SALVATION: Abandoning Our Absorption with Self … 3/17/08
by SteveFor those of you who might have been expecting to listen to my Palm Sunday sermon…bad news. We had a technical glitch yesterday, and the recording was not usuable. So let me just hit the highlights for you:
It’s interesting that in the 4 accounts of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the people still don’t seem to understand who Jesus is and what he is about. The messiah they expected was not the messiah they got…not a conquering hero, not one who would organize them and lead them in a fight for liberation from Rome. Instead, they got one whose message, rather than being about himself (as is commonly, but wrongly, thought) was about the God’s peaceable Kingdom.
We still, 2000 years later, often misunderstand Jesus. The major problem is that the way Jesus spoke of salvation is different from the language eventually adopted by the Church. Salvation became a matter of believing certain things about Jesus rather than living out what he taught. Salvation came to be in Jesus’ name rather than through his way. And the message of Jesus, that salvation is a matter of abandoning our absorption with ourselves and being transformed by the love of God, got lost. Salvation came to be all about believing, rather than becoming like Jesus. As Flannery O’Connor put it, then the church came to be not the body of Christ, but the poor man’s insurance system.
My own salvation (wholeness) has been a process rather than an event. Over the past few years, God has been removing the barriers I have erected to prevent real intimacy. It’s not happening as fast as I would like, and certainly not as fast as Judy would like, but it’s happening…through the power of God’s grace, the grace Jesus taught about and demonstrated. That grace is gradually transforming me from what I was into what I shall be, saving me from my absorption with myself, and making me more into the likeness of Jesus.
That’s the good news. That’s the gospel. And that’s what Jesus was and is about. Thanks be to God.
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“Salvation came to be all about believing, rather than becoming like Jesus.”….I like that..THIS IS EXACTLY WHERE WE GET INTO TROUBLE! We, me included, most remember to strip away our EGO (aka: E-edging G-God O-out!)before REAL transformation can begin!
Thanks for this reminder during this Holy Week…
Hi Steve,
This is Susan S. Have been reading your blog for a while now–Lisa & Mama both pointed me to it. Really like this entry!
Just wanted to let you know how influential your teaching about Christianity (especially teaching like expressed in this entry) has been to my life.
Also, I love that you’re making your sermons available on your blog. I know the church I’ve been going to in Austin has a YouTube ministry. I was pondering whether that might work for UGUMC as well.
Happy Easter!