If you're tired of Law and Order and want some crime and passion to curl your toes, try the book of Genesis. There you will find any number of thieves, cheats, and killers worming their way into God's story which is also our story, which may be why all of these less than virtuous souls get the press they do.
Take Genesis 28 for example. There you will find a scoundrel by the name of Jacob supplanting and cheating his way through anything he can get his hands on. Having stolen his brother’s birthright, lying to his father, and blaspheming against God, we find him running away from home with his brother, Esau’s promise, to murder him, still ringing in his ears. More than this, he’s not only running away from home but from the Promised Land destined for his family and their descendants. He is going in the wrong direction back to Haran, the home of his grandfather Abraham. Which is another indication that Jacob is in a mess of trouble. And if this isn’t enough, as night falls, he curls up in the middle of nowhere with a stone for a pillow. Jacob is definitely stuck and submersed in a pool of quick sand made of his own brokenness and sin. He can’t even catch a break by falling asleep. For no sooner is he asleep than he encounters God in a dream.
He dreams of a stairway to heaven with ascending and descending angels which, in and of itself is amazing. What’s more amazing however, is how we experience God in Jacob’s dream. Jacob does not get what he deserves. In place of chastisement and punishment, He is greeted by the God of mercy and grace who has nothing but one gift after another for him. In place of judgment or a good talking to for his many infractions and sins. Jacob receives gifts.
“I will give you and your descendants land…. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth… All peoples on earth will be blessed through you… I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go…. and I will bring you back to this land… I will help you turn around and get going in the right direction… I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
Lost so completely in his sin, Jacob can't see or trust how God can possibly love him. And yet, what first feels like a stone for his pillow becomes how God reveals an undying love to Jacob. It makes no sense whatsoever and smacks in the face of "all that is fair." Jacob should be tossed and dismissed, with as much flagrant neglect as he has tossed and dismissed others. Instead, God offers "Outrageous Grace" because God can. It's God's choice and.... it seems to bring God pleasure to do so.
Timothy Paul Jone's book, Proof, helps me catch a glimpse of what God is offering Jacob here, and in turn, all of us. It helps me remember what I have going for me when the scoundrel in me rears its ugly head.
“Outrageous grace," he writes, "isn’t a favor you can achieve by being good; it’s the gift you receive by being God’s. Outrageous grace is God’s goodness that comes looking for you when you have nothing but a middle finger flipped in the face of God to offer in return. It’s a farmer paying a full day’s wages to a crew of deadbeat day laborers with only a single hour punched on their time cards (Matthew 20:1 – 16). It’s a man marrying an abandoned woman and then refusing to forsake his covenant with her when she turns out to be a prostitute (Ezekiel 16:8 – 63; Hosea 1:1 — 3:5). It’s the insanity of a shepherd who puts ninety-nine sheep at risk to rescue the single lamb that’s too stupid to stay with the flock (Luke 15:1 – 7). It’s the love of a father who hands over his finest rings and robes to a young man who has squandered his inheritance on drunken binges with his fair-weather friends (Luke 15:11 – 32)…It’s one-way love that calls you into the kingdom not because you’ve been good but because God has chosen you and made you his own. And now he is chasing you to the ends of the earth to keep you as his child, and nothing in heaven or hell can ever stop him…"
Being 62, affords me the wonderful hindsight of seeing and knowing just how much"Outrageous Grace" I've already received in this life. Family, friends, teachers, pastors, mentors, colleagues, strangers, and most certainly God have all, in countless ways, chosen to love and care for me, not as "a favor to me by being good," but because, as crazy as it is, they wanted to. They chose to love me because they wanted to. They chose to care for me because they could and did. Whenever I forget or misplace this, or convince myself that surely such a thing isn't so, I remember one of the best ways "Outrageous Grace" visits me, again and again.
Once or twice a month, sometimes more, one or both of our adult daughters will ask me to go have breakfast with them or call me on the phone, wanting nothing more than to talk. No matter how many times it happens, it still amazes me when it does. "They like me," I will think to myself. "They still want to spend time with me." When I think of all the poor parenting choices I wish I could go back and change, all of the words I wish I could remove from their hearing, and all of the times I wasn't emotionally or physically available to them when they needed me to be, it astounds me that they want to spend anytime with me at all. It seems their love for me is not measured by how good I am, but by their choosing to love me, regardless if I'm scoundrel or not.
Such love can change a person. Just ask Jacob, or for that matter, me. Or maybe you already know exactly what I mean. Perhaps your own life has been shaped, formed, and transformed by countless gifts of "Outrageous Grace." I sure hope so. Oh how I hope so. Maybe in a season where we're invited to do some intentional self reflection, come clean about our missteps, judgments, poor decisions, and well, let's just name it, sin; it may be good to remember that what makes any sincere self reflection possible at all, is the "Outrageous Grace" of a loving God who refuses to toss or dismiss any one of us. Learning that we won't be destroyed or banished by such honest reckoning, is what keeps us coming back for more. "If I can share THIS with God and not be destroyed because of it, maybe I can share THIS as well." "If I can ask God for help with THAT, maybe God can show me the way with THAT OTHER THING as well." God's "Outrageous Grace" is our underpinning. It's what holds us when we can't hold ourselves. It's what sustains us when we don't know where to go or what to do. It's what heals us when we're hurting, lost, and confused. It's what keeps us growing, asking for more. And it's what keeps us keeping on, fighting the good fight for love and Jesus. And the thing is, it's always with us whether we know it or not. It just seems to be how God's "Outrageous Grace" rolls. Not as a "favor to us for our being good" but because it's God's pleasure and choice to do so.
Such love transformed Jacob. It continues to transform me and I'm willing to bet it's still doing a number on you as well. I sure hope so. Oh how I hope God's "Outrageous Grace" is continuing to do a number on us all.
Lenten Blessings, Friends
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