Weblogs: What's so fair about grace?

LutheranChik's "L" Word Diary: "And God's grace is enough. In Jesus' parable, all the workers receive the ancient Palestinian minimum wage -- enough to get by for another day. Sometimes I think it's hard for us to get our heads around this: We don't have to clutch at or hoard or fight over God's grace because there is enough for us all. How much of the discord in Christendom today, when you get right down to it, is essentially a grab for grace? -- 'It's mine! Mine, I tell you!' -- as if God has not already given us the grace we need? God's grace, properly understood, is a unifying agent between people; by divorcing grace from merit, God refuses to play our human game of dividing ourselves into 'us' and 'them.' 'You're all 'us,'' is the divine message in the vineyard owner's unconditional denarius.

Madeleine L'Engle, in an interview with The Door magazine many years ago, observed that we tend to want justice for everyone else but lots and lots of grace for ourselves. Because we just want what's fair; right?

Thank God that God's grace isn't fair. Thank God that God doesn't give us what we want, but instead gives us what we need -- freely, lovingly; not because of who we are, but because of who God is. "