cheevan's thought

LEADER’S LECTERN
You Don’t Want Fair, You Want Grace
by Scott Cormode

In my leadership classes at Fuller, I usually begin with a devotion that sets the tone for the day’s learning. One day we talked about how hard it is for a leader to practice grace, especially when the leader knows she’s right. We started that day by talking about fairness.

We all want what’s fair, especially children. “If Sally gets some, Bobby gets some.” Or, “If you get to go, then I get to go.” That’s fair. But it’s not just children. Fairness is built into American laws. “If he gets to vote, she gets to vote.” Or, “First come, first served.” That’s “only” fair. If I can buy a house here, you can too. That why we have Fair Housing laws.

But Jesus did not always think “fair.” He thought the last should be first. In Matthew 20, he told a story to describe what he meant. A farmer owned a vineyard. He hired some workers for his vineyard and agreed to pay them a denarius, a day’s wage. After all, that’s fair. But then, around 9 a.m., the farmer saw some idle workers in the village, so he hired them, too, saying, “I will pay you what is right.” Same scene at noon, at three, and even just before quitting time. At the end of the day, he gave everyone the same full-day’s wage. The early morning workers complained, “You made them equal to us. That’s not fair!” The farmer responded, “I am doing you no wrong. You got what you deserved. The others got more than they deserved. Are you envious because I am generous?” He was generous, but they did not think it was fair.

What is “fair”? It means you get what you deserve. And that’s when the next question comes. Do you really want God to give you what you deserve? Do you want to set that precedent? What do you deserve? Every good evangelical can quote Romans: “All have sinned . . .” and “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 3:23; 6:23). You don’t want fair. You want grace.

What is grace? Youth ministers sometimes define it as God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense (GRACE). It is much more than that, but let’s start there. Grace is not fair—that’s the whole point. Jesus’s message in the parable is that the last shall be first. That’s not fair. But we’re not the first, we’re the last. We’re the ones who deserve the wages of sin. You don’t want fair. You want grace.

Some tend to spiritualize this parable, saying that anyone who accepts Christ on their deathbed will still get into heaven. And that’s true. But that’s not the only point Jesus set out to make. Grace is not just something we receive from God. We are supposed to practice grace. “Judge not, lest you be judged,” he warned. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Don’t just be fair, show grace.

This is a hard concept for us Americans to get because grace seems unfair, even dangerous. How can grace be dangerous? I was recently talking with a woman named Cathy who wanted to know about the biblical mandate to care for “the widow, the orphan, and the alien in your midst.” Cathy could accept that we should care for widows and orphans because they haven’t done anything wrong. But caring for aliens, especially illegal aliens? “Doesn’t that just reward them for breaking the law?” she asked. “And won’t that just encourage others to do wrong?” Shouldn’t they get what’s coming to them? Wouldn’t that be fair? It’s a good question, one that the Apostle Paul anticipated when he talked about God’s grace in Romans 6. “We have grace, can’t we just keep on sinning?” he asked. Or, to put it Cathy’s way, won’t grace just encourage us to keep on sinning? And then Paul answers himself emphatically, “May it never be.” Grace may be unfair; but Paul didn’t want fair, he wanted grace.

And that’s when the wry smile comes across my face. It’s the smile that comes when I get caught but don’t want to admit it—the smile that used to cause my little sister to shout, “You’re busted!” Because I have to admit, there are indeed times when I want things to be fair, moments when I want God’s balance to swing toward righteousness rather than mercy. I know exactly when that happens: the more power I have and the greater my advantage, the more I think I want things to be fair. And when I’ve been wronged or when I am dealing with someone else’s sin (especially a sin that does not tempt me), I want judgment. When I’m feeling “righteous indignation,” I don’t want to hear about grace. I want them to get what they deserve.

Of course, that is the time that I myself need grace, and when I need to practice grace. So I have created a red flag warning that goes off in my head whenever I feel “righteous indignation” welling up. Whenever I get really worked up about someone else’s sin (especially someone whose sin does not directly affect me), I have to recognize that I’m probably wrong. When I’ve become the one who thinks he can cast the first stone, I force myself to back off even if I am right (okay, I try to make myself back off). I quiet myself because I realize I’m asking God just to be fair—to give them what they deserve. And then he reminds me: I don’t want fair, I want grace.

Dr. Scott Cormode is the Hugh De Pree Associate Professor of Leadership Development at Fuller. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Cormode is author of Making Spiritual Sense: Theological Interpretation as Christian Leadership (Abingdon Press, 2006). He founded the Academy of Religious Leadership—an organization for professors who teach leadership in seminaries, and created and is editor for the Journal of Religious Leadership.

想看中文可以參看夏昊霝傳道(Mark Shia)的這篇翻譯