Cheap Grace
Mark S. Roberti, Director of Stewardship and Development
Heartland Parishes of Ellis County
 

In his book The Cost of Discipleship, German Lutheran theologian and minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer used the term "cheap grace." There is, he concluded, no such thing. Bonhoeffer died in the concentration camps of World War II for his faithfulness.

This was a great man....a great Christian. In my speculative mind, had his life not been cut short, he would have converted to Catholicism like Cardinal John Henry Newman and some of the other greats. He truly understood the nature of grace.

It seems that for the rest of us average Catholics, it takes a crisis in our lives to really move us to Christ, or even closer to Christ. We seem to presume upon God’s mercy. From what I understand, the generation that preceded the "baby boomers" presumed more on God’s justice. In those days, it seems, people were give a healthy dose of the "fear of God."

I’m essentially a child of the Vatican II era. It would take someone older and wiser to figure out which slant is best. My guess, however, is that God wills a healthy balance between mercy and justice.

This "carte blanche" presumption of today’s era, that we’re all going to go to heaven, has some serious drawbacks. Honestly, it’s Protestant theology that most Catholics seem to have appropriated for themselves. In Catholic teaching, presumption is a sin. To us, even the grace of final perseverance is just that... a grace.

As Bonhoeffer understood, this grace does not come cheap. A price has already been paid. If you read your Bible or watched the Passion of Jesus Christ, you begin to understand that every grace that flows to us has been earned for us through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Though grace is freely given to us, the price paid for those graces is hardly cheap.  It is far beyond anything we could ever pay. It’s hard earned grace!

As I write this article, today’s Sunday readers were all about this hard earned grace that we seem to take so lightly. In Ecclesiastics, Qoheleth says, "Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity." He then explains that one man labors and toiled in wisdom, knowledge, and skill, but that man has to leave all he has to someone who has not labored over it. In seeking "things," we devote our efforts to that which does not last.

The Psalm reads, "But you humans return to dust...before a watch passes in the night." The Psalmist then says, "Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart." He is saying, look to things of the soul, not things of the body.

St. Paul, in his letter to the Colossians says it even more clearly.  "If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, not what is on earth...."

The Lucan Gospel reading is the "parable of the rich fool." I figure this one is directed at you and me…no matter how much money we have. The rich man builds a new barn to store his abundant harvest rather than to share his excess. He is going to take care of "himself" and "his own." But that’s not the message the prophets delivered. Their message was righteousness; we are to take care of the widow, the orphan, and the down-trodden. The prophets railed against moral and economic injustices.

What does God tell the rich man? "You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared to whom will they belong?

Where are we, today? We buy nice homes and fill them, and our garages, with a lot of everything. That seems perfectly okay to us because everyone else is doing it. But do you know what? When God judges each of us, its not going to be against the standard our society has set for us. We’re going to be judged against the standards he sets for us.

Grace is not cheap. If we are holding back, we’re missing the very point. This life is all about sharing God’s grace earned for us through the salvific act of Jesus Christ. This sharing of grace is called stewardship, S-t-e-w-a-r-d-s-h-i-p.