Rev. Tessie Mandeville
April 22, 2007
Christ Covenant MCC
Decatur, GA 30033

Picture if you will a small, country store in a little quiet town with no traffic lights. In the store window is a large picture that you can see from the outside. What you see when looking at this picture is a red figure with a pitchfork, presumably the devil, in the midst of huge, red flames with the words at the top, “Heaven or Hell?” Now picture a small, 6-year old child looking at that everyday and try to imagine what she might have been thinking.

You may have guessed that the child was me at 6 years old. This picture was in the window of my Granny and Papa’s store in 1975. And it scared me to death! Do you want to know what I was thinking? “Well, this is really not a tough choice.”

By age 6, and growing up Southern Baptist, I had already heard more about heaven and hell than most people hear in their lifetime! I knew enough about hell to know that I didn’t want to go there. As a matter of fact, on one particular Sunday, I marched myself right down that aisle and accepted Jesus into my heart. I was saved. That was my understanding of salvation then. It was not complex; it was simply a choice between heaven and hell. I wanted to go to heaven and Jesus would help me get there. In my 6-year old mind, I understood all I needed to about Christian salvation.

I want to talk about salvation today as we continue our sermon series, The Seven Next Words of Christ. The story in Matthew’s gospel is probably a familiar to a lot of us. It’s commonly referred to as “The Great Commission.” It’s the story where the resurrected Jesus meets the disciples on top of the mountain and tells them to go into the world to teach, make disciples and baptize. Matthew 28 is the primary basis for Christian mission and evangelism throughout the world. Because of this story, and Jesus’ next words to “Go into the world,” Christian people have been taking Christian salvation to the world.

In Philippians 2: 12, 13, it reads, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.” Since the 11 th century, the understanding of salvation, in this country, has been linked to the Catholic understanding of salvation. I’m not Catholic but I understand that salvation for Catholics is related to baptism, continual confession of sin, and ultimately there is no salvation outside the Church. Does that sound right?

In the 19 th century we had the rise of fundamentalism. Have mercy! The theory that we came up with goes like this: God is righteously angry with sinful humans and must punish sin in his righteousness, but Jesus, although himself innocent, has borne the due penalty for our sins. Therefore, God is now able to forgive and be reconciled with us. Christians believe that Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection is the key to salvation from this world’s ills.

In the Old Testament, God delivered the Israelites from slavery and oppression in Egypt. They were also delivered from drought and illness, and there were times when political freedom was restored. The concept of salvation in the Old Testament was about practical matters and rescue and it was communal rather than personal. The emphasis was on the establishment of peace and harmony between God and humanity, between humans themselves, and between all the parts of God’s creation.

By the time the New Testament was written a shift had taken place. Though there is still concern with material and physical ills, it seems the primary evil we’re now saved from is personal sinfulness. In the New Testament salvation has become personal liberation—which should lead to social and political liberation.

A really interesting thing has happened though since the resurrection has been offered as the proof that God saves. The focus has shifted from this world, this Earth, to the other world, Heaven.

I believe that is exactly what has happened with the Christian understanding of salvation. We have taken ourselves out of this world and its concerns and have been focused on the other world. I know that is what I have personally done. As a result, I stopped doing what the scriptures call me to do which is to continue to work out my salvation.

I am not discrediting my personal decision to become a Christian when I was 6 years old; that was a very important decision in my life that continues to impact me today. What I’m doing is asking myself, and us, the questions, “Is that all there is to salvation? Is it only supposed to have transcendent power and not to be lived in the day to day of this world? Should I have the mindset that now that I’m saved, and connected to God through Jesus Christ, that nothing else really matters?”

Don’t misunderstand me. I think it’s great to live our lives in confidence that we are connected to God. I just don’t think we’re supposed to stop there. If we do we miss the point. Salvation is not a trophy to indicate that we’ve mastered something. I suggest to you today that salvation is a process of moving into wholeness for ourselves, for each other, for our world. It’s a process that must be worked out in this world.

Ronald Jacobsen, who wrote the book, The Black Future?, talks about salvation in South Africa. He writes before apartheid is dismantled and questions what Christian salvation means. He says that if Christian salvation does not deal with real life issues, such as apartheid, then it is not relevant or useful in the here-and-now.

Liberation theology, which is one of the theologies this church was founded on, tends to equate salvation with liberation, and stresses the social, political, and economic aspects of salvation. Critics of liberation theology say that it reduces salvation to a purely worldly affair and neglects its transcendent and eternal dimensions. But here’s the question: What is the point of salvation if it doesn’t change us or the world in which we live?

I believe that liberation theology has resurrected the concept of salvation. I love my Christian heritage and belief system. I absolutely believe there is something to look forward to in the after life. Salvation does have an eternal aspect for me. But I have to believe it’s so much more. Perhaps we could say it’s a means as well as an end and queer salvation has to include social, political, economic and environmental aspects.

Jesus himself proved this by the way he lived! He was not just concerned that people’s spiritual needs were met but that their physical needs were met also. He knew that what he offered to people had to be relevant. In the book of James 2: 15 it reads, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” We can’t carry a passive belief that somehow God will relieve the needs of the poor. How is God going to relieve the needs of the poor, or how is God going to save the world, unless God is at work through our hands, our feet, our hearts, and our resources?

Queer salvation must deal with the here-and-now, real life issues and we don’t have a shortage of real life issues. I believe we all know about the tragedy at Virginia Tech this week. I have been filled with a deep sadness over this terrible violence and I know that I am not alone in this. I read a wonderful letter this week from David Kuo who quotes one of his friends saying, “So many are asking what we can do to stop the continued random acts of violence. There are no easy answers, but I say to all of you..... each time you bring yourself through the doors of Immaculate Conception Church [and work with the children] on a Tuesday night... even after a long and tiring day..... that hour and half you spend with a child or young person, is the best ammunition we have against the…continued attempts to rob us of precious lives. Every open book. Every math problem solved. Every paragraph read. Every checker game played... serves to keep our kids safe as we love and nurture them and prayerfully bring them to a place where they will never be the one with a gun in their hands. Instead they will spend their lives being agents of peace."

Perhaps we can help work out salvation in our community by adopting a local school. Or by spending time mentoring students. Or by using our resources to help children who don’t have the same advantages as other children. The good thing is that there are many right answers and many things we can do to help.

Queer salvation must deal with the here-and-now, real life issues. We have a great opportunity this week to help save Darfur, which is part of Africa’s Western Sudan. You probably know about the genocide that is taking place there right now where 200-400,000 people have already lost their lives and over 2.5 million people are homeless. There are ways that we can help. I invite you to our Save Darfur Teach in and Multi-faith Prayer Vigil this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. You’ll hear a local author speak about what is happening in Darfur and you’ll also hear our own Dionne Romero list some practical ways that we can help the people of Darfur.

Queer salvation must deal with the here-and-now, real life issues. Today is Earth Day and in the words of Chief Seattle, “We belong to the Earth.” People all over the world are engaging in Earth Day activities. Locally, trees are being planted in Rome, Georgia. Students and adults in Paulding County are planting a Garden for the Hungry, which will provide fresh food to hungry people in the 2007 growing season.

Annual Earth Days, I believe, remind us that we are not living just for today, but for tomorrow and the day after. The Native Americans call it the law of the seventh generation. This law requires the chiefs to consider the impact of their decisions on the seventh generation. They have a check and balance system which asks, “How will the decisions I make today impact the lives of those a century and a half in the future?”

We are called to go into the world to share the good news, and the good news is that queersalvation is a means as well as an end. It must be relevant in the here-and-now. It’s a process of moving into wholeness where we meet God and allow God to work in us, and through us, in the world.

Picture if you will a world where peace and harmony exists between God and humanity, between humans themselves, and between all parts of God’s creation. A world where we know that all things are connected. Now picture the children of the seventh generation looking up at you and saying, “Thank you for not only working out your salvation but for giving me a chance to work mine out as well.” Let it be so and amen.

http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/JWalking/2007/04/tune-out.html

Copyright © 2007 by Rev. Tessie Mandeville. Permission granted for non- profit circulation with attribution of author and venue. Other rights reserved