Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
September 21, 2008
Ephesians 2:4- 8
Many of you know this story, but considering the topic for today's sermon, I just couldn't resist. I guess, you could say that the devil made me do it. It seems that Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days and, frankly, God was getting tired of it. Finally God had had enough. "That's it," said God, "Enough of this! I am going to set a computer test for the two of you. It will run two hours. When it's over, I will examine the results and announce who is the best at the computer. Jesus and Satan sat down at their keyboards and the test began.
Both worked furiously. They e-mailed, they e-mailed with attachments. They produced spreadsheets, wrote reports, created labels, graphs and charts. They downloaded, they faxed, they even drafted their fantasy football teams and set point spreads. Anything that could be done with a computer, they did it. Their fingers flew with heavenly efficiency or, you might say, hellish speed. Then, ten minutes before the test was to end, lightening flashed across the sky. Thunder rolled, rain came down in buckets and then, yes, the power went out.
Both stared at their blank computer screens, waiting. Finally, the power came back on and both re-started their computers. Soon, Satan was frantically screaming, uttering every curse known to man or demon. He was searching frantically through his files. "It's gone," he screamed, "All my work gone. I lost everything when the power went out!"
Then there was the sound of a printer coming to life. Jesus was calmly printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work. Satan was beside himself. He turned to God, "Wait! This isn't fair! Jesus must have cheated. How come he has all his work and I don't have any?"
To which God simply smiled and said, "Everyone knows". (altogether now).."Jesus Saves!"
Well, we've heard that phrase, haven't we, our whole lives, Jesus Saves, but what does it mean? And does it have any meaning for us?
In a more serious vein, another familiar "Jesus Saves" story: Many of you know the name, John Newton. He trafficked in human flesh, was a sea captain and slave trader. It's hard to imagine this man as the same one who wrote the hymns Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, or Amazing Grace, but he did. He wrote them after he encountered this Jesus. Not long before his death he confided to a friend, although by then it was no secret, that he still felt the liberating, saving power, of Jesus in his life. Years earlier, mired in the slave trade, he had encountered Jesus, had heard his words about "harming little children," had heard him say that God loves them and you, and from that haunting, judging, loving, saving presence, he could not escape. At last, unable to run and hide any longer, he turned his life around, walked away from the great evil of which he had been a part, and somehow, in his own words, Christ gave him the strength to see it through. And see it through he did. We sing his hymns still. He had been delivered from his past and enabled to begin again. He who had been lost, was found. Jesus Saves.
Now, I have to tell you, in all honesty, I have struggled mightily with this sermon this week. For this language, the language of salvation, is not language we really use much in this church. In fact, I suspect a number of you are a part of this church precisely because we don't use that language - we don't ask you if you've been saved...whatever that means! In fact, if you are like me, that question often feels more like an accusation than an honest inquiry. It's almost like are you as good a Christian as I am? Are you saved? It's not our language. And yet, there is no escaping that in the Biblical word we have this language of sSalvation. "You were dead through the trespasses and sins through which you once lived...But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he has made us alive...by grace you have been saved...and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God." The psalmist speaks of God "working salvation in the earth," the prophet, Isaiah, proclaims, "Surely the Lord God is my salvation." The Biblical God is up to something in our world and in our lives, and that something, according to the Bible, is salvation. And for Christians, the New Testament makes it clear that this salvation looks a lot like Jesus. But again, what does it mean for folks like us. Do we need it? Do we want it?
Do you recall these familiar words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor?
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to be free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tosses, to me,
I lift my torch beside the golden door.
Now, maybe not great poetry, and many a cynical word could be spoken in these days of fear-driven immigration debates, about how much light there really is beside the golden door - or border wall. But, in the words of Frederick Buechner, "I think the old words have power in them still, power to move us, to touch us close to where we live. And the reason they have such power, I believe, is that one way or another they are words about us. They are our common past, but they are also about ourselves. In countless ways, both hidden and not so hidden, it is you and I who are homeless and tempest-tossed, waiting on our own Ellis Islands for the great promise to be kept of a new world, a new life, which we haven't yet found. We are the ones who yearn to breathe free, for we live in many ways like strangers and exiles in our own land, captives in the house we have built for ourselves." I don't know, what do you think of that? Do you buy the image of us as wandering immigrants, still looking for home, still yearning to be free, as estranged and lonely as exiles must feel in the place of their captivity? Do you buy the image of us as a people needing deliverance, dare I say, salvation?
Words of Edward, a character in T. S. Eliot's play, The Cocktail Party, come to mind. Edward is one of those people who just cannot seem to get himself off his hands. He finally cries out, "There was a door, and I could not open it. I could not touch the handle. Why could I not walk out of my own prison?" Ever feel that way? Feel so enslaved, so shackled by the old patterns of fear and self-seeking, self-doubt, self-torment, that you don't know how to get the hell out, which, as Buechner reminds us, is much of what hell means - the place you can't get out of. It was C. S. Lewis who once said that in hell, the door is locked from the inside. Do you ever find yourself at home and yet feel like you aren't home? Even in the midst of affluence, do you have those moments when you feel like an empty-handed beggar hungry for food you cannot obtain on your own? Ever feel like you might be in need of some salvation? Where do we turn?
"Come to me all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest...My yoke is easy and my burden is light." "By grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God."
I wonder if we - and that would include me - resist this talk of salvation because, you know, it really is so counter-cultural. Because, you see, salvation is not therapy. It is not about recovery, about having a more positive attitude about oneself. It is much more than us simply feeling good about ourselves or basically making good people better. Salvation is God's work, not ours. It is God reaching out and reclaiming, restoring, re-working us and all creation. Salvation is God reclaiming God's territory, and folks that means you and me. It's not about making the old creation a little better, it is about nothing less than new creation.
I came across a story recently, maybe true, maybe not. You can never be too sure about these stories. In the early days of the 20th century, the Polish pianist Paderewski, was touring America, charming audiences in city after city. A mother who wanted to encourage her son's piano lessons took him to a concert to see and hear the master. Before the concert, she saw a friend and walked over to speak with her. The child saw it as a great opportunity to explore the concert hall, and began wandering around, eventually making his way up the stairs, through a door and onto the stage.
When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered her son missing. About the same time, the curtain rose, the stage lights focused on the big black concert grand, and to her horror, she saw her son sitting at the piano, picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," (stay with me on this) At that moment, Paderewski entered the stage, moved to the piano and whispered to the boy. "Don't quit. Keep playing."
Then, leaning over, he reached down with his left hand and began filling in the bass part. Soon his right hand reached around to the other side and added a running obbligato. Together, the old master and young novice transformed this rather awkward experience into a wonderfully creative one, something the boy could never have accomplished on his own.
And that, I submit, is not a bad illustration of salvation. God moving toward us, intruding on our space, restoring us, claiming us, completing a melody which in many ways we have lost and cannot complete on our own. God inviting us to share in God's life, not in some great bye and bye, but here and now. And isn't this what we Christians see in Christ - a God shockingly personal, available and present, who is determined to make his way to us, determined to catch all of us in the great dragnet of grace.
As I've said, I don't know if any of this has any meaning for you or makes any sense to you. And maybe I'm preaching to me, which, I suppose, preachers do a lot. Maybe I preach this because so often, I do feel like I have lost the melody, somehow lost myself. Oh, I loudly proclaim my freedom, but then there are those times, late at night, when I wonder if maybe I've just become blind to my chains. I preach this because I crave deliverance from my past, my failures, my idolatries, and my inability or refusal to be braver, kinder, wiser, more faithful. I preach this because there are those times when I do feel lost and wonder will I ever be found.
And then I hear Paul speak of the gift of salvation and a new creation. I hear Jesus' words, "Come to me..." And, in that moment, it is like a burst of light in the darkness, a mighty wind blowing away the chaotic clouds of my life. "Come to me..." It is Jesus' reminder of who I am and whose I am. It is Jesus' reminder that, finally, I - all of us -- live by the grace of God alone, a grace which enables us to trust, to hope, to begin again, and which simply refuses to let us go, in this life or any life. Do you get it? Do you get that because of this amazing, saving grace, our lives are so much more than what we do or accomplish or consume or what the world might say or think about us? So much more than our failures or successes. So much more.
A final story told by my mentor in ministry, Bill Nelson. "Once I overheard a woman in a hospital corridor thanking God that Dr. Reynolds had arrived to perform a surgery on her husband. A nurse corrected her by saying. 'You mean Dr. Renfro, Not Reynolds. Dr. Renfro is the only one who can perform this operation.'"
So it is out of my own heart and life, my own struggles and triumphs, that I affirm, yes, Jesus saves - Jesus is Savior. For he is the the Dr. Renfro. He is the one who delivers us from our past, our pain, our despair, our false gods, yes, even from ourselves, that we might then find our true selves in him.