The Universality of God's Salvation

The author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts wrote to a Church that was composed of subjects of the Roman Empire.  The Church hated Rome and believed that Rome was beyond redemption, and saw itself as a tiny remnant of purity set against Rome.

One of the overriding themes of Luke's Gospel and Acts is to challenge this manner of the Church's self-perception and perception of Rome.  God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but to bring salvation to the world.  Rather than being called to condemn Rome, the Church was thereby called to bring peace and redemption to the world, and to Rome.

In his story of the birth of Christ, Luke proclaims that through the redemptive work of Christ, God seeks to bring peace to the entire world.  "Peace on earth" was a slogan of the Roman Empire; Rome also sought peace.  God thereby called the Church into being to bring Rome what it already wanted but did not yet know how to find.

The Church is not called to condemn the world, to be nothing more than a vehicle of hate and fear mongering.  The Church is called to proclaim peace both to itself and to the world.  The Church is not called to barricade itself within an oasis of purity, but enter into the world's suffering to bring God's salvation.

Lessons from Paul in Engaging the Cultural Wars

The recently concluded election cycle revealed deep seated animosity and hatred along lines of race, social location, and religion.  Paul's words to the Roman church in this week's epistle lesson provides good advice for how the Church should interface with these conflicts

The infant Church in Paul's generation faced similar conflicts along lines of race, social location, and religion.  There was hatred and tension between Jews and Gentiles, exacerbated by underlying cultural differences between the Jewish and Hellenistic worlds.  Paul addresses these conflicts by going back to the underlying purpose of the new covenant community that arose out of the teachings of Christ: that all those who accept Christ as Lord are called to welcome one another and show grace to one another as Christ has shown grace to them in welcoming them into the new covenant community.  As all those who live under the Lordship of Christ live under that Lordship only through grace and mercy, those who do so are called to mirror Christ's mercy in their relationship to those outside the community.

The tensions in our culture are as complicated and deep seated as those in Paul's day.  They are not easily resolved and the answers are elusive.  But we do know where to begin: we begin by mirroring the grace and mercy that Christ has demonstrated to us in our perception and interface with those who we perceive as strangers to us.