We’re living in a season of deep weariness and division. So many of us feel exhausted by the noise of accusation—the endless cycle of blame and counter-blame that fills our headlines, our conversations, even our inner thoughts. Every day, we’re told who is to blame for our problems, who cannot be trusted, and who deserves our anger. It becomes easy, almost natural, to absorb those messages until judgment feels like truth.
We also live in an age where judgment is our native language. Newsfeeds and comment sections overflow with quick condemnations; relationships fracture over differences of opinion; compassion is treated as weakness. Every week brings new stories that remind us how polarized we’ve become—how easily we sort the world into “us” and “them,” and how quickly we forget that every person carries a story we have not heard.
Every era finds new ways to draw lines between “us” and “them.” Today, those lines are being drawn again—only thicker, louder, and crueler. We hear talk that equates difference with danger, and we’re told that empathy is weakness. Every time a leader or commentator calls an immigrant a criminal, or labels those who disagree as radicals, we are invited to make the same ancient mistake: to see another human being as something less than human.
And it is no accident that this wound is so visible in our public life. The temptation to divide the world into “good” and “bad,” “us” and “them,” has become one of our defining cultural habits. Whether it’s politics, race, religion, or nationality, the categories may differ, but the pattern is the same: suspicion replaces understanding, and fear becomes the measure of belonging.
That’s what dehumanization is—not just hatred, but forgetfulness. It is forgetting that every person carries the image of God. And when we forget that, something sacred dies inside us. The tragedy of our time isn’t only what’s happening to those under attack—it’s what happens in us when fear hardens into judgment.
It’s fair to feel anger. It’s righteous to demand accountability. Some people choose to assume the best—to say, “Maybe it’s just politics; maybe they don’t mean it.” That’s their choice, even if they seem Pollyanna. Others feel rage at the cruelty they see. That’s understandable.
What is not okay, however, is to be fooled by any attempt—whether by power, policy, or personal bias—to dehumanize another soul. Because the moment we accept that, we have surrendered the gospel itself.
It’s not just the world “out there.” That same impulse to judge lives quietly within each of us. We make instant assumptions about strangers. We carry unspoken resentments toward those who have wronged us. Even in our communities of faith, we sometimes confuse being right with being righteous. The pain of this constant judgment is that it leaves little room for grace to breathe.
The pain of this is real. It isolates us from one another and leaves us spiritually depleted. When we live on constant alert, assuming the worst of others, our hearts grow calloused. We stop listening to stories that challenge our assumptions. We stop believing that people can change. We stop seeing the image of God in the very faces we are called to love. This is not just a social problem—it’s a spiritual wound.
And yet, deep down, we long for something different. We ache for the kind of compassion that doesn’t excuse wrongdoing but still refuses to give up on people. We long to be seen not by our worst moment, but by the love that holds us through every moment. This longing is the beginning of grace—an awakening of the heart that scripture calls us to remember and practice.
Grace is not naivety. Grace is clarity wrapped in compassion. It is what allows us to confront evil without becoming it. Scripture doesn’t tell us to ignore injustice. But grace demands that our hearts stay awake while our minds remain clear. Where judgment builds walls, grace builds bridges — for grace is love enacted.
In a letter to the Roman church, a divided community of Jews and Gentiles, Paul reminds them that God’s grace precedes every act of human worthiness. Christ did not come for the righteous few but for the undeserving many. That truth dismantles every hierarchy of merit or morality we construct.
“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Paul doesn’t just explain salvation; he defines reality. God’s grace isn’t a reward for good behavior—it’s love in motion toward those who don’t deserve it.
In a world obsessed with sorting people into categories of good and bad, worthy and unworthy, grace collapses the dividing wall and insists that we all stand on level ground before the cross.
Jesus illustrates what grace looks like when it interrupts our pride in the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). In this story, Jesus tells of a younger son who squanders everything and returns home expecting rejection, but instead encounters grace. But the older brother is angered by his sibling’s welcome, exposing a self-righteous heart.
We usually focus on the prodigal—the reckless younger son who wastes everything and comes home in shame. But the real tension lives with the elder brother, the one who stayed home. He’s hardworking, responsible, and furious. His anger makes sense. Why should his father celebrate the one who squandered love?
The elder brother’s wound is righteousness turned inward. He believes grace should be earned, that repentance should be visible, that love should make sense. But the father’s love is irrational by design. He runs to meet the son before confession is complete, because grace always moves first.
This parable is not just about forgiveness, it’s about the blindness that judgment creates. The father’s open arms reveal what divine love looks like when it refuses to let shame or resentment have the final word.
When we forget that Jesus died for us, despite our failures, we become the older brother outside the feast, staring through the window of mercy we refuse to enter. Where judgment builds walls, grace builds bridges — for grace is love enacted.
We had to celebrate and be happy, because your brother was dead, but now he is alive; he was lost, but now he has been found.
Luke 15:11-32
In this week’s reading from our companion book, Gilead, Reverend John Ames wrestles with his own blindness. Jack Boughton, the estranged son of Ames’s dearest friend, has returned to town after years of absence and wrongdoing. Jack is courteous, intelligent, and evasive—a man marked by regret but still searching for belonging. For Ames, Jack becomes a mirror he does not want to face. His presence stirs old wounds, jealousies, and fears about his own legacy.
Ames can preach grace, but living it costs him something. His sermons are eloquent, yet his heart is wary—especially toward Jack Boughton, his godson. Jack’s past is ugly: deceit, neglect, a child abandoned. Ames watches Jack return home years later, seemingly unchanged, and something in him recoils. “Where is the repentance?” he wonders. “Where is the sorrow?”
But Ames sees something his theology didn’t prepare him for. Jack’s father and sister, Glory, welcome him without hesitation—“as though the past never happened.” He begins to see a glimpse of the gospel he has preached for decades, but never fully lived. In their love, Ames recognizes the story of the prodigal son played out before his eyes. The grace he sees in them exposes the judgment still lingering in him. That realization does not shame him; it awakens him. It becomes, as he says, “a wound that heals.”
Ames wants to be gracious, but he discovers how deeply his instincts for judgment run. He admits to himself that he has never liked Jack and that he cannot quite trust him. Yet he also recognizes that this distrust says as much about himself as it does about Jack. “Grace has to find its way in me,” he writes, “or nothing I have preached will amount to much.”
Ames begins to realize that grace isn’t a transaction—it’s a transformation. It changes us first. Grace does not deny sin, but refuses to let sin have the final word. Ames slowly discovers that his inability to love Jack says more about his own heart than about Jack’s unworthiness.
In this way, Gilead becomes a mirror for us all. Like Ames, we want to believe in grace until it asks us to offer it to someone we have already condemned. His struggle invites us to see that grace is not an idea to affirm but a discipline to practice—a slow re-training of the heart to see others as God sees them.
And if we look closely at our own world, we see the same test. Many of our national leaders show no repentance, no empathy, no self-awareness—and it enrages us. When leaders mock compassion or glorify cruelty, our anger is justified. But grace whispers, “Don’t let their blindness make you blind.” To hold onto compassion in such a time is not weakness—it is resistance.
Where judgment builds walls, grace builds bridges — for grace is love enacted.
Grace is not sentimental forgiveness; it is a radical re-training of how we see. It calls us to confront the bias within us and the prejudice around us. Grace invites us to believe that love can still reach the parts of the world—and the parts of ourselves—that we have written off as hopeless.
Imagine if grace—not fear, not tribal loyalty, not cynicism—shaped our public life. Imagine a society where power modeled repentance instead of demanding loyalty; where apology was not humiliation but healing.
In that world, immigrants wouldn’t be spoken of as statistics or threats but as neighbors. Political opponents wouldn’t be enemies to destroy but humans to understand. Disagreement wouldn’t signal disloyalty. It would mean our democracy is alive.
Grace doesn’t cancel justice; it perfects it. Justice without grace becomes vengeance; grace without justice becomes sentimentality. True grace stands in the middle and holds both truth in one hand, mercy in the other.
That’s the world Jesus imagined when he told stories like the prodigal son. It’s the world Ames glimpsed as he wrestled with his disdain for Jack Boughton. It’s the world we claim to long for when we pray, “Thy kingdom come.”
And we can start building it now—bridge by bridge, act by act, word by word. Because where judgment builds walls, grace builds bridges — for grace is love enacted.
If we took this message seriously, the world would begin to look different. Our speech would soften; our politics would heal; our neighborhoods would become places of shared hope instead of suspicion.
Grace would no longer be a word whispered in church—it would become a public witness, a way of living that defies the culture of contempt.
We may not be able to change every system overnight, but we can begin by changing the way we see. We can refuse to repeat narratives that reduce people to their worst choices or their assumed identities. We can hold ourselves accountable for the stories we tell and the assumptions we make. Grace, lived out this way, becomes a quiet revolution.
Grace happens when we let Scripture guide our sight—teaching us to see others as God already does. If we learn to see through the eyes of grace, we will begin to live differently. And that difference—patient, merciful, and brave—may be the clearest sign that Christ is still redeeming the world through us.
This week, let Scripture guide your sight. When judgment rises, remember the father running to his son. When resentment stirs, recall Ames learning to bless the man he once distrusted. When you feel divided from others, remember that Christ loved you while you were still a work in progress.
So where do we begin?
First, with seeing. Take inventory of your own heart: Who have you quietly written off? Which group of people have you learned to fear, mock, or ignore? Where have you mistaken comfort for righteousness?
Second, with listening. Find a story that challenges your bias. Read it. Hear it. Let it unsettle you. That discomfort is grace doing its work.
Third, with courage. Speak truth in love. When someone uses language that dehumanizes—whether it’s about immigrants, political rivals, or entire communities—don’t let silence agree. Challenge the lie, but do it with compassion intact. Because once we lose compassion, we mirror the very cruelty we oppose.
Fourth, with hope. Remember that grace is not passive. It acts. It risks. It reaches across. It is the love of God in motion through us.
So yes—be enraged, be awake, be wise. Be woke! But be gracious. Because grace is not weakness; it’s the only power strong enough to redeem what judgment has broken.
If we live this way—if our churches, our homes, and even our politics become places where grace is practiced—we will find ourselves standing at the same table as the father in Jesus’ parable, arms wide open, ready to celebrate the return of those we once called lost.
The work of grace begins with each of us. Where judgment builds walls, grace builds bridges — for grace is love enacted.
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Pastor Tommy
Our companion book for this series is Marilynne Robinson. Gilead. NY: Picador, 2004.