Being Saved is a life long Process

It is not often that I speak of sin and salvation. Mainly because this is language that has been so overused by the church that it is not always helpful. However, the concepts themselves remain important, indeed central, to the gospel and this week we have an invitation to reflect on what this might mean to us in our present circumstances. (Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 19 (24). 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and Luke 15:1-10.)

You may wish to read what I wrote three years ago focusing on the gospel and rejoicing that we are found.

A God who Searches for Us

“ … Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost …so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience … to the only God be honour and glory forever and ever.” (vs 15-17)

It is important to flesh out what we mean by sin and by being saved. For a long time now, but not always, the church has understood this as a kind of courtroom drama with a heavenly judge and criminals (sinners) awaiting judgement and only escaping punishment by being let off the hook (because of Jesus on the cross). Whatever truth is in that understanding it is too narrow and prescriptive theologically and pastorally to bring me much hope. If we understand sin as not only “crime” but as all that limits, separates and harms us and others – brokenness, selfishness, ignorance, and yes intentional harm and disregard by individuals and organisations and nations – we are coming closer I think to what sin is. Saving is therefore a mirror image – it is what spares us, frees us, heals us, and transforms us and others from the effects and hold of sin.

It is not that I believe sin and salvation unimportant but rather that I am convicted that they are very important and broader and deeper than a courtroom image can touch! Indeed, the images from the parables about lost things gives us additional ways of visualising and understanding. Instead of a courtroom we might think of a mountain side with one hundred sheep in which one is found to be missing or lost. We are invited to imagine finding one of our ten precious coins missing and to search until found – and then rejoice! (And of course we will soon hear the parable of the two lost sons.) The God “figure” in these stories is not a judge intent on judgment and punishment but a shepherd, a woman householder, a father, who seeks out the one who is lost and then rejoices whole heartedly at their return!!

It is clear in the parables and in Paul’s description of the great patience by Christ that his salvation is taking that being saved is not simply a moment in time but a process of seeking, finding, return, and rejoicing! Salvation is a process of transformation and being remade by the outworking of gracious love and the refining or reshaping forces of encounter and correction and growing.

This month I celebrate 54 years since I “gave my life to Christ” repeating after the youth pastor the sinner’s prayer. I naively thought that was it, that I was saved. And of course, at some level I was but it was more about beginnings and having articulated the hope and intention of going on a life long journey of being transformed.

Pastorally I think there is value in Paul’s remembrance that he was and is a sinner and dependent on the patience of Christ. When we think salvation is a once only deal with all the work being done by Jesus on the cross, we set ourselves up for a life of faith half lived. I suspect many Christians try very hard to be good, loving and right in order to give honour to God for the saving work of Christ but this can lead us to pretend to be further advanced than we are and then we feel the need to hide from others, ourselves and even God the full extent of our need for ongoing saving/healing/growing. And over time the gap between what we think we should be, what we pretend to be, and what we hide from ourselves creates a dangerous “split”. And out of that split much suffering and sin comes.

The prophets and the evening news attest that this tendency is not only personal but also what entire communities and nations tend to do. We in the church have been shockingly confronted by our own tendency to corporately “split” and deny our own dark shadow in terms of sexual abuse of children and the part we have played in the removal of indigenous children from their families and culture.

Therefore, I find it liberating and helpful to remember that I am a sinner not because it keeps me grovelling or anxious about the destination of my soul but because it keeps me humble, dependent and open to God’s gracious love. Just like everyone else!! It is not that I keep going back to being a thirteen-year-old responding to an altar call but that it reminds me to stay open to challenge and growth and therefore to be faithful over the long journey. And as I get older it is both easier and harder. Easier because I’ve been doing this for a while now but harder because some of my sins/failures/flaws are fairly ingrained and staying aware and intentional takes ongoing courage and commitment to the spiritual practices of prayer and contemplation, study of the Scriptures, and becoming a good neighbour. I suspect I will be trying to do my part until my last breath and maybe a little beyond!

And the more open we are to our true state of being and awareness of our dependence on grace the more committed we can be to seeking out those who are lost and hurting and rejoicing at any and every turning towards God’s love.

Even so, come Lord Jesus the Christ, come visit me a sinner with your love and call me and all your lost ones into fullness and growth until we are reflections of your grace. Amen.

This is my work based on all that I have read, heard and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others.