Matthew 1:18-23 and Ephesians 2:4-10
This is the second sermon in a three-part series on Christianity and Islam leading up to the Ramadan iftar my congregation will host on June 22. It was preached at Eliot Presbyterian Church on Sunday, June 19 (Father’s Day in the United States).
Today is the second sermon in a three-part series on Christianity and Islam. If you were paying attention to the sermon series that I advertised on Facebook, the Xpress, and the church website, you know that I am preaching on how the two faiths understand salvation. The events in Orlando last Sunday were too stark a reminder just how much salvation we need, not only the hereafter, but in the here and now. Omar Mateen needed salvation from the hatred that led him to slaughter 49 beautiful people. Those 49 people needed salvation from violence and bigotry. Their families need salvation still from the grief and anger and confusion that weighs heavy upon their hearts. LGBT people today need salvation from exclusion, discrimination – and now fear – that has been their reality for too long. We all need salvation from the sin that enables us to look away from another’s suffering, to stereotype our neighbors, to step on those who are weak, or to give in to hopeless despair.
I did a good deal of reading this week about Islam. I also did a good deal of praying for Omar Mateen, his family, and for Muslims across the United States. I can offer you only a feeble and basic understanding of how Muslims think about salvation. The first thing I should I do is assure you that it does not include murdering anyone: not gay people, not unbelievers. Eric attended the iftar last week at Christ Church United. The Muslim men and women there wanted to make sure we, as Christians, know that the Quran calls murder a sin in no uncertain terms. They want you to know that Omar Mateen’s actions in Orlando do not represent the true practice of Islam.
In Islam, salvation is found is surrender to God and in repentance from sin. The word “Islam” actually means “to submit” or “to surrender,” and a Muslim is a person who submits or surrenders. There is an historical aspect to this. When the Quran was written during a period of Muslim conquest (similar to the Jewish conquest of the Promised Land as told in Joshua), that might have meant a literal surrender to the Muslim army who was taking the land. In the earliest days of that faith, a person became a Muslim (one who surrenders) by submitting not only to Allah but to the armies of Mohammed. Muslims also believe that God is merciful and will forgive the repentant sinner. There is much we, as Christians, can identify with in this understanding. We also say that when a person submits his life to God, he experiences salvation and new life. We also speak about the importance of repenting – turning away from sinful practice – as an important part of our faith, and we believe in a merciful God.
But there are two key differences as I understand them. Most importantly, Muslims do not understand Jesus as the Son of God and mediator of God’s grace. They believe that men and women can approach God directly for mercy (1). There is something appealing about that view at first. There are two reasons it falls short for me, though. First, it requires us coming to God. The Christian belief in Jesus Christ means that God comes to us – Emmanuel, God with us. Second, the Muslim view is not a universal forgiveness. In order to stay in God’s good graces and to be assured of salvation, a person must repent of every sin. The hope for eternal salvation is very much tied to the virtue of one’s life on earth (2). That seems like a heavy burden to carry.
The Christian understanding of salvation by grace through faith Jesus Christ has a different quality about it. Jesus liked to teach about eternal life and the kingdom of God by using parables. This week, I thought I would try a parable of my own:
The kingdom of heaven is like a father who wants to give his little girl a gift, the gift of wind in her hair. The father thinks for many weeks about how he can give his daughter this gift. He goes and stands on a hilltop to see if he can give her the wind there. But the wind does not blow. He goes to the racetrack and drives a fast car. The ride is thrilling, but there was no wind inside. He goes outside and runs along the sidewalk. He can feel the wind, but soon he is too tired to run, and the wind turns to a sultry summer heat.
The father thinks longer when at last! he has an idea. He will give his precious little girl a bicycle. Delight creeps across his face as he imagines his daughter sailing down the hills outside their home, long locks blowing in the breeze, head thrown back in laughter and joy.
The father hurries to the bicycle shop to choose the perfect bike for his girl. He meets a man there who says, “My daughter asked me for a bicycle last month. I told her that she needed to show me first that she knows how to take care of a bike. When she is more helpful around the house, kinder to her brother, and puts away her toys, then I will give her a bicycle.” The father thinks of toys left out in the rain at his own home, but he says nothing and keeps looking at the bicycles, the bells, and the baskets.
He watches a woman come in with her son. The two choose a bicycle off the rack and walk up to the counter. The woman pays the bill and then turns to the boy saying, “Now this is going to come out of your allowance. When you have paid me back for the bike, then you can ride it.” The father imagines his daughter washing the dishes as her bike waits in the garage for her to save up enough money. He continues browsing. Another man leans over and says to the father, “You know, my daughter broke the last bike I gave her. I came here to look, but until she apologizes to me, I don’t think I will buy her another one.” “I see,” the father responds.
Up and down the aisle he walks until suddenly he sees it high on a rack behind the counter: its yellow – her favorite color; it looks brand new but as old as time; the chain glides effortlessly across the gears; the paint glimmers as the sunlight streams through the window. This bike is perfect. No price is too high. He takes it home and waits with childlike anticipation for his little girl to walk up the driveway. When he sits her atop on this bike, she will know what it feels like to fly.
Whatever you call it – salvation, the kingdom of God, eternal, abundant life – this is the gift the Father delights to give to all of his children. What does this salvation look and feel like? Like peace that passes understanding, joy that transcends our circumstances, hope that endures amid hardship, compassion that connects us to others, justice that rolls like a river, love that casts out fear. The Father waits not for our righteousness; he waits not for our riches; he waits not even for our repentance. This kind of abundant life is God’s gift to be enjoyed in the hereafter and to be enjoyed here and now.
If salvation is the gift, if salvation is the wind in the hair, the joy of soaring down a hillside with laughter and delight, then Jesus Christ is bicycle. Jesus Christ is the means that the Father has given us to experience the gift. It is not a perfect parable because when God gives us Jesus, he is not giving us something outside of himself like the father gives the bicycle. In fact, God is giving us himself. Because God is giving us himself, we can be confident that this gift is not dependent upon our righteousness, our riches, or even our repentance. Through Jesus Christ, the gift of salvation is ours forever. It cannot be taken away. It cannot be lost. It will not break down.
Where does faith fit in to all of this? I sometimes get concerned because I hear Christians saying that we are saved by grace through faith, but then they go on to say you have to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. The way they describe it, believing sounds an awful lot like a human work, like something that we do or think or some magic words that we have to say. “Pretty please, Daddy, can I please have the bike?”
Faith is not saying the magic words or believing the right things. The father will pick up his daughter and set her right down on the seat, but if she want to feel the wind in her hair and the joy of soaring down the hill, she will have to surrender herself to the bicycle with its wheels and gears and cables and chains that work together marvelously and mysteriously to achieve that bliss. That is faith in the bicycle. Our Father has picked us up and put us right at the feet of Jesus. If we want to live an abundant eternal life, if we want to know that that passes understanding, joy that transcends our circumstances, hope that endures amid hardship, compassion that connects us to others, justice that rolls like a river, love that casts out fear, we have to surrender ourselves to Jesus with his life and death and resurrection and Spirit that work together marvelously and mysteriously to make our life new. That is faith in Jesus.
I think it is important to say at moments like this that the church has often done a poor of sharing this radical grace and the experience of abundant life with people on the margins of society. When the church has engaged in Crusades, hunted “witches,” participated in colonizing native peoples, endorsed slavery, silenced women, or excluded LGBT persons, it is as if we hung a sign on the bike shop that said, CLOSED. Friends, we do not have keys to that store. God’s grace in Jesus Christ is for everyone. It is for the 49 beautiful people who died last Sunday morning at Pulse. It is for their grieving families and friends. It is for the countless gay, lesbian, bi- and trans- people who are feeling vulnerable and frightened. It is for people who want more gun laws and it is for people who want more guns. It is for Christians; it is for Muslims; it is for Buddhists, Hindu, atheists, and agnostics. It is for Omar Mateen. It is for you.
Our role is not to control who can or cannot have the abundant life that God delights to give to all his children. It is our Father who gives salvation as generously as he pleases – like the gardener who sows his seed extravagantly on all kinds of soil, like the manager who pays the last laborer the same wage as the first. It is our Father who sits us atop the bicycle. It is our Father who is the bicycle. We have been given a good and perfect gift in Jesus Christ. Our role is to surrender ourselves to him and trust him for the ride, feeling the wind in our hair, the peace that passes understanding, the joy that transcends our circumstances, hope that endures amid hardship, compassion that connects us to others, justice that rolls like a river, love that casts out fear. And when the ride feels more like an uphill climb against sin, evil, and injustice – as it does for me in a week like this one – we look over our shoulder and find that the Holy Spirit is giving us a push.
The road of this world can be a dangerous place for kingdom cyclists, but we have a Father who loves us, the Spirit who guides us, the community of faith to encourage us and one trusty set of wheels in Jesus. Let’s ride, all the while making room on the road for the many, many others whom God has gifted and blessed. Don’t forget to wear your helmet. May it be so. Amen.
- Malise Ruthven, Islam: A Very Short Introduction. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012) p.32.
- http://www.whyislam.org/submission/articles-of-faith/belief-in-judgement-day/ (This website is one that my Muslim colleagues at the local Islamic Center have recommended as a trustworthy source on Islamic belief and practice.)
