality can be trusted as the God who is Pure, Unbounded Love; a power interrupting our constant temptations to delude ourselves at a level more fundamental than any conscious error; a power gradually but really transforming old habits.
In my attempts at making sense of this “extraordinary” process I have found that:
God’s grace is unfathomable and unmerited. Being a recipient of grace does not require perfection or high ethical standards. Grace takes no regard of who and how we are: the schemers, the thieves, the liars, the charitable, those who bargain with God, those who stumble and try again, believers and non-believers are all within the contours of God’s grace. American essayist and poet Kathleen Norris in her book, Amazing Grace, reminds us of the indiscriminate nature of God’s grace. Jacob is a man who has “just deceived his father and cheated his brother out of an inheritance”. God does not punish him. Jacob is dealt with (through his even more scheming father-in-law) so that God can use him for grace-filled purposes. After wrestling through the night with the unknown man, he can say: “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved” (Gen 32:30). God saw the potential in Jacob beyond his scheming ways and made of him a nation. David is both a murderer and an adulterer, yet he is blessed by God. In the story of Jonah the prophet, God calls Jonah to proclaim judgment on Nineveh. This political allegory tells how Jonah absconds – as one of my children’s books said, by “taking a ship that went the other way”. Yet ultimately the story confirms his efficacy in the conversion of all who lived in Nineveh.
Peter’s record as a follower of Jesus is one of continuous ups and downs. Matthew 16:18 recounts how Jesus names Peter’s calling: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” Jesus has barely uttered these words when Peter rebukes him for disclosing his suffering, to the extent that Jesus says: “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me …” (Mt 16:23). Later we know that Peter denies Jesus three times in a courtyard during Jesus’ hearing before the high priest: “I do not know this man” (Mt 26:74). Yet, according to the Book of Acts, Peter sets about accomplishing the task assigned to him by Jesus with devotion. Saul persecutes Christians with unseemly zeal. He does not seem a likely candidate for establishing the church in Asia Minor. But we know that Saul becomes Paul who sets about this task with dedication and courage. Evidence for the unfathomable, unmerited nature of grace is found when God chooses Isaac not Ishmael, Jacob not Esau, David not Paul, reluctant Jonah, and Peter to be the rock for the founding of the church, with Saul as its first great missionary. Is this not surprising?
God’s grace is for all creation. God’s choices recounted in the scriptures do not imply a lack of grace in the lives of those who are not chosen for special tasks. Scripture tells the stories of leaders. The contributions of millions upon millions of ordinary people responding to grace in the history of our faith remain hidden. Grace is universal, shed on all humanity indiscriminately. Karl Barth describes grace as that “[…] from which the pagan lives, and also the indifferent, the atheist, and he who hates his fellow man whether they know it or not. It is the universal truth, not a ‘religious truth’.” The very fact that we breathe, that the earth continues to spin on its axis, that the seasons follow one another, that communities are kept alive by uncountable, unnoticed, simple acts of generosity and kindness are due to God’s grace, shed upon all creation. It is true that God’s grace resides in Jesus, but not exclusively, for Jesus calls a few to follow him, and the few become many, and the many will eventually become all.
God’s grace pursues us. God’s grace woos us because God loves us and longs for us to wake up to the wonder of godly grace in this world. We cannot escape grace. We may ignore it or deny it, but in the end it will envelop us. As Norris says: “God will find us and bless us, even when we feel most alone, unsure we will survive the night. God will find a way to let us know that he is with us in this place, wherever we are, however far we think we can run.” Fortunately grace is not limited to the church or any religious institution. By permeating the world, grace beckons all unceasingly to an awareness of how it awakens the longing for relationship with the Source of all life.
God’s grace is free, extravagant and transforming. The Barmen Declaration of 1934 (the manifesto or confession of what came to be known as the Confessing Church in Germany) speaks of “the proclamation of God’s free grace”. According to Barth, this does not mean anything other than what Romans 1:1 calls “the gospel of God”. He points out that God’s grace is not some godly property. “No, God’s free grace is God Himself, His most inner and essential nature, God Himself as He is. That is God’s secret, as it is now already revealed in Jesus Christ,” he explains. God gives