Midlife Meditation

It took me ten years to get here. June, 1995: a moment of victory, acclamation, as the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church finally welcomed me into full membership as an elder, a fully ordained minister, with all the rights and responsibilities thereunto appertaining. I had worked so hard to reach that point at which the Bishop, my District Superintendent, my father and one other elder of my choosing, and my daughter (in lieu of my soon-to-be-ex-wife) laid hands on me, I placed my hand on Jason Lee's Bible and took the vows of ministry, and my father's red stole was placed around my neck, that I should have felt overwhelming joy. I made it! A life of faithful service lies before me! I will never again have to worry about hunting for a job! The fact that the last celebration topped my list is a hint of where that career was headed. Before I get to that, though, I have to talk about several other things that made this moment far more bitter than...

You may have heard the term "cheap grace" before. It was coined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a prophetic German theologian executed by the Nazis just before the end of World War II. Here's a brief definition, from his book The Cost of Discipleship: 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. I yesterday became aware of a corollary cheapness in the form of a courageous-sounding open letter from a Bishop. The occasion for the letter was the defrocking three days ago of Frank Schaefer, a Pennsylvania United Methodist pastor convicted of performing a same-gender marriage ceremony for his son. The conference board that administered the punishment was acting as required by the Book of Discipline, a set of laws govern...