Where it Began
Where did grace start for me and my world in Methodism
Viv Harris, the chairperson of the District, was also the Superintendent of the circuit where we went to church. I went every second Sunday and babysat the next week to give Wendy, the real Methodist a chance. We lived in Brakpan. My whole upbringing up until I met Viv was as a moralising Anglican, thinking God owed me a place with God because I had gone to church all my life, twice a week and sometimes more for communion. God and I are buddies, but I had no idea why we enjoyed each other.
When I think back on it, Viv toyed with me as I expressed a call to preach in 1976. He never once talked grace and he never ‘preached’. He was worse and I only begin to comprehend his method now. He simply said. “Why don’t you give everything away: your house and your job!” What – and a ten-year long-service reward at work? “Yes,” he said without any doubt in his voice. My own minister Steve Roux had been more practical, “No, don’t go there. The church is changing and will encourage ministers to buy your own homes.” Yippee!! But it never happened, we never bought a house because I gave our home away and lost the long-leave bonus.
Every sermon, though, at Brakpan and later at every training event Viv taught grace. I loved what he taught. As Chairperson of the district, in every action, he demonstrated grace. There were no rules. When an august body, the Christian Citizenship Department (CCD) and an even more formal Austen Massey wanted reports every year, as representative of Viv’s district, I took great pleasure in telling Austen that we do not keep reports and that the District did not ask for society reports, nor any in the life of the church. That is when I began a campaign across districts, to do social justice instead of reporting on it. Austen said, correctly, that I joined the ministry at the end of a many decades’-long fight against apartheid and for most of that time, before black consciousness in the early Seventies, the white liberal churches were the only recourse for black activists to change things with government. When I joined the church, in my first interview with Viv, he said, “Forget joining the black cause; they have taken over their own fight!” That sounds dismissive, but only of my naivety. He was again demonstrating grace. His favourite expression about bringing change was:
“We are the cats’ eyes! They may ride roughshod over us, but they see the way forward because of us”.
I did not like the above maxim as it gave a weak portrayal of Viv’s grace. I understand the Christian model but it meant we tended to be passive in giving direction. I fought with him but he steadfastly disagreed with me: he preferred the power of powerlessness. I said that this is a contradiction: power is never without power. I still say that grace is very powerful. Power is not an ugly word; Viv struggled with power in politics and in the church. I say that grace enjoys, the power of the people. A gracious fight is the way forward. Together, our power will overwhelm the politicians, economists, the nation, religion and the law. We wield huge power: for example, China dumps all the overproduced iron and steel on the rest of the world at rock bottom prices killing the rest of the world’s steel industry. The rest of the world all say, it is the law of supply and demand. That is nonsense! The Chinese have not obeyed any law. They are state driven not market driven. We have the power, if we get rid of all rules, including economists. We will fight graciously with them, as Gandhi did against the cotton mills of England saying, “We are making our own cotton fabrics!” They cheered him in Manchester. The Chinese will cheer us too, if we find a gracious way of confronting them as potential friends!
Over the years, I brought grace into everything. Then it developed into a biblical survey, where we discover that heaven is free. I have an intensive study of the bible that drives this way of life; it is called “Gracious Evangelism”. It is not on the web site but it is available; it is openly liberal so it does not support a biblical imperative. It also takes years of instruction, where on a person-to-person basis, in their homes, the whole congregation adopts the gracious life. Like anywhere else, not everyone agrees, mostly those with Reformed upbringing. They struggled with my stance, preferring the safety of the law. Many Baptist, Anglican and Presbyterian are reformed so I know my gracious life is not popular until you experience it.
Part of the above teaching, woos people away from laws in church but this becomes possible in all areas of life. People grasp worship, tithing, discipling and service as desires not legal obligations but beyond the church we love the traffic law.
Rather than believe in it, grace asks you to trust it. There is no law, no biblical prescription, there is no fact. From trust, we offer many experiences of grace and joy until large groups of people live it.
The essential difference between law and grace is knowing and understanding. No matter how hard you try, you can understand the law but not know it, meet it. Grace, however, is an experiential event, you meet it. Once you know grace, living under the law is irrelevant. Religion, so enamoured with the experience of grace, put rules around it to protect it and killed it! All religion includes grace but prefer law. Being kind to them, they say that the only way to perfection is to obey. Worst of these was my hero Dietrich Bonhoeffer who in his otherwise excellent book The Cost of Discipleship plumped for obedience on the Sermon of Mount, like a good reformed theologian he was. The riddles posed, ‘Is it they who believe that obey, or is it they who obey that believe?’ Grace does not insist on the riddle, belief or obedience are irrelevant because being is valuable and being present, is the ultimate. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus mocking the law as hyperbole: you cannot be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect!
Joy is the sign of grace in our lives. We know (experience again) grace, not fully understanding it, but in accepting grace, joy bursts out. Joy, meaning ‘presence’, admits value of being before doing or understanding. Perfection is irrelevant because being present is the goal. Unfortunately, in every dimension of life perfection is still God, politically, economically, nationally and the law itself cannot think unless perfection is made possible. The only answer is to laugh at them until they see how ridiculous these pressures are in pushing human beings to perfection when joy is already there.
While Viv Harris and I did not agree on the definition of power, I accepted his challenge to live both within and beyond religion in a gracious life so I enjoy fighting graciously, fighting against the powers that prevent a world of justice. Ideologies and religion fall away in the joy of a gracious fight.
