We All Need Some Saving

In my former life, I would identify myself as a Jesus-follower by saying that I was "saved." Using the term "saved" was shorthand for saying that I had prayed whatever prayer that you needed to pray in order to become a Christian. 

But there was a deeper sense of that term that hid a fairly insidious kind of theology.  

When you use the term "saved" to determine who has been redeemed by God, and who is "going to heaven," you need a term to identify everyone else.  

So everyone who wasn't part of our group was deemed to be "unsaved."  

When you pull those terms out of their church-y context and hold them up to the light, it makes you cringe a bit, doesn't it?  Saved and Unsaved.  

Sadly, well-meaning Christians use these terms all of the time without thinking of the implications for those who hear them differently. 

We're "saved," and you're "unsaved."  
We're in, and you're out.  
We belong, and you don't.  
We're believers and you're non-believers.  

Christians who use these terms, hold most of the world at arm's length with their words, and then by extension by their actions, which tend to follow words into meaning.  

The truth is... we all need saving every day--from ourselves and our wrong-headed beliefs, our stubborn insistence on doing life on our terms.  

Thankfully, the deeper truth is... all the salvation any of us ever needed happened a long time ago when God demonstrated how far God was willing to go (even to death on a Roman cross) to show us all how much we belong.  

Father Richard Rohr once wrote:  

There is no absolute dividing line between worthy and unworthy people in the eyes of God because all our worthiness is merely participation in God's [worthiness]. 

So set aside those old terms, and step more fully into this brave and startling truth: You matter to God.  You are beloved by God.  You are constantly being saved because that's what God does.  

In fact, God became one of us to rescue all of us.  Rest in this knowledge and let it fill you with joy.  

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.