I’ve never been to a U2 concert.

There.  I’ve said it.  Confession is good for the soul.

I’ve been to many other concerts put on by artists with immense talent and even significant depth.  But I don’t think I’ve experienced the depth of an artist like I did while watching Bono sing on David Letterman. I watched it years later on Youtube.  And still I cried.

There is a charisma to Bono that puts you in touch with immeasurable, spiritual realities that go deeper than the measurable realities of day to day life.  He has so much charisma that he can reach through a Youtube post and hit me between the eyes while I sit at home surrounded by countless measurable distractions.

But here’s the thing with charisma: when we talk of it in our 21st century North American culture, what we mean is that someone has a gift, a talent, an aura that no one else has.  We mean that they are set apart from others in some significant way.

But this is not how this word was first used.  It was an early Christian by the name of Saul, canonized in what we now call the New Testament, that breathed meaning into this word some two thousand years ago.  And when he used it, he meant that we all have gifts and talents, that we all have something special to offer, that we all are set apart for some greater and more beautiful purpose.

The word charisma comes from this ancient word charis, which is the Greek word meaning “grace”.

Charisma was spoken of as a divine gift imparted to all people.  But more than that, charisma spoke of grace as having a shape in those willing to receive it.

And here is the “shape” that grace takes in the ancient literature:

• According to the early communities of Jesus, “God’s grace (charis) was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.”
• One community of faith was said to have been given grace that looked like this, “In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.”  They shared with others in the midst of famine.
• Or this, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.” Grace had something to do with how they spoke with one another.
• And this, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.”  The list that follows includes teaching, serving, leading, showing mercy, giving.

Grace, for those first followers of Jesus, looked like generosity, compassion, serving the poor, feeding the hungry, speaking about true things in a true way, being full of humility and mercy.

In other words, grace is not simply something that we receive, or “believe” in our heads, or write down as a creed in some dusty tome.  Grace, for the early followers of Jesus, was something that we become…become in the places that are most broken and hurting and hopeless and hungry.

We are meant to become grace in the very places most marked by ungrace.

We are invited to trust deeply in a world founded on grace, in a reality undergirded by gift and goodness and forgiveness, in a Giver that is generous with us before there even was an “us”. So that it seeps into our bones, and takes shape in our homes and workplaces and politics and conflicts and concerns.

Bono called grace a “thought that changed the world.”

And more than a thought: a gift given by the Giver.

And more than that still: a gift that we are invited to open…and then become.