WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SAVED? March 26, 2006 Vespers Communion Service John H. Boyle Parish Associate, Fourth Presbyterian Church Psalm 107:1–9 Ephesians 2:1–10 Ten days ago, by the grace of God, I reached my eightieth birthday. Coincidentally, it was also the thirtieth anniversary of my being a member of the clergy staff of Fourth Presbyterian Church. Again, by the grace of God. Based on the adage that age, particularly older age, implies the presence of wisdom, someone asked me the other day to impart to them some wisdom. This was done somewhat in jest, but I sensed in the request a certain seriousness. I thought for a moment and responded, “For what it’s worth, I have found that I know less, but I believe more.” I meant that I know far less for a certainty now than I thought I knew for a certainty years ago, but that I now believe more about those things about which I am less certain and do not know beyond the shadow of a doubt. For I have come to realize that belief and faith, by definition, exist not in the absence of doubt and uncertainty, but precisely in the midst of them and in spite of them. Doubt, therefore, is the fertile soil in which faith flourishes. To walk by faith, to live in faith, is to walk and live without knowing for sure. In other words, it is to acknowledge that one is not omniscient, that one is not God. It is in this spirit that I approach the question that is the theme of this meditation, “What does it mean to be saved?” Not to tell you what I think I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, but to declare what I have come to believe, continue to ponder, and by faith try to live by, without knowing for sure. What I have come to believe about what it means to be saved is based upon both my understanding of scripture, God’s word, and in particular the message of Ephesians 2:1–10, and upon the experiences of my own faith journey. Let me begin with this. All religions have to do with salvation in one way or another. The theme of the Bible is that of salvation. The theme of that salvation is that of deliverance, deliverance from bondage and tyranny of all sorts that oppress, demean, violate people and otherwise keep us from becoming fully human in the way I believe God wants us to be. The origin of that deliverance is God. In the scriptures, God and salvation are one and the same. God is salvation, our sure salvation. That is the proclamation of scripture, and it is the proclamation of the Apostle Paul in his letters to the Ephesians. The Bible is not so much an explanation of salvation as it is a declaration, a proclamation of salvation. It is a declaration of the reality of God’s work of salvation in the world, as expressed in the historical record of a particular people, the people of Israel, and of a particular person, the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The history of the people of Israel, as depicted in the Bible, is the history of salvation. By extension, then, the history of all people is “salvation history.” Among the temptations that I have had to fight off as I have grown older are those of cynicism, apathy, and a general downright grumpiness about life and the way things are in the world and about religion and faith and, if the truth be known, probably about myself as much as, if not more than, anything. This is especially so when I see and hear religious hucksters of one sort or another peddle a version of salvation that suggests that if people intone the correct religious mantras and go through the requisite hoops of rigid religious legalisms, God will reward them with material possessions, good health, and induction into the economic Hall of Fame known as the Forbes 500 or, at least, something like that. Perhaps that statement indicates that I have not sufficiently resisted my temptations to cynicism and grumpiness. But it gives me pause when I hear salvation being equated in some way with safety. Salvation saves, but it does not necessarily make us safe. Not if the cross of Christ means what I think it does. Furthermore, if biblical salvation has to do with deliverance from death and destruction, from bondage and tyranny, then a look around the world at this hour can cause any thinking person to wonder, “Am I missing something?” For there seems to be precious little deliverance of that sort going on in the world. No wonder then that many continue to hold on to a view of salvation that has to do with the sweet by-and-by, where we shall meet on that beautiful shore in a land that is fairer than day. Or, if we are not saved and are among the great unwashed, to spend eternity roasting in the fires of hell. I have come to believe, however, that to be saved has little to do with heaven and hell as traditionally perceived as places in time and space somewhere beyond the universe, or within it, for that matter. The words, used rather sparingly throughout scripture, are not to be taken literally but figuratively and symbolically, representing, on the one hand, life lived with and under God and God’s love for all and for the whole creation and, on the other hand, life experienced apart from God and God’s love, as though neither existed. I have come to believe that to be saved is ultimately to be liberated, delivered, and freed from bondage and tyranny. Such deliverance is both a present reality and a future hope. This implies that salvation is not just a done deal in a moment in time but rather is a process that must, of necessity, occur over time. The healing of salvation (indeed, the word salvation comes from a word that means “wholeness” or “healing”) is both a moment in time and a matter of time. Among the tyrannies that I believe we can be freed from by God’s saving power, I want to comment briefly upon those I believe to be most fundamental and, to a greater or lesser degree, universal (by which I mean I struggle with them as well). The first is the tyranny of the self, the tyranny of self-preoccupation and self-absorption. The Russian novelist Dostoevsky put it this way: “A man who bows down to nothing can never bear the burden of himself.” Yet today, as in other days, we are often counseled to “Be yourself.” Though this is sound advice to be authentic, if we live only according to ourselves, we can become as unhealthy as we can become by not accepting ourselves as persons of worth and value. The playwright Ibsen, in his drama Peer Gynt, gives a vivid description of what used to be referred to as a lunatic asylum, whose superintendent says: It’s here that men are most themselves—themselves and nothing but themselves—sailing with outspread sails of self. Each shuts himself in a cask of self, the cask stopped with the bung of self and seasoned in a well of self. None has a tear for others’ woes or cares what any other thinks. . . . Now surely you’ll say that he’s himself! He’s full of himself and nothing else; himself in every word he says—himself when he is beside himself. . . . Long live the Emperor of Self! To be saved is to be freed from the tyranny of self, enabling us to be dedicated to that which is beyond ourselves and not only to shed a tear for the woes of others, but also to find ways to wipe away their tears. Then there is the tyranny of perfection, what psychotherapist Karen Horney called “the tyranny of the shoulds.” Granted there is a place for shoulds in our lives, a place for duty, obligation, commitment, and responsibility. But when we are tyrannized by them, live in constant fear of not doing them, and are always hypervigilant regarding them, when we do not have what has been called “the courage of imperfection,” and when we have to be perfect and expect others to be as well, we are in bondage. I often say to couples planning to be married and who exhibit signs of this tyranny of perfection, that if they are wedded to this ideal, they cannot be wedded to one another. If they try to, there will be a kind of hell to pay. To be saved is to dare to believe and have faith in the God who does not demand perfection in us in order for us to be loved and accepted, and who loves and accepts us in spite of our imperfection. The good news of the gospel is the good news of sin and imperfection, as G. K. Chesterton once claimed. It is the good news that we are saved not by our own perfection or even by our striving for perfection. We are saved by God’s perfect love revealed in Christ, the love that casts out our fear of imperfection. The tyranny of isolation and loneliness is another tyranny under which many people live day in and day out. It is a tyranny fostered by prejudice and poverty in many instances, as well as by illness and rejection. Often these conditions are accompanied by a gnawing sense of shame and guilt as people wonder what they did wrong to bring such a tyranny upon themselves. It is not so much the guilt and shame that isolates us as it is the terror of being unforgiven, the fear that we are doomed to punishment for life. To be saved is to receive the gift of God’s forgiving grace, which the death of Jesus on the cross, and this Table, attest to, and to accept that God is willing to go that far to ensure that we receive that gift. As one person said to me years ago after going through the dark night of her soul, “When you know you are forgiven, you aren’t alone any more. When you know you are not alone, you don’t have to be afraid. When you don’t have to be afraid, you don’t have to hate. And when that happens, it is like being born again.” To be saved is to be restored again to community. That community, when it welcomes both the sinner and the stranger, is the church, the body of Christ in the world. Perhaps the most formidable tyranny we live under today is that of meaninglessness. What’s it all about? Why am I here and what am I here for? To live under the tyranny of meaninglessness is to live in despair, devoid of hope. This condition is not unrelated to the other tyrannies I have mentioned. When we are all wrapped up in ourselves, when we are continually frustrated in our attempts to be perfect, and when we are isolated and alone with our guilt and shame, the stage is set for the tragedy as well as the tyranny of meaninglessness. Historian Roy Porter believes that the question “How can I be saved?” today has been replaced for many by the question “How can I be happy?” But that question itself may be a mask for or another way of asking about the meaning of life and if it is worth living. So it is that the Apostle Paul concludes his comments about salvation as a journey from death to life with the words, “For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10). It is God’s grace that saves us, not our good works. But it is our good works that signify the degree to which we live our lives as those who have been delivered from tyranny and bondage. To be saved from the tyranny of meaninglessness is to live not exclusively for ourselves but primarily for the sake of others. Finally, to be saved is to be freed by God’s grace from the tyranny of trying to be our own savior. To be liberated from bondage and to be freed from the tyrannies that imprison us requires outside help. “For by grace [by outside help] you have been saved,” writes Paul, “. . . and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God . . . so that no one may boast.” It is not that I have no part to play in the process. “Through faith,” writes Paul, about how we become partners with God in that process. But help beyond us is required. I had been told that the trains in Switzerland were compulsively punctual. It was September 1945, after World War II in Europe had ended. I was on furlough, first in Paris, then in Switzerland. When the train I was on stopped in Basel, we were told we would have time to shop if we wished to before the train departed. I bought a Tissot watch for a few American dollars. Still have it. Still keeps almost perfect time. When I returned to the train station, I realized that the train was beginning to pull out of the station. I had been seconds late, but the train, as I have said, was compulsively punctual. As the train picked up speed, I ran after it as fast as I could. As I tried to leap upon the step at one of the doors of the train, my foot slipped, and I felt myself beginning to fall and in danger of being drawn under the wheels of the train. Having gone through combat unscathed, although with a number of close calls, I was now in danger of losing my life. Suddenly, I felt a hand reach down and grab me by the field jacket I was wearing and another hand grip my arm, and in a matter of seconds, I was pulled to safety by a stranger on the train who had seen my plight. I realized later that in rescuing me, he had endangered himself if, as the train continued to pick up speed, he too were to have lost his footing. Apart from that stranger laying hold on me, I would not have been saved, for I could not have saved myself. So I come to the Lord’s Table tonight, this table of remembrance and hope, grateful that in Jesus Christ God lays hold on us, imparting to us the grace of God’s unconditional love from which we can never be separated. I come, grateful that Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed his precious blood. What does it mean to be saved? Whatever else it means, it means that we are loved, that we are forgiven, and that we are not ultimately alone anymore. Amen.