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| Where are you going? Are you saved? Maybe these aren't the right questions... |
Today's readings:
If you grew up in the South you
probably are familiar with the following question, “Are you saved?” I believe
this to be something worth discussing in all parts of the Christian Church;
however, some branches are more obsessed with the response than others. As a
staunch Episcopalian in my youth, I wanted to rebel against such questions
thinking them beneath me; however, one youth group leader helped my Episcopal
Youth Community (EYC) to practice our responses to this query. The fervor with
which this EYC mentor urged us has stuck with me, but even more than his spirit
a follow-up demand he made on our community still hounds me to this day.
Before getting to his question
though let me reframe the original ask a little bit. Quite often what catches
our part of the Jesus Movement off guard is this underlying belief that there
is an all-or-nothing decision that we make that will give us entry into either
heaven or hell. The beliefs that lie behind “Are you saved?” seem to fly in the
face of what we believe about God’s eternal love, reconciliation, and grace.
Namely, we believe that God loving us eternally is not up to us, but up to God
who is always faithful, loving, and true. So, when the typical Episcopalian is
asked “Are you saved?” we will quite often respond with a quizzical look
because this inquiry simply does not compute.
The closest analogy—which is a poor
one that easily breaks down—is asking a child who is loved unconditionally by
her parents if she has chosen to be loved. She is already loved, whether she
wants to dwell in that love is of course up to her, but the parents love comes
whether she chooses it or not. So, back to the original question and the youth
ministry who challenged it.
What lay behind his conversation
with us was not a denial of the question itself, but a challenge to it. The
question “Are you saved?” implies a one-time transaction, like a
knee-replacement or a single deposit into a checking account. What we were
encouraged to do was not to seek a solitary moment of acceptance, but rather to
allow God to continuously transform us. The request for him was not “Are you
saved?” but instead, “Are you undergoing conversion?”—not a knee-replacement,
but a daily dose of medicine; not a single deposit, but a regular contribution.
Fortunately enough for us we have the example of saintly ones whom we remember
today and this passage from Acts 17 to call us into lives that are not a
shooting star, but the constant lapping of the ocean.
King Kamehameha and Queen Emma were
not your typical royalty. When they took over as the ruling people of Hawaii in
the middle of the 19th Century their subjects were accustomed to
royals who lived at a distance and focused mostly on the pomp and pageantry of
the position. Instead Kamehameha and Emma ruled alongside their people—even
those who had been recently afflicted by a severe small pox outbreak. This
experience of seeing the suffering served as a catalyst and the beginning of a
conversion in them. To respond to those in pain the king and queen went
door-to-door to both rich and poor as they sought funds to build a hospital.
In the midst of meeting their
people King Kamehameha and Queen Emma saw the unsatisfactory work of Christian
missionaries from the United States. As a response, the royal couple petitioned
the Bishop of Oxford to send Church of England representatives to come to
Hawaii to teach lives of conversion. As a prince, Kamehameha had been strongly
impressed by time spent in England. The king’s fascination though was not a flash
in the pan, as he spent the years after a missionary bishop and priests were
sent to the islands transcribing the Prayer Book and Hymnal into his native
language. When the couple’s lone son died Kamehameha seemingly died of grief a
year later. Following this the queen declined to rule, but instead spent her
life tending to the sick, taking care of school, and raising funds for a
cathedral. She even became a favorite guest of Queen Victoria. The Cathedral
completed after both their deaths was a testimony of lives that were not lived
in fear of answering an all-or-nothing question, but in love from the
conversion that was happening because of God’s presence in their lives.
Today’s First Lesson from Acts 17
calls to mind similarly a question of conversion. When Paul challenged the
Athenians, who were accustomed to worshipping many gods, to see and know the
one true God it did not only matter whether those listening accepted this teaching
in the moment. Rather, what mattered was whether a true conversion began in
their lives. Over the course of time did the Gentile listeners yearn to know
more of God in whom they lived and moved and had their being? Did they discover
that they were part of God’s offspring? Would that learn that God loved them
infinitely? Or, were they scared into making a one-time decision?
A one-time transaction with God
does not speak of the abundant transformation that life with Christ offers.
Daily we are invited to offer up our lives to be transformed by God’s love. We
do that here in this service when we offer up our gifts literally and
symbolically on the altar. God in this moment alters our lives as they become
more fully a part of God’s life. When we receive the gifts of God as the people
of God we are indeed undergoing conversion. God hands us back our lives only
they have been transformed. May we continually undergo transformation by God as
we seek not a single moment of salvation, but a life changed by Christ’s
redeeming love.
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