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Communion Meditation
February 28, 1971 ~ First Sunday in Lent

Romans 5:1-5 ; ‘
John M, Buchanan %

Have you ever been driving along a highway, and encountered a large road-
side sign admonishing you to "Get Right With God?" How do you respond when ae “4
you see such a sign? What do you feel inside? The assumption behind the
message on the sign, of course, is that you are not now "right with God",
and that you are clearly responsible for doing something about your predicament.

My educated guess is that while most of us do not spend much time reflcct-
ing on it, our immediate reaction.is somewhat uncomfortable. I would gucss
that many of us consider, at least flectingly, the possibility that the people
who erect signs like that know something we don't know: that, perhaps - just
perhaps, they're right.

Well, I'd like to say at the outset, that the people responsible for
those signs, have not yet heard the Good News. dnd likewise, the people who
feel uncomfortable, way down deep inside, when reading those signs, have not
yet heard or understood the Good News. And that when they get together -
the sign erectors and the ones who feel guilty - they aro going to say and
do things that make irrelevant everything that happened in the year 33 A.D,
in the Roman Province of Judea.

Tho News is that we have been put right with God. The Goodness of the
News is that signs like that are out of date, because something beautiful has
already taken place. The Good News is that when ‘asked "When and where wore
you saved," we may say "Two thousand years ago, on a lonely hill outside
Jerusalem called Calvary." That is when it happened.

{na that is precisely what St. Paul is saying in those five brief
verses I read from his letter to the first century Christian Church in Rome.
"We have been justificd": we have been saved: we have been put right with God:
however, we want to phrase it, Paul would have us grasp the fact that someone

else has taken the initiative and done what was necessary to bridge the gap

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between God and ourselves. It is already snnsesl ee: The task is now to
accept that fact, understand it, live with it, rejoice in it, pblabrate it,
shout it from the roof tops; in a word, to start living like men and women
who have becn put into a new relationship with God and each other.

If Paul had been a professor he might have said it this way: "You all
have A's in the course: you have already passed with flying colors. Now let's
get on with the job of learning the subject."

Carlisle Marnoy, a great preacher with a deep appreciation for the thought.
of the New Testament, in an address at Princeton Seminary, compared Paul to
a wild horse, and went on to observe that for 2,000 ycars the Church has
naively tricd to reign him in, break him, domosticate him. Paul has this
deep and magnificent hold on the grace and love of God: a soonest tits ty to the
universality of this power: and appreciation for the breadth of divine activity
begun in Josus Christ. Paul takes an idea and drives it all tho way home,
and leaves us gasping in amazement. "God was in Christ, reconciling LL mon
to himsclf." What do we make of that radical statement? £11 mon. I+ is
done. It has boen accomplished. Or in Romans 5:1, "Now that wo have been
justifiod....." What do we make of that?

Marney was right. Wetve got to tame that a bit: reign Paul in: he's
gone too far. That's too simple and too good. J/nd so the Church, and wo,
put the bridle on and domesticate this wild theology. ind the method wo use
is to attach conditions to the goodness of tho Good News, until it no longor
gounds good nor resembles anything in the New Testament.

You can be a Christian ~ if - you say the right words and do the right
ietabe. You can be saved — if - you join this particular church, in the
mannor prescribed hore. You can get to heaven ~ if — you refrain from worldly
activitics. Those nigts" are the bridles we attach to the Gogpel of Jesus
Christ. And wo come out of it all = not even sure that we are Christians,

lect alone sure of our salvation.

ase

Ask a group of Prepbyterians sometime if they arc Christians, and you'll
get a lot of answers such as, /"I-don't know. I'm not sure. I don't feel
Like onc. I'm not good enough. I'm trying." There is within mainline | %
Protestantism a distinct lack of certainty, at a very crucial point. ind it
doesn't have to be there at all. To say "I'm trying to become a Christian"
is to say, in effect, "Jesus Christ might just as well not have bothered:
because if I'm ever going to be a Christian it will be because *'ve accomplished -
it, not because of something he did." Just a minor change in wording, however,
makes all the difference in the world. "Yes, I am a Christian. I have beon
put right with God because of what Jesus Christ did. I'm trying now to live
like the saved, reconciled, justified man that I am." That response means
that the Good News is really Good, that Paul was right, and that the orudifix-
tion of Jesus Christ was no fluke.

There ig another dimension to our problem with the Good News. I have
addressed it before, but I continue to feel that it is at the heart of that S
peculiar Presbyterian ambiguity when it comes to affirming ‘that we arc :
Christians, now. Paul talked about "continuing in the peace with God, teen
by our Lord Jesus Christ," and "standing in the sphero of God's grace", and
"God's love hiok is poured into our hearts." The tense of all of that is
present, not future; today, not tomorrow.

Tho Long Range Planning Committee of the Synod of Indiana, of which T
am a momber, recently engaged in a loncthy discussion of the apparent "gpirit-
lessness" in a lot of Presbyterian aonerveseatioris. ifter we had dispersed
with all the fancy theology we got around to asking ourselves a protty funda-
mental quostions "What does it mean to be committed to Jesus Christ? What
does it fool like to be ‘in Christ’. ind we found ourselves stumbling. Not
only couldn't we come up with words to describe our feelings, we weren't at

all comfortable even asking the question.

Vicl1, the words are there: words like peace and forgivenoss and hopo

and love. ind we finally identified our dilomma as not being able to deal
with those words in tho present tense.

That, I belicve, is a major problem for all of us. We are futuro-
oriented, Our personal lives, to a great degree, may be described as always
“banking; for tomorrow". Waiting is the name of the gamc. Waiting for
graduation, or adulthood, or marriage, or a good job, or the next raise, or
for the children to leave home, or for vacation, or for retirement. ind a
life-time of today's slip by us; today's which are empty because wo filled
them up waiting for tomorrow.

I don't think I know anyone who docs not need to learn how to live in,
and. enjoy, the present. I think thero are very few of us who don't necd to
learn the grace of living this day for all it is worth; the grace of gratitude
for this single day - this gift of the world and friends and family and life
which is given to us, one day at a time.

ind in matters religious, I think we need nothing so much as to confront
the fact that whatever justification, or slavation, means, it is a reality
that begins now, on this day, on every new day. For too long, and for too
many people, the only hopo offered by Christian faith, was a home in heaven
after we finally stumble through this "vale of tears." But the real hopo of
the Gospel is that salvation begins now - here - in your life and mine: that
it will be fulfilled gloriously one day; but that it is not just moncy on
deposit - fot something down the line somewhere, but a reality in which we
have beon given to participate - now. Because — God has already *poured out
his love into our hearts." [T.5.V. |

So, together, we begin again the Season of Lent. ind we begin by
returning to basics; by recalling that in Jesus Christ God has done something
now in the history of man: that God has brought His kingdom right into the
midst of humanity: that His kingdom is a reality, hore in the middlo of this

congregation: that we are bound to each other in a now relationship because

in Jomug Chrigt wo have beon forgiven and reconciled with God and inade etormnally

Yo begin Lent with some affirmation about who we are: we have already told rex

cach other the cheerful news that we are forgiven: momentarily we will greet aes BS

gach other with tho peace God has already givon ug. find then wo will share /
a loaf and o oup, romombering that this body was broken, this blood shed, ee
past tonse; it has becn dono: for us. iS
Gail Brunner, a very sophisticated and scholarly theologinn, said it ree ae
in a simple way that cannot be improved. | | | =: a
“le ere not yet at home, but we are on our way ther and we know ; =
_that wo shall reach the goal, the only goal, which may, be callod =
the ond, the glory of God, life eternal. The pueree that this ;
goal is ours is our hope, and whoever has this hope is full of | i
cheer, like someone on the point of taking possession of a
rich inheritance." [p. 41, The Letter to tho Romans ] ; meets
mon. in by.) x

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Our father, help us to overcome our hesitance to rejoice in the Gospel.
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Help us, our fathor, to receive the gift you have given, and to live in the
goodness of the knowledge that you have made us safe - now, and forever. 4 Ce

Through Jesus Christ our dord.
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