Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
There is a lot of enthusiasm these days, within and beyond the Catholic Church, for a Calvinist understanding of salvation. According to that view, God determined before the beginning of time who is saved and who is damned. The thinking behind this theology of salvation is that we humans can do absolutely nothing to gain God’s grace. Who is saved and who is damned is absolutely up to God. We play no role in our own salvation.
There is a way in which that makes sense. After all, what could I possibly do to convince God that I should be saved? For me to think I could convince God that I should be saved, I would have to think that I know something of the mind of God. I would have to think that I have some kind of insight into what God wants or what God finds compelling. How could I, mere human, possibly know that?
While that theology does make some sense, here’s the problem (as I have learned from Bill whenever he talks about Calvinism at RCIA or lectures about it at UD): people can’t live that theology, at least in its purest form. They just don’t have the stomach for it.
And I get that too. How are Christians, who want to be good with God, supposed to live with having no idea whether they have won the salvation lottery? And how are they supposed to understand themselves as individuals with free will if their eternal fate has already been decided?
It's quite the conundrum.
So, what do these folks who buy into this theology do to solve this conundrum? They start looking for signs. They may not be able to know with absolute certainty whether they won the salvation lottery. But, surely, if they show outward signs of being good or display evidences of being blessed in one way or another (for the folks who buy into the prosperity gospel, wealth is a sure fire sign that they have been chosen), then there’s a really good chance (maybe more than that) that they are going to heaven.
The problem with this kind of thinking, of course, is all the people who haven’t won the salvation lottery. So, maybe you won the lottery. Maybe your life gives evidence that God chose you. You do good things like work hard, make a nice living, and support the food bank.
But what do you do with the idea (essential to this theology) that many (most?) have not been chosen? Maybe one of them is a parent or a sibling or a close friend or a child. What then? Are you okay with that? Are you going to enjoy the bliss of heaven knowing that your parent or sibling or friend or child is suffering eternally in Hell?
These days lots of folks want to know that they are with God. And they want to know that others are not. They are in. And others—their enemies—are out.
But Paul (or perhaps a follower of Paul—scholars are doubtful that Paul wrote this letter) has other ideas: “In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.”
Can we hear what the Apostle is trying to tell us?
This is the good news! We have ALL won the salvation lottery. That’s why God sent his only son—to teach us once and for all that it doesn’t matter if we are Jew or Greek, man or woman, black or white, Republican or Democrat, straight or something else—we are all in. And God did this in love.
To underscore the point, lest we miss it, the Apostle continues: “In Christ we have redemption by his Blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.”
What if we took the Apostle at his word? What if we read this scripture literally? We are ALL forgiven and we are all saved because of the riches of his grace that he has lavished upon us.
And here is the mystery. This God, whom we most certainly do not understand (the Calvinists have that right), chose to save us all because God loves us all—to a person. This is the good news that God wants us to spread to all the nations.
What if God’s gift to us of free will is not about earning God’s grace or finding evidences in our human achievements that we have been chosen but, instead, about daring to witness to God’s lavish grace? What if God sent Jesus to teach us that we are all loved? That we are all saved?
What if our challenge isn’t to look for evidences that God favor us but, instead, is to live into the truth that there is no “us,” and there is no “them” because God adopted us all through Christ Jesus? If we were to do that, surely then we would be living in accordance with Jesus’ command—love God with all your heart (just as God loves you) and your neighbor (whom God also loves) as yourself—no matter who your neighbor is.
-Sue Trollinger