He clutches his chest and gulps. The pain is overtaking him. It's coursed and wound its way to his legs, weakening his step.
He can see the front door, the red letters lit amidst the backdrop of a midnight expanse.
He's lived with the ache and put it off, put it down, tried to ignore it, but he can't pretend anymore. The pain is there and it's real, and it's killing him.
But is it too late?
He stumbles and drags, clutching for the door, his heart pounding--
The door swings wide, and in he steps.
The walls are clean and white, and it's quiet, save for the occasional buzz of a desk phone. He hears the page turn of a nearby patient chart scraping to a halt when the door closes behind him.
The few doctors and nurses whip their heads around.
The man, his mouth dry as cotton, forces the two words he needs to describe his situation:
"Help me," he whispers before collapsing to the floor, taking a sterile table and its supplies with him.
"INCOMING!" shouts the scrub-attired group, springing quickly into action. Two grab monitors and equipment, while another few hoist the man onto a nearby bed. He comes to, paralyzed beneath the hubbub that engulfs the gurney. The fluorescent lighting--severe enough to see every cut, every bruise, every imperfection or symptom of its patients--wrinkles his forehead and causes him to blink and squirm.
"What do we have?"
"Hook him up!"
"Get me some leads!"
"Get an IV, stat!"
Disoriented and afraid, the man soon hears an ominous, rhythmic beeping to his left. It's his heart, and his caregivers seem troubled by what appears on the screen.
"It's a heart attack," a doctor mutters gravely.
At the drop of his words, the crew immediately stops and falls silent.
"Are you sure?" a blonde nurse finally asks. "Maybe it's something a little less serious."
The man flits his eyes among the countenance of each nurse. "I don't understand," he finally manages to ask. "Can't you save me? Can't you give me some medicine?"
The nurses side-eye one another.
"I don't have to die from this, right?" he asks, the sweat pouring down his face.
They're quiet once more, and the man becomes panicked.
"Your hospital--ah--it says--ugh--out front--ackk--that you specialize in heart care," he says between throbs of increasing pain.
"We do," a doctor finally speaks up.
"THEN WHY WON'T YOU HELP ME???"
"Because, well, you're a little too sick for us."
"WHAT?!" the man shouts, his face turning purple.
"Yeah," the blonde nurse chimes in. "I mean, we have something we could use to treat your heart attack, but...you don't qualify just yet based on our protocol."
The man grabs harder at his chest. "Well what on God's green earth do I have to do to get help?!"
They look at each other.
"Well," a young man begins, "you could power walk around the block first!"
"Yeah!" says another. "What if you ate an entire plate of green vegetables? Then we might be able to help you!"
"Or perhaps you can lift some weights!" exclaims the doctor.
The man, unable to understand what he's hearing, becomes desperate.
"You want me to do what?! I can't do those right now! You've got to save my life first!"
"What should we do then?" the blonde whispers to the doctor. "He doesn't deserve our help yet."
"Then I guess we'll just have to wait. If he won't do what we want in order to get the medicine, he must not really want it. He must not really want to live," the doctor responds matter-of-factly.
The man, ripe with anger and adrenaline, hurls himself off of the table and drags himself as quickly as he can out the door. And before he drifts into the night, his head pounding with pain and his body weak with little fight, he turns to shake his head at the bewildered team.
"Where are you going?! We can help you! You just have to follow the rules!" they yell.
"You can't help me," he says breathlessly. "So I'm going to find someone or something that will."
And off he wanders, reaching into the night for something--anything--that will take him in.
For the ones that could refused.
~~
Are we saved by grace, or are we saved by our ability to keep the rules?
Grace! Amazing grace, you say! By the blood of Jesus spilled for my sins am I given the option of eternal life! It doesn't matter what I've done, His blood covered it all forever and ever! Amen!
Yes. True. Okay.
But your ad for Jesus here indicates that that may not always be true?
~~
I'm forbidden from being a deacon (and in some places singing in the choir) because I have a divorce in my past, even though I didn't want it and the grounds were biblical. But it doesn't matter--I have a red mark that grace apparently can't fix when it comes to my ability to serve in the church.
Maybe you've had a baby out of wedlock, and the ladies of the church frown upon you. It doesn't matter the circumstances. Forever the living child--that you didn't abort!--is a red mark that colors who you are. You were impure, and that makes you vile and dirty. You may be forgiven in God's eyes, but you're treated differently because grace doesn't really cover that.
You had an abortion when you were much younger, and you keep it to yourself because if anyone in the church knew, they would turn their backs on you. You feel shame for it, and you went through it alone because you knew those people wouldn't be there for you. There's no grace for that decision at all, and maybe not even forgiveness. Red mark.
Red marks everywhere.
If you've ever partied. If you smoke. If you drink at all. If you've looked at porn. If you've had an affair. If you listen to popular music or--in some churches--even relish the beat of a drum (the devil's music!). If you dance. If you watch movies with cuss words. If you don't tithe ten percent every single time. If you don't go to Sunday school. If you don't have your child sprinkled. If you let your kids trick or treat on Halloween. If you let your children believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. If you don't wear muumuus. If you wear bikinis. If you dye your hair and wear makeup.
If you...breathe?
Because with every breath, we are incapable of being anything but sinners.
God's grace is so much more graceful than ours.
Christians make Christianity way more exhausting than it really is. Consider all that God can forgive and cover over but we don't seem to want Him to.
Why?
Why, when we've been given the gift of a lifetime--freedom from lifelong shame and pain, separation and unforgiveness--why are we selfish with that? Shouldn't we be eager to shower others with it, too?
We stand at the door to the church blocking the ones who need him most--the ones who haven't met him yet--from getting in just as they are--like the nurses and doctors who wouldn't help the man having a heart attack. We filter who can and can't be helped based on our idea of who deserves it. Follow the rules first, then you can have the grace!
And in doing so, we put the cart before the horse.
We expect them to be clean before they've had a shower, to be learned before they've been taught, to be fed before they've gotten food.
To be healed before they've had the medicine.
We expect them to look like Jesus and understand him before they've experienced him.
No! Back away! Put down your rules and conditions!
I long to woo them with my grace, he says. Let them come as they are. Bruised and battered. Angry and cursing. Desperate and grieving. I can handle it all. ALL. From the minute to the major. It is my business to forgive and yours to fall in line behind me. The list of things that keep you all from me (including disobedience to parents! gossiping! greed!) was recorded in the Bible to show that no one is above needing me. Not even you. Not any of you. It is not to be used as a tool to condemn and isolate.
And if they never see me, do not let the burden of that deeply painful thought fall upon your inability to put aside your pride.
Put away your swords, Peters of the faith. This isn't a time to fight but a time to love, to woo, and to welcome the world to Jesus.
Grace. Grace for those who don't know Him yet. Grace for those who know Him and still get it wrong. Grace for those who can't see that they're wrong.
What would the world look like if we spent as much time telling people that Jesus loved them no matter what, instead of pinpointing the reasons they were doomed to be kept from him?
And if that seems impossible, once again I ask you:
Do you really believe we're saved by grace?
Because your ad says something else.
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