Earning Gods grace

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Texas999

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Good morning. I have a quick question. I am a devoted catholic and every-time my boss talks down on our faith and how corrupt it is it makes me so angry. He says the catholic faith is fake. My boss is Christian but he always makes responses like why do I have to go to church when I can just have church at my house, and making comments like why would God want you to eat him ? He said God didn’t mean for it to be literal. He always says I don’t have to do anything to earn Gods love. So all of our sacraments he says they are ridiculous. Is there anything I can back up when he says that we don’t have to do anything but believe in Christ to get to heaven ?
 
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Is this appropriate work conversation for a boss to have with an employee? No. Nope, not at all.
 
Why are you and/or your boss even bringing this topic up in your workplace? Is it relevant to the type of work you do?
 
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A superior/subordinate relationship can never have a fair conversation about faith. Roles are roles.

As far as John Chapter 6 goes. Many people were as put off by Jesus saying he was to be eaten. They left. Jesus didn’t call them back saying he was kidding. Now, in that story, the disciples stayed, which person in the story is the follower of Christ? I say this only for your piece of mind, not for you to continue the conversation with your boss.
 
Yes I teach and coach in Public school And through FCA is my only way to talk to students about Christ. I’m not aloud to talk about certain faiths. So yes when we are in office talking about scripture sometimes we talk about our faith.
 
What’s FCA?

(Please forgive my ignorance—I left the US almost eighteen years ago and never lived in Texas)
 
The problem with most modern Christians especially Protestants is that they take the words the Jesus spoke outside of the context of the people he was speaking to, the Jews. Jesus was meant to be the Pascal Lamb for the redemption of the human race. In Jewish tradition the sacrifice was meant to be eaten.
 
If faith, alone, is truly the only reason God would save us, wouldn’t He be evil by sending everyone else to hell: to eternal punishment? Shouldn’t it also depend on something more, on our response to His grace, on our actions, on our love which produces those actions? IOW on what faith is supposed to produce in us, not merely on faith itself, i.e. on “believism”.
 
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I completely agree this is a totally inappropriate conversation for a person at work to be having with colleague about that colleague’s religious beliefs. It is even more inappropriate when the person starting the discussion is the boss. And I completely agree that you should just ignore him.

However, I want to note one thing. Your boss is right that we don’t have to do anything to “earn God’s love”. God loves us all, it’s a free gift. He loves the worst sinner as much as he loves the best saint. He loves the Catholic as much as he loves the Protestant as much as he loves the non-Christian as much as he loves the atheist. (He does not approve equally of all the things they each do, but that’s not the same as loving the person.) Our sacraments and other things we do are NOT done in an attempt to “earn God’s love”. Rather they are channels for us to more fully accept and experience God and to receive God’s love and grace; sacraments are also visible signs of God’s love and grace.

Our prayers and rituals are designed to deepen and improve our relationship with God, the same way as you might go out to dinner with your spouse or have an intimate conversation with them in order to deepen and improve your relationship. You don’t go to dinner or converse with your spouse in order to “earn their love”. This is an imperfect analogy because a spouse, being human, could conceivably stop loving you, or their love for you could increase or decrease. God’s love doesn’t work like that. It is endless and unchanging. We simply need to work harder on accepting that love and experiencing that love and most especially, loving God back so it’s not a one-way exchange.
 
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Ah, Texas! is right! 🙂
So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
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41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said,“I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

–So, did Jesus say, “OK, wait, y’all misunderstood? Let me explain it better?” No, he doubled down.
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
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—And then did Jesus say, “Okay, maybe, not, like, real bread. Because no one would want people to eat them! Haha! That makes no sense!” Nope. More doubling down.
 
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
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—And does he say, “Yeah, well, I’m sorry it doesn’t make sense. It is kind of weird when I put it like that. Here, let me put together something else that’s not so literal, so I don’t give y’all ideas that I’m being weird or anything.” But instead, he turns the blame on them. The problem isn’t that he’s teaching wrong; the problem is they’ve closed their minds to what he’s telling them.
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
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–And does Jesus say, “Um? Guys? Come back!” Nope. He stands by what he said in the first place.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
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—And that’s where we are ourselves.

All that being said, sometimes, if someone already has their mind made up about what they think, they’re going to not be dissuaded, even if God himself is standing in front of them telling them how it is. 😉 It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last time that someone couldn’t grasp it, and it turned into a stumbling block on their journey.

You can discuss a subject with someone who’s willing to respect your views even while disagreeing with them, but it’s very difficult to discuss a subject with someone who’s openly hostile and derogatory towards your belief system/worldview. So sometimes, the best thing is to say a few prayers in your mind, that God will touch that person with the graces he most wants to give… because opening closed hearts and minds requires a certain amount of divine grace! 😛
 
My response would be first, “I’m sorry you don’t understand my faith, I will pray the Holy Spirit gives you some clarity on what we believe one day.” Then I would walk away, ignore him, refuse to engage, whatever it took to not play in his power struggle game.

If that did not work my second response would be to tell him his comments are inappropriate for the workplace and offensive to you personally and you would like him to stop.

If that didn’t work I’d go over his head to someone who can take care of the issue.
 
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