jesus saves

​Kent M. Organ, Interim Pastor
Text: John 3:1-17

    A team of fundamentalist  Christians invaded Shipshewana, Indiana,  to bring the lost  of Shipshewana  to Christ.  In front of Yoder’s dry goods store,  one of the earnest souls  confronted a Mennonite farmer with the challenge,  “Brother,  are you saved?”  The farmer was stunned by the question.  All his years of attending Peach Bloom Mennonite Church  had not prepared him for such a question,  particularly in front of the dry goods store.

    Not wanting to offend,  and believing  that the person posing the question was of good will,  he wondered how he should answer.  After a long pause,  the farmer took out  pencil and paper, and wrote the names of ten people  who knew him well.  All of them  were perceptive and honest.  And the farmer suggested  that  the evangelist  might ask these people  whether they thought he was saved  or not,  since he  certainly would not  presume to answer such a question  on his own behalf.

* * * *

    People who identify  with the UCC tradition  live quite a distance  from the eager evangelist of Shipshewana ,  a distance  both theological  and cultural.  We would probably flinch  in response to the question, “Are you saved?”  And as to the matter of being  “born again,”  we tend to be those  whom Henry James  described  as  the “once-born”  in religious experience,  those who were gradually  nurtured into Christian faith,  rather than  dramatically changed.

    It is interesting to realize  that if anyone in the Bible  ever fit  the United Church of Christ profile,  it would be  Nicodemus:  intelligent, well-bred, civic-minded, conservative, cautious.  He came to Jesus  at night,  probably  so he wouldn’t be seen  talking to him.

    Nicodemus  is nobody’s fool.  When Jesus speaks of the need to be  “born  again” – that’s the familiar  King James translation;  the New Revised Version has it  “born from above,”  or  in the footnote  “born anew” – when Jesus speaks of the need to be “twice-born,”  Nicodemus  wants  rationality.  He fends off  this challenge  by taking Jesus’ turn of phrase literally,  making it  absurd:  “Can somebody  re-enter the womb?”  That’s his rejoinder.

    I think of my father’s story, of the time when he was a graduate student in religion, and he was accosted on a Chicago elevated train by a man who asked him, “Brother,  are you saved?”  to which  he patronizingly responded,  “Brother,  are you educated?”

    That could have been Nicodemus,  not about to be taken in  by any flash in the pan evangelist.  Still,  there is something about  this Jesus  that nags at him.  Too bad we aren’t told more  about Nicodemus.  Though he appears once more  at the end.  After the crucifixion,  John refers to Joseph of Arimathea as  “a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one  [out of] fear.”  Joseph  got Pilate’s permission  to place Jesus’ body in his own tomb.  And then  John adds  that “Nicodemus,  who had at first come to Jesus by night,  also came  bringing [spices].”  Careful  Nicodemus,  not one to go overboard,  nevertheless,  never  quite able  to shake the impact of those words  uttered  years before  in the shadows:  “You must be born  anew.”

* * * *

    Because  fundamentalism  has set up camp  on the phrases, “born again”  and  “Jesus saves,”  non-fundamentalist Christians have tended to shy away from them.  I certainly do.  Even though salvation  is  an essential teaching of our faith.

    The argument  we have with fundamentalism should not be  that it emphasizes salvation.  The argument is  that fundamentalism  stops short.  Fundamentalism tends to see salvation in terms, rather exclusively,  of rescue – the rescue of individuals  from – from  this world, from  eternal punishment, from  a fate  worse than death itself.  Whereas  Reformed theology  tends to understand salvation  as  salvation  for – for  the eternal,  but also  for life abundant – for God’s created purposes,  for humanity’s potential,  and  working  for God’s reign  “on earth.”

    Bill Muehl  used to teach at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta.  Muehl  had a grandfather  who ran a saloon, and was saved  by Billy Sunday  five times.  His grandfather  loved to tell about those conversion experiences.  His eyes would light up  as he talked about  his sense of sin,  his separation from God,  his contrite heart.  Sometimes he even wept  as he told  about the joy  of knowing  that no matter how low the sinner,  Jesus was always waiting to receive him into grace.  And then,  Bill Muehl says,  his grandfather would rise out of his chair,  clap  one arthritic hand against the other, and say  with a grin,  “But every Monday morning,  there was that damned saloon!”

    And that’s the way it is,  whether for you and me  it’s “that damned saloon,”  or some other  irresistible,  damning  temptation.  So long as the function of the Gospel  is only  to convict  and then to rescue,  there is something  crucial  missing.  Listen to the way  that grandson  and theologian  expresses the positive meaning of salvation:  “The function of redemptive love,” Bill Muehl says, “is not  to make sinners  feel good about the past.  The function of redemptive love  is to give us back  the future.”

* * * *

    Billy Sunday used to say  that the best thing that could happen to anyone  would be  to accept Jesus Christ as Savior,  and then  walk out of the revival tent  and be run over by a truck!  Now, that might be all well and good  if Jesus  is only  our Savior,  but that is not  all  we claim.  Jesus is also  Lord.
    Now, let’s not get  too  self-satisfied here.  Let’s not slide too quickly  past the challenge  of “twice-born” religious faith,  the challenge  to Nicodemus  and to us, his kin,  who also approach Jesus  gingerly  and guardedly.  “You  must be born anew.”

    In mainline Protestant traditions,  and  here at the Trinity United Church of Christ,  our approach  to faith-development, our  Christian education program,  has assumed  that people become Christians  imperceptibly, step by step,  that we  evolve  into faith.  We don’t seem to expect  that to be a Christian  entails  a crisis, or even  much of a decision.  Ours is  a “once born”  tradition.  And there is much to be said for that,  for the nurturing of persons  within the faith community, confident  that through the influence of other Christians, and  through God’s Spirit,  it rubs off.  We grow  into faith.  Believing  becomes a constituent part  of who we are.

    But  it is not  enough – never enough – for individuals  merely  to float along  like little paper boats in a current.  Because being a Christian  involves choosing.  And  “not to decide  is  to decide.”  Will your engagement with Jesus Christ  be such  that you, in the stream of life,  have a rudder?  a compass?  a sail?  Are our lives  touched sufficiently  for us  ever to dare  rowing against  the prevailing current?

    Real  Christian faith  is a faith  that is  claimed,  owned,  that has  some sense  of a difference  between  before  and after.  “You must be born  anew.”

* * * *

    But then,  what about  Monday morning,  where there is  that damned saloon,  or something else every bit as  damning?  What lies  beyond repentance?  Or, to put it differently,  what does it mean  Monday through Friday  to say,  “Jesus  is Lord?”  

Jesus saves.  Yes.  But for what?

    In the fullness of the Gospel,  Jesus saves me  from giving in  to my lesser self.

   Jesus saves me from judging others  more harshly  than I judge myself.  Jesus saves me from hatred and vindictiveness toward those with whom I disagree, or  who have shown hatred and vindictiveness  toward me.

    Jesus saves me from claiming  more forgiveness and grace for myself  than I am willing to show toward others.

    Jesus saves me from indifference toward the suffering  of other people;  saves me from  ever assuming that someone’s  social condition,  or economic plight,  or health  or un-health  is simply a matter of God’s will,  so that there is nothing I should do to interfere.  Jesus saves me  from ever  accepting  evil  as the dominant reality.

    Jesus saves me from a self-centered view of the world, saves me from ever thinking  God loves me  more than another, and therefore  challenges me  to share what I have  more readily  than I might otherwise do.

    Jesus saves me from despair, from ever  believing  life has no purpose,  or giving in  to the inclination  to  abandon hope.

    Jesus saves me, finally,  for joy,  and for the full and abundant life  which derives its meaning  from knowing  that God  can be trusted,  trusted not only  with my sin  and my salvation – my eternal destiny – but also  trusted  to redeem  each day  from insignificance.

* * * *

    Even  we  can be born anew – born of water, symbol of cleansing,  and of the Spirit, symbol of power.  We  have to respond – as somehow, that night,  our brother Nicodemus  could not – in order to move  from the ranks  of Jesus’ admirers  to the ranks  of  his followers.  There is always a choice.  Think about it.  

Lent  is a good time  for that.


- with thanks to Stanley Hauerwas and P.C. Ennis