Salvation or Satisfaction, March 21, 2010

Isaiah 43:16-21
John 12:1-8
What sets Christianity apart from all other faith traditions is trust& belief in REDEMPTION. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed the Gods were cruel and manipulative, inflicting suffering upon humanity for their own amusement. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the Hindu faith and Tao all rely on fundamental Laws, instruction that has been given by God through a trusted Prophet. In the Old Testament, we received the Covenant of God with Abraham, to walk along beside following where God would lead, and we would be assured of a future for generations long after us, we received the Ten Commandments from Moses, but along beside the COVENANT and the LAW was description of the love of God, a God who hears our tears and enters in to save us.

We do not talk much about SALVATION anymore. In times of Invading Armies and Black Plague, humanity sought to know that there was hope beyond the grave, to have assurance that after death there was eternal life. Today, the world seems more concerned with SATISFACTION than Salvation. We have evolved to a time of having anything and everything at our disposal, and if not, that there is an electronic application for that. Do you desire to see your favorite photos? To carry a library with you of books to read? There is an APP for that. Would you like to listen to music? Would you like to read your mail? There is an APP. Did you forget to lock the front door? Did you leave the Iron plugged in, did you not turn off the lights? Did you want to be notified when your child came home from school? Do you want to transfer money at the bank to pay bills or to have bills automatically paid? Do you need directions, or to conjugate verbs in Mandarin Chinese? All these desires are available, such that we seem to have WANTS for SATISFACTION, and no need of SALVATION.

But as many devices as we can manage, as human beings: we are human. We become lonely and hurt, we carelessly harm others by our words and actions and choosing not to speak, we struggle with life and death and life and death decisions. We are surrounded by stories of infidelity, of scams and betrayal, even of trying to do the right thing for all the right reasons, having it come out wrong. The faith described in the Old Testament, demonstrated in the New, is that at great personal cost, God enters in to save us from ourselves. Imagine an Artist, painting a masterpiece, then seeing a figure in that painting whom they formed and love is in trouble, the artist cuts the canvas and steps through into that alternative reality. Far more than Alice in Wonderland, the cost of our redemption is Jesus' own life, Jesus' death on the cross.

The challenge posed by Isaiah, is: knowing God is doing a new thing, how shall we respond? God is changing the whole world by entering in, making rivers in the desert, and sanctuaries in the wilderness. Do we continue unaffected, unmoved, unchanged? Or can we respond to God, can we, and all creation fight against our own predispositions, to act differently, can we choose to be saved? Can we choose to live as if our lives are changed by our faith?

If we have been the children of divorced parents, does that mean we will divorce? If we have been divorced before, does that mean we are unable ever to love again? If we are the children of alcoholics will we be alcoholic? These are only predispositions, and we can choose to follow or to reframe and change, the question is up to us.
In the early 1960s, researchers had come out with a test to determine Sickle Cell Anemia, and every child in our elementary school in St. Louis was tested. The irony is that Sickle Cell most commonly occurs in those descended from Sub-Saharan Africa and affects life after age 42. So testing the whole population in 1st Grade, might identify a Genetic Predisposition, but unnecessarily raised the fears of all the families of all the first graders.
We know that first born children tend to be self-starters, that Middle Children tend to be peacemakers and pleasers, and younger children tend to be more artistic and creative with fewer perceived boundaries. But do these tendencies determine who we will be? There is always another way.

In John's Gospel, Judas is described as being a thief, who routinely stole from the common purse for the poor. If his history of stealing were known, why had Jesus trusted Judas with the purse? Was Jesus intentionally raising the anxiety of all the disciples, challenging us all to confront one another and care about what each person does as a community, so the betrayal of Judas was a failure of all the disciples in having allowed him to fail? I think John's reason for naming this is that all of us, like Judas have a tendency for corruption when it concerns money, but Mary chose to respond differently. Mary had sat at Jesus' feet listening as a disciple while Martha had been busy cooking and entertaining. Mary had seen her brother Lazarus raised from the dead. Mary took an expensive possession, worth a year's wages, that she had saved for herself, and instead chose to use it to serve Jesus, by washing his feet, rubbing his feet, wiping them with her own hair. It was an act of intense intimacy, it was an act of sacrifice, it was an act while they were at table together. Six days later, at the next Sabbath meal when they were at table together, Jesus knelt down to wash the feet of the disciples before serving them. Do you think the similarity would have been lost on the disciples?

Throughout time, many have struggled with what appears to be a flip remark of dismissal from Jesus, that “The Poor, you will always have with you.” Actually, this is a quote from Deuteronomy which challenges every believer that because the poor will always be with us, we each have responsibility to do more than keep a private purse for charitable gifts when we go to worship, we are challenged to open our hands completely to try to make a difference in their lives.