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A few years back, when I was in grad school, I had the opportunity to go to a conference on environmental chemistry in Switzerland. I would prepare a poster presenting the research I was working on, and my professor would pay all the costs for me to spend a week in Zurich attending this conference. He was pretty generous that way. As he explained it to his students, it was his job to provide the resources for us to do our research and it was our job to make him famous. Anyway, this seemed like a pretty good deal to me, so I worked night and day for weeks to get some data together that would be worth presenting and trying to figure out something interesting to say about the data so I could do my part to make my professor famous.
I'd never been to Europe. This was a golden opportunity. So I took three more weeks, beyond the week of the conference, and I traveled around by train. I went to Innsbruck and Munich and Berlin and Mainz and Paris and London. My professor didn't mind, because I promised to go to The Netherlands for a few days and talk with some folks at a university there about their research and our research, and he figured that might help make him famous too.
After several days visiting beautiful German cities filled with medieval castles and cathedrals and sparkling rivers, I caught a train to this little city I'd never heard of before that was home to this Dutch university. I'd been in contact with one of the researchers there. The plan was that I would call him when I arrived in town and he would come get me from the train station.
There was one little snag. I was having so much fun during my German travels that I completely forgot to change any money into Dutch currency. I didn't even think about it until I prepared to step off the train at my destination. Even then, as I looked around for a pay phone, I didn't really worry about it, because every train station I had been in before, in Germany, had a money-changing office. As the train pulled away again, leaving me alone in a small station, empty but for a few unoccupied benches against one wall, I began to worry. I did find a pay phone, but I didn't find a money-changing office. Feeling like the only person left in the world, I stared at the phone. In one hand I held the note with the phone number I was supposed to call. In the other hand I held a mixture of American and German coins. I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Not a soul in sight. Not a business in sight. Just a dreary March morning in the middle of nowhere.
I stepped back into the station and sat on a bench. I waited. I wondered if maybe I could walk to the university. But I had no idea where it was and there was no one to ask. I waited some more. I checked the return box on the pay phone for loose change, just in case, and scanned all the corners and under the benches. Nothing. I waited some more. I scolded myself for not changing money back in Germany. I was entirely responsible for getting myself into this mess. And I didn't have a clue how to get myself out. I waited some more.
Eventually, two people walked into the station. I swallowed my pride, screwed up my courage, and begged them for change for the phone. They looked at me oddly, like they were wondering what planet I just arrived from, but they gave me change. I tried to offer them a Deutschmark or a Dollar in exchange, but they just waved the bills away. They had change to spare, and they really had no use for my foreign currency.
I was rescued from my predicament. It wasn't my preferred solution, however. I would have much preferred to have avoided the problem altogether by changing money in Germany. Failing that, I would have preferred to have been able to see the university from the station door and hiked there myself. Failing that, I would have preferred to have scrounged a few coins from the corners without anyone else noticing. Failing that, I would have preferred to have traded. I only resorted to begging because I had no other choice. It was not my preferred solution.
Not having the change I needed merely made me annoyed with myself. Having to ask someone else for help to escape the mess I had made for myself made me feel incompetent, like I was unable to take care of myself, and silly, like who was I to visit some Dutch university in order to make my professor famous. Having to beg made me feel like, well, a beggar. It was not my preferred solution.
A few years later I was working in Atlanta, and going to seminary, and volunteering with a ministry that served breakfast to the homeless in the city. Every morning a line would form outside the church basement where breakfast was served, single file stretching down and around the block, and sometimes around the next block. 2 or 3 hundred people. All kinds of people-black and white, old and young, educated and illiterate. Every morning one or two moms or dads with young children would find their place in line, holding their little ones close and avoiding eye contact with anyone. Some were addicts, some were mentally ill, some were still reeling from unexplained layoffs that left them where they never thought they would be-on the street. Many of them-the more able-bodied ones-would head to the day labor pools right after breakfast.
Inside the church basement, we volunteers prepared the breakfast line-somebody to hand out plastic spoons and napkins, somebody to hand out an orange, somebody to hand out a hardboiled egg, somebody to dish out a big bowl of grits, somebody to pour the coffee. Sometimes we had fresh muffins to hand out too. Other volunteers bused tables, so that the line could keep moving. As soon as one person finished eating, another took his place.
I liked volunteering for this ministry. It made me feel good-like I was doing something to help somebody. Every morning, as I drove from this downtown church to work, my heart beat strongly in my chest. Sometimes a tear would form in the corner of my eye as I thought about the people I had served that morning. I liked being one of the folks giving out the hand outs.
A few years later I was sitting in tears on the floor of my house shouting at God at the unfairness of it all and jumping at every noise outside that suggested that someone might be approaching the house. I had been serving a little church-my first pastorate-and everything seemed to be going well. Worship attendance was growing steadily-it nearly doubled in the first year-and every day the church leaders patted me on the back and told me what a good job I was doing. But, barely a year after arriving, I was out of that church and out of a job. I was reeling from session meetings in which one elder after another shouted at me and berated me and shamed me and questioned every leadership decision I had ever made. And I was reeling from physical threats to my well-being and my life.
I had a lot of questions for God. I had done my part. I had been faithful-not perfect of course-I had made my share of mistakes-but I had done the best I could. I had worked hard. I had always understood that if I worked hard and did my best, good things would happen, I would be successful, other people would benefit, and we'd all appreciate one another. And that's the way it had always worked. Always…until this day.
This day I was sitting in tears on the floor in my house shouting at God, jumping at small noises, and staying away from the windows because of a mostly irrational fear that a rock or a brick or a shotgun blast might be coming any moment.
Around this time I had a lot of phone conversations with my brother Ed. He runs a carpet cleaning business, but he has a pastor's heart and tremendous wisdom. I remember one phone conversation in particular. He listened to me with compassion, like he always did, as I poured out my hurt and my fear and my confusion over all my best efforts having been rewarded with rejection and betrayal and accusation and threats. Then, in his quiet, gentle voice, he said to me: "What a great gift you are being given…to suffer with Jesus."
I don't remember saying anything to Ed at that point, but I remember thinking, "This sure doesn't feel like a gift. Can I return it?"
Then, Ed's voice grew even quieter and gentler, and he quoted to me from Paul's Letter to the Romans: "Does the clay say to the potter, why do you make me thus?"
That night, as I lay in bed at a friend's house-where I was staying because I was afraid to be at my place-I prayed like I have never prayed before. Once again I poured out my hurt and fear and confusion to God. My brother's quiet voice kept coming back to me. "Does the clay say to the potter, why do you make me thus?"
Finally I understood. I was being broken. And I needed to be broken. Because I didn't really understand the grace of God. Not understanding his grace, I was putting up obstacles that prevented me from fully receiving his grace and that prevented his grace from fully manifesting its power in my life and in my ministry.
I was being broken. And I needed to be broken. Because I was making a commodity of the grace of God.
I thought I had something to offer God, and that if I did my best he would do his part and reward me. I wasn't expecting money or fame or anything like that, but I was expecting reward. I thought if I worked hard and did my best, then God would bless my efforts and they would be fruitful.
I understood, finally, that I had nothing to offer God. He didn't need me to do anything for him, and he didn't owe me anything.
I understood, finally, that ministry was not about volunteering in God's homeless ministry to help distribute his grace to those who really needed it and could not get it on their own.
I understood, finally, that ministry wasn't about doing my best to do good things for God so that he could bless my efforts to bear fruit. I understood, finally, that ministry is about serving in whatever way God wants to use me and leaving the results to him.
I understood, finally, that I was one of those who desperately needed his grace and could not get it on my own.
I understood, finally, that no matter how carefully I planned ahead, no matter how hard I worked, no matter what corners of the world I searched, I would never come up with the healing, transforming, redeeming grace I needed.
I understood, finally, that all I could do was bow my head, and admit my poverty of spirit, and receive what God had to give me.
I understood, finally, that he would never look at me oddly, like he was wondering what planet I was from, but that he would look at me with love and pour his grace into every empty space within me-not because I deserved it, but just because I needed it-not because I could ever do anything to pay him back, but just because he has love and grace overflowing and his desire is to give to those who will receive.
For an evening anyway, my pride was broken, and I was empty. For an evening anyway, I was clay that did not ask the potter, "why do you make me thus?"
When Jesus approached Jerusalem, the city where he would be rejected and betrayed and accused and killed, he looked upon the city and all its inhabitants with the compassion of God's own heart. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."
God wasn't looking for worthy people on whom to bestow favor. God was longing for his people to bow their heads, and admit their poverty of spirit, so that he might gather them-in their helplessness-under his wings and pour out his grace. Not because he ever expects to be paid back, but just because he has love and grace overflowing and his desire is to give to those who will receive.
"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. … Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."
The only way to come to God is as a beggar. Because what he has to give, we cannot buy. The price has been paid already by Jesus. His grace is costly. To us, it is free.
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