I have been to several funerals at which the minister really
upset me. One in particular stands
out. It was for the husband of a woman
who frequently attended my church in Caledon.
He was in a nursing home and had developed a relationship with this “minister”
who came and did Bible studies. During
the service the minister highlighted that the man had faith in Christ, had
lived a faithful life, and would now spend eternity in heaven. He then went on to inquire of the audience as
to whether the same would be true of them.
Would they spend eternity in Heaven or would they go to Hell. For the grand finale he led them in the
“sinners prayer” – all heads bowed, every eye closed, invite Jesus into your
heart. The prayer done, he told them
that those who had prayed that prayer were going to Heaven. They just had to believe it.
In the aftermath of that funeral, several people in my church
who were related to the deceased and also troubled by that minister asked what
I thought about what the minister had done.
Well, I told them that I believed what the minister did constituted
spiritual abuse. He was trying to elicit
a conversion decision out of people at a time when they were vulnerable. That is coercion, not grace. Oddly, ministers such as these do what they
do believing that there is no greater act of love than getting a person saved
for eternity. This situation begs the
question “What is it to be saved?”
I’ll start answering that question with another story. There was an elderly Mennonite man standing
in the subway in New York City waiting for the train. As you can imagine, he was wearing
plainclothes, a hat, and sporting the distinctive beard. This was in the late 1960’s. While he waited, a long-haired, hippy-looking
man came up to him and explained he was with the Friends of Jesus (a
charismatic movement back in the 60’s) and then asked, “Are you saved?” The Mennonite man just stared at him as he
pondered the question. Finally, he
answered, “Well, I suppose you should ask my neighbours.”
One of my theology professors in university would tell this
story whenever the topic of salvation came up.
Incidentally, I went to a Mennonite university. I think it pretty well manifests the tension
we fall into when talking about salvation.
The Friends of Jesus fellow seems to define salvation as an individual
thing pertaining to the afterlife.
Whereas, the elderly Mennonite fellow seems to have a difficult time
separating the concept of salvation from his conduct now within the community
in which he lived his faith.
For me, I’m a little more on the side of the Mennonite
gentleman. Salvation is a new reality created among human existence by God
through Jesus Christ in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. It is something we experience now as a small
taste, but yet we long for it to come in its fullness at a future day when
Jesus returns which will be the day of resurrection, the day of new creation. This new way of being is characterized by
being reconciled to God and to one another in a fellowship created in the Holy
Spirit who is with us now as a guarantee of what is to come. There is a peace that is present with us –
peace with God, with self, with one another – that exposes our lack of peace –
with God, self, and others – and makes us hope for its completion so much that
we radically change our direction in life – to deny self-gratification and the
evil it fosters, indeed, to die to self, take up the way of the cross and begin
to live in the resurrected life of Christ Jesus in his work to create communities
of reconciliation. We begin to live now for
God’s peace, trusting completely in God for he is present with us. It’s like turning a light on where before
there was only groping in the darkness.
We humans need to be able to trust in order to live together
functionally. We need to be able to
trust our existence, which requires a trust in God. We need to be able to trust ourselves to do
what’s best for ourselves and others. We need to be able to trust one
another. Yet, because of our innate bent
to self-gratify, which is what we call sin, we cannot trust anything in a way
that is functional. We trust idols
instead of God. When we think we are
doing what’s best for ourselves and others, we almost always do what feels like
it will give us the most pleasure. It’s
hard to trust one another when in the end we all just a bunch of
self-gratifiers. Therefore, our
existence is marked by fear, anxiety, and trying to build and protect
assets. We try to do things our own way.
Jesus’ death on the cross exposes our sin; exposes the extent
of how threatened we are by God’s presence in our lives, exposes how afraid we
are to simply trust God. But, God took
the horrible death of Jesus and made it the means by which he created a new humanity
built on the trust of the sure knowledge that God loves us, loves us enough to
let himself be killed by us because that was the only way to show us who and
how he really is. Trusting God, the way
to do what is best for ourselves and others is to do what God wants. Trusting God we can stop pursuing our own
wishes and humbe ourselves to serve one another in love.
Therefore, salvation is the free gift of the Holy Spirit to
us who plants in us the nature of Christ and makes us able to work it out in
the context of a community of faith. Salvation is a supernatural gift because God
himself comes from beyond our existence to act upon us to reveal himself to us
in such a way that it creates something utterly new in us. As Paul says, ”if anyone is in Christ, there
is a new creation.” It is a supernatural
gift that comes upon us in a very natural way in that we experience the love of
God in the life of a community faith. Salvation looks like people creating peace in
their midst. It is the work of
reconciliation.
It is sad that this powerful, peaceful, hopeful real message
of newly created communion with God and one another has been reduced to methods
of coercion such as “Turn or burn” or “save yourself with this prayer so you
can go to heaven and be with your loved ones after you die”. Indeed, salvation is powerfully present with
us now, only as a taste but it is here now, and if our neighbours when
considering how we treat them cannot answer in the affirmative for us as to
whether or not we who profess Christ have in fact been saved, then I think
we’ve missed the boat all together.
I’ll finish these thoughts with another story. There was an elderly abbot; an abbot is the
head monk in a monastery. He had seen
his monastery through much over the years, but these days he was troubled
because the number of monks was dwindling.
Fewer and fewer people were feeling the call to their way of life. The abbot was out walking one day when he met
an elderly Rabbi doing the same. They
struck up a conversation and the Rabbi invited him in for lunch. These lunches went on for several weeks and
one day the topic turned to the abbot’s concern for his monastery. The Rabbi shared the same concerns for his
synagogue. The Abbot asked the Rabbi, “What
should we do?” The Rabbi, responded,
“I’ve no idea what to do, but this I will tell you; the Messiah is one of
you.” (Messiah means saviour.) The Abbot was flattered by the Rabbi’s
remark, and asked “are you serious.” The
Rabbi again said, “The Messiah is one of you.”
The Abbot went back to the monastery and told the monk’s what the Rabbi
had said. The monk’s took it to heart
and began to believe that one of them was the Messiah. They all began to question in their hearts
which one it might be. They each ruled
out themselves, but said just in case I am I will treat myself with the utmost
respect. Not being able to single out
one of the brothers they all began to treat one another as if he were the Christ. The bond of love began to grow deep in the
monastery. The brothers became legendary
all over the countryside for their great love for all people and slowly over
the years the monastery began to grow as more and more people came seeking what
the brothers had. Amen.
