“Today salvation has come to this house.” (Luke 19:9) These are the amazing words Jesus speaks to Zacchaeus. Salvation is a big word, and it is not tossed around lightly. So when I come across a word this important, I want to make sure I really understand what is being said.
Jesus speaks these words after an odd and even humorous encounter. Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem, enters the town of Jericho. As Jesus passes through the town a crowd gathers around him. For some reason, just like the others, Zacchaeus is drawn towards Jesus and seeks to see Him. This man wants to see Jesus so much that he climbs a tree in order to see Him. Jesus sees Zacchaeus in the tree and tells him to come down so he can go his house. When Jesus enters the house Zacchaeus exclaims that he will give half of possessions to the poor and will pay pack fourfold anybody he is defrauded. These are bold words for a tax collector, because a tax collector makes his living by defrauding people! Now after these amazing words, Jesus responds with even bolder words: “Salvation has come to this house!”
What remains unclear is the context of this statement. Is Jesus saying: Zacchaeus, because I chose to see you, you have been changed, therefore I grant you salvation!”? So there we go, God chose Zacchaeus and he is saved. If this is what Jesus meant, what happens to Zacchaeus next? Is he all set for life because of this one encounter? Or is Jesus saying “Zacchaeus, I AM Salvation. Because you let me in your house, you have begun to choose the better path, and it will lead you to me, the one that is Salvation”? With this interpretation, Zacchaeus has simply taken a baby step towards God. So, what will the rest of Zacchaeus’ life lived with God look like?
The Greek text of St Luke’s Gospel is unclear in this point, and scholars disagree as how Jesus meant His statement. This distinction, this choice between two quite different interpretations, has a big effect on some of our biggest questions: How do we respond to God’s grace? Is it an invitation or a command? And once we have been affected by grace, what happens in the rest our life?
These questions hung in the air during the reformation, and the forever affected the way Anglicanism has instilled the Christian life into its people. By the early 1600’s the Churches of the West had been torn apart about by the questions of grace, and could not agree on how it works. When the English church split from Rome, it became quite clear that Church of England would not let you think that you could earn your salvation by your own imitative through works. However, unlike the theologians of the reformation on the European continent, we never issued a big Confession, instead Anglicans only mad a short list of ideas we condemned as being in error. Our primary response to the questions of salvation and grace was to issue a prayer book.
Yet despite our amazing prayer book, Anglican theologians kept on asking these questions: How do we respond to grace, and what happens after grace? In 1619 a big group of theologians, including some from England, got together to hammer out these issues. They came to the conclusion that grace is irresistible. God offers grace to whom he will, and the people he offers grace to always say yes. If God chooses you to receive grace you have no choice be to say yes to it. They also came to the conclusion that once you were chosen for grace, you were part of the elect and you were incapable of backsliding – once saved, always saved. Well, when the English representatives reported this to the Church back home, they couldn’t quite sell the people on this. Objections were raised. If we can’t say no to God’s grace – do we really have free will? And if those who are saved are not capable of sliding back into damnation, why do the elect need to bother with anything?
For a several years various people in the Church of England tried to get the Church to officially agree to the theology put forth by that. However, with the advent of a new King of England, and thus a new Supreme Governor of the Church of England, these notions of irresistible grace and permanently earned salvation were rejected.
Now there were people who could give you big theological arguments about why these ideas had to be rejected, but in the end, that wasn’t why they were rejected. They were rejected because the Church of England took a look at its initial response to these issues: the Prayer Book. At first, people thought that the prayer book, with its list of prayers for mercy and help and utterly lacking in precise definitions of who God is and how He works (aside from what Scripture had told us) would lead us right back to the medieval problems - but it didn’t. Instead the Church of England had before it several generations who knew nothing other than the prayer book and Scripture. They had been formed by the practice of fixed liturgies and prayer through, and with, scripture. This was a time when compulsion was at a minimum. While other Christians were being forced to swear to a litany of precise definitions on who God is and how He works on us, the English were bring compelled to do only one thing – come to prayer. Come to service and be formed by it. And prayer was shaping people. The Church of England began to flourish and the great age of Classical Anglicanism was ushered in.
This realization, that the Church had begun to blossom, to show the fruits of the Spirit, gave us an answer about grace. People who were being shaped and molded were evident, and that very process of growth was being praised. Even the King during this period, St. Charles the Martyr , praised how the Payer Book was changing people. He wrote: “the manner of using set and prescribed forms…wholesome words, being known and fitted to men’s understandings are soon received into their hearts.” (Cross & More, 622) If grace was irresistible, why were people being shaped by the Prayer Book? If you can’t say no to grace, wouldn’t people show signs of sudden transformation when they were compelled by God to accept his grace?
Instead, our Prayer Book showed a spiritual growth of learning to say yes to God. Each opportunity to go to prayer was an opportunity to say yes to God or to tune out, ignore the service and say no to God’s grace. And one of the opportunities offered most often to those coming to the Prayer Book services was to confess one’s sins and to ask for mercy. This is a habit that is not needed by someone who has been granted a salvation they can’t fall away from.
It turns out that we, as Anglicans, came close to our aims during the English Reformation. We tried to remove the errors that accumulated in the medieval period and return the church back to the Church of the Church Fathers, when East and West were in full love and charity with each other. Well, as it turns out, we stripped too much away, but we did succeed and getting back to original way the Church saw our formation and response to Grace.
Before the Western Church began to take St. Augustine’s theology too far, we had seen the world as a place where sin and death ran rampant because of the Fall, but also a place where God’s grace abounded, surrounding us all. Now, we never taught that mankind would be able to turn to God by his own initiative, but instead, saw our relationship with God as a work of synergy. The Eastern Orthodox never lost this view, and the modern Orthodox theologian Kalistos Ware describes the ancient view of grace that has shown itself through our experience with the Prayer Book. Ware writes: the Book of Revelation states “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.” (Rev 3:20) God knocks, but waits for man to open the door – He does not break it down. The grace of God invites all, but compels none.” (the Orthodox Church, 227)
This understanding of how we respond to grace flows into the idea that grace is not a one time event. God is always knocking on the door, and we can keep opening the door over and over again…or not. A lifetime of opening the door to God could make for a life time of growth in grace, and the Epistle reading today testifies to this. In his second letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul writes “We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for another is increasing.” (2 Thes 1:3)
What we had accomplished in the English Reformation was, then, a return to the ancient, orthodox and catholic way of living the Christian life. It is a life where we encounter God through Sacrament and Word. Instead of large dogmatic statements on every single issue, we focus on right liturgy and right prayer. We study Scripture and encounter the Holy Tradition of our forebears and open the door when God knocks to offer us grace so that we make grow in faith and love. We went back to the model of the ancient undivided church, which was to make theological statements only when clarification was demanded by the Church because an error of immense proportions had emerged. Yet barring that, our response to most questions was simple – Go to the Divine Services, study the scriptures, read the Church Fathers and keep praying!
So then, what did Jesus mean when He told Zacchaeus that Salvation had come to the house? Considering my experience with God’s grace and my formation through the Prayer Book, I can believe it to be no other than the second option we explored. Jesus told Zacchaeus “I AM Salvation. Because you let me in your house, you have begun to choose the better path, and it will lead you to me, the one that is Salvation.” This service, and the gift of the Sacrament to follow, are another chance to open the door to God, and accept His grace, and grow in faith and Godly love.
