Grace makes room for your anger and mess

We all want someone to stand by us in our pain, our convictions, our decisions... To side with us on matters of justice.

The world can be a hard place, and it can seem as if there is much against us - people and groups and governments and laws.

But if Jesus doesn't take sides, if he stands beside all of us in our pain and trouble and dysfunction... how do we raise our voices and tell our stories and make a stand for what we believe is right?

How do we petition and protest a governing body we believe to be making terrible and even inhumane decisions?

How do we disagree and argue and put forth a different point of view?

Jesus didn't take sides, and Jesus did take sides.

The problem is bad theology. We see God as a wise old man handing out rewards for good behaviour and punishments for bad behaviour. We have a quid-pro-quo spirituality.

The other problem is more psychological. We operate out of a worldview of fear and scarcity rather than trust and abundance. This stingy, calculating worldview makes both grace and mercy unimaginable and difficult to experience in both the giving and receiving of it. Our sense and demand of justice is retributive at best, vengeful at worst, which makes sense, until you need grace.

Grace does not cover up sins as if they never happened. Grace doesn't let the oppressor off the hook, and grace doesn't erase the nightmares of the oppressed.

Grace is for the healing, for the long haul. Grace turns retributive justice into restorative justice.

Grace makes room for rage and anger and mess... grace is the airing of torn flesh and broken hearts. Grace is for the listening of stories that bear witness to experiences different than ours.

Grace is the humility to bend and change and morph and make room. Grace is the means for both repentance and forgiveness.

Grace is for the tension when we can't justify the actions of another.

While being interviewed by Russell Brand for his podcast "Under the Skin" (one of my favourites BTW), Brené Brown said that she could find God and love in anybody. Even offensive people, even people who we might think are doing horrific things. In a study she conducted, she asked people to think of the very worst person they could, and ask themselves if they thought that person was doing the very best they could. Picture someone in your life who irritates you, who you think is wrong and unjustified and damaging, and imagine God telling you that they were doing the very best they could.

It's a very difficult question. Because if you answer yes, you believe that people are doing their best, what does that mean in regards to your pain and suffering and injustice? And for the things you are trying to change?

Brené said she asked her husband Steve if he thought people are doing the best they can? He took his time, but came back to her and said:

"I have no idea, but what I do know is that my life is better when I believe that they are."

Bartimaeus opened his heart enough to keep on crying out when the crowd tried to drown him out. Zacchaeus opened his heart enough to run up a tree to see Jesus when the crowd tried to zone him out.

Something in both the oppressed and the oppressor opened, and it was this openness that created the room change.

Openness takes retributive justice and works to make it restorative.

Grace enables us to stand by each other, to be on each other's side, even when we're on different sides.

Reminder: Be watchful. The grace of God appears suddenly. It comes without warning to an open heart.

Continued in the series "Who Do You Stand For?", this week with a subscription in the App.

Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco