HHave you been saved? Many of us have been. Some of us have been saved more than once. I once thought I was saved. It was a good feeling. Then, like so many of us, I began to doubt the whole idea of salvation. I stopped believing in heaven and hell, and without a heaven or a hell, salvation lost all meaning.
We have a intriguing little exercise we do at our path to membership class. If you have joined our church in the last couple of years you probably remember our four corners activity. We start it out by asking people to gather into one of four groups, depending on their religious background. One group is those who grew up in a fundamentalist church. Another group are those who grew up in a mainline denomination. A third group is former Catholics. The final group is everyone else. After people break into their groups, we ask them to discuss briefly what they would like to keep from their religious upbringing, and what they would like to leave behind.
Having done this for a number of years, it is fascinating to see how similar the responses are. People who grew up in fundamentalist churches, as well as those who grew up in Catholic and even mainline churches, tend to say that they want to leave behind guilt, rigidity and narrow mindedness. However, people don’t just want to reject their past. Most people will also say that they would like to retain the sense of community, the feeling of mutual caring, and the idealistic dedication to compassion and charity.
In almost six years of doing these path to membership classes we have welcomed something like 500 people. So far, not a single person has said that they want to retain the conviction of having been saved. Salvation never comes up. In fact, the subject of salvation never comes up at all here at church!
Isn’t that fascinating. How can you have a church that doesn’t talk about salvation? (If nothing else, today’s sermon will rectify that omission.) Now, I still don’t think you and I need to worry about going to hell. But I do think we need salvation. I want us to take a deeper look at this idea of being saved and to reflect on what a modern idea of salvation can mean for us.
Obviously, the whole concept of salvation has great power. Salvation has been absolutely central to the entire Christian tradition. Millions of people are in churches today hearing about salvation. They are being urged to accept Jesus as their savior. They are being told that the suffering and death of Jesus can somehow save them from eternal damnation.
The idea of salvation touches something very deep in the human soul. I believe it speaks to our primal fear of death and our fear of losing all contact with those we love. Salvation addresses our deep longings for safety and security. It speaks to our profound need to have a place in the order of the universe. The idea of a savior conveys a powerful sense of being important and being loved. It gives people hope.
You know, it wasn’t always like this. Salvation has not always meant what it means today. So many of us grew up in a Christian tradition, and all of us are surrounded by it. We naturally tend to think that the key concepts in that theology have always meant what we are told they mean. It isn’t so. Take the idea of faith, for example. We tend to think of faith as believing something, usually something that is not believable unless you have a lot of faith. So it takes faith to believe in miracles. We are supposed to accept things like the resurrection and the virgin birth on faith. It turns out that the early Christians, influenced by new ideas outside the Hebrew tradition, completely changed what faith meant. For Jews, faith was about being faithful, not about believing in miracles. Faith wasn’t about believing. The Hebrew word that gets translated as “faith” is about being faithful to God and faithful to the covenant. Faithfulness is a quality of a relationship.
And so it is with salvation. Salvation was not always what you receive if you believe in some theological doctrine. In fact, in current English usage the term “salvation” has lost so much of its original meaning that we are bound to misunderstand its biblical meaning. My scholarly bible dictionary says this about salvation: “The term for salvation in the OT can connote, in keeping with its root meaning of ‘broadening’ or ‘enlarging,’ the creation of space in the community for life and conduct.” When the people of Israel are “saved,” it means that they escape some peril and enter in to a time of “recovered spaciousness, prosperity, and well-being.” So originally the religious concept of salvation had to do with breaking free from some threatening condition to a condition of new possibility and well-being.
Now, I don’t mean to play the intellectual game of saying that a word does not mean what we think it means, but rather what it meant originally. However, I think it is important to realize that the Christian church changed the meaning of salvation. There is more than one meaning.
I don’t think that salvation in the way I learned about it in church has any meaning for us any more. But, the root idea is still relevant. If you and I think of salvation the way the early writers of the Hebrew scriptures thought about it, salvation becomes a powerful idea. You and I may not need to be saved from eternal torment. But we have plenty of torments all around us from which we could sure use deliverance and salvation. I know I do.
Religion must speak to the needs of the people. In an era when life was short and the vast majority of people were poor, ignorant, and oppressed, the idea of immanent deliverance from this world into a promised land in a world after death was compelling. Fear of the alternative of eternal damnation made it even more compelling.
Our needs are different. Our religion must speak to our spiritual needs.
You and I still need salvation, we just need a different kind. From what do we need to be saved? What imprisons us? What stands between us and a more expansive, fuller life? Well, I have a little list. If you think about it, you have a list, too. And I bet you and I have a lot of the same things on our lists, for you and I face many of the same perils today.
We need to be saved from isolation, from meaninglessness, from emptiness, from superficiality, from distraction and fragmentation. So many of us come to church to be rescued from our luxury prison cells. Our consumer culture, our hundred channels of banality on television, our millions of web sites that capture us like a spider captures a fly, all lure into superficiality and emptiness. We need salvation from the prison of narcissism, from the prison of a virtual world that entertains us while it sucks the life out of us. We need deliverance from wanton greed that is leading to collective self destruction. Like people at all times, you and I need to be saved from despair and hopelessness.
Think about our lives today. You and I are pulled in so many ways. We long for wholeness, peace, harmony and integrity. Yet we struggle with fragmentation, anxiety, discord and inauthenticity. We seek intimacy and struggle with loneliness and isolation.
So we, too, ask the question human beings have always asked: What must I do to be saved? We ask it in a different context. We ask it with a different belief system and a modern cosmology. We have some different fears, perhaps, than people did a thousand years ago. We face different perils. But we, too, need salvation. We need to break free of those things that frighten and torment and limit us; we need to break free and enter into a new future.
What must I do to be saved? What must you do? What can we do?
Jesus cannot save us. His horrible suffering and brutal death will not give you and me new life, will not pay for our ticket to the promised land.
I also believe that, alone, you and I cannot save ourselves. Human isolation is one of the great causes of suffering in our time. Being alone is the problem, not the solution. We have even perfected the ability to be alone in a crowd. In fact, we are often most alone in a crowd. Our intellect and learning cannot save us. We cannot think our selves to a new life. Learning to live a whole life is not a math problem or a puzzle. The answer isn’t in one of the scores of books in the self help section of the bookstore.
What, indeed, must we do to be saved? How can we break free of what holds us back? How can we move toward the life we most deeply long to live?
We have to connect. Salvation is a matter of connection. All of the great religious traditions tell us the same thing in different ways. So does the science of psychology, sociology and anthropology. When we reach beyond our selves we are on the path that will save us.
We achieve salvation through two kinds of connection. First, we need to connect with other human beings. Alone we can never break free, but together we can. Second, we need to connect to a reality and a purpose that transcends our individual lives. I am talking about the age old paradox that wise teachers have been trying to get through our thick skulls for centuries: We find our selves when we lose our selves.
We begin, I believe, with human connection. We begin with our life partners, with children, with parents, with dear friends. We nurture love. We make time and clear emotional space for others. We listen, really listen. We share from the depths of our hearts. In time, we extend the circle. It is in relationship that we discover who we really are. This is why here at church we devote as much energy to pastoral care, chalice circles, meditation groups, classes and fellowship events. This is why even in committee meetings we take time to check in and visit. These times of gathering build and strengthen our human connections. These gatherings help save our souls. They really do.
Human connections, human relationships, are wonderful and absolutely necessary. But they are not enough. A saved life is saved for something. You and I also need to connect with some purpose, some ministry. It might be helping children. It might be working for peace. It might be working to help the poor find housing and health care. It might be caring for the dying. It might be doing research into the mysteries of the universe. It might be creating music and art that touch the spirit.
I believe that if you and I truly listen to our deepest longings, we will find that we are called to do something. Deep down, each one of us has his or her own sense of call. Each one of us wants to say yes to some great endeavor, to join some cause. Alas, too many of us fall into living with spiritual call forwarding: “Someone more talented, braver, and stronger than I will do it.” Or we just let our call go onto our inner recording machine: “I don’t have time or energy now, but I’ll listen to that message some time in the future.” What old call is sitting is on your spiritual message machine?
I believe that many of us here today have indeed been saved. I see salvation in the wonderful acts of tenderness and kindness. I see salvation in the way children and elders are treated. I see it in the enduring friendships among us. I hear it in our laughter.
I see saved souls in the work we do. I see people devoting time, energy and money to do serve noble purposes. I see people who care deeply about everything from human rights to homelessness to sustainable living.
What I have also learned is that, unlike what I was taught in church, true salvation is not something that happens once and for all. Yes, you and I have had experiences that grab our attention and change our lives. But the truth is that living a saved life is a matter of discipline and practice. Each of us can, and each of us has, strayed from the path.
What is it that holds us back? What is it that keeps us from living the life we truly want to live, that keeps us from being the people we truly want to be?
Traditional religion talks about our sinful nature. You and I are not comfortable talking about sin (that’s another sermon!). Whatever we call it, you and I have fallen short many times. Maybe we were afraid. I think that is a big part of what traps us. I know fear has trapped me. Perhaps we do not deepen a relationship because we are afraid of being hurt. Perhaps we do not say yes to our true calling because we are afraid of failure.
The truth is that salvation requires courage. We have to take some risks. We have to be willing to leave the luxury of our self-created spiritual prisons. We have to open our selves to new possibilities. We have to be able to say yes again—yes to love, yes to our call.
You and I may not believe in hell or heaven. I don’t. Yet you and I need to be saved. And we need to be saved over and over again. We need to be saved from the cozy, comfortable, numbing prisons that can lure us into a narrow, timid, distracted, and wasted life.
Together we can help each other attain salvation. Let us do that for each other. Let us reach out. Let us encourage one another. Let us connect. Let us dare to love. Let us hear our call. Let us save our souls.
Let us say yes, yes, oh, yes, to life.
Amen.