^{4 The goodness and kindness of God our savior appeared to save us, not because we did anything righteous, but because he is merciful. He cleansed us, made us alive, and created us anew by the Holy Spirit, whom he gives to us without measure. This is all through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who makes us right with the Father by his grace so that we can inherit the hope of eternal life.}

Titus 3:4-7

As a youngster, I was pretty good at most sports. The exception was basketball, where my only assets were an ability to run around for hours without tiring and a decent grasp of defense. Otherwise, my contribution was an occasional flash of brilliance surrounded by a sea of sometimes embarrassing offensive mediocrity.

Despite my lack of even playground-level talent, I persisted in signing up for the annual Jewish Community Center hoops league. Every October, you would find me enduring the inevitable and agonizing “waiting-to-be-selected for a team” process. Once chosen, I received one instruction: Don’t shoot unless absolutely necessary.

One fall, however, a new coach somehow took a shine to me, picked me early on in the “draft,” and insisted on starting me the entire season. I responded by averaging 12 points a game. I still wasn’t any good, which I proved by never coming close to equalling that success in subsequent years.

The temptation for me was to think that somehow I had become a star. The truth was that I was the beneficiary of favor – the kind of blessing that comes our way entirely because someone else decides to overlook our evident and inherent deficits and acts as if we are something we are not. In my case, I found some kind of inspiration and even empowerment that allowed me to at least temporarily live beyond my abilities.

My mercifully truncated basketball career stands as a small analogue to the way that God brings us into a relationship with him; how we gain the status of adopted children; and how we walk in the freedom to believe and obey him as our Father. Divine grace is inexorably attracted to spiritually helpless (the biblical term is “dead”) human persons; chooses them to be objects of his affection; gives them his own life by taking on their deadness and helplessness; and continually demonstrates his goodness in ways small and great, visible and unseen.

All this is the foundation and absolute truth behind and beneath and all through the biblical narrative, from “Let there be light” through the final cry for Jesus’ return. When we think about the lavish favor that is the hallmark of God’s disposition toward his creation, this should be the most easily made of our movements from fantasy to reality.

Theoretically, yes. In practice, not nearly as much as we might expect. There is in us a strain of pride and – perhaps the product of pride – worldly cynicism that resists our being beneficiaries, at least to the extent that the gospel declares is true and necessary to live a full Christian existence. Is grace really that free, that essential? We have a longing for the gift, but struggle with what it means to need and receive it.

Even making such statements easily arouse a less-than-wholehearted response. We sing, hear sermons, read books and verses about grace and favor (two words that are inseparably linked) to the point that it almost seems that they have become trite, abstract, practically meaningless because they have so much meaning. The most benign reaction is simply to be overwhelmed: We just don’t understand, and don’t know what to do with them. The more damaging arguments are the ones we all know (and yet I’m going to raise them in just a moment), and maybe have become a bit blasé and bored about. Grace met with a shrug …

Most obviously, our denigration of favor arises from the fact that we are all Pelagians.* There is a deep-seated dismissal in us of the idea that we are spiritually impotent. Like the three-year old child tagging along after mom or dad, we want to help, even where helping is literally impossible. I want to work for my reward, not bask in the glory of an unearned gift.

Attempting to show that we can contribute to anything in God’s kingdom by a means other than his grace – whether it is living a biblical moral life, being fruitful in service and ministry, or fulfilling the law of love – is bound to be a frustrating one. It means living in a fundamental denial of the reality that everything about us is utterly dependent on his favor: our physical capacities; even knowing what is right and good (let alone do something about it); having a sense of God’s presence and purpose in our lives; having a hope of life beyond our mortal years. To shut out these truths in service of our little contingent selves deprives us of the full blessing of the Father’s good pleasure in giving us everything as his children and heirs.

Traveling hand-in-hand with our moralizing works mentality is the plausible lie of our unworthiness to receive favor. Shall we be clear, Anne Frank: People are not truly good at heart. Yes, we all do things that benefit the world, which essentially reflects on God and on grace. We are created in such a way that the Spirit can inspire positive actions and curbs our worst inclinations (for the most part) even when we don’t know God. But we have no basis in fact to claim that we deserve favor (despite the piano scale mnemonic).

The truth is that we are unworthy. That sounds like a recipe for humility and gratitude. Unfortunately, pride again steps forward and presents its pouty face. Just as in response to the painful reality that we cannot perform and thus earn favor, our fantasy selves wish and wish and wish that we were worthy of it. And if we can’t be, then we will fall into guilt, sorrow, anger, discouragement, and just plain general huffiness.

What grace wants to teach us is that knowing our unworthiness is a relief, a blessing, a source of joy and freedom. In most instances, receiving gifts brings happiness. We may say, “You shouldn’t have,” but we neither refuse nor return the offering. And the giving and receiving is more than a simple exchange: It strengthens our relationships, increases humility, and opens us to greater generosity.

But somehow we want to demur when the infinite, extravagant, profligate Giver of divine favor comes to us, revealing his heart of goodness in our lives – even, and especially in the hard places. As I slowly come to the realization that this is how I relate to God’s free offering, I find myself compelled to imitate Dickens’ Oliver: Please, sir, may I have some more? And to ask all the more as I understand, in the face of my sin and failure, how definitively unworthy I really am.

We believe and even tell ourselves so many of these lies about favor. In the end, it is as if we treat the Lord and his kingdom as the fantasy, the too-good-to-be-true Unicorn God, rather than as the source and being of unalterable reality. We have heard rumors, but we’re not ready to believe the news. We suffer from conditional faith. Meaning that we think favor is an intermittent thing, conditioned by circumstances.

And what are the occurrences that loom over us and rob us of faith? On the one hand, we face the vagaries of being limited creatures living in a painful, frustrating, “not yet” world. We suffer (see two blog posts ago). We watch others suffer (ditto). We sin. Other people sin. Hopes are dashed and dreams grow stale. Meanwhile, the wicked prosper and preachers take out their false hammer promises of unlimited success if only we could believe enough – which usually equals how much of our wallet we are willing to empty.

On the other hand, we’re not so sure about God’s opinion of us. It seems that he is perpetually ticked, disappointed, stern, unhappy, kind of moody, and certainly unpredictable. As the false prophets in C.S. Lewis’ Last Battle do, we take the knowledge that he is “not a tame Lion” and use it against him. This is just one more version of the superstitious and idolatrous “Man upstairs” theology. No loving, faithful Father here, but a “hard master” God (Mat. 25:24) who tolerates us and must regularly shake his head. Such views of the Lord, however subtle, are the cosmic petri dishes of idol spawn.

Fortunately, we know that this won’t do. He has given us his Spirit so that we cannot be satisfied with such poor substitutes. There is a God-inspired vision of his world that makes us hunger and thirst for it, and for him. We suspect what he fully knows: that to live with trust in him and in his favor is the open door to freedom, to obedience, to joy, to hope, to intimacy – and to worship.

It’s time to surrender to reality. To surrender to the Spirit’s-eye view of the Kingdom, unclouded by the kaleidoscope fracturing that occurs when our lens is ourselves, our sin, our (and the word’s) brokenness. To ask, with Oliver, for more. For the favor that the Father is pleased to give us. We are not paupers or orphans in his house. We don’t sneak in the scullery door to grab our meager portion or climb the back fence like thieves hoping no one will notice us.

We are children whom he will satisfy with all the good things of his own bounty.

*Pelagius, the nemesis of Augustine, rejected the doctrine of original sin and believed that the moral capacity of human beings was such that they could choose righteousness by the exertion of free will. Grace is important, but an adjunct to our choice.