We began this blog with reflections on salvation. There was discussion of who does the saving, an invitation to ponder what we are saved from, and a reflection on what salvation does in us. But today I want to bring us full circle and ask: what are we saved for?
Is salvation a personal experience? Is it a change in status for the individual based on a gift from a loving God, restoring us to right relationship with our creator? Is that as far as it extends? Is salvation a “me and God thing”, or are the consequences broader? There is the freedom from that comes in this gift – freedom from fear of death, freedom from damnation, freedom from isolation, meaninglessness, desolation. But, what about the freedom for? What are we saved for?
The title of this project is Salvation, Scripture and Society. Here is where we get to Society! One of my favorite Lutheran tag lines is, “Free in Christ to Serve the Neighbor”. Here is the answer, for me, to what we are saved for. Because my efforts are not tied up in trying to work out my own salvation, I am free – free to co-create with God, free to collaborate with Jesus in the bringing of the Kingdom, free to join Christ the Reconciler in the work of restoration of all creation. This is the ultimate Good News of the Gospel – life beyond ourselves, our own fear, our own safety, our own security. Christ has set us free and in that freedom joined us to one another in loving service.
What does this mean? What does this mean on the ground, in the moment, in the midst of our daily living? How do you see this freedom playing out in your own life? Free in Christ to serve the neighbor…Galatians 5 tells us, “For freedom Christ has set us free…For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”’
Where are you longing for freedom? And, what if, like so much of the mystery of the cross, your liberation is hidden where you least expect to find it, in your willing bondage of love to your neighbor? Free in Christ to serve the neighbor. Free through Christ’s gift of liberation from the self-serving, free through Christ’s gift of us to one another to find our completeness in reconciliation and restoration. We need each other. We cannot live into our salvation on our own. We cannot fully live into relationship with God without living into the freedom to love and to serve our neighbors. God calls us to love what God loves. God loves you and God loves your neighbor – all your neighbors, your black and brown neighbors, your homeless neighbors, your rich and poor neighbors, your easy neighbors and your oh-so-hard neighbors, your gay neighbors, your Muslim neighbors, your invisible neighbors, the neighbors you’d rather not see. And you, you are set free, free to love and serve them too.
There is an individualism that can creep into our faith lives. Respecting religion as personal can become twisted, making our faith only about us and God. Is there really such a thing as “your own personal Jesus” as Depeche Mode sings? In the focus on having a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, can we miss what that relationship calls us to? Jesus may be our “all in all” but that is the foundation of our life in Christ. The culmination is in our love and service for neighbor.
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