What do you need to be saved from?
I’ve got news:
No one is coming to save you.
WHAT? I hear you say. How is that good news? What about God? Jesus? Isn't that what this whole thing is about? How am I going to make it?
Tell me, how ARE YOU going to make it?
What do you need to be saved from, anyway?
It’s often the things you think you need saving from are actually things you need to process and face.
And if someone or something DOES come to rescue you, what does that look like, practically speaking? Does it mean that you avoid going through hardship? That you are transported from one place to another? Do you get to skip the bad stuff? And what does it mean for those who aren't rescued? Do they somehow miss out because they aren't worthy or good or holy enough?
If you were brought up in a religious setting like I was, maybe you're thinking right now:
'Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins and an eternity in hell. Jesus has rescued me from a life of sin.'
I received a DM the other day - it was a clap back - that we fail ourselves all the time, but Jesus never fails us.
But, can you tell me how? What does that mean? How does that play out in reality, not just in abstract ideas and platitudes?
A few thoughts on this: Every time the Biblical Text mentions heaven and hell, in ancient Hebrew language and context, the writers (and Jesus) were not referencing places that people go to when they die depending on their spiritual allegiance. Jesus, and all the Biblical authors, were more concerned with the here and now, then the ever after. What do you do NOW with the things that are happening in your world, in your neighbourhood, in your homes, and in your own body and heart?
And dear friend, let me tell you this: Jesus' friends thought that he had come to save them from Roman occupation. Literally. And what happened to Jesus? People executed him as a terrorist and enemy of the state.
Some kind of saviour, ya'll.
Sin gets too much attention for what it is. It's not that much of a big deal, in that, it's not a deal breaker. We've all sinned, we'll all sin again, and sin will keep happening to us. Sin is a symptom of a deeper problem. Richard Rohr said:
"The great illusion that we must all overcome is that of separateness. Religion's primary task is to communicate union, to reconnect people to their original identity 'hidden with Christ in God' (Colossians 3:3)."
Sin is anything that separates you from your true nature, from your (already established) connection with Divinity, and others (including the earth). Your task isn't to become sinless, to behave and achieve your way into a holy and acceptable state. Your work here is to live your way into deeper connections, even amongst all the fragmentations.
Salvation is this: You are rescued from having to be rescued. It is safe for you to be available for your own life, your own humanity, your own heart and flesh. You are safe for you.
Listen. If God were going to whiz-bang everything wrong back to right again, God would have done it already. But God is not a wizard. God is like a mother who knows that her child needs to learn to walk. As much as children want to skip the learning phase and be able to run and run and run at the first try, a mother knows that her child needs to learn for themselves how to stand, how to steady, how to put one foot in front of the other. This is how she saves her child, by teaching them to stand on their own two feet. She's there for the trying, for the falling, for the frustration, for the comforting, for the grace to get back up, and finally, to the moment where her child takes those steps and walks, walks, walks. And then? God, she smiles with tears streaming down her face as her children enter their freedom.
You don't need to be saved from this, from here, from now. The work is to be available to live life as it happens and to learn how to walk for yourself.
SALVATION IS THIS: You are rescued from having to be rescued. You are saved to your life, not from it.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series, "Safe Availability", with a subscription, in the App.
