My clerical collar, black shirt, and black suit were drawing discrete glances. I had slipped away from the church office to get some cold medicine at a nearby drug store. The checkout line turned out to be unexpectedly long.
A man standing in front of me looked over his shoulder, took a double take, and then whirled on me. Without the slightest hint of irony and sounding remarkably like a homicide detective interrogating a likely suspect, he asked, “Are you saved?”
Stunned that my outfit hadn’t clued this guy in to my vocation, all I could think to say was, “What?”
“Are you saved?” he repeated. “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”
“What?” No longer stunned, now I’m on guard against a cross-denominational assault.
He went on to ask me if I knew where I would be going when I die. We’re all sinners. If sinners don’t repent they go to hell. And you never know when the Grim Reaper will show up. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Accept Jesus now so you know you’re going to heaven.
He went on like that without seeming to take a breath. The line slowly inched forward. Finally, he stopped when the cashier said, “Is that all sir?” She took the words right out of my mouth.
After paying, he shoved a small comic-book-like tract into my hand with the admonition, “You better read this before it’s too late!”
That’s the sort of thing I’ve come to expect when I hear people ask me if I’m saved. And I never ask anybody that question myself, because I think that it tends to get in the way of authentic God-talk.
Mind you, authentic God-talk involves salvation talk. If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that something is killing us. Maybe it’s our need for control or our addiction to acceptance, our loneliness or our fear, our anger or our over-functioning, our attachment to possessions or our lack of adequate food and medical care. Something is killing is.
So real God-talk involves admitting what’s killing us and looking for how Christ is insinuating himself into the messy life that we are actually living. In her memoir Leaving Church, Barbara Brown Taylor taught me to put it this way: What is saving your life now?
She writes,
Salvation is a word for the divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk, regardless of how they got there or whether they know God’s name. Sometimes it comes as an extended human hand and sometimes as a bolt from the blue, but either way it opens a door in what looked for all the world like a wall. This is the way of life, and God alone knows how it works. (p. 225)
To put this another way, God-talk—and authentic conversation with God—starts with vulnerability. We admit that something is killing us. And we admit that we yearn for God to care. To care about this specific tight place we find ourselves in.
Jesus tells us as much in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. (Luke 18:9-14)
The Pharisee thanks God that he’s the kind of person with a stellar spiritual and moral resume and that he’s nothing like those despicable sinners all around him. Strictly speaking, he’s bragging to God about his religious accomplishments expecting divine applause. Then again, maybe he’s just talking to himself. Singing “How Great I Art.”
By contrast, the Tax Collector says, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Some readers assume that he means, “I’ve done wrong. Please don’t punish me like I deserve.” But I think we get to Jesus’ point more clearly if we hear him saying, “Have compassion on me, God. My life is killing me!” Or, to use one of Anne Lamott’s favorite prayers, “Help! Help! Help!”
God’s compassion saves us. Heals us. Sustains us. Liberates us. And God is always pouring out that compassion because that is just who God is. God’s compassion is not a reward for or a reaction to something we do or say. Compassion is God’s unchanging way of being.
The divine compassion comes in many forms: a phone call when we’re lonely, a hike in the woods, a casserole when we’re grieving, or a dog’s relentless love. That compassion begins making us whole once we admit that we need it.
It seems like no matter what I am doing or where I am on Fridays–my Sabbath–when Bishop Jake’s sermon is posted, I stop and read it. I am always fed, provoked, challenged or soothed. I love the quirky, gentle in-your-face humor and the cadence of his writing (I can hear his voice). Today is no exception. I may even quote him a time or two when I preach on Sunday.
You are so gracious! Enjoy your Sabbath time!
Oh, the timing of this post is simply grace for me! I’ve been following the impeachment investigations and feeling so much compassion for everyone involved. And in my own life, all seems quite complicated for me and everyone I know. And I am coming to the realization that we are all simply human, each of us. I’m reading Jan Swafford’s rich biography of Beethoven and it finally dawned on me that Beethoven was not a god. He was a human with a complicated, messy life, with suffering and joy who could create music that conveyed the divine… I guess I am in the process of dropping my idealized romantic notion of people, and in doing so , seeing that we are all, each of us, not perfect, with challenges and complications, in need of mercy and compassion. And the timing of this post, in the midst of my perceptual sea change, brings a gift of grace. Thank you.
I am grateful for gracious timing! And I think I need to take a look at that biography.
Thank you for pressing us to think…admitting that, “something is killing us…”
The greatest deed we can do for the world is To continually think and grow and I thank you for your role in that. Blessings to you.
Thank you, Janet! My intention is always to help people think instead of telling them what to think. I appreciate that you see this. It’s very encouraging.
Absolutely stellar!!! Soon after my husband died I was pondering the fact that I had no blood relatives left except one cousin who was almost bedridden and a few who were many miles beyond state lines and not close to me at all.. I heard a small voice say, ” it is the blood of Christ which makes blood relatives”, and this has certainly proved to be true! Everybody I have told about this believes it is a word from the Lord for all of us, and , and He has surrounded me with people who have been His outpouring of Love……..including yourself! After all Jesus made family out of Mary and John.
It has been awhile since you wrote this, but as I have read iat, it has become a very iwt is a very great blessing! Deacon Belle
Love you Deacon!