From September 24, 2017
Rev. Shawn Coons

We’re going to get to our second reading in a moment, but first I want to visit briefly a passage from the gospel of John, not even a passage, just one verse, and not even one verse, but just a part of a verse. It’s the first part of John 1:14 and if you were to open your pew Bible it would read: And the Word became flesh and lived among us.  If you don’t know much about what’s going on in the first chapter of John that’s OK. Let me just tell you that it’s a poetic and symbolic summary of how and why Jesus comes into the world.

In this chapter, the author refers to Jesus as “the Word.”  The first verse of the chapter is: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God and the Word was with God. But right now I’m more interested in: And the Word became flesh and lived among us. And even more than being interested in that verse, I’m interested in how John 1:14 is translated in a translation/paraphrase of the Bible called The Message. Here’s how it reads: Jesus moved into the neighborhood.

Now, technically, that’s not really a good translation of this verse.  But, I want to suggest to you it may be a good interpretation of this verse. Jesus moved into the neighborhood. And even more than a good interpretation of this verse, I think it is a good theological summary of much of Jesus’ ministry and who he was.

Jesus moved into the neighborhood.

Right now, at Fairview, we are in the middle of a Sunday morning series on “Neighboring: God’s Plan for Taking Care of Each Other.”  We’re learning about God’s call to love God by loving our neighbor, we’re taking specific steps to practice loving our neighbors. And this falls right in the beginning of a larger journey we are on as a church of learning about our neighbors, learning about our community, listening to God and seeing how God is busy in our neighborhood and figuring out how God is calling us to be part of that work.

All of this hinges on getting to know our neighbors. And that’s what I want to focus on today. And not figuratively. We’re going to explore getting to know our neighbors, my neighbors, your neighbors, the churches neighbors. The people that are near us. The people that we interact with and see day to day.

Before we go further, I want you to do an exercise with me.  This is something you can write down or you can just do mentally.  I want you to name your neighbors.  Take the houses around you, next door, across the street, on the other side of your back yard. And write the names down of the people who live there. Parents, children. Extra credit for pets.

In the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, we don’t have any record of where Jesus lived and who his literal neighbors might have been, but we have plenty of examples of Jesus encountering people in their homes, where they work, where the live. In their neighborhoods.  Ruby read the story of the calling of Levi (who we know as Matthew). Levi was a tax collector, Jesus met him at work and called him to follow, and then the next scene takes place at Levi’s home where he is having Jesus and other guest over for a big dinner.

We have a similar story in Luke 19:1-10. Another tax collector, another meeting in a neighborhood, and another invitation to dinner at home.

He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” 

So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

This passage starts in Jericho.  Jericho was a nice city. It was on a major trade route. It exported a lot of crops and goods. There was one point in earlier history where Mark Anthony was supposed to have presented Jericho as a gift to Cleopatra. Zacchaeus appears to be the chief tax collector for the Romans in Jericho, and that’s a pretty good job, in some respects.  With all this trade, with all this wealth, there were plenty of taxes to be collected.

Taxes worked a bit differently in the Roman world. It was kind of a franchise deal. Each city or area would have a tax collector, and Rome would tell that tax collector how much taxes he was to collect from the city.  This was how much money the collector owed Rome on the area’s behalf.  But Rome didn’t say that the tax collector only had to collect that much.  He was free to collect more in taxes from the people, and then keep the extra for himself. 

The more taxes a collector collects, the more money he pockets.

That’s Zacchaeus’s job.  So he is hitting people up for their fair share of taxes, and then some.  Add onto this that he was a Jew helping the Roman occupiers.  It is safe to say that Zacchaeus was probably not a popular man in the Jewish town of Jericho.

But then one day, Jesus is “passing through” Jericho. He’s walking through the city, walking through the neighborhoods. And he’s kind of like a rock star, all these people want to see Jesus, including Zacchaeus. And so the crowds start forming. The Bible says that Zacchaeus is not a tall man, so he climbs up a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus.  And then something happens. And this is where we get our first lesson from Jesus about getting to know our neighbors.

What happens is that Jesus sees Zacchaeus. Jesus looks up into that sycamore tree and sees Zacchaeus, who is trying to see Jesus.  I wonder, how often do we see our neighbors?  How often do we see the people we live near? Literally, how often do you see your neighbors?  Earlier I asked you to name your neighbors, now take that list or mental list and think of the last time you saw them. Maybe in the yard, walking the dog, driving to work.  When was the last time you saw your neighbors?

Back to Jesus and Zacchaeus.  Jesus sees Zacchaeus, and then, he speaks to him. He tells Zacchaeus to get down from that tree and hurry home because Jesus is coming over for dinner.

When was the last time you spoke to your neighbors?  Take a moment to think of the last time that you had a conversation with them.

Now as you are doing this, I’ll confess that I was a little ashamed as I did this exercise myself.  I’d love to tell you that I could name every one of my neighbors in the eight houses closest to us. I couldn’t. I could name at least one person in each house, but maybe not their spouse or all their kids.  We had a neighborhood block party this past weekend, so I did a little bit better in the last time I talked to them.  But I still wasn’t pleased with how little I’ve had conversation with some of my neighbors.

Marie who lives on one side of us, we see and talk to her with some frequency. She loves to work in her yard, and it’s common to say hi or have a conversation with her.  On the day of the eclipse a month ago, Carrie and I had a fun time of 20-30 minutes passing around our one pair of eclipse glasses with her and her son-in-law. But our neighbor, JoAnn, on the other side works in her lawn a fair amount, and I haven’t talked with her as much. Our neighbors across the street we don’t hardly see at all.

But Jesus speaks with Zacchaeus, and as we read, he does more than that. Jesus isn’t satisfied with a passing greeting in the street. He wants to sit down with Zacchaeus, to break bread with him, get to know him. Even though it causes quite a stir with those “religious folks” who can’t believe that Jesus would spend time with a tax collector.

But, look what happens!  Even before they leave the scene, even before they get to Zacchaeus’s house, Zacchaeus makes a promise to Jesus that he will stop his crooked ways, he will repay fourfold those he has cheated, and he will use his wealth to help those in need.  I guarantee you that people were surprised and shocked when they heard Zacchaeus say this.  But it’s even more interesting than that. The tense of the Greek verb here suggests that this may not be a new promise, that this is a present action that Zacchaeus is doing and he is promising to continue it.

If this was the case, I wonder if any of Zacchaeus’s neighbors knew this about him.  Had anyone taken the time to get to know Zacchaeus, to learn that he might be more than just a despised tax collector? Did anyone know why he was so eager to see Jesus?

When we take the time to get to know our neighbors, we are bound to be surprised at what we learn about them. There’s a church in Colorado, that decided they wanted to make loving their neighbors an important part of each person’s walk as a Christian, and that began with knowing their neighbors. So they challenged each person at the church to begin to know their neighbors, their names, what’s going on in their lives, their hopes, their challenges. I want us to watch a brief video where one couple tells of their experience.

I’d like to invite you to love your neighbors by knowing your neighbors. Maybe for some of you, you really do know your neighbors well, but I’m guessing for many of us, it’s something we could work on.

Before I end, I’d also like to give you another resource to help you love your neighbors and get to know your neighborhood.  In your bulletin, you should have a sheet that describes what a neighborhood prayer walk is.

Neighborhood prayer walking is just what it sounds like. Praying and walking in your neighborhood.  It is an activity that allows you to not just enjoy the outdoors and a nice walk, but to be mindful and aware of where you are, who is there, what is special about your neighborhood, what is unique. It also allows you to see with a new lens, so to speak. To look for things you may not have noticed before, to have God guide you to see new things, or to pray in specific ways.

I invite you to take this home and try prayer walking your own neighborhood this week. I’d also like to invite you to come next Sunday at 10:00 a.m. and we will be sent out to prayer walk the neighborhood around Fairview. Then we will gather briefly to share what we experienced on our individual walks.

Love God. Love Neighbor. Jesus said that that sums it up.

I’m game! How about you?

From September 10, 2017
Rev. Shawn Coons

In the beginning of Matthew, chapter 21, Jesus enters triumphantly into Jerusalem.  The crowds adore him and praise him. This is what we celebrate on Palm Sunday. The day that Jesus had a rock star entrance into Jerusalem.  And then Jesus gets down to business. He goes to the temple, the heart of first century Judaism and he overturns the table of the money changes and vendors there.  He takes on the religious authorities of his own Jewish faith with this bold and defiant act.

This action begins a series of confrontations and arguments with the Jewish authorities, the Scribes and Pharisees, that take place over the next few chapters of Matthew. After coming into Jerusalem like a king, cleansing the temple, and having his authority challenged by the chief priests, Jesus goes on to tell those leaders that tax collectors and prostitutes will make it into God’s Kingdom before they will. He tells a story of a landlord and some wicked murderous tenants, and tells the Scribes and Pharisees that they are like those evil tenants. Then tells another story of a wedding banquet where those originally invited were judged not worthy to come, and makes it clear that it’s the Jewish authorities who God is uninviting to God’s banquet.

In short, Jesus comes into Jerusalem ready to confront and condemn the Scribes and Pharisees. Ready to take on the powers that be. And in just a few days, Jesus makes so much trouble, so many enemies, that he is arrested, tried, tortured and executed as a criminal.

I wanted to set the stage of these penultimate chapters in Matthew, because it’s where we find a passage of Scripture that many of us are familiar with.  It’s a passage about love, and we often think of love as a beautiful, soft, warm, fuzzy, tingly feeling or emotion. Love makes our hearts swoon. Love lifts us up where we belong. Love is a many splendored thing.

But as we read this passage about love, I want us to remember that this was part of what got Jesus killed.  So as we listen to this passage that you may have heard before, listen for what’s dangerous in what Jesus said. Listen for its subversive nature. Listen and try to figure out what is so offensive about what Jesus says.

Matthew 22:34-40

34When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”37He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

As I said a moment ago, in this part of Matthew the religious leaders are trying hard to get at Jesus. He and his movement are becoming a threat to the order of the day, to the powers that be, and they want him stopped. So, they are trying to catch him doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing.  They bring out all these religious experts and all sorts of legal experts, and they try time and time again to get him to convict himself by doing or saying the wrong thing.

Then this lawyer comes to Jesus. Not this is not a lawyer as we think of it, but a person studied and Jewish law and scripture. And he asks Jesus, which is the greatest commandment?  The lawyer knew that there were over 600 different laws in Jewish scripture. And he’s hoping Jesus will pick one, so that the lawyer can accuse Jesus of ignoring the others. Or if Jesus says they are all important, then the lawyer can get on Jesus for the times he broke certain laws like working on the sabbath or hanging out with the wrong kind of people.

Jesus could have avoided answering. He’s done it before. Jesus could have answered the question with another question, putting the lawyer on the spot. But instead he answers straightforwardly. He quotes Deuteronomy 6 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.” And it’s kind of hard to argue with that. This is the command that God told the Israelites to remember, to teach to their children, to literally wear it on their bodies and post it in their homes.

But Jesus isn’t done. He then goes on to add a second greatest commandment.  The lawyer asked for one commandment, but Jesus goes for extra credit. He quotes Leviticus 19:17-18: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Then he adds one more thing for good measure. On these two commandments hand all the law and the prophets. So, Jesus answered the trick question by highlighting two commandments that encompassed all 600+ commandments. 

In one answer, Jesus essentially says to this group of religious leaders, who feel they know it all that love of God and love of neighbor aren’t parallel endeavors. They are mutually interdependent. You can’t have one without the other.  If you love God you will love your neighbor. When you love your neighbor, you are loving God.

And I find it very telling that Jesus lays down this profound rule of love in the midst of his confrontations with the authorities. Jesus is confrontational, he is disruptive, he is in your face. Why? Because he likes to make trouble? No. Because he has a chip on his shoulder? No. Jesus is making waves because he is following the greatest commandment. To love God and love neighbor.

Lance Pape, Homiletics professor at Brite Divinity School, writes:

Our definition of “love” is often suspiciously easy on and for us. But this is not the definition of love that Jesus is working with in Matthew. The Jesus we see in these stories thinks that to love God with the whole self, with “all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind” (verse 37) is demanding and risky. Following the path of love leads him to jump into debates and conflicts with his whole self. Love leads Jesus into all kinds of situations that are not just uncomfortable, but dangerous.

The same love that inspired Jesus to eat with the outcast, reach out to the untouchable, and embrace the powerless, also drove him to confront the demonic, outmaneuver the manipulative, and correct the clueless. 

So let’s pause for a moment. This week we are beginning a series on Neighboring: God’s Plan for Taking Care of One Another.  And maybe it seems a bit odd, to talk about loving your neighbor by saying that Jesus’ confrontations and condemnation of the religious authorities are how Jesus showed love.

Am I saying that I want you to love your neighbor by confronting them with hypocrisy or wrongdoing? I can just see it now, some of you are getting some idea. You’re thinking of that neighbor who doesn’t mow their lawn often enough, or who plays loud music late at night, parks in front of your yard.  You’ll be knocking on their door this afternoon, and saying, “I love you neighbor, and my pastor said that I could show it by pointing out what an insensitive jerk you are!”

That’s not quite what I had in mind, and it’s not quite what scripture has in mind.  The point of putting Jesus saying, ‘love God love your neighbor’ in the midst of his religious confrontations is to demonstrate what love is and isn’t.

So often today, we think of love primarily as a feeling. It’s warm and fuzzy, it’s overwhelming. Love makes you do silly and romantic things. Love is cheery and pleasant.  But what we read in scripture about love, specifically the kind of love God practices and calls us to practice, is that love isn’t a feeling. Love is a commitment to act. Love isn’t something we get caught up in, but it’s something we choose to do.

To love our neighbor, is not to have warm feelings for them, it is to act lovingly towards them. To make a conscious choice to put their needs on the same level as our own.  Think about it. Elsewhere in the gospels Jesus calls us to love our enemies. This doesn’t mean, this can’t mean, feel lovingly towards them. That’s not realistic. What it does mean that even if we don’t feel love for someone, especially when we don’t feel love for someone, we have to consciously choose actions of love towards them.

Alyce MacKenzie writes:

Biblical love is not passive. It is not something that occurs to us without our control or will. Biblical love is something we do. It is loving-kindness, merciful action that is both generous and continuous. Herein is the good news for Christian people. To love neighbor as oneself is to act toward the other as one would act toward those close to you. We treat the stranger as well as we treat those that we love emotionally.

God never commands us to feel love, but to do love.

To love the neighbor (including our enemies) does not mean to feel affection for them, but to imitate God in taking their needs seriously.

So, no matter how you feel towards your neighbor, and by neighbor God means your literal neighbor, your family member, your co-worker, your boss, your enemy, a stranger that you see on the road, anyone. No matter how you feel towards your neighbor, if we love ourselves more than our neighbor, then we are not acting as a Christian. We are failing at the greatest commandment.

Over the next few weeks we are going to be talking about what it looks like to love your neighbor, not what it feels like. I will be asking you to do specific things to love your neighbor, get to know your neighbor, to think about what does it look like to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. But we won’t just be talking about loving God through loving your neighbor. We will be choosing to act.

Next week we will be having the Day of Caring. We will be joining Presbyterian churches all over the Indianapolis area in loving acts of service to our neighbors.  We will meet here at 10:00 a.m. Have a very brief service of prayer and then disperse to different places to serve.

On September 24th we will be back for our regular worship service and the sermon will be focused on our literal neighbors, the people that we live next to, and how can we get to know them better so that we can love them better.  You will get some resources to take home with you that day that will help you get to know your neighbors, and get to know your neighborhood. You will take home with you that day a guide for prayer walking. A guide to help you walk through your neighborhood while praying for those who live there, and keeping your eyes and ears open to see what God moves you to see there.

On October 1, at 10:00 a.m. we will gather to do the same sort of prayer walking in Fairview’s neighborhood. The church is called to be a good neighbor, and since you are the church you are an integral part of loving Fairview’s literal neighbors. After we are done walking, we will come back for our regular worship service and hear more in worship about Fairview’s call to love our neighbors, and what that might look like at a congregational level.

Let me close by reminding you of Alyce MacKenzie’s words I read earlier:

Biblical love is not passive. It is not something that occurs to us without our control or will. Biblical love is something we do. It is loving-kindness, merciful action that is both generous and continuous.

Our faith is not a romantic comedy or a good love story. We can’t just sit around waiting to feel love for our neighbor. It’s something that we choose, whether we feel it or not.  With that in mind, I want to give you some homework. As you go from here today, as you go about your week. As you are at school, or at work, or at home, or with friends, I want you to consciously observe every chance you have to choose to love your neighbor.

Take note of the times when you could have chosen to say something or do something that would have expressed God’s love for someone. A kind word, a helping hand, a listening ear, a needed gift, anything that someone needed that you could have provided. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, so ask yourself throughout the day: If I was that person what would I need right now? What would make me feel loved?

Choose to love your neighbor throughout the week, and be mindful of the opportunities to choose that present themselves to you.

’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

From August 27, 2017
Rev. Shawn Coons

Can God forgive me for anything?  This is the final question in our short series, “Simple Questions. Simple Answers?” Our first two questions, “is science the enemy of faith?” and “can God save non-Christians?” dealt directly with misperceptions about Christian faith held by many people outside of the church.  Today’s question does as well.

Unfortunately, there are many people who believe that Christianity teaches about a punishing God. I God who is eternally vigilant in waiting for us to mess up so that God can quickly deliver punishment, or write it down on our divine scorecard to be used against us at a later date.  It is also unfortunate that it is mostly Christians who have perpetuated the myth of God who is based on punishment.

To be fair, there are definitely scripture passages that illustrate that there are punishing consequences for sin.  If you remember Jesus story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. Lazarus was a poor man who suffered in his lifetime, while the rich man lived a life of luxury. After they both died, their fates were reversed and Lazarus was taken care of at Abraham’s side, and the rich man was in the torment of Hades.  Then there’s Exodus, were God punishes the Pharaoh and the Egyptians for keeping the Hebrew people as slaves.

But what Christians have done with passages like this is fixated on them and elevated them above the larger witness of Scripture which shows God is a loving, forgiving God.  And so we have works like Dante’s Inferno, which is a book detailing the various circles of Hell and the punishment God has in store for each type of sinner. 

A more recent example that I witnessed, was when a group of us from Fairview marched in the Indy Pride Parade.  We were there to let our LGBT neighbors know that they are loved by Fairview and by God, but at one point we marched by a group of Christians with signs condemning people who are gay and detailing the punishment that God had in store for them.

It’s no wonder people think God is judgmental and punishing. It’s no wonder people think Christians are judgmental and punishing.  God’s message of love, mercy, forgiveness and grace speaks louder throughout scripture than punishment and condemnation, but that doesn’t always come across, does it?  So it’s important for us, as Christians and as Fairview Presbyterian Church, to be loud in proclaiming God’s love so that our faith is represented accurately. This is one reason we are addressing the question, “Can God Forgive Me for Anything?”

But I think there’s a more important reason, today, and that is for us. And maybe more specifically for some of us.

Can God Forgive Me for Anything? Simple Question, and the Simple Answer is yes. An absolute,  unqualified yes. This is the fundamental bedrock of our faith. But the problem is, there may be someone here this morning who cannot believe this, you think it sounds too good to be true. Especially for you. Maybe there is something that you have done, something you think is so bad, something that hurt someone deeply, and you can’t imagine every being forgiven for it.

You are unable to forgive yourself, and so you can’t imagine a loving and holy God being willing to forgive you.

There was a movie in 1986 called The Mission. It was set in the 1700s and follows a Jesuit priest, Father Gabriel, as he works with a remote tribe in the jungles of Argentina.  In this movie Robert DeNiro plays a slaver, Rodrigo Mendoza, who in the past has kidnapped members of this tribe to sell into slavery.  He later repents of his actions and goes with Father Gabriel to work with the tribe he once enslaved.

But he carries the guilt of his sins with him. Literally. As they are going up through the mountains into the jungle, as penance, Mendoza bundles his heavy armor and weapons together and ties them to his back to pull up the mountain.  He cannot imagine forgiveness for his sins of slavery and so he punishes himself as he feels God must be punishing him.  Let’s watch a short clip of this:

Mission Video #1

I wonder if that seems familiar to any of you. Are you carrying a burden that weighs you down? A burden of something you’ve done in the past that you can’t let go, that you can’t forgive yourself for, and certainly can’t imagine God ever forgiving you for?

If so, I want to state again. Can God Forgive You for Anything? Yes. 100% yes.

But don’t believe me. Believe Jesus, as he speaks with a woman accused of sin and facing the punishment for that sin. A reading from John chapter 8:

 2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 

7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.* 9When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11She said, ‘No one, sir.’* And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’]]* 

If you are someone who is holding on to something you think is unforgivable, then maybe you can relate to the woman in this story.  Here she is, her sins exposed for all to bear witness to.  Imagine the emotions she is feeling at this moment. Fear. Shame. Remorse. Imagine how she feels about herself. She feels like a sinner, unworthy. She knows what she has done. How can Jesus forgive her? These scribes and Pharisees have made clear to her what they think God has in store for her.  She’s guilty. She knows it. She feels it.

Now at this time, there’s really no historical evidence to suggest that stoning took place in situations like this.  But certainly there would public judgment and punishment of some sort.  And these scribes and Pharisees are looking to Jesus to condemn and punish.  And they are appealing to Jewish scripture, our Old Testament, as the basis for their (and God’s) condemnation.

But what they are conveniently overlooking, is the rich Old Testament and Jewish tradition of a forgiving God, of a God who from the very beginning acknowledges that we are sinners and makes plans and paths for forgiveness and reconciliation.

Lauren read a moment ago from Psalm 103:

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
   slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 
9 He will not always accuse,
   nor will he keep his anger for ever. 
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
   nor repay us according to our iniquities. 

The Bible shows us that forgiveness and mercy is fundamental to who God is.  Let’s go way back to Genesis. Within the first four chapters, there are two egregious sins committed, and if any sin was unforgivable it might be these two.  In Genesis chapter 2, the second creation story we find in the Bible, God creates Adam and Eve, God creates the Garden of Eden, God gives them everything they need and gives them free reign, except for one thing, right? God says, see that tree there, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Don’t eat from that. See all the other trees? Have at them! That tree, no. Everything else, all yours. God says, don’t do that thing, so what do they do?  They do that thing?

Immediately, they rebel against God. And according to Genesis, God punishes them. There are consequences for their actions, but God also provides for them. Moves them from the garden, makes sure they can’t get back to it, but provides for them by still giving them animals for food, the ground to work, and clothes to wear. God could have said, “Well, that didn’t work,” and decided to get rid of Adam and Eve and start again. But God essentially, said, “You screwed up, but I’m not giving up on you. There’s a way forward and a way back to me.”

In the next chapter, Genesis chapter 4, we have the story of Cain and Abel.  Cain murders his brother out of jealousy, and God punishes him with exile, but when Cain is fearful for his like God protects him with the “mark of Cain” so that all will know the he is under God’s care. Even in this sin, even when God has a right to be most angry, God is keeping the door open, saying “I am not ready to give up on you.”

Then fairly quickly in Genesis and later more fully developed in Exodus and Leviticus, we have an ordained system of sacrifices as a way to repent for sin. A way to reconcile with God and be forgiven for sin.  From the very beginning there is a strong message from God that says our relationship with God is not based on us being perfect, but forgiven.  Our relationship with God is not based on whether or not we sin, because guess what, we will sin.  We don’t have to be perfect, we aren’t perfect, just forgiven.

That’s hard to admit for some of us. Marjory Bankson, author of The Call to the Soul, recalls a conversation with her mother, a recovering alcoholic, in which her mother wondered why she could be more honest about sin at her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting than she could be at church.  The only answer she could come up with is “because they know it’s a matter of life and death at AA and they don’t at church.”

We could learn a thing or two from Alcoholics Anonymous.  What if I came up here and said, “Hi, my name is Shawn, and I’m a sinner,” and then shared with you my struggles with sin.  And after me, someone from over here came forward and did the same thing.  Just take a moment to imagine how you would feel as you walked forward with everyone’s eyes on you, stepped up to the microphone with a lump in your throat, and then looked out at everyone gathered here today and admitted to us that you were a sinner.  I know I would find it a little scary and pretty intimidating.  How about you?

But, you know what?  It shouldn’t be embarrassing.  There’s no reason that anyone of us should be afraid or ashamed to admit our sinfulness to one another, because we are all sinners.  Each and every one of us! 

This is why it is so important to answer the question, “Can God Forgive Me for Anything?”  Because some of us know all to well that we are sinners, and the problem isn’t being honest about your sin, the problem is not being honest enough about the forgiveness God will grant.

Oswald Chambers, in his devotional book My Utmost for His Highest, says that “Forgiveness is accepted, not earned.”  Forgiveness is accepted, not earned.

Let’s go back to John chapter 8. At the end of this passage, Jesus forgives this woman by pointing out that there is no one there to condemn her, including himself. She doesn’t ask for his forgiveness. She doesn’t repent. She doesn’t do anything but accept the forgiveness offered by God.  Now I could certainly make an argument, that accepting God’s forgiveness can’t truly happen without some sort of remorse or repentance. But the forgiveness and mercy of God is there before we can truly grasp our need of it.

Remember where we left slaver Rodrigo Mendoza literally carrying his burden of sin behind him?  Let’s watch another clip that begins when he and his party meet the tribe that he had formally enslaved. Let’s watch what happens when they recognize him and the burden he is carrying.

Mission Video #2

Let me close with a story from Norman Neaves:

A young father and his daughter were on a cruise, a "get-away" cruise because his wife/her mother had just died. Turning to one another to help relieve the pain, they huddled together on board ship. And on the deck of that ship the little girl asked her father: "Daddy, does God love us as much as Mommy did?"

At first, the father didn't know what to say. But he knew he couldn't side-step the question. Pointing out across the water to the most distant horizon, he said, "Honey, God's love reaches farther than you can see in that direction." Turning around he said, "And God's love reaches farther than you can see in that direction, too." And then the father looked up at the sky and said, "And God's love is higher than the sky, too." Finally he pointed down at the ocean and said, "And it's deeper than the ocean as well."

Then the little girl said "Oh, just think, Daddy. We're right here in the middle of it all!"

We are right in the middle of God’s love, wider, higher and deeper than we can ever imagine. Know that you are forgiven, for anything, and be at peace.

From August 27, 2017
Rev. Shawn Coons

“Can God save non-Christians?” That’s the question we are asking and answering in week2 of our series: Simple Questions. Simple Answers?  In this series, I’ve promised to give you simple and direct answers to these questions, and I’ll get to that in a moment.  But first, a reminder about why we are doing looking at these questions.

It’s important to ask these questions and answer these questions.  Because these are questions that we have as Christians, but for people outside the church – they often feel like they know how we Christians will answer these questions. This is why people say things that aren’t so flattering about the church. “Why do Christian think science is bad?” “Why do Christians think God will punish everyone but them?” “How can you believe in a God that is so punishing?”

We Christians, as a group, have done a lot to misrepresent God and to misrepresent our faith.  And it’s important to answer these misconceptions directly, understanding how they might have come about, but being unwilling to let them continue.

So, our question this morning, “Can God Save Non-Christians?”  Yes.  But this question needs a whole lot of unpacking to understand why we say the answers is “yes.”

Let’s begin by trying to understand the question a bit more specifically. “Can God Save Non-Christians?”  What do we mean by save?  The language of salvation, being saved, Jesus saves, is common in Christianity, and usually what is meant is the idea that all humanity, every one of us, starts as a sinner, a sinner who has sinned against God and is condemned to an eternal fate of separation or punishment from God.

And the only way a sinner can be spared from that fate is to become a Christian. To place trust in Jesus and commit one’s life to following Jesus. In many Christian traditions, this is synonymous with saying a prayer “inviting Jesus into your heart.”  It is this moment of accepting Jesus that marks when one becomes a Christian.  And at the end of time, on judgment day, God will save Christians from the eternal punishment that all of us, as sinners, supposedly deserve.

This is the most common understanding of what it means to be saved. It may or may not be the most complete or correct understanding. But when the question is asked, “Can God Save Non-Christians?” what is meant is usually “when someone dies who isn’t Christian, whether that’s someone of another faith or no faith, can God spare them from eternal punishment, can they go to heaven?”

Now I want to point out that this is merely one understanding of what salvation may mean.  And there are some larger problems with it.  The Bible speaks with different voices and images of what the endgame of Christian faith is.  Certainly, there is language about an afterlife and places called Heaven and Hell. The Bible also talks about the Kingdom of God being already among us, but not yet complete, and that it is this here and not yet here but coming Kingdom that encompasses salvation. Other places in scripture talk about a new earth at the end of time, not an otherworldly afterlife.

Within the next few months, we’ll be doing a sermon series on different Biblical understandings of salvation, the kingdom of God, the afterlife, revelation, and the ultimate end for Christians. But for this morning’s purpose, let’s stick with the typical understanding of being saved, so we ask will only Christians be spared an afterlife of eternal punishment or separation from God, or “Can non-Christians be saved?”

And again, I assert that our particular Christian tradition answers that with a solid “yes.”

In a 2002 PC(USA) study paper entitled “Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ,” the following is written:

Jesus Christ is the only Savior and Lord, and all people everywhere are called to place their faith, hope, and love in him. No one is saved by virtue of inherent goodness or admirable living, for “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” [Ephesians 2:8]. No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus Christ. Yet we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of “God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [1 Timothy 2:4]. Thus, we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith. Grace, love, and communion belong to God, and are not ours to determine.

“we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of “God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”

“we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith.”

Essentially, the authors of this paper fall back on a fundamental Presbyterian belief found in scripture, that God is 100% in charge, God is the ultimate power in all creation, and God can do whatever God wants to do. So, if God wants to save non-Christians, then God absolutely can.

But far be it from me to have anyone take the word of a committee, even though we Presbyterians love our committees, let’s go to the biblical understanding that underlies our answer.

Ephesians 2:1-10

You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ*—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing”

 Let me give you one piece of background on the book of Ephesians that is important to our message this morning.  This letter is attributed to Paul, but most scholars today believe that it was writing after Paul’s death, most likely by a student of Paul or a follower of Paul’s theology.  One of the reasons biblical scholars think this letter is not from Paul, as well as several other supposedly Pauline letters in the New Testament, is because of the shift in the understanding of Jesus’ return.

In Paul’s early letters Paul writes as if Jesus will be returning to gather his followers within his lifetime. He writes as if he and the other early Christians will still be living when Jesus returns.  But in these later letters, there is an understanding that Jesus hasn’t returned as thought and that it may be a while.  So while Paul seems to assume that Jesus will be coming soon, and who is saved and who isn’t will be pretty clear before too long. These later letters assume that it could be a long time before Jesus comes and resolves these questions, so there is more attention placed on who is saved and how we are saved.

So in this passage from Ephesians,  the author makes pretty clear that being saved is nothing that we do, and has everything to do with God’s action.

“for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing”

 This is not your own doing. That’s pretty clear, but early in the passage it is even more clear.  The passage begins by saying “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived.”  “You were dead.”  If we were dead, and God gave us new life, then we didn’t do anything to deserve it, earn it, or bring it in any way, shape, or form to us.  Now, often Christians want to nuance this by saying, sure, we didn’t do anything to earn or deserve God’s grace, all we have to do is accept it. But even accepting it is doing something, isn’t it?

The writer of Ephesians says that we were dead in sin, can dead people accept gifts?  Imagine someone swimming at the ocean. He is out in the waves and a big one sweeps him under and he loses his breath, inhales a lungful of water and goes unconscious.  Fortunately, there’s a lifeguard on the shore who sees this and she swims out and reaches him just in time.

Imagine if the lifeguard said to that unconscious person, “I need you to swim back to shore, please.” Does the lifeguard wait for the person to accept help? No, the lifeguard brings him back to the shore, with no help or assistance from the unconscious person.  When the lifeguard gets to shore, does she say, “Sir, I know you’re unconscious but I need you to start breathing please?” No, she begins mouth to mouth resuscitation and gives him new life with her own breath.

This is our understanding of how God saves. It is not our own doing. There is no God’s part and our part. There is just God. We were dead to sin. Dead people don’t help the doctor.  Richard Carlson, a New Testament professor at Lutheran Seminary, looks at the grammar of this passage to make this point. He writes:

"You have been saved by grace." Here the Greek use of a passive, perfect periphrastic participle bears comment. The use of the passive voice underscores how we are totally passive when it comes to being saved. God's grace has accomplished our salvific reality. The use of the perfect tense and periphrastic participle emphasizes the duration of our being saved. It was accomplished in the past and remains our reality into the coming ages.

 Ok, I admit, one reason that I read that was just to say, “passive perfect periphrastic participle.”  But the point he is making is that the tense of the Greek indicates that our being saved happened a long, long time ago, and that it is ongoing into the far future.  Our being saved, happened before we could ever have anything to do with it.

Martin Luther, in a debate with the great humanist, Erasmus, illustrated this idea another way. Erasmus pictured God’s rescue like this. It was like a mother helping a baby learn to walk. She holds the baby’s hand, steadies the baby’s little body, let’s the baby take a few unsteady steps, and then catches the baby when she falls. No, said Luther, with characteristic bluntness, it was like a caterpillar surrounded by a ring of fire. God reached down and plucked the helpless creature from certain death.

So, we don’t do anything to deserve, earn, or receive our salvation. It is by grace, it is completely not our doing. And so, if God can save us independent of our belief or actions, then why can’t God save anyone else, even non-Christians, independent of their beliefs or actions? This is why we say, yes, God can save non-Christians.

Now here’s the catch, just because God can does not mean God will or has to. Remember the excerpt from the study paper:

we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith.

God is sovereign, God’s in charge, we don’t determine what God must or mustn’t do.  In fact, we try to stick to the things that we know about God and what God wants from us. Another passage from the Hope in Christ Alone study paper reads:

Christians find parallels between other religions and their own and must approach all religions with openness and respect. Repeatedly God has used the insight of non-Christians to challenge the church to renewal. But the reconciling word of the gospel is God’s judgment upon all forms of religion , including the Christian. The gift of God in Christ is for all. The church, therefore, is commissioned to carry the gospel to all, whatever their religion may be and even when they profess none.

“The church, therefore, is commissioned to carry the gospel to all, whatever their religion may be and even when they profess none.” Just because God can save non-Christians, we are not relieved of our call to share the gospel message of love and justice with others. There is a strong Biblical message that says the job of Christians is to be bearers of good news throughout the world. We are to talk with people about our faith, sharing what God means to us, wanting others to experience the blessings and joys of faith that we have experienced.  It may be possible that there are other paths to God that we don’t know about. But as long as we do know about the path that Christianity shows us to God, we are called to invite others to walk that path with us.

Here’s how I like to think of it.  When I met my wife, Carrie, in seminary. Her parents, Richard and Nancy, lived in Ashland, KY. Her dad was serving as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Ashland.  We would visit them in Ashland with some frequency, and eventually we were engaged and got married in Ashland. Ashland is right off of interstate 64 where Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia come together, it’s on the bank of the Ohio River, and it’s in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, and it’s quite confusing to navigate in. 

Most of the roads don’t go straight, but wind through the foothills. I grew up in Iowa. It was flat and most of the roads were in a grid, so when this midwestern boy was dropped in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, I got lost pretty easily.  But eventually, I learned how to drive from Carrie’s parents’ house to downtown. And I was pretty proud of myself.

But then Carrie would say, “There’s a faster way if you go down this street.” Or “If you’d like there’s a neat way to downtown that goes by the hospital…”  And each time I would say, “No, thank you. There may be faster ways. There may be better ways. But there is one way I know, and I know it will get me to where I need to be. I will stick with that.”

I think this is how we can approach Christianity. Our faith is a path to God, it is a path to salvation.  There may be other paths to God, there may even be better paths to God, but this the one path we know of, and we know it will take us where we need to go. So rather than speculate on other paths that may or may not lead to God, we are called to share the one path we know for certain does lead to God.

So, can God save non-Christians? Yes. This is one of several reasons that we are called to treat other faiths and people of other faiths with respect. But this doesn’t lessen our call as Christians to share, with respect and love, that path that God has shown to us.