No Strings Attached

The youth group met yesterday afternoon and completed the shopping for Christmas for Camden Kids. Then we went to downtown St. Marys to give away dollar bills. It proved not as easy as you might think to give a stranger a dollar. If the person took the dollar they were given a business card which read,

It's a free dollar.
There really are no strings attached.

This is just an exercise
to help our youth group
learn about the
free gift of God's love.
Thanks for helping.
Then we gathered and talked about buying the toys and sending them off with no strings attached, the children who get them will have no idea who bought them. And then the dollars given again with no strings attached, not even the name of the church given (which could be viewed as advertising). These are both tangible signs of how God gives us so many gifts out of love, rather than because we earn or deserve God's love.

We can give for what we get in return, making sure the person knows that we gave him or her something. Or we can give without the recipient even knowing who gave the gift. The second option best models the agape, the self-giving loving we find most fully revealed in the life and ministry of Jesus.

Thanks Kelly and Ginger for helping out!

Grace

Above is a video showing the true story of what happened when a man went to give away free hugs. I know the youth group at St. Mark's Episcopal in Brunswick has given free hugs (their pictures are here). Which seemed like a fun way to do what our youth group did another time in giving away dollar bills on the water front in St. Marys as a lesson in grace. People resisted taking the dollar from a teen. Many refused. If they accepted, the person who took the dollar was given a note that said that there really were no strings attached. It was so that we could learn more about how to receive the free gift of God's love.

No matter what you genuinely give, people first give back resistance assuming that there is a trick or hidden cost. God gives us unearned, unmerited love. We call this grace. We assume there is a catch. There is in a way. We are to live as people whom God loves. This is always how love works. In order to become lovable, we must first be loved (see Disney's Beauty and the Beast). But the love must come first. For if someone doesn't love me as I am, then why change. But if I am loved as I am, then I can become more lovable. This is grace.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor