Salvation (Part 3)
Ask Me Anything
Week 7: Salvation (pt. 3)
Questions Asked:
Why did Jesus have to die on the cross in order for the rest of us to be saved? I’m a scientist and I’m just not following the cause and effect. Isn’t God all powerful? He made the Big Bang happen and all of this stuff! Why couldn’t he just make it so that we all go to heaven and let Jesus live his life. Is it because we sinned and he’s upset? But he made us this way? Isn’t he supposed to be forgiving? Is God not perfect?
Who doesn’t “go to heaven”? What is heaven? My last student ministry claimed that you go to heaven after you die if you have Jesus in your heart/accept him as the messiah (with some exceptions), but I don’t want to be a part of something exclusive to anybody. That doesn’t make sense with what the Bible says about Grace anyway. What's the truth?
Wait so if you believe that Abraham and Job and David and Jacob and Esther did get saved, why did Jesus need to die? Were they just extra holy or..?
Is Jesus still Jewish? Is that just completely irrelevant?
The past few weeks we have been answering questions submitted around sin, salvation and the afterlife. There are so many ways that the death and resurrection of Jesus can be interpreted and how we can live out salvation within our own lives. I want to spend some more time unpacking sin and salvation before we begin to tackle the afterlife.
The Work of the People interviews Lisa Sharon Harper about sin as breaking relationships. She analyzes the Greek understanding and definition of sin (missing the mark) and discusses how it is more about the ways in which we relate with one another. This can really broaden the ways in which we understand both sin and salvation as communal instead of individualized. In western culture, we are very individualistic, but this goes against so much of our faith tradition.
In the Deconstructionists Playbook, Rev. Miriam Samuelson-Roberts writes about Jesus as a healer. Many stories in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), such as the healing of Lazarus, tell the stories of Jesus healing people and bringing them back into community. Rev. Samuelson-Roberts writes, "There is a therapist in my community who asks people, 'What does your healed self look like?' … Not a new self, not a better self, but a healed self. Take some time to live into that idea." When we get the notion that Jesus replaces us with some perfect cookie-cutter version of ourselves at a specific moment dubbed as salvation, we miss out on an opportunity for healing. What if instead, salvation was viewed as collective healing? What if we urged and encouraged each other into the healed versions of ourselves? Salvation is communal, not individual. It has always been meant for collective union with God. John Wesley described it as the working out of our salvation, implying that it is active, ongoing work. Methodists tend to believe salvation is ongoing, not a finite moment in time. To me, this is the purpose of faith, the working out and wrestling with our beliefs in order to better connect with the divine and partner in the liberatory work to be done within this universe.
One of my personal favorite stories is the resurrection of Lazarus found in John 11:17-44 (NIV). Lazarus was a good friend of Jesus'. Mary and Martha were his sisters. Leading up to this passage, Jesus hears that Lazarus was sick, Jesus waited where he was for two more days, instead of traveling to Bethany to be with him. When Jesus finally made it to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. This is significant, the Judean belief was that the breath (or life force) remained hovering above a body for three days. During this time there was hope that the person could come back to life. With Lazarus being dead four days, hope was lost. When Jesus greets Martha, he claims that Lazarus will rise again, and that he is the resurrection and the life. Then Mary comes and she falls weeping at his feet. Jesus is moved and asks to see the body and begins to weep.
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
40Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”44The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Not only did Jesus heal someone who seemed too far gone, he invited the community into that healing. And he didn't do it in a detached way, he deeply felt the emotions, grief, and care. Jesus was deeply involved in Lazarus' healing. There is a theologian who talks about this story in terms of queer people coming out, which is beautiful imagery. This story has so much potential for thinking of Jesus as a healer, inviting us into our most healed selves, and inviting that to happen within community. In their devotional entitled Collective Liberation, Rozella Haydée White says, "Here's the thing about liberation: it can only be experienced individually if it is shared collectively. In Jesus, we see that God was not simply concerned about the individual, but with the collective." Salvation is not merely an individual experience. Injustice is felt on a communal scale and so is salvation. We limit salvation when we think of it solely as something that happens to individuals.
White says, "To be a follower of Christ is to be a seeker and creator of liberation. Liberation brings healing, and God wants us to be made well and be whole. The signs that we are in bondage and sin are all around us. And when I use the term sin in this context, I am specifically talking about a fundamental condition of being inwardly focused and disconnected from God, from others, and from ourselves. This is sin. This is brokenness. This is the condition from which we are seeking liberation."
Last week, we watched a video where Becca Stevens was asked, "What does justice have to do with salvation?" to which she responded, "What does salvation have to do with a more important issue than justice?" Justice and salvation are inseparable in my mind. Especially if we view sin as a break in relationship, and perfection as wellness of relationship, then justice work is crucial to achieving wellness. Many of us may be familiar with the Hebrew word shalom which means communal peace and wellbeing, but is tied to community. It is meant for communal peace.
In the Work of the People video, Unconverted, Miguel A. De La Torre says that our salvation is dependent on our response to those traveling through the desert from Mexico to the U.S. border. He paints a really powerful picture on how we should be responding to marginalized community.
Resources:
Work of the People - Unconverted
Work of the People - Breaking Wholeness
Crew Guide - What is Salvation?
Our Bible App - The Deconstructionists Playbook
Discussion Questions:
What do you think about sin as a break in relationship?
What do you think about the idea as salvation as collective healing?
What do you see as the relationship between salvation and justice?
What do you think about De La Torre's view on salvation as caring for those immigrating from Mexico?