THE GRACE OF GOD
By Kenneth Barnes
All of us get into a habit from time to time of using certain words and phrases. Recently I had such a habit, but the phrase I used was not one normally thought of as a habitual one – “The Grace of God”. One day, catching myself using it in a trivial fashion, perhaps saying that by the Grace of God I had just missed falling into the swimming pool, I looked it up in the dictionary. I found this: “the unmerited favour or help of God”.
Grace then is unmerited – it is something we do not deserve but which nevertheless is given us.
I have been trying to find the source of a well known saying that uses the phrase but I cannot be sure of it. It may have been said by a man called Richard Baxter. Let us suppose that it was – it will make no difference to the meaning. He saw a criminal condemned and having realised the terrible nature of the event and the consequence to the man he said: “There but the Grace of God goes Richard Baxter.” What did that mean and imply? Probably it meant this. Looking into himself he saw that fundamentally he was in no way different from the criminal before him. He was made of the same clay, had in him the same evil impulses, the same aggressive, or grasping or cruel tendencies. He too was a sinner. He did not say to himself this man is being condemned and I am a free respected citizen because I am a better man than he. Rather he said, I am free because I had help that the criminal did not have; I had the help of God. He knew that had he lived in the circumstances that perhaps surrounded the criminal all his life, he too might well have been a criminal and suffered the same fate.
I wonder why I have tended to use the phrase more recently? I think it is because I have become more aware of the reality that it described and more aware of the way in which beauty and goodness and love insist on breaking through like a light into the darkness of this unhappy world. It can happen that the more we become aware of the evil of the world the more clearly we see what it is that redeems the evil, what it is that turns our struggle from a dismal and despairing one into a struggle that is actually enjoyable.
Just now and then when something happens in my own family life that gives me special pleasure I reflect about that life, compare it with the family life of some others that I know, and think how fortunate we have been. Fortunate, did I say? No – fortune is just luck. Twenty-five years of undiminished satisfaction and enjoyment comes not by luck but by the Grace of God. If it came by luck it would be no use talking about it or trying to draw any conclusion about it that would be of use to anyone else. In one of the most important things in life I could do nothing to help you; any of you as you moved towards marriage and family life, would be like children dipping your hands into a bran tub at a Christmas Fair, wondering what exciting toy you would find under your fingers, but as likely to grasp worthless one as a valuable one.
Now I said that in the dictionary the word grace was defined as unmerited favour or help – something we haven’t earned or deserved. That is most important. How could we explain the satisfaction that has come to us in our family life? We could say: It is because we were highly sensible people, because we were highly intelligent and could plan our future with care and certainty; or because we were better than other people, because we had no immoral impulses, because we were generous tolerant people. But the moment I say that, doesn’t it seem an unthinkable attitude to take up? What downright conceit and priggishness!
It cannot be done by cleverness. We cannot discover how to live the good life by careful prudent planning, by dealing with human situations as though we were doing science in a laboratory. I can plan an experiment in the laboratory and arrange all the conditions so that I am certain, or almost certain, of success. I can depend on everything working according to definite laws. But human life is not a bit like that; we never know what unexpected things may happen. Something therefore must happen in our personalities that will enable us to meet constructively or lovingly any new situation, however unexpected.
For this to happen we must have humility. We cannot achieve it in our own strength, imagining that we are better than our neighbours.
If my wife and I try to think back to what it was that made a satisfying family life possible we have to go back a long way – to the experience of friendship with other people before we knew each other. We can remember how we each became aware of something in the lives of friends that conveyed to us a quality that was rich, loving and utterly dependable. That word dependable probably stirs a response in most young people for they are deeply aware of the need for something in life that they can be certain of, that they can pin your faith to, that will never let them down: something that give them a feeling of security no matter how uncertain and dangerous life may be.
I have said something but I cannot possibly mean thing. What it is – is a mystery perhaps, but whatever it is it is deeply personal, part of the very essence of personality. It can’t be just a force or an influence or an idea. It is truer to call it the Grace of God and thus make it personal than to leave it as something abstract, akin to gravitation and cosmic rays. The Grace of God, that comes first to us perhaps through our friendship with people who already know it, can later become something that we feel in a direct way, something that we can call upon even when alone or deserted.
I can imagine some one saying that he doesn’t quite see that God should come into this. If a man’s friends’ are unusually loving and appreciative and helpful, does it not take away something from the personal quality of it all if we imagine that their love is not just theirs, but God pushing from behind, so to speak. Doesn’t it become less personal? No – it has been my experience that those people whose love has in it this eternal, completely dependable quality, are more truly and distinctly themselves because of it. Without it people are like unlit lamps. An electric lamp unlit may be a beautiful piece of construction, in its way perfect, but only when it is connected to the source of current is it fully a lamp, completely expressing its nature. Human beings are lit up by the Grace of God. God is at the very heart of personality. To know God is to become more truly your own interesting, lovable and loving self.
Some of my listeners may have watched other people closely enough to know that there are people who have this quality of being ‘lit up’ – of incandescence – without being in any acknowledged way religious. That is true. It is not only the people who say “Lord, Lord” who are moved by his spirit. Further, they may have felt that many “religious” people are not lit up at all; they are just plainly dull. That is also true, and I think this is the reason. Everything that is good has its counterfeit, its imitations, and in some instances the imitation is more often seen than the real thing, like the synthetic cream we have in cakes. Take the people who become converted to religion, people who became “changed” or “saved”. With some – for instance Paul in his conversion to Christianity – this is genuine. But with many it is not real, and alas, some of them think it their job to change or save others. When they shake you by the hand and ask you to accept the faith, you have an uneasy feeling that you are not being treated quite as a person but as one more sould (sic) to be saved, one to be added to the list of the Lord’s appointed. And these people do not seem to be quite real either; there’s a hollowness about them.
Whenever there is anything of great value there will be its counterfeit. People do not bother to make imitations of pennies, except small boys interested in slot machines. But half-crowns and five pound notes – we have always to be on the watch for imitations of these, and just so we must always be on the watch for imitations of the Grace of God, and not judge by them.
People who have it do not parade it, may not even be conscious of it.
To those who are put off by what are ordinarily called religious people, I would suggest this: that they put aside all conventional notions about what is supposed to be religious and try to discover among people they meet those who appear to have this quality that I describe as the Grace of God, whether they claim to have it or not. Then they may be in a far better position to define for themselves what true religion is.
What is true between me and my friends, in the past and the present, is true of my relations with the school. I sometimes become painfully aware of difficulties in the school – with the school as a whole, sometimes with individuals. But the more I become aware of this the more I become aware of the opposite. The greater the struggle I have with people here and there the more certain I feel that it is worth while, the more certain I am that there is something in them that can respond.
If the Grace of God becomes a real thing to anyone something happens that makes life much more interesting. It is not the evil and suffering become any less real. We may become more acutely conscious of them, and at the same time we may not any longer think that we have a right to the good things of life. Don’t these two conditions leave us in a dismal position, aware of evil, yet feeling no right to the good? Not at all - because now we no longer take the good things for granted they come to us with a shock of surprise. We still see beauty and goodness, but freshly as though we were seeing them always for the first time. We experience love with a sense of wonder, not like a spoiled bored child who expects love as a matter of course. And against the terrible background of human folly and barbarity that we see all over the world, beauty breaks in as something that almost takes our breath away – an expression of God to a people that in its collective behaviour deserves so little.
The condition of expecting little and being given much is one that I know something about, not because of wisdom or intention, but because circumstances have thrust the experience upon me. A Headmaster has to do so much controlling, checking, blaming, and rule-making that he expects all his pupils to be slightly hostile. He takes it for granted that they will treat him with polite wariness and a little fear, will look at him askance, and if friendly, be friendly with reservations. But what happens? Now and then, in spite of all the forceful and furious things that headmasters sometimes say to their pupils, it seems as if fear has blown out of the window. The other day a boy after telling me about those among his fellow pupils and the staff whom he liked, said: “I even like you, a little bit, sometimes!” I’ve had plenty of examples, in twenty-five years of teaching, of the way in which affection and friendship break through the fear and hostility, wiping them right out. In spite of my position of control and authority, I know every now and then what it is to be accepted as a human being, sometimes by people to whom I have to tell the hardest home truths. I never fail to be surprised by this; it never becomes dull.
It isn’t that the gulf between myself and my pupils is not real. It is real. The gulf between those who are in authority and those whom they control is responsible for the world’s worst problems. So when I find that people here or elsewhere can reach across that gulf so that one almost forgets its existence, it shows me that there is something in us that is more than ordinarily human, a power that can transcend the worst obstacles. It shows me that in human nature there is also the nature of God.
I come back again to the thought that Grace is something that we do not earn or even deserve. I expect most of my pupils look into themselves now and then and say: ”I’m not a very lovable person; in fact I’m just awful. I’m not fit for responsibility, I say abominable things about other people, and if I don’t say them I feel them. I can’t think why anyone should take any interest in me”. It is good that we should that to ourselves sometimes – because it is true. If anyone has never said that, perhaps it’s time he did, because that is what human beings are like, at their ordinary level. The (sic) seem to be doing their best to turn the world into a slaughter-house or a lunatic asylum. When they set out to find peaceful solutions they say things that only make each other worse, and end in jeering, when they wanted friendship and understanding. Without the Grace of God we cannot turn hate into love.
The world has always been like this, apparently full of hatred and malice, murder and suffering – but equally the Grace if God has been open to those who would accept it. It needed a man like Jesus, however, to show the world what were its possibilities. Even if we cannot believe in the existence of a God, we can try to imagine how we should have been startled to be told that God loved this unlovely world of men, so loved it that he sent his son to die that we might live. If we can make this effort of imagination perhaps we can understand why part of the world at least was lifted out of hopelessness by the message of Jesus. God was giving the world what it had done little to earn or deserve.
What is true of the world as a whole is true also of us and the love we have for one another. We none of us deserve that love. Yet if we allow it, it comes sooner or later, perhaps quietly stealing into our lives, or perhaps suddenly bursting upon us. It is this sort of experience that can be truly called miracle. It is because I see this miracle happening in the lives of people that I have faith: faith that whatever trials and setbacks humanity may suffer, goodness and mercy will continually be reborn, beauty and love will continue to light up the darkness and men will never be able wholly to shut their eyes to them.
Now I am talking to boys and girls from what is, in a way, a long distance – thirty years, I am talking from middle age, and I put much more meaning into words because there are thirty years of experience to give them that meaning. It would be foolish of me to expect them to accept what I say just as it stands. But they can perhaps accept that what I say is a sincere attempt to look back over my experience and make sense of it - get it into some sort of order and pattern. They may think, however, that because they are not where I am, because they can’t believe what I believe, in the matter of religious faith, that they can get no benefit from what I describe. This isn’t so. God doesn’t help only those who believe in him, and we do not receive Grace in proportion to the amount of our professed belief. The Grace of God can come to a man who has spent the whole of his life in a wicked and purposeless way but eventually discovers truth and goodness; and he will find himself nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven than those who have spent their lives in respectable goodness.
Jesus told an interesting parable to drive this home. I’ll translate it into a modern idiom. The owner of a vineyard had a great deal of work to get through on a particular day and he needed labourers. He went down to the Labour Exchange in the early morning and found a number of unemployed propping up the wall. He offered them a day’s work in the vineyard. About midday he found the work was still behind-hand and went down to the Labour Exchange for more men. He told them he was paying ten bob a day and would give them whatever was right for their work. He did the same thing in the middle of the afternoon and about tea time. It was a pretty heavy working day, twelve hours, and about an hour before they were due to knock off he went down again to the Exchange and was rather surprised to find men still standing around doing nothing. They said that they hadn’t been able to find anyone to employ them. “Well there’s still work to get through up at my place” said he, “There’s time to put in an hour.” “How much you paying”? “Ten bob a day and you’ll get whatever’s right.” So up they went.
When the time came to knock off they all filed past the pay-box and collected their wages; with the chaps who came last getting their pay first. They were staggered to find that they were paid then (sic) shillings – a whole day’s wages – for only an hour’s work. So were all the others. You can imagine what those felt who had worked all day.
“Look here, you dirty twister, you’ve given the chaps ten bob, the same as us!” “Well, said the employer. “What did I agree to pay you for a day’s work?” “Ten bob”, “Well, then, what are you grousing about?” “Look here - we’ve done twelve hours and we’ve got our ten bob, that’s true. But see those chaps over there: they’ve done six hours and what have they got ten bob! And that crowd down there – one hour’s work, one little hours work. And ten bob, ten whole shillings! It’s UNFAIR.”
Yes, it’s quite true, God is not fair. He is something much better. He is loving and generous.
I sometimes find myself thinking that human beings get things too easily and too soon, before they have worked hard or proved their worth. When I see what a large number of unhappy families and neglected children there are, I wish that it was harder to bring babies into the world; it is too appallingly easy. I wish men could not get power so easily. A few months ago I penetrated to the heart of Britain’s Atomic energy project – the atomic pile at Harwell. Picture an immense hanger and in the middle of it a great square structure with little holes all over its sides, holes that can be opened to emit neutron beams. Here and there scientists, dwarfed by the great size of the place, working with apparatus at one or other of the holes. It is all strangely silent and one has a feeling that the men are performing oblations before a great god – a god of their own making.
But knowing something of what is actually happening within and around that uranium pile, my chief impression was of the tremendous power that has fallen into the hands of humanity, before we could be said in a sense to deserve it or be ready for it.
Could we call atomic power a gift from God? That’s a difficult question to answer. But if we feel – as surely we ought – that it is a great responsibility, we ought to be ready to accept the help of God in bearing that responsibility.
The last thing then is to try to answer the question where do we begin? Young people, thank heaven, do not meekly accept all their elders and teachers tell them as being true. They are a bit cautious as to what they commit themselves to by way of belief, and I can be fairly certain that there will be many even in this school who cannot say they believe in God and may even say they get along pretty well without his help. But, being human, there will certainly be times when they feel inadequate to face life – feel weak, uncertain and unready for what is to come. I would suggest to them that just in case what I say is not all nonsense they leave the door slightly open to the Grace of God. I know a retired headmistress, a woman of great humanity and character, who told me that she used always to leave her study door sufficiently open for any child to see her at her desk, so that the girl would never have to feel that awful sensation of knocking timidly on a shut door, her heart palpitating and her breath caught. The child could catch her eye – and a welcoming smile could if necessary help her through the door.
Those of us who are in positions of authority and who try experiments like that, perhaps do so at first because we think we have something to give and want to ease the fear in the child. But we may well find the position reversed at times – at those times when, if we are honest with ourselves, we face our own inadequacy. A boy or girl may wander through the open door, not to ask us to solve a problem, but on a friendly impulse to sit down and talk about nothing in particular. On such occasions it is we who are the receivers, and what we receive is something like the Grace of God.
But the Grace of God may come to any of you just like that. However much you may disbelieve, do not slam the door against what might prove a genuine experience. If we leave a door open in our hearts, someone may one day walk in from what we thought was an empty corridor, perhaps at a time when we most need help.
Archive Reference PP KCB 3/7/2/document 07
See also PP KCB 3/7/1 document 1