Costly Grace
By The Rev. Craig A. Phillips, Ph.D.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we encounter the following difficult saying of Jesus. It is what is often called a “hard saying,” meaning that for the most part it is not something that we who read it want to hear or do.
Jesus says:
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37-39 NRSV)
In the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church, this passage is read in our worship services near or on Father’s Day, so the preacher often is tempted, at least from my own experience, to lighten the harshness of Jesus’s words, so that they are not so off-putting.
In the gospels Jesus often tells disciples that they will not be treated differently than he will be. At the time, they do not understand what he is talking about. His words fly right over their heads. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, as the early church began to form small communities amid the Roman Empire, they began to experience persecution for their faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God. They then began to understand more fully the meaning of what Jesus had taught his disciples.
Most of us do not face persecution for our faith today. Some may ridicule us for it, but we don’t face the risk of torture or death for our faith. We should not forget that Christians in other parts of world do face persecution and danger for professing their faith. Living out their lives of faith in these harsh contexts, takes courage and strength.
Jesus calls his followers to take up their cross and follow him. He tells his followers that if they begin to follow him that they will have to be willing to be mocked, rejected, persecuted, or even to give up their lives. In so many words, Jesus says, “You will not be treated any better than I am,” he tells his disciples. “You should expect to be treated as I am treated.”
In the early 1930s in Germany, the farthest thing from their German peoples’ minds was that a Christian in Germany would be persecuted for their faith. This was a modern society. Such things did not happen. Then Hitler came to power and his government took over the churches and demanded their patriotism. Patriotism came first, God was second. The Führer was proclaimed the sole leader of the German Christian church. Allegiance to him was demanded over that which was due rightly to God.
There were faithful Christians in the church who resisted and who asserted that Jesus Christ was the sole head of the church. The church that rose in response to Hitler became known as the “Confessing Church.” The two most famous members of this movement were Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both were theologians and both were pastors. Both lost their university teaching jobs. Barth was forced to flee to his native Switzerland. Bonhoeffer, who had left Germany for the United States, decided to return to pastor in Germany knowing that his resistance might cost him his life. And it did. He was hanged by the Nazis in the closing weeks of World War II. Bonhoeffer paid a heavy cost, the ultimate cost, for his discipleship.
When Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship, his most famous work, he may not have known how closely it would describe his own journey of Christian discipleship. Bonhoeffer, however, lived what he preached. He had a determined discipleship, and he knew well the risks that he would face. And when it came time for him to respond to his own call to discipleship, he faced the dangers and the costs head-on.
In the first chapter of The Cost of Discipleship, entitled “Costly Grace,” Bonhoeffer gets right to the point of Jesus’ teachings on what it means to be a true disciple of his. Bonhoeffer contrasts cheap grace with costly grace. Many Christians, Bonhoeffer says, take their faith lightly. They live their lives as if the gospel makes no claims on their moral behavior. In other words, they act no differently as a follower of Jesus than they would as if they were not a follower of Jesus. Jesus, however, continually calls his followers to a higher standard of behavior. Jesus teaches in the gospels, that we are to forgive those who have hurt us, to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, to give generously, and if necessary to let go of our possessions so that they do not talk hold of us and become a thing of worship.
Bonhoeffer wrote:
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Cheap grace says, it doesn’t matter what I do, because God will forgive me. I don’t need to change.
Bonhoeffer continues:
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
During my doctoral studies at Duke University, I heard the Christian Ethicist Stanley Hauerwas say that that Christians are called to be disciples of Jesus, not merely admirers of Jesus. Admirers of Jesus pick and choose what they like about Jesus’ teachings but shy away, and even reject, those things that they find difficult or offensive. These might include forgiveness of our enemies, the refusal to return violence with violence, the rejection of everything that gets in the way of following Jesus in the way that he taught, including the rejection of family ties and possessions if they get in the way of our following of Jesus. Jesus does not ask you to dedicate part of our life to him, but all your life to him. That is costly grace.
As a disciple of Jesus, Bonhoeffer knew that he had to speak and act out against the violence, social injustice, terror, and false Christianity that was evident in the society around him even if that witness would cost him his life.
Those who seek to be disciples of Jesus, like Bonhoeffer, must speak up and act whenever we see racism and intolerance in the world around us, that is, whenever we see an affront to the dignity of any human person. Jesus understands those who follow him may find their witness rejected by the world in which they live. Even so, Jesus tells us not to be afraid. “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” May we find our lives so firmly rooted in Jesus, that we may follow in the path that he leads and calls us.
The Rev. Craig A. Phillips, Ph.D. is a retired Episcopal priest and Professor of Religion. He currently teaches as an adjunct Lecturer at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH. His blog may be found at https://craigphillips.co.