I got witnessed to!

On a recent Sunday afternoon I joined some friends and family at her restaurant for lunch. There was a long wait for tables and we decided to wait outside. Being Sunday we had just come to church, and I was stressed out in my clericals. A woman approached me and asked what church I was from. I told her St. James on Broadway, an Episcopal church. She says that she is always curious about what different churches believe. "what does your church believe about salvation?" I gave my standard short answer, that the church, and I also believe that salvation is up to God. We believe that it is God's grace that saves us. She nodded and asked how it is that one is saved. Well, we accept Christ. At some point I mentioned baptism, at which point she interrupts, "So you have to do something?" From that point on, the conversation was hers. She told me how she raised Roman Catholic, and never been taught that salvation was by God's grace. She told me that she'd asked a priest once how she could be forgiven and lamented that the priest did not show her in Scripture that it is God who can forgive and take away her sins. She went on to tell me that she had been living a wealthy life, but had been terribly unhappy. One day, a born-again woman (her description) told her of God's saving grace that it is through faith and that we are saved not by works. She responded and received Christ. She related that a year later her husband to have committed his life to Christ and that now they were preparing to go to a reservation to be missionaries. She gave me a couple of tracts detailing the way to salvation.

I nodded, smiled, and thanked her. My sense was that we both agreed that it is by God's grace we are saved. It was also my sense that she would not agree that we were in agreement. Some of those with me were disturbed. The prevailing complaint was that it seemed to them that the woman felt so sure that she was right that I was wrong. I wasn't really frustrated by the encounter. She was being authentic to who she was. I can definitely say that I've been mulling over this business of grace, works, and salvation. She got me thinking.

It is quite confusing thing, and it's not a new argument. For the first several hundred years of Christianity most of the arguments were about the nature of Christ. The battles regarding the nature of salvation came later. Rightfully, they came in resistance to corrupt systems in which the institution of the church controlled, who was in and who was out. I am personally familiar with this debate as I grew up believing that those Roman Catholics were going to hell because they believed that we were saved by being good people. I was taught a "grace, but" theology. We are saved by God's grace, but we had better believe certain things if we are truly saved.

These days I cling to belief that God is truly in charge of salvation. The sacraments, good works, and even saying a prayer to receive Christ are works that do not accomplish salvation. They are tools that open us to trusting that transforming grace of God. I know that I have to throw myself on these means of grace because these are things that remind me of that grace.

Maybe I will continue some discussion of grace and salvation. For now, I will say that I am believing that it is God's unmerited favor towards us that brings us healing. Even if I am wrong about that, I believe that God can forgive my error. Grace is just that powerful.

I am thankful that I got witnessed to, and I pray that this woman too can cling to the grace God has given us. I hope that she might have some realization that a long-haired guy in a clerical collar also holds to that grace, trusting completely in God to save us all.