grace notes

“Are we allowed to eat?”

Spend enough time around Christians and two things will happen: a) we’ll eat, because it is one of our few vices and b) a latecomer to the gathering will ask this question.


For those of you not part of the subculture, the person is really asking, “Have we said a rushed, cliche-filled ‘blessing’ for this food? Because you must do so before eating anything with protein.” (In youth group we prayed before pizza, but not before chips.)


Prayers—sincere, thoughtful prayers—of thanks before a meal are appropriate and even biblical (Matthew 14 & 15, Matthew 26, Luke 24, Acts 27). And for some people it is a meaningful moment. But for too many others it’s a requirement to be rushed through before the food gets cold.

Perhaps this is a small thing to be annoyed by (or blog about), but it’s a symptom of more significant problems. We scoff at the Pharisees who constructed elaborate laws about the Sabbath but missed the whole point of rest and worship. Are we any better? We insist on a mumbled prayer before eating (bonus points if we can use it to “witness” in restaurants), but how many of us think about the words we’re saying, or give thanks for our blessings at other times? Does our gratefulness ever prompt us to provide food for those in need?


Sometimes I pray before I eat. Sometimes I don’t. If we cross paths at a potluck, I promise never to ask if the Jello salad has been blessed. But I do have some other questions:

—Couldn’t we just pray once over everything in our grocery cart and call it good until the next shopping trip?

—What about leftovers?

—What if there’s a gap between dinner and dessert? Is dessert “covered”?

—Which is worse: to skip prayer in a restaurant or to pray and then be rude to the waitress?

—What about giving thanks for food we shouldn’t be eating in the first place? (If I’m about to consume a Burger King Triple Stacker with bacon, shouldn’t I be praying for my arteries to survive it?)

—And how do you think Jesus would look in a tuxedo t-shirt?

 

easter dress

I have learned a few things during my two years in Nashville: Vegetables are not considered “done” until they are cooked to the consistency of baby food. The correct pronunciation of that major street downtown is Dee-MON-bree-un. Some people actually enjoy NASCAR. And Easter Sunday calls for new clothes and a big hat.

I’ve also learned about Tennessee’s rather unusual attempt to cut down on DUIs—these “I am a drunk driver” vests. Three years ago we became one of the few states to vote a “shame law” on the books requiring first offenders to clean up litter from busy roadways while announcing their crime. I saw several while driving around this past week.

There aren’t many things I despise more than drunk driving—it’s stupid, unnecessary, and potentially deadly. But when I noticed these people along the road, the punishment bothered me. For one thing, I’m not sure embarrassing offenders out of the behavior will be that effective. Instead, I agree with recent task forces which recommend simultaneously stricter and more solution-oriented penalties like revoking licenses or lowering the blood alcohol count which triggers a jail stay.

But the law also makes me uneasy for another reason: if we’re passing out orange vests for wrong-doing, I deserve a closet-full. Drunk driving is dumb and destructive, but so are many of my own choices. Laziness, jealousy, bitterness, anger—I could have vests for all of those. My Easter outfit could have been covered with signs reading “I am a grudge-holder” or “I am impatient” or “I have little faith.”

However, yesterday we celebrated God’s great victory over the original shame law.  To paraphrase Galatians 3, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, drunkard nor sluggard, adulterer nor gossip. There isn’t even Yankee or Southerner.  Because of Jesus, all who repent and believe are clothed with Christ, on Easter Sunday and on every other day—hats optional.

I spent last weekend in Cincinnati, where the major news story was the murder of 3 year-old Marcus Fiesel. Marcus was an autistic little boy who functioned developmentally as a 12-18 month old. His foster parents, David and Liz Carroll, and their live-in girlfriend bound Marcus’ hands behind his back with packing tape and left him in a closet without food and water for a weekend in August. Neighbors later reported hearing screams coming from the house. When the family returned and found Marcus dead, they burned his body once, then twice more for good measure, and dumped what wouldn’t burn into the Ohio River.

THEN, to cover up their actions even more, the couple + 1 took their biological children to a park where Liz feigned a medical emergency and fainted; when she “came to” she claimed Marcus had wandered away and begged bystanders to search for him. Before the police and then the public learned the true story, hundreds of volunteers, professional rescue workers, firefighters, police, and paramedics spent days searching every inch of the park. 60 divers searched creeks and ponds, and a local businessman offered a $10,000 reward.

As my mom told me the saga, my first reaction was pity and heartbreak for Marcus. His birth mother abused and neglected him, and then the system created to protect forgotten children placed him in a home with a history of domestic abuse, theft, and violence. His little mind, although not mature enough to understand everything happening to him, was quite capable of experiencing fear, anger, hunger, thirst, and sadness. In three years he experienced more pain than I have in thirty.

Jesus loves Marcus and now Marcus gets to be with Jesus—whole, healthy, and pain-free. But even as I blinked away tears for his earthly life, it hit me that Jesus also loves David and Liz Carroll. He loves them just as much as he loves Marcus.

This blows my mind. We often discuss grace and feel grateful that it covers our sins of gossip and gluttony and greed. In our most honest moments, we remember that grace also extends to our other sins, the ones we don’t gloss over or minimize.

But grace also covers murdering children and burning corpses and causing community panic and lying to juries. Jesus died on the cross for our sins—we’ve heard it all our lives. So let’s restate it: Jesus hung on the cross and took the punishment for David Carroll burning a three year-old’s body in a park. Jesus felt the pain that all the adults would cause all the children of all time, and he died for those big people as well as the little ones.

Grace is one thing, and repentance is another. I don’t know if David and Liz recognize their sin or if they will ever confess it to God. (As of this writing, they have not confessed it to Cincinnati—they pleaded not guilty yesterday.) But whether or not they ever find and understand and accept God’s grace—how amazing to serve a God who went to such lengths just to offer it.