(Notes from Tom's sermon on sin and salvation)
The subject of sin and salvation is huge. Collect the ideas of Christian thinkers since Paul: Church Fathers, Medieval theologians, Reformers, Modern Interpreters. If you want to wrestle with its vastness and complexities try Karl Barth: 13 volumes, 35 years, 6 million words, 5 volumes on sin and salvation. Or a shorter task: Hans Kung, 3 500 000 word 1 Volume Theology.
For a few minutes let’s do what Jesus did and narrow salvation down to the personal and look at sin and salvation through a simple story of approximately 500 words addressed to a congregation of ratbags and religious leaders. Recorded in Luke 15 “There was once a man…”
WH Auden: “Life is primarily a continuous succession of choices between alternatives. The journey of life is measured by three or four decisive instants which are all we get and all we need to carry us the whole way.”
From this 500 word story Jesus some “decisive instants” emerge that paint of picture of what salvation is at a deeply personal level of choices between alternatives.
Let’s begin with salvation as Restoration.
We cannot understand the New Testament, indeed the whole Biblical record of Salvation-History, until we grasp the idea of sin as rebellion… assertion of the self… alienation from God. In short, we choose to live in the far country of the our Lord’s story.
The far country takes a myriad shapes and forms but in the teaching of Jesus, the whole of the Bible throbs with words that describe human alienation from God the source of life and the Divine initiatives to restore that relationship.
“The son comes to himself”…”He came to his senses”…. Turns about face and begins the long road back to restoration.
The NT sign of that restoration is baptism. In Baptism we announce that the far country has been left behind, it’s the once for all sacrament of Salvation as restoration. Our faces have turned to the fathers house and we who to all intents and purposes were dead in our selfish rebellion are alive. From the NT until now the Church’s story is alive with this decisive instant where salvation is experienced as restoration.
Then there’s Salvation as Process.
Here’s where the Pharisees in Christ’s congregation begin to feel uneasy…
The Elder Brother fits the pharisaic religious profile. Jesus is no longer preaching and teaching. He’s meddling .
Jesus’ pointed reminder: our self-righteousness can be as much a far country as any rebellious or profligate self-centred existence.
Salvation, says Jesus, is a continuing process…The elder brother at home is as far from the father’s heart as his wayward brother in the far country... All the traits that so often make us religious people unlovely are contained in this graphic picture of the elder brother.
If Baptism is the sacrament of restoration then Communion is the sacrament of process…
Traditional invitation is: “If you truly and earnestly repent of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbour and are resolved to lead a new life following henceforth the commandments of Christ draw near and take this sacrament… Come not because you are righteous… not because you are strong… not because you have any claim on heavens rewards… but because in your frailty and sin you stand in need of heavens mercy and help. The bread and wine, the reconciling death and life giving resurrection of Christ are offered anew to us who, self- righteously religious though we are, need constant saving.
Every time we gather to eat bread and drink wine we acknowledge we are not only restored through God’s amazing grace (“saved”), but are in constant need of being saved.
But there’s another and even more far reaching “decisive instant”. It’s in Christ’s universally embracing picture of
Salvation as Homecoming
Salvation is coming home.
A short note from a friend:
“This winter has been one of the coldest I can remember down here. Thankfully in the providence of God we brought a new log burner at the beginning of the season… Oh the joy…oh the peace…oh the warmth!!! Nothing like coming home when it is about 1-2 degrees in the sun, lighting the fire and then basking in the heat. Something else to be grateful for.” The prodigal’s story adds robe, rings, a fatted calf the guitars and the dancing shoes.
Over the years I have heard some memorable preachers…One W.E. Sangster the great Methodist preacher at Central hall Westminster in the heart of London. In a conference of Ministers at the Pitt St Methodist Sangster told us the 500 word story of the Prodigal Son can be reduced to five words: Sick of home, homesick, home.
The Church is called to be a reflection of that home where God greets us with open arms: whether we’re publicans and sinners wallowing in the far country of rebellion, or religious Pharisees wallowing in the far country of our self-righteousness where too often the saving Gospel we talk about is not even saving us.
The Church is a partial foretaste of that Eternal home where Openness, Acceptance Grace and Hope abound.
Salvation is when North South East and West, the proudly, arrogant and alienated and the pious religious and alienated, Prodigals and Elder brothers, all humanity discover their only true home is in the heart of God.
All salvation history is wrapped up in these words of Christ’s story, in our Lord’s picture of home, “In My father’s home are many rooms… that where I am you may be also.”
The subject of sin and salvation is huge. Collect the ideas of Christian thinkers since Paul: Church Fathers, Medieval theologians, Reformers, Modern Interpreters. If you want to wrestle with its vastness and complexities try Karl Barth: 13 volumes, 35 years, 6 million words, 5 volumes on sin and salvation. Or a shorter task: Hans Kung, 3 500 000 word 1 Volume Theology.
For a few minutes let’s do what Jesus did and narrow salvation down to the personal and look at sin and salvation through a simple story of approximately 500 words addressed to a congregation of ratbags and religious leaders. Recorded in Luke 15 “There was once a man…”
WH Auden: “Life is primarily a continuous succession of choices between alternatives. The journey of life is measured by three or four decisive instants which are all we get and all we need to carry us the whole way.”
From this 500 word story Jesus some “decisive instants” emerge that paint of picture of what salvation is at a deeply personal level of choices between alternatives.
Let’s begin with salvation as Restoration.
We cannot understand the New Testament, indeed the whole Biblical record of Salvation-History, until we grasp the idea of sin as rebellion… assertion of the self… alienation from God. In short, we choose to live in the far country of the our Lord’s story.
The far country takes a myriad shapes and forms but in the teaching of Jesus, the whole of the Bible throbs with words that describe human alienation from God the source of life and the Divine initiatives to restore that relationship.
“The son comes to himself”…”He came to his senses”…. Turns about face and begins the long road back to restoration.
The NT sign of that restoration is baptism. In Baptism we announce that the far country has been left behind, it’s the once for all sacrament of Salvation as restoration. Our faces have turned to the fathers house and we who to all intents and purposes were dead in our selfish rebellion are alive. From the NT until now the Church’s story is alive with this decisive instant where salvation is experienced as restoration.
Then there’s Salvation as Process.
Here’s where the Pharisees in Christ’s congregation begin to feel uneasy…
The Elder Brother fits the pharisaic religious profile. Jesus is no longer preaching and teaching. He’s meddling .
Jesus’ pointed reminder: our self-righteousness can be as much a far country as any rebellious or profligate self-centred existence.
Salvation, says Jesus, is a continuing process…The elder brother at home is as far from the father’s heart as his wayward brother in the far country... All the traits that so often make us religious people unlovely are contained in this graphic picture of the elder brother.
If Baptism is the sacrament of restoration then Communion is the sacrament of process…
Traditional invitation is: “If you truly and earnestly repent of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbour and are resolved to lead a new life following henceforth the commandments of Christ draw near and take this sacrament… Come not because you are righteous… not because you are strong… not because you have any claim on heavens rewards… but because in your frailty and sin you stand in need of heavens mercy and help. The bread and wine, the reconciling death and life giving resurrection of Christ are offered anew to us who, self- righteously religious though we are, need constant saving.
Every time we gather to eat bread and drink wine we acknowledge we are not only restored through God’s amazing grace (“saved”), but are in constant need of being saved.
But there’s another and even more far reaching “decisive instant”. It’s in Christ’s universally embracing picture of
Salvation as Homecoming
Salvation is coming home.
A short note from a friend:
“This winter has been one of the coldest I can remember down here. Thankfully in the providence of God we brought a new log burner at the beginning of the season… Oh the joy…oh the peace…oh the warmth!!! Nothing like coming home when it is about 1-2 degrees in the sun, lighting the fire and then basking in the heat. Something else to be grateful for.” The prodigal’s story adds robe, rings, a fatted calf the guitars and the dancing shoes.
Over the years I have heard some memorable preachers…One W.E. Sangster the great Methodist preacher at Central hall Westminster in the heart of London. In a conference of Ministers at the Pitt St Methodist Sangster told us the 500 word story of the Prodigal Son can be reduced to five words: Sick of home, homesick, home.
The Church is called to be a reflection of that home where God greets us with open arms: whether we’re publicans and sinners wallowing in the far country of rebellion, or religious Pharisees wallowing in the far country of our self-righteousness where too often the saving Gospel we talk about is not even saving us.
The Church is a partial foretaste of that Eternal home where Openness, Acceptance Grace and Hope abound.
Salvation is when North South East and West, the proudly, arrogant and alienated and the pious religious and alienated, Prodigals and Elder brothers, all humanity discover their only true home is in the heart of God.
All salvation history is wrapped up in these words of Christ’s story, in our Lord’s picture of home, “In My father’s home are many rooms… that where I am you may be also.”
