Showing Grace in a Graceless Age

             ​Perhaps one of the best-known phrases in the Bible is “judge not lest ye be judged”.  Unfortunately, it is also one of the most ignored.  For those of us who are Christians, we base our hope in eternal life in Heaven on the fact that God has extended his grace to us through the sacrifice of his son Jesus, wiping away all of our sins.  In return, we are instructed to extend grace to others – wiping the slate clean of any grievances they have caused us so that they might have an opportunity for a new start, free from the stains of the past.
                Another common phrase (not biblical) is “I can forgive, but I cannot forget.”  That is not grace.  Grace is the deliberate effort of forgetting past grievances.  It is not easy, but it is necessary.  Refusing to forget means that you continue to view that person or group through a prism that is distorted by the events of the past.  It leads to assumptions and suspicions.  It leads to judgement.
                Grace requires an extreme amount of self-control.  It demands an abundance of patience.  It does not require living in faith that you will not be hurt again, but instead an acceptance that any hurt that results is worth the price of living a life the emulates the ideals of Christ.  We are not promised a pain-free life.  Our reward is in Heaven.
                However, grace makes this world a better place.  Grace prevents us from making assumptions about people based on their skin color, economic status, or even their past crimes.  Grace means handling even the most belligerent among us with civility and care, for how are we to know the deep wounds that have caused them to lash out.
                And how would we apply grace in light of recent events?  A police officer ruled by grace would never do what was done to George Floyd.  A community ruled by grace would never engage in a violent riot to protest an unjust death.  Society at large would not cast sweeping judgements about the individuals participating in such riots, law enforcement officers in general, or use the event to advance their given political stances.
                And at every level we see an absence of grace.  The police assumed that Mr. Floyd was just another degenerate criminal worthy of any measures they deemed fit to bring him to justice.  And so, a man effectively received a death sentence for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill during the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.  Beyond that, the very foundation of the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they are employed to protect and serve has been further eroded to the point of being nearly irreparable.  In a nation where its citizens are presumed innocent until proven guilty, we simply cannot have a form of law enforcement that assumes the worst of its citizens (or of certain groups of citizens).  Indeed, it would be better to have no police at all than police that are feared and distrusted by the communities they are employed to serve.  I know there are many in law enforcement who carry out their duties in the proper manner (I am friends with some of them) and it is unfair that they get painted with the same brush as the worst among them.  However, we have reached a point where we can no longer discount this as the actions of a few bad apples.  A lack of grace has put the very fate of law enforcement in our country at a tipping point.
                The community, jaded by previous injustices, assumed no justice would be given in the case of George Floyd and went beyond a civil protest and engaged in destructive rioting.  The result is that their own communities have been damaged and the livelihoods of several of their neighbors have been destroyed.  Riots provide a momentary emotional release and perhaps some superficial political action.  They also reinforce the assumptions made by certain members of law enforcement, which leads to more heavy-handedness and more tragedies like what happened to George Floyd.  In addition, they perpetuate the belief that these neighborhoods are too risky to do business in, so goods, services, and employment opportunities will be slow to return, causing more hardship in the community.
                Society at large, having become more polarized than perhaps even during the time of the Civil War, and utterly lacking in grace, has turned this tragedy into a political issue.  Between those who stoke the flames of racial grievances for political gain and those who would turn a blind eye to our increasingly broken system of law enforcement for the same reasons, there appears to be little appetite for actually solving the problems facing our society.  We assume the worst about our political opponents.  We are ruled by distrust, intellectual dishonesty, and opportunism.  We have lost the compass of truth and are utterly rudderless in a sea that is growing increasingly tumultuous.  We are dangerously close to being cast against the destructive rocks of our own making.  Only grace can navigate us to calmer waters.
                There are far too many Christians in this society for us to be this divided and dysfunctional.  It is high time we turned away from the gods of identity politics that we have created and returned to the one true God – the God whose grace restored our place in his kingdom.  It is grace that brings reconciliation and restoration.  Without it, our society will continue to fracture until it ultimately falls.