Grace is the Biggest Kind of Brave

How courage and grace are connected

Every time I learn more about the word “grace,” the meaning keeps growing more and more profound. Ranging from “elegance of form” to “the unmerited favor of God,” the word itself is hardly big enough to convey all of its complexity.

For those of you just joining us, last week we talked about how courage in its raw form is a kind of vulnerability – how courage doesn’t always look like heroic or noble, but instead means “to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”

And, much like last week, we have to start by tearing down a few meaning-structures and building new ones.

Honestly, the word “grace” didn’t used to mean much to me. It was one of those words I heard in church a lot – along with “patience” and “mercy” and “holiness.” Even though I had heard it so often, I finally realized that I literally did not know what it meant. It was a religious buzzword…that was all.

The change may have started when I read Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel and Ann Voskamp’s blog, A Holy Experience. Maybe it was the Underoath song,“Some Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape.” But God started doing something in my heart through these things – he started defining “grace” for me, bit by bit.

Now, I am convinced: it is a word that holds up the world.

But what does it have to do with courage?

To answer that, I want to tell a story — one that has left me speechless since I first heard it. It is about five men who went into the jungles of Ecuador to tell the Huaoranipeople about Jesus.

The Huaorani people are an ancient and proud and beautiful tribe. But, during the middle of the 20th century, they had allowed decades of anger and revenge spiral down and down until violence became the only way they knew how to cope with life. Blood Vengeance became part of their customs and traditions, suspending them in a horrific cycle: In 1956 when this story takes place, researchers estimate that 6 out of 10 Huaorani people died at the end of a spear.

Murder was their trademark and their lifestyle.

Before killing, the Huaorani people would work themselves into a frenzy, letting rage seize their minds and bodies — sometimes with the assistance of hallucinogens. On January 8, 1956, a group of Huaorani attacked the 5 missionaries, who had flown their small yellow Piper plane to a riverbank now called Palm Beach, and ran them through with spears and left their bodies in the Curaray river.

Two years later, some of the family members of the murdered men walked back into the jungle to live with the Huaorani. One of these was Steve Saint, the then-8-year old son of Nate Saint.

Here is what a writer from the Los Angeles Times said happened after the bloody event in 1956:

“After generations of killing to resolve the smallest conflict, the Waorani [Huaorani] changed, convinced by missionaries that less violent behavior had worthwhile benefits.Virtually overnight, the murder rate in the tribe of 700 fell by more than 90%.”

Despite the author’s arid interpretation of how the missionaries “convinced” Huaorani to change their ways, I think the term he uses later in the article, “near-miraculous,” holds closer to the truth.**

The Huaorani people were introduced to the redeeming power of grace.

It was the only thing strong enough to reverse their whirlwind cycle of murder and revenge.

It took an understanding of the compelling weight of grace — first demonstrated by Jesus on the cross – for those 5 missionaries to risk their lives at the hands of a murderous tribe.

It took courage for their families to walk back into the jungle and grace to forgive their husband’s and father’s murderers.

It took courage for the Huaorani to accept say yes to “walking God’s trail” as the tribe members now term it.

And grace was the enabler of it all.

That’s not even the whole story.

One of those Huaorani men – the one who personally put his spear through the body of Nate Saint, one of the five missionaries – his name is Mincaye.

Today, Mincaye is the adopted father of Steve Saint, the son of the man he murdered. (Pictured right.) He has lived and traveled with Steve for many years, telling people about Jesus and how to “walk God’s trail.”

Did you catch that?

Mincaye is part of the family of the man he murdered.

The healing and forgiveness that took place between these two groups of people was compelling enough that they are now as close as family.

That is courage.

That is grace.

Can you see a shadow of the connection now?

The Dimensions of Grace

Grace at its rawest is what God offers us through Jesus. “The unmerited favor of God,” as the definition goes.

Accepting that is scary, because we don’t want to need it. We don’t want to accept that we can’t be good enough on our own…that we are stuck in our own cycles of vengeance and fear.

That’s why it takes courage to accept grace.

Once we have done that, there is the next step – living in grace. Walking in it. Offering it to others who don’t deserve it.

Which takes courage too.

Staying with me?

Accepting grace allows us to live grace: experiencing each of our moments with the force of the knowledge that we are forgiven, accepted, loved…powerful (see Ephesians 2). Knowing the weight of the grace offered to us enables us to be courageous — confidently humble. It allows God to use us in big ways — to touch the lives of others.To begin a healing that would not be possible otherwise.

To sum it up even more succinctly:

>>God’s grace towards us enables us show grace towards others.
>>Both accepting and offering grace take courage.

That is the connection.

There is a picture hanging on my wall: it says,

Grace is the biggest kind of brave.*

A few years ago that wouldn’t have made any sense to me.

But now, I think it does.