February 6, 2005
Accepting Salvation is Never Easy
Riley E. Jensen

In a few minutes I am going to start acting like God as I offer you the bread of life and the cup of salvation.  Martin Luther trembled at his first communion as a celebrant and almost didn’t get through it.  And more than one of us who followed in his footsteps have almost lost our composure as we realized the enormity of what we are doing and saying as we lead you through this time of communion.

It is more than a ritual.  It is more than a habit.  It is more than a mindless exercise designed to make you feel more spiritual.  We’re talking salvation here.  We’re talking the presence of God.  It is always possible that where communion is concerned, we talk about it so much and we practice it so frequently that it loses its meaning.

Years ago while visiting the Isle of Skye (just off the west coast of Scotland) I was looking for a church in which to worship on a Sunday morning.  I sought the advice of our Inn Keeper who said there were two possibilities, but he strongly recommended one over the other.  When I pressed him about his preference, he indicated that one of the churches would be celebrating communion that morning, and since that was such an infrequent event the service would probably go on for three-or-four hours.

Frankly that was the tradition in which some of us were raised.  It may not have involved three-or-four hour services but communion was celebrated much less frequently -- about three-or-four times a year.  And yet our Calvinist tradition (going back to the time of our forbearer himself) favored the more frequent approach, as frequently as every day.  Obviously we don’t believe that familiarity breeds contempt but rather that we need to take advantage of this offer of salvation as frequently as possible.

Unfortunately our minds begin to get a bit muddled when we hear the words and see the symbolism.  It is almost as if a commodity is being offered.  And, of course, it used to be treated that way.  You couldn’t come to the communion table unless you were somehow deemed “worthy”.  But frankly we have come to recognize that for what it is -- a power play.  “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, says the scripture.

It is not our business to decide who is worthy, only God can do that.  But, of course, we do it all the time.  One of the most obvious ways we do that in our everyday life is the way we divide people between rich and poor.  It is part of our training in life.  There are rich people and there are poor people -- two distinct categories having very little to do with each other.

Such thinking is rooted in a faulty theology which Jesus condemned -- “sin equals suffering”.  Somewhere in the deep recesses of our minds we blame the victim.  Lift yourself up by your own bootstraps we say!  Suck it up!  There is no such thing as a free lunch.  Only those who work really hard will be able to free themselves from the grinding malaise of not knowing where your next meal is coming from.

One of the vulnerable places in our practice of compassion is that we tend to prefer charity to justice.  I’m as guilty as the next person because when there is a need right in front of you, you want to respond to it.  When I was in New Jersey, my church got involved in a program with other churches of providing shelter for homeless families on a rotating basis.  About once every six weeks about a dozen families would move into our church auditorium for a week.  We would provide bedding and meals and showers for them.

In the beginning it created quite a stir in the congregation because that affluent suburban group was concerned about the unintended consequences that might attach to such an attempt at doing good.  And of course, there were some.  Over time there were incidents involving theft and mental instability.  There were volunteers who felt very uncomfortable mixing with a population so alien to their life experience.

But after all was said and done, a larger learning took place.  A learning that might be described as, “There but for the grace of God go I”.  Many initially got involved in that ministry with an assumption that the people we were helping were vagrants, folks who through lack of education or desire (or both) were living hand-to-mouth relying (some would take advantage) on others to see them through.

We soon realized that such was not the case at all.  These were families and every morning one and usually both of the adults would be up at the crack of dawn and on their way to a full time job.  It was just that their job did not produce enough to put a roof over their head.  That particular congregation was transformed by that experience -- the experience of seeing parents working as hard as they could without the resulting benefits.  They realized that something is wrong with a system where the good old fashioned Protestant work ethic doesn’t work anymore.

Now, where is salvation in all of this?  Why are we talking about the poor on a communion Sunday?  What does politics have to do with religion?  According to the Oxford companion to the Bible, the primary meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words translated “salvation” as non-religious.  In the Hebrew it is usually found in a military context having to do with victory over evil or rescue from danger.  In the Gospels it is often intertwined with acts of physical healing.  When Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you”, it is the Greek word for “made you well” that is employed.

Somewhere along the line we got the idea that salvation is a kind of placebo for accepting the status quo.  We know that Karl Marx promulgated that idea by referring to religion as the “opiate of the people”.  But he did have a moment of insight which we should take seriously when he said to a group of church people, “You Christians have a vested interest in unjust structures which produce victims to whom you then can pour out your hearts in charity.”

Of course, that insight was biblical before it was Marxist.  Those indignant biblical prophets sought less to alleviate the effects of poverty than to eliminate the causes of it.  I like St. Augustine’s observation:  “Hope has two beautiful daughters.  Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”

Accepting salvation is never easy because we begin to long for the devil we know rather than face the unknown road ahead.  How well we can identify with those wandering Israelites.  They had no idea what they were letting themselves in for.  Under Pharaoh they were slaves, at the bottom rung of society hardly better than property.  They endured the hardship of long hours in the labor camps and the hope of nothing better until their bodies would wear out from overwork.  Of course, they did have their gruel, something that could be put in their bodies called food -- just enough to provide energy for another day of toil.

And then came deliverance, freedom, salvation, the crossing of the Red Sea.  What did they find on the other side of the Red Sea -- the wilderness, more hardship, and added to that uncertainty.  They thought that salvation, freedom from oppression, the promise of a promised land would provide them with that measure of hope and security that would liberate them from worldly cares.  But what they found was more of the same only wrapped in a different package.  So they murmured and they grumbled and they resisted suddenly forgetting what life was like under the Pharaoh.  Their anger and courage was being drained in the face of their fear of the future.

That’s the way it is with us also, isn’t it?  Salvation is offered and we accept it.  The promises may come to us in the form of political rhetoric or religious proclamation, but the bottom line is the same -- things will be different if you do it this way!  The wonderful gift of childbirth is accompanied by staying up all night with a crying infant, and patience wears thin.  We move from one job to another assuming that the next one will correct all the faults of the first.  We move from one partner to another and find that the same frictions follow us.

You see in the Bible salvation is never a panacea, it’s a process.  I have always been drawn to C.S. Lewis’ observation on his own conversion.  Before he was a Christian, he had a number of besetting sins, and after he became a Christian those same sins were still present in life but now he was working on them.

When you come to the communion table at least two things are happening.  First you are making a statement about all of the artificial areas of division that exist in this world.  There is neither man nor woman, slave or free, gay or straight, rich or poor, but we are all one in Christ.  Secondly you are recognizing that salvation for you and me is never easy -- it is rather bread for the journey.

Like the people of Israel we receive this bread as manna from heaven that will help us continue on the journey by the grace of God until the next time.  Accepting salvation is never easy because it is never final; we always need that strength from beyond ourselves to meet the challenges of the journey. 

And so, my friends, the table is prepared for you with the bread of life and the cup of salvation.  Receive these gifts of God for the people of God so that we may continue the journey.

Amen.