There are a few things religion -- almost any religion -- can be counted on to affirm. There are standards of conduct and piety, differences between right and wrong, obligations and responsibilities which are so clearly stated nothing is left to chance. Religion will always find a way to define what the deity requires, and to cite the rewards and the punishments for right or wrong conduct.

The penalties for violating religious commands vary, from a slap on the wrist to eternal damnation. The rewards also vary from a sunny day to eternal glory. Those growing up or coming to the faith are conditioned to act properly through the imposition of a system of rewards and punishments. The more the religion emulates family life the easier it is to reinforce the call to appropriate conduct. "Wait 'til your father gets home," says both mother and priest. Violate the taboos of the clan or the cult and you will get what is coming to you at the hands of an earthly disciplinarian or a heavenly judge.

Much religion has as a fundamental purpose the control of conduct. In this regard religion is little different than any behavioristic methodology. Bad kids are taught to be good kids by the imposition of rewards and punishments. First graders with six happy faces on the chart get to go to the playground ten minutes early. First graders with no faces on the chart all get to sit in their seats while others have fun. First graders with six unhappy faces get to sit in a corner. Most religion reflects social custom in which the good are rewarded and the evil punished. If one is righteous, the god will be pleased, and when the god is pleased all sorts of marvelous things can happen. Those who are unrighteous get what's coming to them.

It is just a short jump from this conditioned reflex religiosity to a justification for being righteous in the first place. One does what the god requires because the god must be pacified. The devotee learns quickly that to be good is to do good, and being good merits divine favor. Why go to church, take the sacraments, live an upright life, present your tithe, feed the poor?

In order to be a Christian!

In order to earn God's approval!

In order to go to heaven!

That notion of the pious life is so self-evident nobody would dare argue, not today and not in Jesus' day. Nobody except Jesus that is. After the long Lukan Sermon on the Plain -- Jesus' plain talk -- he concludes the discourse by turning on its head this traditional understanding of good conduct.

The image he uses, as were many of his images, is drawn from nature. He talks about trees and fruit. Good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit. To turn the image a bit, a tree does not produce apples in order to be an apple tree, but because that is the kind of tree it already is.

"Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor grapes picked from a bramble bush."

The righteous do not produce good works in order to be right with God, because they already are. Good works are not, therefore, an attempt to please God, but the overflowing of a heart thankful for what God has already done. Faith is not so much a matter of measuring up, as it is living thankful lives. One does not perform the proper acts, believe the orthodox doctrines and live the proscribed life in order to be a Christian, as if Christianity were a matter of right conduct which earned God's favor, but because certain acts, beliefs and lifestyles flow from the Christian life. God is not to be appeased, but to be thanked. Consider the following couplet:

Salvation is all grace.
Good works, all gratitude.

For Christians the cross spells out the power and centrality of grace. But we have made strange things of the cross -- some outright evil, some silly, some just superstitious. The fiery cross has long been the central symbol of the Ku Klux Klan, bigots who are convinced that bigotry is righteousness. But racial bigotry is not the only form of bigotry, and racists not the only bigots.  Who among us hasn't look down at some time with loathing on the poor or the rich, the fragile or the proud, the unemployed or coupon clippers, homosexuals, women or men?  When I was a teenager I had a stack of comic books picturing the Japanese with fangs.

Bigotry in the name of nationalism is still bigotry. So when you see the cross used by the Klan, understand that each of us has our own form of bigotry embedded in our hearts, and do not rush to judgment. Or the cross has become so commonplace it has been stripped of all meaning.

In a few weeks you will be able to purchase chocolate crosses, or marshmallow crosses dipped in yellow sugar, or gold crosses to put on your charm bracelet. I heard of a woman who went into a jewelry store looking for a tiny cross and chain to give as a gift. The salesperson inquired, "Do you want a plain cross or one with a little man?"

Or we view the cross as some sort of amulet to thrust in the face of vampires, or believe that as long as it is in our pockets or around our necks we are safe, or we imagine its blood works magic or commands divine attention. Some people carry a rabbit's foot; some a cross. As long as we are endowed with human natures -- and may we always be -- the cross will testify to our bigotry, silliness or superstition. And each of us will consider it virtuous to use the cross in the way we choose, while we ridicule the way someone else uses it. And if we choose not to use the cross at all, we will find other symbols, some flag, some institution, some doctrine, which we believe proves how right we are and how wrong the rest of the world.

Just about the time I am convinced of the absolute rightness of my position, my beliefs or my actions, I am hit by the realization that nobody else sees the total wisdom of my point of view. Just when I think I have all the answers I end up at the foot of the cross, spear in hand ready to cast lots for some seamless robe. Just when I think that loving God is confined to what I hold love to be, someone who never heard of my God comes along and is kind, gracious and forgiving to me, even while I call him a pagan -- or worse.

It is true in our homes. If there is some domestic quarrel -- perish the thought -- who among us will not defend our position to the death? But our homes survive, most of them, because we learn to forgive each other and accept each other for what we are. Even the Lockhorns stay hitched because between cartoon sketches they must somehow forgive each other.

Forgiveness must be offered and accepted a thousand times a day. Who among us does not drop the hurtful word, stand in judgment, throw the dart that is meant to wound, keep the upper hand by trying to make someone else feel slightly guilty, use any emotional device available to us to stay in control? Who among us has not been cruel, or heartless, or vengeful, all the time thinking that our cruelty was kindness, our heartlessness honesty and our vengeance justified? Who among us has not been totally convinced of our own virtue even at the very moment we thrust a rusty sword into the heart of someone we loved?

Here is where grace comes in. In any relationship where there is not forgiveness, at every crossroad there is destruction. None of us can survive for a week in any relationship which is not based on grace, on forgiveness and on accepting one another unconditionally. How can any of us survive in this world? Can we be good enough, righteous enough, virtuous enough, pure enough to merit the affection, support and commitment of even a single other human being? Can we produce apples and thereby become an apple tree?

Forgiveness and grace are not, after all, disembodied values. There is no forgiveness in the abstract, there must be the forgiver and forgiven. Sometimes we stand on one side of that equation and sometimes on the other. Sometimes we know we need to be forgiven and sometimes we know we need to forgive. And when those two values are in balance then grace comes through; and without grace we cannot live. If I must be perfect for you to love me, I am through, dead as a doornail, hopeless as garbage. It is only when I realize that I have been forgiven for all my arrogance and greed, all the injury and hurt I have given you, all the cruel things I have done on purpose or unknowingly, that I can live.

The cross -- not the plain one but the one with the little man -- is the world's most powerful symbol; the testimony that God loves us no matter what we have done, or how often we have done it, even when we have murdered the one sent to bring us home.

We are forgiven, loved, rescued, not just once at our baptism, but over and over again. Thus we are set free to live and to love, to be gracious and forgiving in a world that needs a bit of mercy more than it needs anything else. We live godly lives not in order to be saved, but because we humbly realize we already are -- by grace. Salvation, my brothers and sisters, is all grace. Good works, all gratitude."