A Worldly Salvation
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
In the early 1960s, John A. T. Robinson, a Church of England bishop, published a little book startling many in the Christian world. Bishop Robinson said the faith was seriously out of touch with the real world. His book, Honest To God, was a "coming out of the closet" moment for Christians who were committed to Christ, but who could no longer hold our faith in traditional ways. The Bishop expressed his views in a way that caught the attention of the whole world — Christian and nonchristian alike. He gave his concerns a public hearing, underscoring the many issues usually hidden from debate and consideration. Bishop Robinson was both applauded and attacked for openly expressing himself. But the heat of the hostile response suggested that something important was at hand.
In general, Bishop Robinson said the gospel is in danger of making itself irrelevant. Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, sleeping through a revolution, Honest To God portrayed the faith as sleeping, plodding along not noticing it was living in a new and different world. It has been said that military leaders prepare for a future war in the same way they fought the last war, neglecting the changes in technology and political realities. Robinson's book was an indictment of any Christianity proclaiming the faith in the images and arguments making the faith highly irrelevant to the present needs and understandings.
Bishop Robinson insisted that the common world view has changed over the last 300 years. The modern world no longer centers on living toward an eternal destiny, even though Bishop Robinson believed in life after death. Robinson felt Christians now are focused on this world in a way not seen since the Old Testament prophets. A new concern to exercise our human abilities in controlling our world and delve into the secrets of nature has taken over. Humans began to reason and experiment to better the human lot. A heady trust in human powers to value and make a difference in our earthly life has replaced the traditional dismissal of the world, pointing toward heaven.
A few sensed this new take on the biblical message would shift our focus to begin speaking the faith to this-worldly issues, making life more worthwhile and better. In short, the Christian message of salvation would have to rediscover its worldly roots, or people would set aside the faith and opt for a secular focus devoid of religion. Salvation would need to become "worldly."
I
If the focus of salvation needs to be centered on this life, it does not mean that an ultimate salvation beyond this world and this life is unimportant. There have been some who have made this conclusion. They reduce the biblical meaning of salvation to this life only. We may admire their courage in holding this perspective in the face of the many sufferings and disappointments of this world. But there is a fragility about this life that mocks a purely worldly salvation. Human reason does not always hold back violence and rage. Reason is sometimes helpless against our inhumane impulses. Our anxiety often prompts us to secure our advantage at the expense of our neighbor. Justice sometimes seems to be perverted into a weapon of the haves to keep the have-nots in their place. Power easily corrupts the best of our leaders, and the furies of nature still defy our best efforts at control. In fact, most of our scientific wisdom tells us the cosmos is not an enduring possibility. At some far future point, it will fall into the mystery of death, so that worldly salvation also ceases to be adequate.
Reducing the message of salvation exclusively to this world is a difficult matter. It takes an extraordinary denial of the destructive forces within the human person as well as those cruel forces in historical collectives and the raw power of nature. Many years ago, Bertrand Russell, having given up any Christian belief, said that only an "unyielding despair" can keep one steady in the face of these frightening realisms.
It is absurd to think of salvation only in this-worldly terms. To do so can easily bring us to the despair of Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" or to the modern version expressed so well by the French author, Albert Camus. That some have gone this difficult route is a tribute to their fearlessness. But the heavy price of such a reduced doctrine is to leave untouched a whole area of human concern. With the neglect of a wider version of salvation, we open the door to those who have scruples about offering some better hope, but are corrupted by their own personal agenda. The Nazis of Germany and the Marxists in Russia played on the chaos and misery that are created by a totally worldly outlook. There needs to be a believable version of an ultimate judgment set within a larger and everlasting mercy. Otherwise, the reduction of biblical teaching to a wholly secular or worldly version puts us under the banner of tragedy and nothingness.
Of course there is exception to all of this. The African-Americans who were slaves in America left us a wonderful legacy in their spirituals. These musical expressions of faith are profound, but they are primarily otherworldly — naturally. They had no earthly hope as long as they were slaves and it seemed to them that this bondage would never end. But we are people who are not slaves and we are called in our circumstances to grasp salvation as a worldly experience as well as something on the horizon of forever. Excuse the slaves, of course, for they had no other choice. We can do otherwise.
Christians who value the meanings and joys of this life, who want the message of salvation to have its proper worldly due, must inevitably live in the tension of the now and the not-yet. We need to preach that eternal salvation is birthed by an ultimate salvation of persons, the world, and all the values of nature, history, and culture. Though we are traveling toward the heavenly city, we cherish the joys we find along the way, making the journey better and easing the way for those who come after us.
II
Until recently, Christian preaching and teaching has neglected the biblical roots of a worldly salvation. Popular Christian proclamation sums it up saying, "We are saved because Jesus came down to earth to die on the cross and save us from our sins." For assent to this proposition we are guaranteed life everlasting. There is no doubt that this presentation of the gospel speaks to the brokenness of human life and has rescued millions from despair and fear. But it is also true that this presentation is a questionable statement of biblical salvation. It drives many thoughtful persons from the faith because of its otherworldly passivity. This gospel makes few worldly demands on us. For as long as we confess Jesus, we are enabled to write off this world and any obligation for its betterment.
We ought to be grateful that the early church leaders attached the Hebrew Bible to the writings of the New Testament. Unlike them, many of us have an unsupportable bias against the Old Testament. We may treasure a few of the Psalms, the story of Ruth, and the Genesis l accounts but, we much prefer the New Testament — minus Revelation! Some of this is due to our focus on Jesus. Many say that the Hebrew Bible is too confusing with its stories of battles and kings, of worship and dietary regulations, of judgment and destruction, of primitive notions of God, and of human faithfulness. The Hebrew Bible has become a lost treasure that we make little effort to reclaim.
But the Hebrew Bible story is a larger narrative about an eternal love saving us now. God's saving power is to be trusted and known in this life. This eternal love came wrapped in the life of a small nation, but ultimately became loose in the whole world. Jesus seems more concerned about a redress of earth's miseries rather than some divine figure concerned with saving people from their sins. His message was about a godly state of affairs soon to burst in upon the earth, fulfilling Israel's dreams and hopes.
The historical Jesus calls us to work for the coming of this wonderful worldly salvation. Albert Schweitzer pleased few with his radical book, The Quest Of The Historical Jesus. Neither liberals nor conservatives were pleased by Schweitzer's conclusion, for he insisted Jesus was a person limited by his first-century understandings. Yet even in his disturbing portrait of Jesus, Schweitzer closed his book with words that have almost a scriptural tone, insisting that Jesus puts a powerful claim upon us and calls us to his tasks in our own day.
He puts us to the tasks that he has to carry out in our age. He commands. Schweitzer's views of Jesus as a worldly savior take on added authority because Schweitzer lived out a remarkable response to the claims of Jesus by giving his life as a medical doctor in central Africa. Jesus may have been wrong in his understanding of how God was going to work out the kingdom, but he still stands against our limiting God's salvation to heaven and eternity.
III
So if Christians seriously witness and evangelize, we must do it from a worldly focus with a conviction that God's saving grace is centered on this world. This puts us in solidarity with many of the world's unbelievers who long for a transformed earth. We must always remember that Pope John XXIII opened his encyclical on world peace with the words, "To Christians and all persons of good will." John was convinced that Christians had many allies in the unbelieving ranks who would share our dreams and hopes for a better world.
This brings us to our text for the morning. It may have come from someone later than the prophet Isaiah, who placed it into chapter 63. Perhaps this person may have been involved in the struggle to rebuild the nation after the Exile in Babylon. We know that this effort fell far short of the their hopes, never rising to the glory of David and Solomon. But this author has not given up his dreams even when reality disappointed him. He says he will renew his faith by "recount[ing] the gracious deeds of the Lord" (63:7a). He remembers what God has done for Israel — showing them mercy and love, calling them God's own people, saving them from hopelessness, being a presence with them, and carrying them along the torturous way (63:7b-9). His words are an impressive statement of trust.
A young rabbi said he nearly lost his faith. Both his parents died and his grief put him into a crisis of faith. God's goodness did not seem real any longer. At the point of resigning his synagogue because of his anguish of faith, he invited an aged Jewish scholar, Mordacai Kaplan, to give some lectures. The young rabbi eagerly responded to Kaplan's definition of God as "the power that makes for salvation." A rebirth of faith opened to him. He began to understand in the painful, destructive experiences of life, how goodness was often reborn. Goodness proves more resilient than any of the evils that come to us. To Kaplan, it seemed reasonable to trust this more than human power "that makes for salvation."
Of course we will quarrel with Kaplan's naturalism, but faith sometimes comes from sources that we may label inadequate. Theologian Marjorie Suchocki says that she became a serious Christian when, as a young teen, she attended an evangelistic rally by the Billy Graham Crusade in Madison Square Garden. Today Suchocki's faith is quite a contrast to Graham's simple and warm evangelical theology. Yet faith came to her through Graham, even though she would move beyond that initial moment. Reducing our human hopes and dreams to this world is inadequate. An ultimate salvation seems necessary to make sense of the goodness of God.
But we cannot dismiss such as Kaplan for two reasons: one, because religious naturalism provides a place for those who are not able to believe in anything beyond this life. Naturalistic theology can become a temporary shelter for those who are experiencing a faith crisis in today's world. There are many who cannot find any place to hang their faith. We must not leave thoughtful persons without some meaningful sense of God in their present life experiences, even if we ourselves find it seriously lacking.
The second reason we need our Kaplans is because they bring us back down to earth. "Why," Jesus asks us, "do you stand here looking to the heavens?" (Acts 1:11). Instead of craning our necks to heaven we need to stoop over and sense the presence of God in the here and now. After the popularity of the Left Behind series, a lot of Christians will need a stiff dose of bending our theological neck back toward earth. The damage of these books may last a long time. If we Christians had been more concerned about these lines in the Lord's Prayer that intone, "Thy Kingdom come on earth," our world might not be in the frightening disorder that it is now in. Beyond our individual lives, we must trust that God will save us in our lives together, in this world. And this becomes the wonderful good news that much of our world is wanting to hear. During these days after Christmas we might be able to consider such a promise and call.
In general, Bishop Robinson said the gospel is in danger of making itself irrelevant. Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, sleeping through a revolution, Honest To God portrayed the faith as sleeping, plodding along not noticing it was living in a new and different world. It has been said that military leaders prepare for a future war in the same way they fought the last war, neglecting the changes in technology and political realities. Robinson's book was an indictment of any Christianity proclaiming the faith in the images and arguments making the faith highly irrelevant to the present needs and understandings.
Bishop Robinson insisted that the common world view has changed over the last 300 years. The modern world no longer centers on living toward an eternal destiny, even though Bishop Robinson believed in life after death. Robinson felt Christians now are focused on this world in a way not seen since the Old Testament prophets. A new concern to exercise our human abilities in controlling our world and delve into the secrets of nature has taken over. Humans began to reason and experiment to better the human lot. A heady trust in human powers to value and make a difference in our earthly life has replaced the traditional dismissal of the world, pointing toward heaven.
A few sensed this new take on the biblical message would shift our focus to begin speaking the faith to this-worldly issues, making life more worthwhile and better. In short, the Christian message of salvation would have to rediscover its worldly roots, or people would set aside the faith and opt for a secular focus devoid of religion. Salvation would need to become "worldly."
I
If the focus of salvation needs to be centered on this life, it does not mean that an ultimate salvation beyond this world and this life is unimportant. There have been some who have made this conclusion. They reduce the biblical meaning of salvation to this life only. We may admire their courage in holding this perspective in the face of the many sufferings and disappointments of this world. But there is a fragility about this life that mocks a purely worldly salvation. Human reason does not always hold back violence and rage. Reason is sometimes helpless against our inhumane impulses. Our anxiety often prompts us to secure our advantage at the expense of our neighbor. Justice sometimes seems to be perverted into a weapon of the haves to keep the have-nots in their place. Power easily corrupts the best of our leaders, and the furies of nature still defy our best efforts at control. In fact, most of our scientific wisdom tells us the cosmos is not an enduring possibility. At some far future point, it will fall into the mystery of death, so that worldly salvation also ceases to be adequate.
Reducing the message of salvation exclusively to this world is a difficult matter. It takes an extraordinary denial of the destructive forces within the human person as well as those cruel forces in historical collectives and the raw power of nature. Many years ago, Bertrand Russell, having given up any Christian belief, said that only an "unyielding despair" can keep one steady in the face of these frightening realisms.
It is absurd to think of salvation only in this-worldly terms. To do so can easily bring us to the despair of Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" or to the modern version expressed so well by the French author, Albert Camus. That some have gone this difficult route is a tribute to their fearlessness. But the heavy price of such a reduced doctrine is to leave untouched a whole area of human concern. With the neglect of a wider version of salvation, we open the door to those who have scruples about offering some better hope, but are corrupted by their own personal agenda. The Nazis of Germany and the Marxists in Russia played on the chaos and misery that are created by a totally worldly outlook. There needs to be a believable version of an ultimate judgment set within a larger and everlasting mercy. Otherwise, the reduction of biblical teaching to a wholly secular or worldly version puts us under the banner of tragedy and nothingness.
Of course there is exception to all of this. The African-Americans who were slaves in America left us a wonderful legacy in their spirituals. These musical expressions of faith are profound, but they are primarily otherworldly — naturally. They had no earthly hope as long as they were slaves and it seemed to them that this bondage would never end. But we are people who are not slaves and we are called in our circumstances to grasp salvation as a worldly experience as well as something on the horizon of forever. Excuse the slaves, of course, for they had no other choice. We can do otherwise.
Christians who value the meanings and joys of this life, who want the message of salvation to have its proper worldly due, must inevitably live in the tension of the now and the not-yet. We need to preach that eternal salvation is birthed by an ultimate salvation of persons, the world, and all the values of nature, history, and culture. Though we are traveling toward the heavenly city, we cherish the joys we find along the way, making the journey better and easing the way for those who come after us.
II
Until recently, Christian preaching and teaching has neglected the biblical roots of a worldly salvation. Popular Christian proclamation sums it up saying, "We are saved because Jesus came down to earth to die on the cross and save us from our sins." For assent to this proposition we are guaranteed life everlasting. There is no doubt that this presentation of the gospel speaks to the brokenness of human life and has rescued millions from despair and fear. But it is also true that this presentation is a questionable statement of biblical salvation. It drives many thoughtful persons from the faith because of its otherworldly passivity. This gospel makes few worldly demands on us. For as long as we confess Jesus, we are enabled to write off this world and any obligation for its betterment.
We ought to be grateful that the early church leaders attached the Hebrew Bible to the writings of the New Testament. Unlike them, many of us have an unsupportable bias against the Old Testament. We may treasure a few of the Psalms, the story of Ruth, and the Genesis l accounts but, we much prefer the New Testament — minus Revelation! Some of this is due to our focus on Jesus. Many say that the Hebrew Bible is too confusing with its stories of battles and kings, of worship and dietary regulations, of judgment and destruction, of primitive notions of God, and of human faithfulness. The Hebrew Bible has become a lost treasure that we make little effort to reclaim.
But the Hebrew Bible story is a larger narrative about an eternal love saving us now. God's saving power is to be trusted and known in this life. This eternal love came wrapped in the life of a small nation, but ultimately became loose in the whole world. Jesus seems more concerned about a redress of earth's miseries rather than some divine figure concerned with saving people from their sins. His message was about a godly state of affairs soon to burst in upon the earth, fulfilling Israel's dreams and hopes.
The historical Jesus calls us to work for the coming of this wonderful worldly salvation. Albert Schweitzer pleased few with his radical book, The Quest Of The Historical Jesus. Neither liberals nor conservatives were pleased by Schweitzer's conclusion, for he insisted Jesus was a person limited by his first-century understandings. Yet even in his disturbing portrait of Jesus, Schweitzer closed his book with words that have almost a scriptural tone, insisting that Jesus puts a powerful claim upon us and calls us to his tasks in our own day.
He puts us to the tasks that he has to carry out in our age. He commands. Schweitzer's views of Jesus as a worldly savior take on added authority because Schweitzer lived out a remarkable response to the claims of Jesus by giving his life as a medical doctor in central Africa. Jesus may have been wrong in his understanding of how God was going to work out the kingdom, but he still stands against our limiting God's salvation to heaven and eternity.
III
So if Christians seriously witness and evangelize, we must do it from a worldly focus with a conviction that God's saving grace is centered on this world. This puts us in solidarity with many of the world's unbelievers who long for a transformed earth. We must always remember that Pope John XXIII opened his encyclical on world peace with the words, "To Christians and all persons of good will." John was convinced that Christians had many allies in the unbelieving ranks who would share our dreams and hopes for a better world.
This brings us to our text for the morning. It may have come from someone later than the prophet Isaiah, who placed it into chapter 63. Perhaps this person may have been involved in the struggle to rebuild the nation after the Exile in Babylon. We know that this effort fell far short of the their hopes, never rising to the glory of David and Solomon. But this author has not given up his dreams even when reality disappointed him. He says he will renew his faith by "recount[ing] the gracious deeds of the Lord" (63:7a). He remembers what God has done for Israel — showing them mercy and love, calling them God's own people, saving them from hopelessness, being a presence with them, and carrying them along the torturous way (63:7b-9). His words are an impressive statement of trust.
A young rabbi said he nearly lost his faith. Both his parents died and his grief put him into a crisis of faith. God's goodness did not seem real any longer. At the point of resigning his synagogue because of his anguish of faith, he invited an aged Jewish scholar, Mordacai Kaplan, to give some lectures. The young rabbi eagerly responded to Kaplan's definition of God as "the power that makes for salvation." A rebirth of faith opened to him. He began to understand in the painful, destructive experiences of life, how goodness was often reborn. Goodness proves more resilient than any of the evils that come to us. To Kaplan, it seemed reasonable to trust this more than human power "that makes for salvation."
Of course we will quarrel with Kaplan's naturalism, but faith sometimes comes from sources that we may label inadequate. Theologian Marjorie Suchocki says that she became a serious Christian when, as a young teen, she attended an evangelistic rally by the Billy Graham Crusade in Madison Square Garden. Today Suchocki's faith is quite a contrast to Graham's simple and warm evangelical theology. Yet faith came to her through Graham, even though she would move beyond that initial moment. Reducing our human hopes and dreams to this world is inadequate. An ultimate salvation seems necessary to make sense of the goodness of God.
But we cannot dismiss such as Kaplan for two reasons: one, because religious naturalism provides a place for those who are not able to believe in anything beyond this life. Naturalistic theology can become a temporary shelter for those who are experiencing a faith crisis in today's world. There are many who cannot find any place to hang their faith. We must not leave thoughtful persons without some meaningful sense of God in their present life experiences, even if we ourselves find it seriously lacking.
The second reason we need our Kaplans is because they bring us back down to earth. "Why," Jesus asks us, "do you stand here looking to the heavens?" (Acts 1:11). Instead of craning our necks to heaven we need to stoop over and sense the presence of God in the here and now. After the popularity of the Left Behind series, a lot of Christians will need a stiff dose of bending our theological neck back toward earth. The damage of these books may last a long time. If we Christians had been more concerned about these lines in the Lord's Prayer that intone, "Thy Kingdom come on earth," our world might not be in the frightening disorder that it is now in. Beyond our individual lives, we must trust that God will save us in our lives together, in this world. And this becomes the wonderful good news that much of our world is wanting to hear. During these days after Christmas we might be able to consider such a promise and call.
