Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above. ("Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", Verse 3)
The kingdom of heaven is nothing like the kingdom of this world, Jesus constantly reminded us. In the kingdom of heaven people are paid for participation, not for length of service, the meek inherit the earth, and the lost take precedence over the "righteous ones who need no repentance." It is a parallel existence with few parallels on earth.
The kingdom of this world lives by a transactional law, the relentless standard that says what you give is what you get. The kingdom of heaven lives by a transcendent motion, the unconditional love that expects us to forgive an offender "seven times seventy." When we try to reduce the kingdom of heaven to rational terms, it slips through our fingers like fine sand. There is no common sense in transcendent love.
As someone who has known debt, I understand what it means to be constrained by a creditor. In the world of transactions, it means that I am never free. I am always obligated to one who holds my debt in hand. Transactional society enslaves debtors without options until the debt is paid.
In contrast, the hymn quoted above refers to the fetter of "goodness," which is how God discharges our debt. We are not bound by the debt of our misdoings. We are not even bound from the need "to wander." We know our tendencies, so we pray for grace. "Here's my heart, O take and seal it." We use our weakness as a reminder of our need to remain close to God.
We should understand that the transactional world runs contrary to God's idea of grace, that we are swimming against the current, if we believe we are saved by grace. The transactional world says you will always pay back, always get what you deserve. Grace says that the cycle of debt and re-payment has been broken by God's love. Debt no longer rules our lives.
How does this work in the world of bank notes and invoices? We can't refer those debts to God. We have to pay them. The books are kept by the transactional priests of this world.
But the transcendent kingdom affects our regard for those who owe debt to us. "Debt" might mean any obligation: financial, legal, spiritual, emotional. It is the symbol of our power over a fellow human being. How do we collect this debt? Ruthlessly, equitably or generously? How do we use our power over others in the kingdom of heaven?
If we do not struggle with the overlap of transactional and transcendent demands in this world, then we are not listening to the Spirit or the "better angels" (as Abraham Lincoln called them). Even if we can not escape our worldly debts, we are expected to forgive or loosen the debts owed us. Even if we make transactions of good deeds with the kingdom of heaven, we are compelled to listen to the transcendent voice that could ask for more from us. Even though we attend church, we may not compare favorably with our neighbor who coaches Little League on Sunday morning.
We are debtors to grace. We cannot pretend we have paid our way into the kingdom of heaven. We live in the transcendent world where debt persists, yet is constantly forgiven, where repentance carries more weight than faithful service, where God's love is unconditional and undeserved. Everything in the transactional world recoils at this arrangement. It offends the world's sense of "the fair." It undermines our security, if security is based on a bank account of good deeds.
"Quid pro quo" is an arrangement that compels a compensating reaction in return for our action. It is the rule of the kingdom of this world, an inflexible demand. It corrupts the freedom and love of the kingdom of heaven, which operates unconditionally and which we call "Amazing Grace."
The wonder of Amazing Grace is that it has no "quid pro quo." It will not bind us, but it will secure us. We have freedom to wander, and we will. We wander into transactional relations and power struggles, which deny unconditional love, the love that will not let us go. In our wanderings we experience again the love that cannot reject our soul, the love that "seals it for thy courts above."
We can wander, but we must not sell our souls to the world of transactions. Our souls belong to the kingdom of heaven. Best to keep it within hailing distance.
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