Psalm 118
Well perhaps you know the experience. You're walking on campus - maybe you've just left a familiar Austin Agape lunch at Wednesday at Wendy's - and you're heading over to the West Mall to cross Guadalupe. But before you can get to the crosswalk, you know what you're headed for because you can hear all the yelling. There's a man standing on the edge of the street, yelling to you (or at you. . . sometimes it's hard to tell) and there are several men and women handing out leaflets of paper. You know what to expect. This happens often on the West Mall. These are gospel tracts.
The experience may not be a pleasant one. No one likes to be yelled at. Maybe you feel frustrated or angry. Or maybe you feel sad. You're a Christian too, but you don't want to treat people this way as you share the good news of what your faith means to you. All this fire and brimstone talk sounds like bad news. However you feel when you hear it, no one can deny this: It's a very visual and vocal experience.
But on the other hand, to be fair, these people on the West Mall may indeed believe that this is ultimately a loving thing to do, even if the experience isn't a pleasant one. If salvation is truly up to your decision (and by the way, I realize that salvation can mean a lot of things, including what your experience of God is after death; often in these tracts, it is only about this experience, where you go when you die -) if salvation is truly up to a simple decision that you make, it really is imperative that they show you how to make the right one. I mean, if you could end up in hell, outside of God's love for you, but you could avoid this by accepting faith in Jesus, it would be cruel of them to not share this information with you. Since they hold this theological belief to be true, they want to love you by convincing you to make the right decision.
One of the tracts I was given on the West Mall started with an interesting couple of sentences. I wish I could remember them verbatim, but I’ve got it pretty close. Basically, it really put it all out there. It says, "Please do not be angry with us for giving you this tract. We do this because God loves you, and we love your soul. So we need to tell you that if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will burn for all eternity in hell."
Whoa! That was a quick turn-around there! That was a stark, immediate turn-around from love language to hell and damnation language. And I'll be honest. When I first read it, it was so stark, that I immediately laughed out loud. But again, to be fair, if they really hold these theological beliefs to be true, they are actually doing the loving thing.
And here are a few sentences from another tract I found online. I think these sentences tend to sum up what many tracts say: “Many people stumble at the simplicity of salvation. They often feel they must do something to earn or deserve such an offer. Yes, something had to be done so that salvation could be offered to us freely, but Jesus did it all. All you must do is--” Wait a minute? I thought we didn’t have to do anything. . . It continues. “All you must do is believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose again. You then must receive him into your heart.”
So according to this way of thinking, God has made salvation possible. It’s an offer. But it’s up to us to make it actual. But are these theological beliefs true the way some articulate them? Are these beliefs ultimately what’s true about God's love and vision for us? It's up to us? It's really, really, really simple, but simply up to us? Really?
God loves us, yes. The people on the West Mall tell us the truth in saying that. Yes, even if the most articulate person on the face of the planet could put that love into the deepest, richest words we have, to convey how broad and comprehensive that love is, the witness of scripture is clear that we – in our limited understanding - could hardly even scratch the surface of articulating the reality of that love. God’s love is real. But is it real with a gigantic ‘if’ attached? Did God only make love and salvation possible for us? That is, is God’s stance toward us something like this: “I’ll love you, and I’ll have loving, eternal plans for you, but only if you acknowledge that I do?” And if we don’t, does that mean that God will cast that love away, or just as frightening, cast us away, sending us into everlasting damnation? So. . . we could know an eternity of God’s love if we seal the deal on it. . .? And if we don’t seal the deal in the right way – if we don’t do all the good things we should, if we don’t say the right words about God, if we don’t have the right beliefs about God – if we don’t seal the deal, God’s love and God’s good wishes for us are thrown out? Really, it’s up to us? We’re the linchpin? Let me see if I have this right: We’re so small that we can only scratch the surface of articulating God’s love? – We’re so sinful that we sometimes don’t even realize we need saving? – And we’re so finite that we can’t begin to comprehend the infinite desires and benevolence of a loving God? – and yet we’re the linchpin on this? It’s all up to us? Really?
The Psalm we heard this evening says something different. God’s love is real whether we know it or not. It is truly, objectively, actually, not-just-possibly-real. “O Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; His steadfast love endures forever!” Forever! These words both begin and end our text tonight. God’s deep, enduring love bookends this entire passage.
And there are more beautiful words: “I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation” . . . “This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” . . . “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Do you hear how active God is in those words? A ‘we ultimately seal the deal’ type of theology might agree with these words as they are, but at the end of the day, it kind of says something like this: “I thank you that you answered me – after all, I had to seal the deal by asking for it – I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.” “This is the Lord’s doing – God’s way of making salvation possible – and it is marvelous in our eyes.” “This is the day that the Lord has made possible; let us accept it that we may rejoice and be glad in it.”
No, God’s love is steadfast, and it endures forever. There is nothing we can do to seal the deal on God’s love. And if God loves us, God has good visions and dreams for our lives – in this life and in the next. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do that can throw God’s love out. We can’t nullify God’s love. We’re not big enough to do that! We’re not the linchpin. Thanks be to God that we’re not the linchpin!
I want to affirm that Christians with a ‘seal the deal’ message like this are loving people who seek to give a loving message. And many people give a ‘we seal the deal’ type message without yelling at people on the West Mall. In fact, some of the people who teach this are some of the most loving people I know.
Let me tell you a story. When Ian and I were in college, we were connected to a campus ministry at
Often he would describe salvation in a certain way, and he would use a pen to bring home his point. He would say that salvation is a gift from God – a loving, beautiful gift – but in order to experience it, we must accept it. He would hold the pen and say, “Here. I’m giving you the gift of this pen. It’s completely a gift. You don’t have to do anything at all to earn it, because I want to give it to you.” He would hold it out to you. And he would say, “But you still have to accept it, don’t you? You still have to reach out and take it.” He would then go on to say that God’s salvation toward us is like that. It’s completely a gift of love. We don’t have to earn it. But it is up to us to accept it, to receive it. And if we don’t do that, we won’t experience salvation. It is ultimately up to us.
But we can testify to a deeper kind of love and a salvation that is real whether we accept it or not. It’s not up to us. But these questions are important too, and I bet they’ve been swirling around the room in our heads so far: So where do we come into this? Don’t we have free will? And if it’s not up to us, why does it matter? Why does it matter what we do? Why does it matter what we say? What does it matter what we believe? If God is giving us sheer grace, sheer gift, and we don’t have to seal the deal, why should it matter?
Oh, it completely matters! Our words, our deeds, and our beliefs can’t ultimately nullify God’s love, and we do have a will that can choose to act like God’s love is true. But if we’re not living, speaking, and believing God’s love, we are truly missing something! If we don’t know God’s love for us, there is something non-salvation-like about that. If salvation is our gift, it is ours to live! Not just in the life that is to come! But also, right now! We don’t make salvation real by sealing the deal – it’s not up to us – but in our receiving and in our living of that gift, we are made alive in love, in salvation, in fullness.
Let’s turn that pen analogy on its head. God doesn’t hold out salvation for us to seal the deal. It’s not as though God gives a pen and reaches halfway, waiting for us to reach halfway. No, that pen is sheer gift – for you and for the world! It’s as if God puts the pen fully in our hand. We didn’t do anything to earn it. We didn’t do anything to receive it really. We certainly didn’t seal the deal. But here’s the thing: If we don’t write with the pen, we might as well not have a pen! I mean, why just hold a pen? A pen is for writing! Writing in this life, and if we want to continue our analogy, writing in the life to come.
God loves us endlessly and boundlessly. We can hardly scratch the surface of understanding it! So let’s live it. Let’s live it as the real thing it is. And let’s hear that love for what it is – a real thing that we can’t seal the deal on, a real thing that we can’t sever. Let’s close with these beautiful words from Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Write with the pen.
Live in God’s love.
Amen.
Invitation to the Table
And tonight we are invited to come to a place where we experience God’s love tangibly. At this table, we receive Bread and Cup. We receive Christ’s life. It’s sheer gift. We don’t need to seal the deal on that. There’s no reason to even try. Just experience it. This is Christ’s table, and all are invited. You don’t need to be Presbyterian. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to understand completely. You don’t need to meet any condition. You are accepted at this table. You are invited to this feast.
Tonight during communion, we’re going to do something a little different. When you come forward for communion, you will receive the bread and the cup. But someone will also be there to put a pen in your hand. Yes, it’s just a pen, and it certainly isn’t salvation itself! But it can be a sign of what is true. And over in that part of the room, there are sheets of paper. They include untruths of this world. We invite each of you to take the pen placed in your hand and actually write with it! You are invited to go over there and write one word over those sentences. And the word is Love. You can write it all over the place. And remember that you are called to live out God’s unconditional love.
-Renée Roederer, Campus Minister, and the Austin Agape Community
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment