Cheap Community/Cheap Grace

"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)

Earlier tonight, I was reading a blog by a fellow, presumably young, who was talking about creating community through his blog. The whole thing focused on "creating community beyond the blog." Presuming that these relationships would still be viable once the fellow and his blog followers met in real life, the post got me thinking about community.

It's not until you've seen someone at their worst and continue to stick with them that you realize how much community costs you. It's not until a couple's marriage falls apart, or a single mom can't pay the electric bill, another person tells you that your past has made you irredeemable that you realize what true community costs you.

If I am content to post a comment on a blog and call it community, then I have cheapened community. If I walk into small group and don't engage with the other people there, then I've cheapened community. If I ignore the panhandlers that sit outside after church on Sunday nights, then I've cheapened community.

Let's take Bonhoeffer's quote and rework it: "Cheap community is the community we bestow on ourselves. Cheap community is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap community is community without discipleship, community without the cross, community without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

I can walk into service on Sunday night and call it community all I want because of the fact that there are other people there. I can say that this post "creates community" because someone might interact with it. But in the end, I've sacrificed nothing. Other than my time, there has been little cost to my actions.

I'll sum this all up in the comment that I left on the fellow's blog: "Community that doesn’t leave you exhausted after an encounter is cheap community. It’s something that doesn’t require you to get your hands dirty. It’s a committee meeting that’s merely talked about something instead of having acted. It’s cheap grace.

There’s a reason that Christ spent three years with his disciples and not five minutes. There’s a reason that he overturned tables, called out pharisees, and invested not only time, but his very blood into creating the Church.

If I am content to call my commenting on your blog community, then I’ve short-cut the very thing that Christ set as an example. Because here, on this blog, I don’t have to know you. I don’t have to know your story. I don’t have to know what makes you the person that you are. I don’t have to see the things that you will never share in public. I will never have to work side by side with you, or say that something you said pisses me off but am still committed to investing into your life."

Restorative Relationships

David asked me to post some information here about the restorative justice class that's being offered on Thursday nights. I told him I'd be glad to... mostly because I'm super excited about the class. This past Thursday night was fun; we had a wonderful turnout and lots of great discussion. See I think the thing is this: relationships are messy (Remember the scene in Frosty the Snowman where Professor Hinkle breaks the eggs all over the floor and says: "messy, messy, messy"? My favorite line in a Christmas movie ever!) So anyway, relationships aren't easy and they can get ever more difficult when conflict ensues or when opinions are diverse or when trust begins to erode. So when things begin to unravel (or crack on the floor), how do we handle the conflict? how do we restore the relationships? How do we rebuild trust? I believe there are some principles that can help to answer these questions. I don't think they are easy principles, but neither do I think we're alone in trying to work them out.

We will meet upstairs at Cafe 4 (sometimes in the library and sometimes in the conference room) from 6:30-8:00. Here's a basic overview of the 6 weeks:

October 7 Respect, Honor, Compassion: Seeing the Imago Dei in one another

October 14 Expectations and a Belief in Redeemability: Seeing beyond what IS to what can be

October 21 Needs: Seeing and addressing what’s going on

October 28 Solutions With: Working through conflict…together

November 4 Restitution: Apologies, forgiveness, and making things right

November 11 Community: Moving from me to we

Each week will be self-contained (more or less), focusing on a different principle of restorative justice and how that principle applies to our relationships. So, if you can't make them all, or if you missed last week, come anyway; you won't miss anything you can't catch up on.

I'd love to hear feedback and comments as well. Feel free to email me or post a comment here. Shalom y'all.