Teaching & Attending
Read excerpts from the next two chapters of Gracing, and join us for a group discussion on Friday June 27
Chapter 5: Teaching
In trying to understand the interplay between grace and works, I’ve found several analogies to be helpful. And while all the various analogies have strengths, they also fall short. The trick, I believe, is to use the analogies to point us to what’s behind the curtain. Each story tells a portion of the big picture. And we can’t get so enmeshed in the analogy as to blind us to the parts the analogy legitimately fails to illuminate.
At the start of this book, I tried to explain grace through an analogy of a bird desperately trying to fly by relying only on its own resources before discovering it could simply harness the wind. My flight analogy has illuminated for me the now-ness of grace, the immediate access that’s readily available for those who seek it. It shows how heaven and grace can break through to the physical, ordinary moments of life. Grace is not simply reserved for a future paradise.
The analogy also highlights for me the participatory element of grace. Grace is not something that just happens to us—being changed by a godly magic wand from a sinner to a saint. It does not merely involve our acceptance of a divine gift. Rather, it’s something in which we play a part, and our participation helps to transform us.
One of my analogy’s weaknesses, however, is that it misses the relational, familial aspect of grace—a parent and child, the one who loves and the beloved. I’m certain time and experience will uncover many other aspects of grace which it fails to illuminate, but for now, it is pointing me to something for which I’m reaching.
A few other analogies of grace have schooled my understanding, and for that I am grateful. And despite their weaknesses, some of which are significant and have led whole religious communities to errant views of grace, each has some value.
One analogy is a courtroom: We stand accused in a court of law. Our accuser is Satan, emboldened by a litany of our offenses. God the Father is the judge. Jesus is the advocate who pleads our case.
In this scenario, Jesus understands us. He pleads on our behalf. As the first letter of John explains it, Jesus is the propitiation for our sins—meaning that He appeases God’s demands, helping us to regain favor with God (1 John 2:2).
But this doesn’t mean that the effects of our weakness and sin are ignored, the real harm we caused to the people around us simply swept under the rug. To extend the courtroom analogy, there would be plaintiffs in the case against us, with the faces of our families and neighbors. They’d read their impact statements to the court. In very concrete ways, the people around us have been hurt by our actions and inactions.
As a mother, if I’m constantly pardoning one child’s poor treatment of another, there may be mercy for the oppressor but no relief for the oppressed. And if God is constantly letting us off the hook in response to Christ’s pleas, there is no justice, and the pain of our victims remains. Considering both the oppressor and the oppressed is paramount; and the process involves healing as well as pardoning.
Additionally, the work of grace does not somehow mean that Jesus is mercy personified while the Father is justice personified, and that the two are diametrically opposed to each other. After all, Jesus said that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). This is not a “good cop, bad cop” scenario. Instead, God the Father and Jesus are one.
We should resist relegating the Father to the position of one who has set an unattainably high bar for us while Jesus covertly moves it down. Why would the Father set up elaborate systems to meet His unattainable standards, when He could just change the standards? It would be like the parents of one of my students, who, knowing that their daughter didn’t earn their parentally imposed minimum “B,” advocated for mercy by requesting from me a change in her grade instead of changing their own rule.
But still, Jesus offers an unearned gift. That part of the analogy, at least, seems true.
A second analogy, popular among Latter-day Saints, comes from the religious scholar Stephen Robinson. More than anything, Robinson’s daughter wanted a bike. After saving all her pennies, she had a mere sixty-one cents. And while shopping for bicycles and seeing the price tags, she despaired at ever having enough. Her father replied, “I’ll tell you what. You give me everything you’ve got and a hug and a kiss, and the bike is yours”—to which she gratefully complied.
This analogy depicts Christ as a loving father who will step in and make up the difference for us after we’ve contributed as much as we can. Again, I believe this analogy points to truth: Jesus gives a gift we could not attain on our own. The gift brings us joy in the here and now.
But if we become too mired in the analogy, we may think that given enough time and effort, we could earn our bike or earn our exaltation. This is simply not the case. Perfection in our works does not make grace irrelevant, just as a bird flapping its wings flawlessly does not make air irrelevant.
Also, the analogy hints that Christ expects us to do some work first, and then grace will intervene. But Stephen Robinson himself acknowledges this is not how grace works. It is not simply the “cherry on top,” the godly power that kicks in once we’ve run ourselves ragged. Or, as Adam Miller puts it, grace is “not God’s backup plan.” It’s not “plan B.”
As a gift, grace is not offered merely after our inadequate attempts, but despite them. The divine gift opens a space for us to participate.
A third analogy comes from another religious scholar, Brad Wilcox. In this analogy, a mother pays the full price of piano lessons for her child. She doesn’t expect the child to pay her back, nor does she expect the child to pay the teacher back. Rather, she expects the child to practice—to use the gift of piano lessons to become a proficient musician. It’s not a tit-for-tat transaction; it’s appreciation and implementation of a gift.
In this view, grace is God’s gift to help us become rather than to be repaired; it’s about learning rather than earning. Practicing godliness is less about punishment or payment and more about change—about growing into godliness.
This is a needed contribution to the collection. It points to the relationship between the one who loves and the beloved. And like the parable of the bicycle, it moves beyond grace as a mere remedy for shortfall. However, it doesn’t point to the now-ness of grace. As something to attain in the future, it fails to illuminate the grace in the present—the analogy would need to somehow show the joy inherent in playing the amateur “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” but it doesn’t.
But as an analogy, we know it isn’t a catch-all.
And finally, a fourth analogy comes from the Latter-day Saint physician and author Sam Brown. Brown specializes in managing blood pressure. He points out that if blood pressure is critically high, doctors will attempt to expand a patient’s blood vessels and decrease fluid levels. On the other hand, if blood pressure is critically low, treatment seeks to narrow blood vessels and increase fluid levels. The cure depends very much on the diagnosis.
Similarly, Brown suggests that because the gospel includes messages of both grace and works, in determining which message to give, we first need to diagnose the problem. Since “grace raises blood pressure, while works lowers it,” we’d better be astute. Is the hearer trying to earn their place with God? Are they constantly feeling they are not enough? Do they struggle with scrupulosity? Perhaps they need a message of grace.
On the other hand, are they sitting back, avoiding actions that would make positive changes in their lives and bring them and their families greater joy? Are they being lazy? Rebellious? Maybe they need a message of works.
Brown’s analogy points to the idea that we be aware of the learner. If the defendant in the courtroom analogy was hiding his sins, or the daughter in the bicycle analogy was spoiled and demanding, some other response would have been warranted. Teaching calls for helping individual learners who are in very different states of mind. Grace is as much about the receiver as it is about the giver.
Yet, unlike the other analogies, Brown’s doesn’t point to the idea that grace is a gift. It’s the weakness of an analogy, but also its strength, in that it pointedly illuminates one particular portion of the sometimes-ethereal whole.
There is a real danger that analogies may misdirect us; we should be aware of how they may point us to things that aren’t real. But there is also a risk in getting so bogged down by the weaknesses of these analogies that we fail to see the very relevant and transformative truths they are pointing to.
Also, there is a risk that these analogies stay abstract and academic. For me, none of them mean anything when severed from my family on the lawn. Truth doesn’t exist as some high-floating abstraction outside my relationships and experiences. Only in the midst of my concrete realities do these teachings illuminate the expansive picture of grace. I need relatable teachings; I’m like my children in that way.
One day, for example, I witnessed a moment that served as a poignant analogy. It was Sunday, and I watched an elderly blind woman walk into my sister’s church, white cane in hand, muscular German Shepherd at her side. The huge dog walked with almost comically tiny steps, pausing and matching the woman’s slow gait—step . . . step . . . curb . . . step. Certainly, the dog could work as a vicious guard dog or an active mountain rescue dog. But following its training, this powerful, magnificent creature patiently provided eyes to a woman unable to see.
And once in the chapel, the woman took her place at the organ, no sheet music present, and played hymns from memory. She was a musician gifted and empowered by grace in the form of a trusted dog resting at her side. It was a vivid display of both the condescension and empowerment of grace. This image lifts me in the face of my own weakness and points me to grace.
Jesus, as the master pointer-to-truth, taught both the New Testament Sermon on the Mount and the Book of Mormon Sermon at the Temple.
In my life, He sits with me on the grass, surrounded by my family and friends, inviting me to see the ways grace emerges from life’s stickiness.
He points me to significant details and the developing big picture.
He tells me stories, with analogies and parables, using examples that are familiar to me.
He challenges my thinking and doing—“it has been said this, but I say this.”
And He guides me in making connections, as all good teaching does.
It’s the Sermon on the Lawn—our daily lesson.
REFLECT:
What analogies, stories, or teachings have been most helpful to you in understanding the true nature of grace?
What analogies, stories, or teachings clouded your view of grace, causing you to misunderstand its true nature?
Join us in our Substack chat on Friday at 12pm Mountain time to discuss—and if you can’t make it then, please feel welcome to share your thoughts and read the thoughts of others at any time.
Chapter 4: Attending
When I was a little girl, I remember visiting my grandparents’ church in California, and someone at the pulpit expressed gratitude for belonging to the only true church. I was confused, because I thought my church—the brown brick building next door to my house with the detached steeple that I liked to ride my bike around—was the only true church. Surely, we couldn’t both be right.
It took a few years for my cognitive dissonance to dissipate. Time and greater perspective moved me to see church as more than just the physical building I attended, and that sufficed for a while—until it didn’t.
As an adult, the boundaries of church and the body of Christ have expanded even more. In my exposure to other perspectives and ways of being, through friends and books, I’ve seen people outside my faith tradition just as earnestly seeking grace as those within my faith. These people aren’t necessarily deluded or deceived or lost, any more than I am. And working to align my public faith with my private one challenges me to live with integrity, honoring both my faith and my doubt. Sometimes that means making both my faith and doubt more visible.
For now, I’ve landed on the body of Christ as being not just those who belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nor even those who call themselves Christians. Rather, the body of Christ includes all those to whom Jesus extends His grace, and all those who receive it—all those who participate in gracing. He likely extends His grace to those who call Him by another name, or those who call His grace by another name. “Know ye not,” says the Lord,
that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?
(2 Ne. 29:7)
From everything I hope about Jesus, I want to assume a larger reach over a smaller one—that He is gathering all the baby chicks under His wings, that He is pulling us from our root-bound pots and planting us in bigger ones. I crave an expansion of the rigid boundaries that we all draw too small.
But sometimes in trying to do this, I’ve gone about it all wrong.
Once, when my brother had recently left the Church, our family participated in virtual religious conversations. My brother was concerned with the “only true church” narrative, the whitewashing of our history, and the tendency to substitute works for Christ—prophets, temples, or baptism as replacements for Jesus and unnecessary intermediaries between us and Him. He disliked religious rituals such as group prayer being held up as substitutes for meaningful personal communion with God. He wasn’t a fan of checklists taking the place of Jesus or works as substitutes for grace.
I believe many of his concerns were valid. But I was slow to add my voice to those valid critiques. And I didn’t recognize the weight of his struggle with truth and belonging. I took the defense and he took the offense. Neither of us heard each other quickly enough. Our trust in each other waned.
As we conversed back and forth, wrestling through the weeds, ultimately, I think our relationship wasn’t strong enough to handle the struggle. Tension arose, and now we just keep certain topics off the table. I don’t know how to heal the divide, and it hurts.
My interactions with him felt helpful for me—in that they helped me slowly unpack my own beliefs, coming to understand the good and challenge the bad. But I didn’t know how to attend to my brother’s needs in a way that was helpful for him.
The alternative narratives replayed in my head. Maybe I could have said, “I can see how your experience of temple attendance and the sacrament was not one of grace for you.” I could have tempered zeal for the truth I saw with more seeing and validating of the truth he saw. Or I simply could have said, “I don’t understand, but please know I love you.”
Perhaps a more attentive response was called for: “Can you tell me what it was like for you to participate in all those rituals that felt hollow? Can you tell me about what practices work well for you now?”
I didn’t see how to give my brother what he needed. I tried to make it right but didn’t know how. I lost a part of him, and it will take time to recover.
Sorry, Brother.
In our attempts to speak truth, bear testimony, and defend our ideals, we can alienate people. We sometimes correct when consoling is needed. Our testimony that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” for example, doesn’t feel like a compassionate response to someone who feels no hope of marriage in that form within the Church. Telling someone who recently lost a loved one “at least we know they are in a better place” sounds like we’re being happiness bullies—so sure of our own hopeful ideology that we’re not willing to sit in another’s present pain. When we turn to Jesus in our anguish, has He ever responded, “Don’t worry about that. Just focus on the Plan of Happiness”? Too often, we fail to mourn when it is needed.
As members of the body of Christ, there is a “time to weep, and a time to laugh. . . . a time to speak,” and a “time to keep silence” (Eccl. 3:4–7).
I want to be better at weeping.
And silence.
REFLECT
In the past, who have you noticed struggling to participate in the body of Christ?
What did you learn that helped you attend better to others’ needs in the future?
Join us in our Substack chat on Friday at 12pm Mountain time to discuss—and if you can’t make it then, please feel welcome to share your thoughts and read the thoughts of others at any time.
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