What if you got to heaven and found out that God had decided
to let EVERYBODY in? How would you feel about that? Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Republicans, Democrats, doctors and
dope pushers, lawyers and lay-abouts, merchants and murderers,
hookers and horse thieves. EVERYBODY! How would you feel?
What brings the question to mind this morning is the
community-wide interfaith service coming up on the anniversary of
September 11th. Lately I have been receiving some interesting
mail on the subject (but NOT from our members, I hasten to point
out). For example:
Dear Pastor Leininger,
While visiting in Northwest Pennsylvania last summer
(from my present home in Tampa), I read a newspaper
article concerning your invitation to the Director of
the Islamic Cultural Center in Jamestown to speak to
your church members.
A week or so ago, once again visiting the area of my
birth, I read of the Warren Area Ministerial
Association's plan to hold a Sept. 11th memorial
service at the Library Theatre. In this article you
are quoted as emphasizing that "It will not be just a
Christian service. Instead, it will help people of all
faiths to 'reach to the depths of their souls and their
own understandings of the God of the universe.'"
As a Christian who believes in the whole Bible as the
truth of God, I strongly take issue with this position
of yours. We Christians are to proclaim the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ and none other! As you must
know, Jesus said (as quoted in John 14:6), "...I am the
way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me."
Finally, to help me understand, she included some additional
material about Muslims - "as well as others in the kingdom of
darkness" - plus a pamphlet called "The False Gospel of Islam."
Here is another. This from a local minister.
For the past week I have had a sense of disappointment
in the plans announced in the Warren Times Observer by
the Warren Area Ministerial Association for a September
11th memorial service. It's not that I don't think we
should have some type of remembrance in Warren;
certainly the events of that day had a strong effect on
us and our lives are forever changed...The
disappointment and theological drawback for me is the
plan...to invite a Jewish and Islamic representative as
equal participants...I am a Christian minister of the
gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe that He is the Way
and the Truth and the Life and that no one comes to the
Father except through Him. It sounds extremely
exclusive because it is. I make no apology for it.
Furthermore, I don't believe that listening to a person
of another faith will enhance my understanding of God
nor the people I pastor...
You get the idea. Such controversy is not confined to
Warren. Down in my old stomping grounds in North Carolina there
is more. TIME magazine:
Homework is usually controversial only for the students
who have to do it. But this summer the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which customarily
assigns a book to its incoming freshmen, chose
Approaching the Qur'an, a set of heavily annotated
excerpts from the Muslim Holy Writ. Chancellor James
Moeser reportedly asked his trustees, "What could be
more timely?" And what could be more predictable than
the brouhaha that followed: the rumbling overture on
Christian websites; the brassy solo by Fox News's Bill
O'Reilly, who compared the assignment to having
students read Hitler's Mein Kampf in 1941; and the
inevitable legal coda? The Virginia-based Family
Policy Network, a Christian group, sued U.N.C.,
claiming the assignment amounted to state-funded
promotion of a faith. The North Carolina legislature
is considering pulling the school's funds for the
project.(1)
For what it is worth, I am not holding my breath for the
Family Policy Network to sue the folks in Georgia that we read
about in yesterday's paper who are forcing the schools to teach
creationism based on the account in Genesis in their science
classes.
Isn't religion fun? No wonder, as we read the gospels, that
we see Jesus having more trouble with religious folks than any
other.
We read about a deeply religious man in our Old Testament
lesson. Jonah. Most folks know some of that delightful story.
They know that God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh, but Jonah did
not want to go and, in fact, took off in precisely the opposite
direction. Then there was the storm at sea, Jonah getting tossed
overboard, and the world's first recorded submarine ride - three
days in the belly of a big fish. Finally, this venerable
relative of Charlie the Tuna has what has been euphemistically
referred to as an "involuntary emesistic reaction" and Jonah is
barfed up on the beach. God says to Jonah, "Are you ready yet?"
Jonah grudgingly agrees to go. TA DA! Wonderful message. You
cannot run away from God!
But there is much more to this story. And, in fact, there
is a much more important message than an inescapable God.
Back to what caused Jonah's journey to begin with - God had
said go to Nineveh to preach; it would be an ancient version of a
Billy Graham-style revival. That sounds like fun for a preacher,
but if we examine the situation a bit, Jonah's reluctance becomes
understandable. Ancient Nineveh was the capitol of Babylon...
modern-day Iraq...and old Nineveh was just as much an
international outlaw as modern Baghdad. God's instruction to
Jonah was to go and rescue a long-ago equivalent to Saddam
Hussein. No wonder Jonah wanted no part of that.
We pick up the story with the lesson. Jonah gets to
Nineveh, preaches the shortest sermon on record (which may be why
it proved so effective): "Forty days more, and Nineveh is TOAST!"
There is no invitation to repentance, just this word of judgment.
And the result is the most incredible response imaginable -
everyone repents, from the highest to the lowest, from the king
to the cows (which carries the story a bit far, in my opinion,
but the point is made). So, as the scripture has it, "When God
saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he
had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had
threatened."
Jonah's reaction is precious: he has a hissy-fit. "Right
on, God! I KNEW this was gonna happen! I KNEW you were gracious
and merciful, and I KNEW you would let 'em off. Go ahead, God.
Why not just kill me right now? If I get back to Israel and word
gets out that you spared Nineveh because they repented after MY
PREACHING, I am dead meat anyway. Saddam doesn't DESERVE to be
saved. This is the theological PITS!" Then the prophet storms
out of the city, plops himself down on a hill to the east, builds
a little lean-to to shade himself from the hot desert sun, and
sulks...hoping against hope that God will see how important this
is to him and will go ahead and blow Nineveh away anyway.
God tries to calm Jonah down. God gently asks him, "Is it
right for you to be angry?" Jonah keeps on sulking. As a
bit of a peace offering, God allows a fast-growing plant to
spring up for a bit more shade. Jonah is so mad he misses the
joke - it is a Castor Oil plant,(2) perfect for someone as
obviously bound up as our reluctant hero. The blue funk
continues. So, the next day God allows the plant to get eaten by
a worm and... Well, listen to the text:
When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind,
and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew
faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better
for me to die than to live." But God said to Jonah,
"Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I
do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." But the LORD
said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though
you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up
overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more
than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot
tell their right hand from their left (in other words,
little children), and many cattle as well. Should I
not be concerned about that great city?"(3)
And there the story ends. We never learn whether Jonah gets
his act together. But we DO learn (if we have not known it
before) that God's grace extends farther than we would ever
imagine and, if we are honest, sometimes farther than we want.
Change the scene. Move it to a dusty Palestinian roadside.
Jesus is talking with his friends. Not very long before, a
wealthy young man had approached them asking what good thing he
might do to possess eternal life. Jesus tells him to be obedient
to the commandments he has always known and then to give away his
considerable wealth to the poor and come follow. No go - as we
are aware, the young man was possessed by his possessions rather
than the other way around. Sad. And Jesus went on to note how
difficult it would be for anyone with money to experience eternal
life. Peter follows up with a reasonable question: "Look, we
HAVE left everything and followed you. What then will WE have?"
Jesus responds that they have nothing to worry about - a
wonderful existence awaits, but then a strange statement - "many
who are first will be last, and the last will be first"(4) -
followed by the story we encountered in our gospel lesson.
The picture Jesus painted was one with which his hearers
would have been most familiar. "The grape harvest ripened toward
the end of September, and then close on its heels the rains came.
If the harvest was not gathered in before the rains broke, it was
ruined; and so to get the harvest in was a frantic race against
time."(5) The landowner would come to the marketplace where day-laborers would gather before dawn. "I'll take you, you, you, and
you," (as many as necessary), they would agree to work for what
would amount to minimum wage - normally a denarius - not much,
but enough to feed the family, and they would be off to the
harvest. In this case, the owner of the vineyard found himself
needing more and more workers to beat the rain, so three more
times that day he hired more people - some at nine in the
morning, some at noon, and even some at five in the afternoon,
just an hour before quitting time. So far, so good.
Now the story turns strange. The paymaster's window. The
folks who had only been at work for an hour were paid a denarius.
Those who had been on the job since noon were paid a denarius.
The ones who began at nine that morning were paid a denarius.
Even those who had put in twelve long hours were paid that
denarius. No surprise, they thought this was unfair. But the
landowner responded, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you.
Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go.
I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you.
Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or
are you envious because I am generous?"
Then there is that line again: Jesus says, "So the last will
be first, and the first will be last." In other words, in God's
economy, things are not necessarily as you would expect. Jonah
would say AMEN to that.
Pose the question with which we began again: What if you got
to heaven and found out that God had decided to let EVERYBODY in?
The message of the gospel is that such IS the case, even though
Jonah and some letter-writers might not like it. Yes, we are all
for being saved by grace, but only if we think that grace is
deserved (for example, that grace which God extends to "good
folks" like you and me). Hmm.
OK. One other issue. If we get to heaven and do indeed
find that God has invited EVERYBODY in, what do we do with Jesus'
statement quoted by my correspondents that says, "No one comes to
the Father BUT BY ME!" Can we still hold that as gospel?
Absolutely. And make sure we hold it as carefully as Jesus'
words in John 10 that say, "I have other sheep that are not of
this sheep pen. I must bring them also..."(6)
Let me illustrate this way. As many of you have heard
before, when I was a boy, one of my best friends was an Orthodox
Jew. This young man was (and is) one of the most religious
people you have ever met - in fact, he is now an Orthodox Rabbi.
All his life, from the time he was able to understand anything,
he has known a relationship to the God of his fathers and has
sought to deepen that faith in himself and others. He has a
great respect for Jesus of Nazareth - wonderful teacher, indeed a
man touched of God...but not the Messiah. I cannot imagine a
scenario which would cause my friend to abandon those beliefs.
What awaits him when he comes to the end of his earthly
pilgrimage? Some would say, "Too bad. He never came to faith in
Jesus, so he is lost...condemned for all eternity - he's gonna
roast." Well, I do not believe that for a second. That does not
sound like the God of love who sent Jesus and whose sacrifice on
Calvary scripture says paid for not only your sin and my sin but
the sin of the whole world.(7) I think that what will happen to my
friend as he comes to begin his new life is that, no surprise, he
is welcomed into the presence of God. However, perhaps he WILL
be surprised to find that the reason for his warm welcome is that
his ticket was punched by Jesus Christ.
One more question. If God HAS decided to let everyone in,
what does that do to our efforts at evangelism? Well, for
certain, it would change them. Instead of trying to SCARE the
fire out of folks, we might have to begin sharing the good news
as genuinely good news. Interesting concept, eh?
What if you got to heaven and found out that God had decided
to let EVERYBODY in? That decision has already been made.
Sadly, some will decide not to come in - a place that would
welcome people NOT just like them would not be heaven at all -
but the decision will be theirs. Not Jonah's, not mine, not
yours, not even God's.
Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that is greater than all my sin.(8)
The word for today is GRACE. "When we get what we deserve,
that is justice. When we do not get what we deserve, that is
mercy. When we get what we do not deserve, that is grace."(9)
Thanks be to God!
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come,
T'is grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.(10)
Amen!
1. David Van Biema, "A Kinder, Gentler Koran," Time, 8/19/02
2. See "Gourds," Holman Bible Dictionary, electronic edition, (Hiawatha, IO: Parsons
Technologies, 1994)
3. Jonah 4:8-11
4. Matthew 19:30
5. William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 2, Daily Study Bible Series,
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), p. 222
6. John 10:16
7. See 1 John 2:2
8. Julia H. Johnston, copyright 1910, renewed 1938, Hope Publishing Co.
9. Unattributed quote posted by Larry Warren, Brookfield WI, Via Ecunet, "Sermonshop
1996 09 22," #35, 9/18/96
10. John Newton
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