Salvation: Oh My, I Thought I Had a Choice in the Matter!

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Salvation: Oh My, I Thought I Had a Choice in the Matter!

“Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse” (Deuteronomy 11)

We’d like to think that God can be influenced by our beliefs and behaviors, be it Hindu or Buddhist Karma or Christian Charity. As well, the Ancients set up their governance, from Sumerian days onward, where Royal and Military might dominated by effecting serfdom systems and where the dominated earned favor and fancy if and when they believed and behaved according to the Dominator (and could it not be that ancient Israel got its understanding of how their Yahweh God operated by Royal decree and determination from this Sumerian model?).

But if it is the case where God is not and cannot be influenced by our goodness or badness, our creativity or calamity, why do the Hebrew Scriptures present such a picture of God not only giving favor to obedience and punishment to waywardness (even, not withstanding, interestingly, statements to the opposite, like Deuteronomy 10 where the “terrible God” “shows no partiality and takes no bribe”).  And not only acts in this manner, but seemingly established the favor system with this Deuteronomy 11 “blessing and curse” decree. Why the decree and why the actual blessings and curses?

 I can’t help but think but that it is because we want it this way! If we as mortal creatures had no say in the matter of what was to become of us, how could we live with that kind of dilemma and/or terror? We recoil at philosophical determinism in the same way we do to such a theological hegemony. Of course we don’t like being the objects of someone’s judgment, but what is worse is if and when we are not, when we are left to the whimsy of fate or the nothingness of oblivion or the indifference of God. So, we opt for God as the Judge or the Metaphysical or Divine as Karma, and we write our Scriptures accordingly.

 But is there not, could there be, something in that Scripture too that pushes back against this legal schemata of blessing and curse even while that schemata is swallowed hook, line and sinker not only by the Ancients but also by us today?

 There is, and it is simply what is called, in biblical studies, the “Remnant Theology.” It’s a running theme throughout the whole Hebrew Scripture narrative that says that God simply will not and does not destroy everybody who disobeys (even in the Flood story of massive destruction where Noah and family famously survive). No matter how much God either actively wipes out the disobedient or passively allows others to do the dirty work, God always allows some remainder persons to live on to see another day and live on into faithfulness. For the bare display of this allowance see the marvelous interchange between Abraham and God over allowing anybody from the barbarous city of Sodom to survive (Genesis 18).

It is this “God vs. God” that transpires. God, the Destroyer, gets beat out by God, the Allower, or should we say “the Savior.” God kills, and saves. See First Samuel 2 where God “kills and makes alive.”

 But why? Is it because God is simply kind and forgiving, shall we say, merciful? Well now, isn’t that generous of the Potentate! And it is this kind of mercy theology that has bled over into the Jesus Story where Jesus’ operating system of grace, where everyone gets what they need and not what they deserve, has been interpreted to mean everybody who believes in the power and position of Ruler God and rectifies their failures gets off the hook.

 But I’m afraid that with that last sentence I have shown my hand, let the cat out of the bag. The Jesus Story. Oh yes, that part of the biblical narrative with which we must contend. One has to follow Jesus’ story to its conclusion to see exactly how it is that this conclusion seals the deal on how the “Remnant Theology” of the Hebrew Scripture is the saving antidote, however meekly but not fearfully stated and revealed, to the monstrous destroying God. Jesus, in his life and work, what we call his “ministry, simply gave the farm away to everybody whether deserving or not. There was no “off the hook” mercy but rather a constant and off the charts grace. With Jesus there is no start with Law and finish with Mercy. The whole shootin’ match of life is grace. There never was or has been or will be a legal relationship set up by God by which we are considered in or out of relationship with God. We are always, terrifyingly so to each of us who want to require our involvement and agency to display our personal power and autonomy, in. What, did I say “terrifying”? How could such “in-ness”, grace, be terrifying? Well, I’ve already said it: it’s the personal power and autonomy of it all that is snatched away from us by this grace and that we do not believe we can live without. And, to make matters worse, others we do not like and we do not believe deserve attention, let alone benefit, these people on the spectrum from undesirable to enemy, not only are reformable, they are acceptable! That is to say, they are “in’ just like the rest of us. “Love the sinner and hate the Sin,” which we like to say but do not normally practice because “loving” means actually letting them in to our bank accounts’ attention and decision-making tables as well as our hearts, is actually the way things operate in grace.

 All this operative grace is actually why they killed Jesus in the first place. He took away Rome’s (government) power by declaring allegiance to the God of Grace and then too took away the Temple’s (religion) power by doing the same. And, the riff-raff, in this operation of grace, got stuff that should have been reserved (in the system of reward and punishment) for only those who deserve and earn it.

 In and through this God of Grace, peace is given by distributive justice through non-violence. The authorities simply could not live with that.

 The resurrection of Jesus is not our resurrection but rather, as it plainly says, the resurrection of Jesus.

[Excursus, a few words please on Jesus’ resurrection and our living and dying: I know that the Bible speaks eloquently about how we participate in a resurrection (for example, “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” Paul in I Corinthians 15 and “because I live you shall live also,” Jesus in John 14). But such a participation does not have to mean an actual physical and eternal resuscitation. I don’t see any evidence of any such thing in over 2000 years since Jesus. Related to this, there is no evidence that Jesus “second coming” or “return” has happened even though the church, in its various expressions, has been famously predicting, wrongly, the year and date of such a return.

 I know, you will ask me about whether there really is any evidence of the resurrection of Jesus himself. The only evidence I see is circumstantial. But I ask you to consider how in a judicial review today when there is a so-called “preponderance” of such circumstantial evidence, it can win the day in court. The only evidence I see is the recorded narrative of biblical writings that speak of living and breathing experiences with Jesus after he was cruelly executed and the narrative there that speaks of those who talked with him when he was alive again “turned the world upside down” (Act 17) because of it and because of him, and the living and breathing experiences of people for the past 2000 years and today who find their own lives inspired, animated and activated by Jesus himself.

 So I speak of “participation” in Jesus’ resurrection. What does that mean? It means that I see Jesus’ resurrection as “evidence” (see above) that the One (God) who started this whole business (creation) will not only never abandon it (us) but has defined it (life/creation) as being enlivened and alive and held together not by domination and manipulation and violence but rather by self-giving love. And then, because I am part of this creation, as we all are, we get the goods, no thanks to us. And we get them now when we are alive and we get them then when we die. We don’t live forever. But God does live forever and forever we belong to God. I don’t know what that looks like. Do you? Books are still being written today about things like people on the hospital surgical table, and elsewhere, being alive after being dead and then coming back from that death to tell about it. Is that what this “belonging to God” looks like? I don’t know. My mother and father, 98 and 99 years old respectively, died within the past 18 months. I hope to see them again and hang out with them forever.  I have a lot of ancestors I know a lot about that I’d like to see too. Will I? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter to me because what I believe is that God, in Christ Jesus, lives forever and has included us in that in some shape or form (which includes deadness) and whatever form that takes will be good (just like the original creation account where God took nothing and made it something, and wow, it was something and it was “good”! (see the Bible’s book of Genesis!).]

The resurrection of Jesus means it is Jesus way of living and loving that lives. You might say, wins. The “remnant theology” push back against the God of Judgment is revealed to be the actual operating system of the universe. Humanity lives on not because of a Judgmental God being nice, but because there never was the Judgment in the first place.

 And as if to make all of this perfectly clear and existential to all of us from the day of Jesus ascension (disappeared!) until now, we now and still live with prayers that go unanswered and religious rituals that fall silent to God’s eyes and ears. God doesn’t answer prayers because the Answer has already been delivered: God creates and saves, no thanks to us. Oh my goodness, I’d like to tell you about Jesus: everything is grace. Not mercy, grace.