Introspection: Showing Myself Grace

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Showing Myself Grace

May grace and peace be yours in abundance.

1 Peter 1:2 (NRSV)

Come sit at the table

Come taste the grace

From "Come as You Are" by Crowder

When I arrived at church one Sunday morning last month, I was reminded that there was a potluck luncheon in the gym immediately after the service.  Though I had signed up one week earlier to indicate that I would be attending, I had forgotten to prepare a dish to contribute.  Because I had not brought anything, I figured I should probably skip the luncheon.  It was a potluck after all, meaning that, if I forget to bring a pot, I'm straight out of luck.

Normally, I'm happy while I'm at church, but that morning I was in a funk for most of the service because, thanks to my thoughtlessness, I was going to miss out on the church luncheon.  After the service I would head home and most likely spend the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself.

As I listened to the sermon that morning, I kept hearing about people sitting down at the table together to eat as a family.¹  I began to consider that, when it came to the church luncheon I was planning to skip, perhaps what mattered the most is not that I paid my entry fee by bringing a dish but that I was at the table with my church family.  I knew that nobody from my church would bar me from attending the luncheon because I had forgotten to bring something, and I knew that I would never bar someone else from attending a church luncheon if he had forgotten to bring something or was unable to bring something.  Why should I not extend the same grace to myself?

I decided to attend the church luncheon, even though I had not brought a dish.  I think I made the right choice, because I enjoyed spending some time with my church family.  I still wanted to contribute in some way, so I made it a point to stay behind and help clean up the gym after the luncheon.

Please note that I don't intend to make it a habit to attend church potlucks without bringing anything.  If nobody brought anything to a potluck, there would be nothing for anybody to eat, so, if one is able to bring something, then one should do so.  What I am suggesting is that being present is more important than getting it right.  A church potluck is an economy of abundance.  People tend to bring more food then they could eat on their own, so there is typically more than enough food to feed everyone.

I think that luncheon was, for me, a lesson in grace.  I had to show myself grace in order to eat lunch with my church family.

Grace is a free gift.  It is something we can never earn, something we'll never deserve, and something we can never repay.  We can only receive it for ourselves and then gratefully extend it to others.  I think that many of us, myself included, tend not to extend to ourselves the same grace we would extend to other people.  If God is gracious to us, then why should we not be gracious to ourselves?  If we believe that grace is meant for everyone except us, then I'm not sure we really believe in grace at all.

If we cannot extend grace to ourselves, then how can we accept grace from anyone else?  How can we accept grace from God?  May we learn to receive the grace given to us; may we learn to pass along that grace to others; and may we learn to give ourselves grace as well.


Notes:

1. Jonathan Tompkins.  "A Traveler's Rest, Part 2."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 08/12/2019.

The photograph featured in this introspection was taken by Pixabay user congerdesign.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.