Contours of Grace

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Son
Luke Ch 15

Some of us are so familiar with it (the story of the Prodigal Son) that we might even fail to see the rich contours of grace presented in its narrative. Familiarity with the story assumes its central figure to be a son who leads a wasteful and extravagant life. But a careful reading presents the multi-faceted contours of God's extravagant display of grace towards all wayward sons and daughters.
...it is a prodigal, or wastefully extravagant, grace. The prodigal nature of the father's grace compels him to keep looking for his son--he saw him while he was still a long way off. And despite being disowned by his son, the father feels compassion for him. With wasteful abandon, the father picks up his long garments, exposing his legs and customarily shaming himself, and runs to his son to embrace him and welcome him home. The father orders a grand party for this son who has been found, "who was dead and has begun to live"--brought to life by the rich, grace of God, a prodigal grace, both unexpected and undeserved.
But the prodigal nature of God's grace is also a disruptive grace. God's grace disrupts and sometimes even offends our sense of justice. It seems unjust, for example, that such an extravagant party was thrown for such a reckless, rebellious son. It seems equally unjust that the faithful older brother was not celebrated in the same way as his wayward, younger sibling. Clearly, the prodigal nature of God's grace disrupts us because of how it is given--extravagantly and seemingly wastefully.
...
The final contour of God's grace is perhaps the most obvious point in Jesus's parables. God's grace is a seeking grace. God's grace searches relentlessly until what is lost is found. The prodigal nature of the father's grace compels him to keep looking for his son and to feel nothing but compassion when he finds him. With abandon, the father runs towards the son who was lost and now is found! If this story didn't make the seeking nature of grace obvious enough, Jesus follows it with two other stories about a lost sheep and a lost coin. In both, a relentless search for what is lost ensues until it is found.

If you've lost the wonder of God's grace by over-familiarity to the story, may you rediscover the rich contours of grace--prodigal, disruptive, and relentless in its pursuit of you. If you have never known the richness of God's grace, may that grace find you today!

Comments: Is there some way that you can give unexpected and undeserved grace today? Perhaps something that takes someone off guard because it is so freely given? Seek out this way. For it is the way of Jesus.

When God Was Hungry by Jill Carattini

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

(Matthew 25:41-43)

"There are no ordinary people," said Lewis. "You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit." - C.S. Lewis memorial oration given at Oxford University Church in 1941

Scripture is replete with reasons to live in perpetual awareness of the image of God around us. Our neighbors--known and unknown--are of the same birthright as we. As the New Testament puts it, we are all God's offspring..
Few of us have had someone physically knock on our door asking for food and water. But all of us have had someone knock on our door...

What would the world be like if we took Jesus at his word? "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in." What would happen if Christians everywhere treated everyone they came in contact with as if they were treating Christ himself? Lewis gives us an idea: "This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses."

The great metaphor of a world of souls confronts us daily in literal flesh. And the King is still replying: I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these siblings of mine, you did for me.

Comments: May we endeavor to give dignity to those we come in contact with. May your light shine.

Stronger Than Death by Jill Carattini

Take about 5 minutes to read this snippets version of The previous day's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Follow up by reading TODAY'S SLICE and forward any comments on your faith journey.

Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
its jealousy as enduring as the grave.
Love flashes like fire,
the brightest kind of flame.
(Song of Songs 8:6)

A Slice of Infinity Snippets:
G.K. Chesterton once noted that people who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. One only has to listen to a few love songs to see this truth in human nature; we find a constant flow of promising and vowing.

Love and passion impel us to place such a seal upon our hearts, to bind ourselves to one another. The sheer fierceness of its nature calls for careful boundaries. Yet this is not a verdict meant to be followed simply because it is a good thing to do, a moral virtue we ought to follow. Like Christianity itself, it is good because it is true: Love is indeed as strong as death. Like all of the deepest questions of life, love is something to be reckoned with. “For where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away,” says Paul. But love never fails.

There is no place where this has been exemplified more clearly than in the love of the Trinity and in the extension of that love to you and me--from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. In fact, the love of God is so perfect and we are in such need of it that the cry of the human heart will not fall silent until it has found that for which it ultimately searches. In the same place where the lingering questions of the meaning of life and the fierceness of the grave are answered coherently, love is exemplified and found fulfilling. The remedy is comprehensive, and it is in the hands of God.


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In the Valley of Shadows by Jill Carattini

Take about 5 minutes to read this snippets version of Friday's, 'A Slice of Infinity'. Follow up by reading TODAY'S SLICE and forward any comments on your faith journey.

A Slice of Infinity Snippets:
While still in the hands of their enemies, a train carrying Gordon and several others came alongside another boxcar at a stop in Burma. The entire car was filled with gravely wounded Japanese soldiers. They were left alone, without medical attention or company, as if abandoned refuse of war. "They were in a shocking state," Gordon recalls. "The wounded looked at us forlornly as they sat with their heads resting against the carriages waiting fatalistically for death....These were our enemy."

Without a word, many of the officers unbuckled their packs, took out part of their rations and a few rags, and with their canteens went over to the Japanese train. The guards tried to prevent them, but they pressed through, kneeling by the side of the injured men with food and water, cleaning their wounds. Eighteen months earlier the same men of the river Kwai prison camp would have celebrated the humiliation and destruction of anyone on the side of their violent captors. Yet Gordon explains, "We had experienced a moment of grace, there in the bloodstained railway cars. God had broken through the barriers of our prejudice and had given us the will to obey his command, 'Thou shalt love.'"

Chad's Comments:
May God be so evident in our lives as to love our enemies.

One of the members of the Life-Devotions blog commented yesterday and I felt the comment poignant to our discussions:

Jean Noon says, "When I do not judge I am engaged in mercy. The root of the word “mercy” has the same root as the words “commerce” and “merchant” which allude to exchange. When Jesus says to stop judging, it is not just good advice. To not judge means I have an open posture toward not only my neighbor but toward God who provides clarity in revealing that not judging is essential to sharing in the life of God. When I have an open posture, a willingness to not turn away, shun, shut down, or close myself off, I participate in the divine exchange and share in the life of God. Jesus gave me a tool to help me, psychologically, to be open to the outsider, the stranger, the prisoner, the enemy, the hurting, the sinner – all of these the poorest of the poor -- by reminding me that which I do for the least of my brethren I do for Jesus (Matt 25:31-46). He also gave me His words, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” (Lk 23:34) I sometimes bristle at this notion but it allows me a more open posture towards my neighbor in responding with love. That doesn’t mean I ignore a problem but it gives me a spaciousness to come up with more loving solutions in my response rather than my knee-jerk egoic reaction of condemnation. My prayer ultimately becomes, “Bless Them; Change Me” because as I measure out it will be measured out to me. (Matt 7:2)


*To comment on this thread, visit the blog.
*Read today's slice and email me with your comments/questions/prayers for
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*Invite friends and family to join us on this faith journey.