Means of Grace
How does grace actually work in our lives?
Going back to The Force, how does it work according to Wesley?
I said before that well-being grows out of our experience of grace and the change in the stories we tell ourselves, but I don’t think it’s magical. Instead, I think it’s inevitable.
For Wesley, the three forms of grace can not exist or operate in us without having been freely given by God. In trying to find a metaphor to describe the importance of understanding grace as a gift, I keep coming back to the idea of an unhoused person with a mental illness.
The cycle of homelessness, mental illness, and often addiction feeds on itself. You can get sober, but if you don’t have a home or a way to access mental health care, will you be able to stay sober? Maybe you find a place to rent, but if you don’t have access to health care and you’re self-medicating, will you be able to maintain a job to pay for the home? Maybe you have access to mental health care, but you have nowhere to live; how likely are you to have a solid recovery?
Imagine now that this person suddenly has a safe home, health care, and easy access to a recovery community. Their problems are not solved; they still have addiction and mental health issues. But this radical gift of the basic necessities and security needed for recovery means they have a foundation now.
The gift of prevenient grace is that now we know both that we can’t get it right and that getting it right isn’t really the point.
Where the Force gets really interesting for me is in the realm of cooperant grace. Back to our imaginary unhoused friend above, while suddenly having a safe roof over their head and access to health care feels like the “solution,” it’s really only the beginning. The real, hard work involves showing up to recovery meetings, showing up to a job, making the phone calls to see health care providers, and sitting in the dentist’s chair. It’s boring and mundane, and honestly, it’s where most of the growth happens.
Similarly, when we cooperate with the Force - when it’s boring, when it’s hard, when it doesn’t make sense, even when we think we know better - we begin to transform.
That is, having received the gifts of justification and the new birth, which are not human works but divine ones, the community is now enabled and empowered to respond to God’s ongoing grace. Collins, p. 234
What is the spiritual version of the metaphor of the unhoused person above? First, things like prayer, Bible study, the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s supper), and going to church/being in community on purpose. These are the “Instituted Means of Grace,” and they serve as a foundational element. Practicing these does not render me perfect, and I’m honestly not great about the Bible study except when I’m in school. My prayer life is … riddled with profanity but present. I participate in the sacraments at church. I think of these as internally focused behaviors that lead to growth. They are the spiritual version of brushing your teeth. Just like brushing your teeth won’t keep you clothed or sane on its own, our spiritual work doesn’t end there.
Prudential means of grace pick up where the internal/Instituted methods leave off. If those were internally focused, the prudential actions are those that serve our growth so that we can best love others. To have a glass of wine is no sin. But if after drinking a glass of wine, I can’t care for my children or I get mean, then abstinence becomes critical to my spiritual walk.
Finally, works of mercy serve both the recipient and the giver of mercy. These include “feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, entertaining the stranger, visiting those that are in prison, or sick, or variously afflicted; such as the endeavoring to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the stupid sinner.” (Wesley, in Collins, 267). Maybe it’s obvious, but engaging in this work can be the most transformative. Plenty of evidence reflects the benefits of volunteering, for example. In fact, according to Collins, Wesley placed “works of mercy” ahead of “works of piety” for their transformative power. “[B]y means of works of mercy, believers not only ‘exercise all holy tempers; by these we continually improve them, so that all these are real means of grace,’ but they also grow in the love of God and neighbor.” (Collins, 267).
Ultimately, we want the hard work of growing and living in grace to be work that exists on a kind of pedestal. We want our transformations to be BIG and BOLD. We crave a big, moving, dramatic story to justify us instead of a gift that we have to quietly accept. Yet in Collins’ words, “The kingdom of God, then, often emerges in the context of the mundane and among the very least of all.” (267)