Prove It!

An Episcopal priest friend told me this story. He went to visit a parishioner at the local hospital. He was wearing his clerical collar and black shirt, and carrying a communion kit. While at the hospital, he was approached by an intense young pastor of another church who stared sharply at the priest and asked, “Are you saved?” The priest said he wouldn’t phrase it that way, but yes he was saved. The intense young pastor then demanded, “Prove it!”

I think these types of questions mix up two very different things. The first is the issue of salvation, in other words, is there life after life for us? The other is how do we identify whether someone is a Christian? As to the first thing, the issue of life after life, I like what theologian Reinhold Niehber said. When asked if and when he was saved, Niehber replied:  “I was saved about 2,000 years ago on a dusty hill called Golgotha outside the walls of Jerusalem.” I like this response. It’s simple, easy to remember and says it all. We aren’t saved by whether we have a mystical conversion experience.  We don’t save ourselves even by asserting we are saved. The salvation of eternal life is not something that get through our own efforts. Instead, it is something that Jesus freely gave to everyone through what he did.

But the other issue that is mixed up by the questions of the intense young pastor is how do we identify whether someone is a Christian? For many Christians the answer to the question, “Is Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior?” is dispositive. As to this question, I was reading about a monk who lives in a monastery founded in 963 A.D. on Mount Athos in Greece. A Christian from America visited the monk and asked, “Is Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior?” The smiling monk replied: “No, I like to share him.”  

Jesus said: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35). Jesus knew what we already understand: if we want to know what someone is like, thinks, or believes, then watch what she or he does. Talk is cheap; the proof is in what people actually do. So, the intense young pastor should have asked the priest what he was doing if he really wanted to know if the priest was a Christian. My priest friend would have answered: “I’m visiting a sick friend and taking her the body and blood of Christ.”