On the Way to Salvation...

(Uriel and Carmel Presbyterian Churches )

Communion Meditation

“On the Way to Salvation...”

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

World Communion Sunday

3 October, 2010

Passionate faith teaches us that God’s truth 

and God’s way will always prevail 

Text:  Luke 24.13-17, 28-34a

NRSV  13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad.

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. 30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ 33That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed ...”

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

NRSV 1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous-- therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

1 I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

2 Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.

3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.

4 Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.

If this were a stand up comedy act,  I might begin my schtick with “a funny thing happened on the way to salvation this morning...” and then proceed to tell something so brilliantly hilarious  it would make you fall out of your pews, rolling on the ground with laughter. 

And that might concieveably happen if we were focusing on the gospel reading from Luke, and the wonderful story of walking with the resurrected Jesus on a sabbath afternoon in Spring. But unfortunately for you, my sisters and brothers, I’m neither that funny or that brilliant, and the walk that Habbakuk is making  is neither so comforting or so smile-making that such a light tone would be appropriate.  It’s a really hard text to hear on this Sunday when we are celebrated the unity of Christian faith across the world through shared communion and fellowship. But while we’re in here celebrating and eating and drinking, out there there are deep challenges and problems, and so we’re stuck here with Habbakuk in the end of the 7th century BCE. We’re not sure if Habbakuk is a real person or a literary creation, some Jewish traditions even assert that he was the son of the shunamite woman, the boy who was raised from the dead by Elisha. but whoever he is,  his name in Hebrew is very interesting because it means “the one embraced”.

And the Hebrew people certainly needed to be embraced. Sort of like Belgium in the 1940s, they were caught between two north/south superpowers; the Assyrians and Egyptians who were stomping each other into the ground across the length and breadth of Israel. But the needed embrace from God just wasn’t happening. If anything, it was more of a deathlock, because the King of Judah doublecrossed both of the armies, and the people of Isreal are now waiting to be crushed. 

The anguish of living, whether it is a community living in the past, or we ourselves living our own lives, is that so much seems unchangeable or beyond our ability to change. Sometimes we just seemed overwhelmed by the injustice of it all, and we scream “VIOLENCE”...but find no one there to hear us or save us. 

I’m especially thinking of the drive by shootings in Chester last week, and the drug and alcohol related assaults and deaths that we hear of regularly  in our neighborhoods. These deaths and beatings and woundings are killing and ripping us in emotionally and socially in ways that we can’t even fully comprehend yet.

When Habbakuk screams “violence” I’m also thinking as well of the intellectual violence that we are seeing in the civil affairs of this country where we are caught between clashing armies of political opponents and attack ads and disinformation as we approach election time.  Who cares  about the damage that is being done to the infrastructure and atmosphere of trust and rationality in this nation and this state just as long as one side or the other can claim a victory?

With Habakkuk I cry:

“Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous-- therefore judgment comes forth perverted.”

There is injustice in the way that jobs seem to bleed from our county despite the fine people who are ready and willing to work. There is injustice in the way that our students are struggling to get an education in our starving school system. There is injustice in the way that taxes rise yet things don’t seem to get better.  There is injustice in the way that big health insurance companies are finagling to make sure that their profits are protected, no matter what happens to their customers in the health care system.

Yet in the midst of all this Habakkuk is saying that we are on the way to  Salvation. Habakkuk can’t see it yet, in fact he has to climb up a watchtower to even begin to hope for a breath of a change in the prevailing evil wind, but from that vantage point the prophet is positioned to hear God’s answer, which is “it is coming...wait for it!”.

How many of you here have been asked by an evangelical friend “Brother, Sister, are you saved?”  (note hands)  That is  a slippery slick question. The apostle Paul would answer that question by saying:  “No, I’m not saved-- yet, but I’m on the way to salvation--God is not done with me yet. I’m still a work in progress, and that work won’t be finished until Christ comes again in glory to perfect the entire world. It’s what all of us are striving for, yearning for. This is what the apostle Paul teaches all the way through his writings; that we are already justified by our faith in Christ NOW,--that is,--we are made right with God through our faith in Him,  and Paul famously notes that Jesus is the pioneer and perfector of that faith, and that pioneering and perfecting has yet to be accomplished.

I hope that today is an Emmaus-like revelation to us, a sign that is written so large that we can read it as we run by on the salvation road. And what should we find written?

The tablet should read “On the way to salvation, nothing matters except that we remain steadfast in God’s way and God’s love”. We do what we can to promote justice and honesty and fairness; caring for the hungry, healing the sick, proclaiming the kindom of God, BUT in our broken hours, in our tiredness... even if our witness and our mission should seem to fail... we must tell each other that God is surely coming and encourage each other to keep on keeping on, finding hope and stronger faith on our journey. 

And so, we stop here on our way, to rest by this table, to find food for the road in the bread and the cup and fellowship of faith, not only with each other, but with our family in Sudan, and Mexico, our mothers and brothers in India and Pakistan and Guatemala, Christians in Iran and Afghanistan, and everywhere in the world where the stories of Jesus are told and celebrated. 

To God be the power and glory, forever and ever. Amen