Found (Easter - Day 43)

(Based on Ephesians 2:1-10) 

In Ephesians chapter two, Paul talks about how we used to be mired in the "sin-dead life." We did what we wanted, when we wanted, and whatever we felt like doing. It was a surprise God didn't send the zombie apocalypse down to eat us all. He didn't really say that, but I think Paul was thinking along those lines. What'd he do instead? 

Well, obviously Paul was writing about two thousand years ago, so when he says "we" he's talking about generations of people before him. He's talking about generations and centuries of people who were trapped in the sin-dead way of life, and all they could do about it was keep sacrificing, keep asking for forgiveness, and keep practicing religious ritual in order to be right with God. 

When Paul is writing this, he's speaking of what it was like and what it's like now. For the audience and for us, he's talking about the past millenniums of people and the current time. He talks about how we were trapped in a sin-dead life, and then God embraced us and set us down with Jesus in high heaven, setting us out with work to do in the world. 

What Paul distinguishes is between now and then. Then, we were trapped. Now, we are saved. Sometimes, when we talk about salvation, it sounds more like the current horror going on in Bangladesh. A building full of garment workers collapsed on over 1,000 people. All of them are dead except one. The one survivor was found after seventeen days of drinking water from the fire hoses and eating out of workers' lunch pails that were found underneath the rubble. She even cut her hair to make it cooler when it got too hot. When the survivor was found, everyone was ecstatic. It was a dim ray of hope in a tremendous tragedy. 

The message of salvation, however, is not a strike of fate. It's not a shot in the dark, and it's not a "one survivor" story. The message of salvation is about what it used to be like for us and everyone before us, and it's about what it's like now. Once we and the ones before us were lost, and now we have all been found. That's the good news. We have been embraced, rescued, and invited into a way of life that throws the world "secular" out of the dictionary. Everything is sacred. Do we still do whatever we want, whenever we feel like it? Most of the time I do. 

Paul says that God does the saving and we don't help. Otherwise, he says, we would go around bragging that we've done it all. I agree with that. Who doesn't want to take credit for peoples' lives turning around, lost to found? The problem with the mainstream narrative of salvation is, it puts saving into our hands when in reality, we don't have anything to do with the action part. We are receivers of the gifts of God. By praying our prayers and doing our rituals, we don't invoke this mysterious salvation and forgiveness into our lives. Paul says constantly that's already happened. Christ has already embraced us and forgiven us. Our words and our rites are not needed anymore. Although we screw up time and time again, we are embraced and are being pushed to do what we excel at. We are wired for something greater, something more profound than we have ever experienced and it has all to do with what we love doing - what we're passionate about. It's there that we have work to do, a message to share, grace to dispense. 

The goal of the spiritual life is not to shut ourselves in from the outside world. The goal of Christ was not to form an underground sect who would live congregate inside of buildings and block themselves off from the secular. Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, set us free to live wholeheartedly in the world, doing what we love to do and letting that be a message of love to others. 

We are rescued. We have hope. We have potential and we have a God who sees us as his unblemished children. No matter what kind of stupidity we're going to take part in today, or what kind of selflessness, we are rescued, forgiven, and set free. The question is, are we awake to that? Are we awake to the love of God that is infiltrating our very cores and flowing to the people around us? Are we awake to the forgiveness that we have been given for once and all? Are we awake to the salvation that has already been unleashed in our lives for now and for all?

Here's what I believe happens when we awake to the scandalous message of God's grace. Churches become less about sermons and buildings and bands. The bible becomes less about rules. People become less about members and non-members. 

Church becomes more about eating at Waffle House with friends, playing NBA2013 on XBox 360 with friends, and celebrating a coworkes going away party. Church happens at work, Disneyworld, and IHOP. It leaves the building where all the rites are kept locked up. It enters into living rooms and coffee shops all across the world.

The Bible becomes more about principles of living. It becomes dynamic and forces the mind to open much wider than it had before. It becomes a book of questions and not a book with all the answers. It comes alive with new thoughts and perspectives, not drowned in previous conceptions of dead theologians. 

People become more about friendships. People are seen for how they can work with us in making the world a better place, and making each other better. No one is seen as a non-member, making everyone just as eligible as the next person to take part in the "once secular, now sacred" way of life.