Living in the Land of the Un-graced

I have a confession to make. I have never told anyone what I am about to tell you. Not even my wife, though I think she must have suspected something. And I struggle with how to tell you this news this morning. Yet I feel the time has come for me to confess this to you honestly. And I will understand if you do not want me as your youth director after I confess this. I am prepared to accept that.

I am a terrorist (more like an unholy terror). Let me be quick to also add that though I belong to a group, I am not part of the al Quaida organization and have no responsibility for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11, 2001. Though I am a pilot, I have never planned, nor would I ever plan on using a plane as a deadly weapon to bring about destruction of human life. I am also not into biological warfare. Nonetheless, I, and people in my group, can cause sleepless nights of anxiety. We can be ruthless when we feel we need to be. We operate quietly and without detection, for the most part, moving in and out of unsuspecting people, leaving behind us a trail of fears. The FBI nor the CIA has us listed, so they aren’t even watching us. We are pretty much free to move in and out of the population at will. As a matter of fact, we have quite a few operatives on the inside of the government, and to date, word has it that we have not yet been noticed.

My cell isn’t in to a quick death. My group is dedicated to long-term torture. We enjoy watching people dangle on a rope, fear in their eyes and terror in their hearts. And we have the ability to rip, shred and filet almost anyone. And what’s more, we can’t get enough. It’s not something I necessarily want to do. It’s something I almost feel I have to do.

I also have to confess, that many in my cell are are often found sitting with you in church each week. Don’t worry, if nobody moves, you won’t get hurt. Any given week, I see quite a few who are in my cell group and we are recruiting all of the time.

Oh, I’ve tried to get out a few times, but you don’t understand the pressure from the rest of the group. If I were to quit the organization, I would be the next victim on the list… and I’ve seen what happens to those who are considered traitors. It is not a pretty sight. So though I might want to quit, I’m just too afraid.

Who is this group? What is its’ name? Before we have people running out of here calling 911, I suppose I’ll tell you, and then you will have to check and see if you, too, are already part of this group. Our organization is called - Ungraced. The Ungraced Organization or the UO for short. Let me explain.

We are a group of people who, though we are called to live in God’s grace, and though we have accepted His call to do so, continue to distribute un-grace to those around us. And as a result, our words and our actions strike anxiety and fear into those around us and steal delicate hours of sleep. We don’t need biological weapons. Our words and actions alone can do the damage.

When confronted or offended by a Person (or we could call them Person A), does our operative launch a full out offensive on Person A?  No. Too dangerous. Could blow his/her cover as an operative for the Un-graced. Rather, he/she takes their anger and cloaks it in politeness, smiles and handshakes, until they are safely out of the confrontation zone. Then it’s action time!

Quickly gathering their ring of friends and supporters for a clandestine meeting, they plot an all out offensive. The guard is dropped and the statements fly. “Did you hear that?” “What was that about, huh?” “That Person makes me so mad! We can’t let them get away with this! Here’s what let’s do!” And that plan of action is put into effect. A little word here. An insinuating remark there. A well-poised question and the trap is set. Now…a little patience and whamo… Person A is in the crosshairs and running for cover and our operative smiles and knows that Person A won’t be quite so quick with their disagreeable statements the next time out. Person A has been successfully intimidated and is now running on fear.

The situations are different, but the results are the same. Fear. Intimidation. Anxiety. Irritation. Anger. Sadness. Guilt. Loss of sleep. Loss of appetite.    When we choose to operate out of un Grace, rather than God's Grace, we cannot change those results.

Philip Yancey, in his book, “What’s so Amazing about Grace?” recounts the story from Simon Wiesethal’s book: The Sunflower. It recounts a small incident that took place during the “ethnic cleansing” campaign of the 2^nd World War. It is a story that does much to explain what propelled Wiesenthal to become the foremost hunter of Nazis and a relentless public voice against hate crimes. The book centers, interestingly enough, on forgiveness.

In 1944 Wiesenthal was a young Polish prisoner of the Nazis. He had looked on, helpless, as Nazi soldiers killed his grandmother on the stairway of her home and as they forced his mother into a freight car crammed with elderly Jewish women. Altogether, eighty-nine of his Jewish relatives would die at the hand of the Nazis. Wiesenthal himself tried without success to commit suicide when he was first captured.

One bright, sunny day as Wiesenthal’s prison detail was cleaning rubbish out of a hospital for German casualties, a nurse approached him. “Are you a Jew?” she asked hesitantly, then signaled him to accompany her. Apprehensive, Wiesenthal followed her up a stairway and down a hallway until they reached a dark, musty room where a lone soldier lay swathed in bandages. White gauze covered the man’s face, with openings cut out for mouth, nose and ears.

The nurse disappeared, closing the door behind her to leave the young prisoner alone with the spectral figure. The wounded man was an SS officer, and he had summoned Wiesenthal for a deathbed confession.

“My name is Karl,” said a raspy voice that came from somewhere within the bandages. “I must tell you of this horrible deed—tell you because you are a Jew.”

Karl began his story by reminiscing about his Catholic upbringing and his childhood faith., which he had lost while in the Hitler Youth Corps. He later volunteered for the SS and served with distinction and had only recently returned, badly wounded from the Russian front.

Three times as Karl tried to tell his story, Wiesenthal pulled away as if to leave. Each time the officer reached out to grab his arm with a white, nearly bloodless, hand. He begged him to listen to what he had just experienced in the Ukraine.

In one small town, abandoned by the retreating Russians, Karl’s unit stumbled onto booby traps that killed thirty of their soldiers. As an act of revenge the SS rounded up three hundred Jews, herded them into a three story house, doused it with gasoline, and fired grenades at it. Karl and his men encircled the house, their guns drawn to shoot anyone who tried to escape.

“The screams from the house were horrible,” he said, reliving the moment. “I saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were on fire. By his side stood a woman, doubtless the mother of the child. With his free hand the man covered the child’s eyes, then he jumped into the street. Second later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies. We shot… Oh, God!”

All this time Simon Wiesthenthal sat in silence, letting the German soldier speak. Karl went on to describe other atrocities, but he kept circling back to the scene of that young boy with black hair and dark eyes, falling from the building, target practice for SS rifles. “I am left here with my guilt,” he concluded at last:

In the last hours of my life you are with me. I do no know who you are, I know only that you are a Jew and that is enough. I know that what I have told you is terrible. In the long nights while I have been waiting for death, time and again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn’t know whether there were any Jews left…I know what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace.”

Simon Wiesenthal, an architect in his early twenties, now a prisoner dressed in a shabby uniform marked with the yellow star of David, felt the immense crushing burden of his race bear down on him. He stared out the window at the sunlight courtyard. He looked at the eyeless heap of bandages lying in the bed. He watched a bluebottle fly buzzing the dying man’s body, attracted by the smell.

“At last I made up my mind,” Wiesenthal writes, “and without a word I left the room.”

The SS officer soon died, unforgiven by a Jew, but Wiesenthal was liberated from a death camp by American troops. The scene in the hospital haunted him like a ghost. Over twenty years later, he finally wrote down the story and sent it to the brightest ethical minds he knew: Jew and Gentile, Catholic, Protestant and irreligious. “What would you have done in my place? he asked them. The second half of the book records their responses. Of the thirty six who responded, only 6 said he had erred in not forgiving the German.

My thought: The fact that it haunted him and tormented him for so many years would indicate that he had made the wrong choice. Grace extended rarely comes back to haunt you.

Where are you today? God is calling you and I to be gracious people. Not people who arch our backs and dig in our heels when we are provoked. Not people who work to plan our next attack and figure out ways to get what we want. Rather, He calls us to grace. First, for our own needs, and then once we are full of grace, for offering it to others.

The gospel of grace begins and ends with forgiveness. And people write songs with titles like “Amazing Grace” for one reason; grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations. God's love and grace alone melts ungrace.

Let me finish with these words 2Tim. 3:1-5   You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!

God is calling you and I to quit the Ungraced Organization. He’s calling us to live a gracious life. One that is quick to forgive wrongs and extend grace, even if the other person isn’t sorry. He is calling you to be one that extends grace in the face of the seemingly unforgivable. There are only two options: Be gracious or get even. Forgive or grow bitter and exhaust your life on making sure they get their just due. Be a gracious saint or an ungracious terrorist. What about you? Are you willing to give up terrorism? Are you willing to release it to God?

Lord, I’m choosing this day, to tear up my card and quite the organization. I’m turning around, again, and saying yes, Lord, thank you for Your grace and that I’m not condemned. Help me to be a gracious person dispensing Your grace and forgiveness to others who offend me. I give You the terrorist in me today. Take it and make me who You want me to be. In Jesus name. Amen.