Lamenting Racism
Baltimore-Washington Conference Bishop LaTrelle Easterling helps conduct a June 24, 2020, online “Service of Lament, Repentance, Communion and Commitment” while standing in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington. The hour-long video service is part of the denomination’s initiative, begun in 2020, to combat racism. (Screenshot of video by United Methodist Communications.)
Special to United Methodist Insight | May 27, 2025
So, when does resistance become an act of grace? When does grace result in an act of resistance? Let’s explore those possibilities for a moment.
When was the last time you tried to get into someone’s “good graces?” Or to avoid someone’s “bad graces?” This kind of “grace” suggests good/bad favor. That may work for you, but don’t mistake this very conditional grace for “God’s Grace!”
Christianity and Judaism traditionally say God’s Grace is an “undeserved favor.” It isn’t based on merit or worthiness (a future column will explore those concepts).
Grace is based on God’s unconditional Love. It’s here that my personal spiritual wrestling begins. Is God’s grace as “unconditional” as we glibly declare? Perhaps. And yet... .
“Undeserved favor” is easier for me to grasp. “Unconditional favor” is different. God’s passion is focused on justice and equal treatment. That sounds like a form of divine bias. I’ll buy that.
So I really wonder if God’s unconditional love is our actual spiritual problem. Perhaps we’re hung up over our own inability to accept God’s “undeserved favor” of others – and ourselves. We’d rather give grace only to the “deserving” and can’t fathom why God doesn’t think like we do!
Stay with me here! GRACE isn’t another word for FAVOR. Biblical grace is an unconditional GIFT, not a conditional, quid-pro-quo “favor.” We see God’s Grace can be perceived as unconditional. Unfortunately, Grace offered by humans isn’t quite as generous.
Yet when we partner with God’s grace somehow, I believe Resistance can be an act of Grace. Resistance is an act of radical (root-deep) Grace when our root-deep desire is to seek justice for others.
But first, we need to ask two one-word questions to bring grace into the resistance: WHY? and HOW?
WHY is resistance necessary in this situation?
HOW can resistance to the injustice being confronted happen so the persons being resisted are authentically treated with respect and love – even when respect and love are not returned in kind?
For many of my 83 years, I resisted the idea of resistance.
No more! For example, in strong, persistent defense of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” and in the spirit of being “woke,” resistance can be a redemptive action. I’m in!
It brings God’s grace – and ours as well – to bear on whatever form of violation happens in people’s lives. From God’s viewpoint, grace may certainly be unconditional, even when we can’t begin to replicate it in our own lives. Our inability to be unconditionally gracious mustn’t stop us from trying to be gracious.
WHY we resist a public action can be consistent with our passion and compassion about serving people, about re-balancing a severely unbalanced political proposal or action. HOW we resist can reflect even our limited willingness to be gracious.
Grace calls us to be authentically humble about our own strengths and limits. We’re called to be courageous enough to seek and tell truth to power as we understand that truth and loving enough to offer respect and dignity to people we don’t really believe “deserve” that. We’re called to be patient enough to watch grace work.
Even if our methods become hard-edged, or our fears threaten to overtake our sense of decency, Grace can be our guide. Resistance and grace in holy tension. So here’s my last wondering: How do you balance your desire for resistance with the redemptive possibility of grace.
The Rev. Paul R. Graves
The Rev. Paul R. Graves is a “retired and repurposed” United Methodist pastor long involved in elder advocacy and civic engagement. He recently moved from his longtime home in Sandpoint, Wash., where he previously served as mayor, to Portland, Ore., to be closer to his grandchildren. He says he’s loving the “grandparent lifestyle.”