If you were to turn to a bible concordance and you were to look up the word “grace” you would find over 170 references to it.   We often use phrases like “there but by the grace of God go I” or talk about God’s grace being present during a miracle or a moment of wonder. 

If someone has mistreated us and expects reconciliation without first recognizing or acknowledging the hurt they’ve caused us, we call that “cheap grace.”  In church, we sing hymns about God’s “amazing grace.” 

At various times throughout our liturgy, we proclaim God’s grace as we gather together for worship and as we pray together during our intercessions.  At the end of the service, although I don’t use the word grace, the blessing is that God’s grace be present in your lives.

All three of today’s readings are a little bit like that in that none of them use the word grace, but yet all of them are stories that help us understand something about the true economy of God’s grace.   

The first story we have about King David, very closely illustrates the typical understanding of grace as unearned merit.

Here was a man who started out in the most menial of occupations.  He was a shepherd boy.  And God raised him up through a series of life events to be a great king and warrior.

Now after many years of warfare and struggle, this was a time of peace and rest in the kingdom.  

David must have felt quite grateful to God for all the blessings God had bestowed upon him and quite naturally, according to the way humans think, he thought he should in turn do something good for God.

So he decides to build him a place of honor and worship.  His prophet Nathan agrees with him, and so quite enthusiastically David starts making plans to build this house of cedar.    

But then God comes and speaks to the prophet Nathan and says “Listen, I’ve been moving and traveling with you for years, and I’ve never once asked you to build me a house – nor do I need you to.” 

God didn’t want any part of that.  He didn’t want or expect to be “paid back” for the blessings – the grace – he had bestowed on David.  There was no charge for what he had done.

As if to prove a point, God runs down a list of all the things he’s done for David to date, and then goes on to tell him all the things he’s going to do for all his descendants.   

Now, unlike God, when we get in conversations, and start running down lists of what we’ve done for someone, it’s usually because we’ve been expecting something back and didn’t get it. 

We may want respect or an expression of gratitude, or perhaps we are just naming our displeasure at not being recognized for the good and gracious persons that we are.

That’s economical thinking.

If I do something for someone, they owe me something.   Now you might be thinking, no, that’s not right.  When I do something out of the goodness of my heart, I expect nothing back.

But pay attention to how you feel when you think you are being taken advantage of, or when it’s not appreciated, or when it doesn’t give you some say in the life of that person. 

Economic thinking – it’s how human beings negotiate their relationships and how we place value on one another.

By comparison, the economy of God’s grace is bounty.  

Bountiful love.  Bountiful blessing.  Bountiful presence.

God’s economy of grace is not characterized by the same kinds of bottom line measures that we put into our relationships.   It’s not so much that grace is unmerited because we can’t earn it or don’t deserve it – but rather, grace is a free and abundant gift of God self giving that is without limit.

When I think of God’s bountiful grace, I think of young children and animals as being metaphorically similar to it.  Their very existence being a blessing that knows no limits, and their bountiful love for us that knows no conditions.   Grace is a little bit like that.   

Moving on to Paul’s letter we have another snapshot of how we might understand grace. As you know, Paul spent a lot of time in his letters trying to convince people that Gentile believers were spiritually equal to their circumcised Jewish counterparts.

Over and over again we find this theme woven throughout his correspondence.  And yet here we are in the 21st century, and those same kinds of problems still plague us today. 
Long time members of the church may feel they have for instance, more of a right to be here than newcomers or those who don’t attend as regularly.  
Consider for instance, how annoyed you might become if someone innocently came in to worship and sat in your spot in the pew.  What about new people with new ideas or approaches to doing things who haven’t yet earned their right to have a say?  What about resistance to change that makes worship more visitor and seeker friendly?
The truth is, in spite of a gospel that insists that there are no aliens and strangers,  we continue to create them on a weekly basis. 
Economic thinking is at play here again:  The one who’s been around the longest gets the most say.  Privilege in exchange for service. 
I don’t think that’s how God sees it – and when we think that way, we miss the point about the grace of God in the lives of all his people – both first and last.  
Paul’s message is that the mission of Christ is to tear down walls of division in every place where worshipers gather in God's name.  

The grace of God is not that we are reconciled  because we all think and act the same way, or because we’ve chosen to move past our differences.  Rather we are reconciled because God’s grace has done something within each of us.   Grace as something in which we participate. 

In the gospel, Jesus is directing the disiples to come away by themselves and take a rest. And of course, there is no peace for them.  Wherever they go, the crowds follow and the needs of the people are there.  They just can’t seem to find a break.   

Inspired as we are by the Gospel of Christ, we often find ourselves unable or unwilling to take a break from the very real needs and demands others put on us. 

We have a tendency to over-extend ourselves because like King David, we desire to give something back to God.   We desire to be faithful to the call of God and the example of Christ, who modeled what it was to live a self giving, sacrificial life of love for others. 

We trust in living out that call that God in turn, will look after us.   

Here again, is an example of economic thinking.  God did something for me so I owe God.  And then, as the assumption goes, God owes me for the hard work I do on his behalf, and will make payment against that by looking after me.  We don’t put it in those terms but that’s the logic. 

The trouble comes when our experience to the grace of God becomes confused as a call to meet the needs of others and when compassion becomes about an emotion that moves us to an act of service. 

We must get past our assumptions that the people in need around us are simply situations that God has put in our lives so we can fulfill an understanding of ministry.   

………….. And we must start thinking of compassion as a force of energy in which we live and breath and have a way of being.

The mistake comes in failing to recognize that our first call IS NOT to ministry. 

It is to be a liberated, whole human being. 

We are to spend time with God, and to be fed by God, not so that it will provide us with the energy to meet the needs of others, but because it is the foundation of our identity as persons called by God. 

Jesus knew this and always honored that relationship as the core of his being – This is why he was always slipping away quietly to be with God.  This is how he was able as John Spong says “love wastefully.”   This was the power of God’s grace in his life.  And this is the first thing we should be paying attention to, if we are to follow his example.

If we can begin to think of God’s grace in our lives as the transformative energy that it truly is, then we can get past this kind of debt ratio thinking that so often bogs us down, so that we can truly claim the blessing of wholeness and liberation, and share of ourselves not in a way that obligates us to a harsh task master, but in a way that honors God as the source of our being.