A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Third Sunday after Pentecost - June 21, 2009
This is the second in a summer series addressing questions people in the congregation want to hear a sermon on; this sermon responds to the question, What is more important - salvation or justice?
One of the first things law school students learn is, Don't ask anyone in the witness stand a question without knowing how they're going to answer. Clearly that pearl of wisdom is not part of a pastor's training. This is the second summer I've asked you, What would you like to hear a sermon about? And it's the second summer I haven't known how you'd answer. Looking at the topics you've given me, you're obviously concerned that I might fritter away the summer sipping cold beverages and reading mindless novels. Your concern deeply touches me. I don't quite know how to thank you . . .
What is more important - salvation or justice?
This is a complicated topic. So right from the start I want to let you know where we're headed. First, I'm going to talk about why many Christians see salvation and justice as being in conflict with each other. Why do churches seem to emphasize one or the other? Second, I'll talk about what I see as the biblical view of salvation. I will argue that in the Bible, salvation and justice have the same goal: to rebuild shattered community and restore people to communities of love. And third, I will use a familiar Bible story to reinforce the point that God's dream is that all of creation belong to communities of love. And God calls us to be rebuilders of shattered community and restorers of communities of love.
The word salvation literally means wholeness or healing. It comes from the same root as salve, which is something that heals. But when we hear the word salvation, I don't think that's what most people think of. I think most people think about personal salvation. If someone asks, Are you saved?, they usually mean, Are you confident you're going to heaven when you die? Salvation often has been about the next life more than this one.
Seeing salvation in this way, for many years more conservative Christians have committed themselves to saving souls from hell through missionary work and conversion. While more liberal Christians have emphasized the need to save victims of injustice while they're still in this world. In recent years, this wide divide between the salvation and justice camps has been narrowing. Groups like World Vision, which are deeply rooted in the evangelical Christian tradition, are healing thousands of desperate, dying people while they are still in this world. And Christians who have never focused on salvation because it seemed a distraction from justice are changing as well. The unparalleled violence in the 20th century has made it painfully clear that progress in education, science, and technology does not make people more just. As one observer bluntly states: "The smarter we get, the more prosperous we are, the more murderous we become" (Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way, Eerdmans, 2007, p. 34). Liberal Christians are starting to realize if they want to build a more just and peaceful world, they need God. They need to feel God is close and real and in love with them. Just like their conservative sisters and brothers have been doing all along. Finally it seems like salvation and justice are starting to get to know each other a bit. Instead of pointing judgmental, angry fingers at one other. Or ignoring each other all together.
How does the Bible talk about salvation? In the Hebrew Bible, salvation has little to do with where someone goes after they die. Because Jews didn't even start to believe in life after death until around 165 B.C. There are 1432 pages in this version of the Hebrew Bible. How many of those pages were written after Jews started believing in heaven and hell? At most, 11. Five chapters of the book of Daniel. The question of where we go when we die didn't keep the writers of the Hebrew Bible up at night.
How does the Hebrew Bible talk about salvation? The two most important stories in the Hebrew Bible show us. Through Moses, God leads the Hebrew people from slavery to freedom, and forms them into a community. Salvation is liberation. Salvation is being made into and belonging to a community. In the other major story in the Hebrew Bible, God calls the leaders of Jerusalem back from their exile in Babylon. Salvation is homecoming. Salvation is being restored to community that has been shattered.
What about Jesus' view of salvation? Jesus didn't spend much time talking about where we're going after we die. Jesus said what he was doing and how he was living was building the Kingdom of God. He called people to repent. Which didn't mean, "If you don't believe in me, you're bound for hell." The Greek word for repent literally means "to go beyond the mind that you have" (Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, Harper San Francisco, 2003, p. 180). Into a society where government, religion, and culture declared people clean or unclean, worthy or unworthy, Jesus came with the subtlety of a typhoon. Everything he said and did shouted, Go beyond the mind that you have. He cried out, at times in the deepest anguish, Imagine the Kingdom of God, where all are welcome, all are sacred, all are at home. What kind of Kingdom was Jesus building? He was creating a new community for God. To restore shattered community. And rebuild communities of love. He and everybody who followed him were restoring and rebuilding the only way it could work: by walking together on the way.
Linda and the choir are going to sing, "Break My Heart". The words are in the bulletin. As this song washes over you, ask yourself, Where in this song has community been shattered? How is shattered community being restored? Listen for a word from God.
"Break My Heart"
by Jennifer Martin
Not that you need this invitation, not that you wait for my permission,
still, this is my humble contrition: Please break my heart, O God,
with what breaks your heart, O God. Please break my heart.
Refrain: For the sick, for the poor,
for the ones who need more tenderness and justice, break my heart.
For the lost, for the lame, for those suff'ring in pain,
help me see you in each face through a broken heart.
2. Not just some empty repetition, no, this is my sincere confession:
that I need so much more compassion . Please break . . .
3. Lord, lift the veil that clouds my vision, loose ev'ry chain and inhibition.
More than a prayer it's my decision - Please break. . .
This song proclaims the good news that salvation and justice belong together. The lost, the lame, and the suffering, those who know they need more compassion, those whose vision is clouded and who are held by chains they cannot free themselves from: what do they need? They need salvation. And they need justice. They need wholeness and healing. The wholeness and healing that come from feeling God is close and real and in love with them. The wholeness and healing that come from having companions who walk beside them to change unjust laws. The people this song sings about need the salvation and justice that come from communities that welcome and celebrate them. Communities that challenge them not to see themselves as powerless victims but as children of God. Communities that treat them with compassion, so they become more compassionate. The broken and beautiful people in this song need communities that will help free them from actual chains - like Brianna's school is doing with people in slavery. And they need communities that will help them know and love the Jesus Christ whose perfect love casts out fear, hatred, and despair.
Salvation and justice are about healing and wholeness. Salvation and justice are about rebuilding shattered community and restoring all creation to communities of love.
Why do I say that healed, whole, rebuilt, restored community is God's dream for us?
Listen for a Word from God.
God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our
nature. . . .God created human beings, created them godlike, reflecting God's nature. God created them male and female. God blessed them.
. . . After the man and woman ate the fruit from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil, their eyes were opened, and they saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and Woman hid in the trees of the garden. They hid from God.
God called to the Man: "Where are you?"
He said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. I hid."
God said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from the tree I told you not to eat from?"
The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it."
God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?"
"The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."
God told the serpent, "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals. Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. Her offspring will wound your head, you'll wound their heels."
God told the Woman, "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth; you'll give birth to your babies in pain. You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord it over you.
God told the Man, "Because you . . . ate from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from, . . . the very ground is cursed because of you. Getting food from the ground will be as painful as having babies is for your wife. You'll be working in pain all your life long. The ground will sprout thorns and weeds. You'll get your food the hard way: planting and tilling and harvesting, sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried. You started as dirt; you'll end up as dirt." (Genesis 1.26a-27; 3.7-10, 14-19, adapted from The Message ©1993-96, 2000-2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group)
An evangelical Christian religion professor from British Columbia has opened my eyes to see what this story is really about (Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, Eerdmans Press, 1994, pp. 187-88). I'd read it loads of times. But he shows me something that is so obvious but that I never saw before: after the Woman and the Man eat the fruit, every single community in the Garden is shattered.
Right after they eat, the Woman and Man suddenly feel ashamed of their nakedness. The community between themselves and their bodies is shattered. Instead of seeing their bodies as sacred, they view them with shame.
And the community between the Man and the Woman is shattered by the poison of shame.
Next the Woman and Man hide from God. God made them out of God's uncontainable love. And now they hide from God. More shame. Add to that the poison of guilt and fear. Now they are terrified of the One whose love made them. The community between God and God's beloved daughter and son is shattered.
After the Man blames the Woman and the Woman blames the snake, God has had it.
God curses the snake and says from now on snakes and humans will be the bitterest of enemies. The community between humans and animals is shattered.
Then God curses the Woman so easy community with her children is shattered. And the equal relationship God intended between the Woman and the Man is shattered.
God curses the Man to a lifetime of back-breaking struggle to make the ground produce food. The community between God and the earth itself is shattered.
Finally, in what may be the most painful part of this story, God tells the Woman and the Man that they will die. They will return to the dust they came from. Which seems to suggest that nothing of them will be left. So the community God hoped to share with them for eternity is shattered.
In the Garden, where God's dream was fully alive, all of creation was part of communities of love. Then the Woman and the Man decide they can do whatever they want to God's creation. And all of creation's communities of love are shattered. And the rest of the Bible is filled with stories of the God who calls to us, reaches out to us, and looks for us. God calls out to, reaches out to, looks for companions who will catch a glimpse of God's dream. And be captured by it. To rebuild shattered community. And restore all creation to communities of love. It is a dream of all who are passionate about salvation and justice. It is a way we follow Jesus. Amen.
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