Recently, I read about a preacher who travels across the country reciting the Book of Mark word for word, with expressions and emotions added. Mark, as other books of the Bible, was probably an oral tradition at first anyway. Not that maybe people were readers back then, and many sentences begin with the word “and,” as though the speaker was insuring that he kept the floor until he had finished.
To refresh my memory about the uniqueness of Mark, I opened a Bible my Dad had used in his ministry. A Christmas card sent over 25 years ago by friends to my parents bookmarked the opening of the letter to the Ephesians.
In pencil, Dad had written Ephesians 2:4-10, and he had made a check mark by verses 4 and 10 as a guide for his reading. The passage speaks to one main point: “By grace you have been saved.” The text continues to note the “innumerable riches of grace,” and then, lest there be any doubt, that “this is not your own doing.”
People of a Certain Age, are there not in your lives words or ideas that have been persistent puzzlers to you for lo, these many years? Grace has been one for me.
As a word, grace has many meanings. Growing up, our family said grace before dinner each night. Royalty in BBC productions are often called “Your Grace.” Athletes and dancers, who excel at their movements, are often lauded as graceful. My aunt was named Grace. There are many more meanings in the dictionary.
Grace, as a word, never has meant anything bad. How many times have you read about a person commenting that another person had “grace enough not to {whatever}?”
Grace as a concept seems something I would want. Yet if the Apostle Paul was correct in his letter, you can’t just apply for grace. I’m not sure even how one might qualify for grace, which is Paul’s point.
I have probably trivialized grace using an expression you might have used as well: “there but for the grace of God go I.” Yet I am aware of much good fortune in my life that is clearly not my own doing. Is grace involved?
I believe I know grace when I see it. On one occasion, I was assigned the Inspirational Moment for our weekly Rotary meeting. In the days before, I had spent time with a friend and fellow Rotarian, just turned 80, who had just learned that he had cancer, on top of diabetes and other major medical issues.
I had not talked with my friend about either the diagnosis or the prognosis but I had studied his face, listened to his words and was, perhaps, more attentive to him, for some reason, than usual.
What I saw in him was grace. I said so as my Inspirational Moment. I said we could all hope that when we confronted the facts about how our own lives were likely to end, we could be like my friend. The other Rotarians seemed to agree.
There is a story told about Associate Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court who, in the case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) wrote a short opinion to concur that the particular movie the case was about did not merit censorship. “Hard core pornography,” he wrote, “is hard to define but I know it when I see it.” For how many things in our lives is that true: precise definitions might elude us, “but we know it when we see it?”
That’s how I feel about grace. I, like many others, recognized grace when President Jimmy Carter faced the press to talk about his cancer. Courage was once described as grace under pressure. But I cannot precisely define grace.
Though my examples of grace above are both people who have lived many years, I have seen grace in younger people, too, whose equanimity and peace emanate, I am sure, from grace. One such youngster is Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for the crime of wanting an education.
If a person claims to have grace, he doesn’t. Grace is a state, not a trait. If Paul is right, though, there are “innumerable riches of grace.” Who would not want that?
I don’t know what Dad said in his sermon that Sunday. Likely, he told stories, like Mark did, that gave the congregation glimpses of grace.
I like to see grace even though I have not yet fully understood what grace is. I’m thinking you might, too.
I know it is amazing.
Daniel E. White
October 1, 2015