We are saved

Cape North, N.S. My first Pastoral Charge. I didn’t know very many people, as yet. I had only been there for about a month when someone died. They were Presbyterian, but because there was no Presbyterian minister, it fell upon me to do the lady’s funeral.

The Presbyterian Church would send a student up during the summer months, but during the rest of the year, the Presbyterians came to the United Church for worship. I visited with the family and went to the two wakes and prepared my service. Then came the day of the funeral. The church was packed. I was nervous. I looked out over the people, who undoubtedly, were there to mourn, but also to scrutinize the new minister. I took a deep breath and began.

At the reception, people came up to me and told me what a wonderful funeral it was. I had captured the lady perfectly and filled them with hope. The family was thrilled with what I had said and done. I felt good about what I had done and was relieved that it was over, as well.

As I was leaving the hall, an elderly lady wearing white gloves approached me and said, “I was very disappointed with the service. Do you know how many people sitting there are not saved? You didn’t once preach the Gospel that would save them.” And with that, she briskly walked passed me and out of the hall.

I went home and fell down on my couch, perplexed. I had come from a liberal college in Toronto and now it seemed like I had transported back to some other place that I wasn’t ready for. Those within the church noticed something different in me and asked what was wrong. When I told them about the lady, they smiled and said that she was “a little off.” But she had presented me with a topic that I had never before considered in depth — being saved.

First United, Sydney. I was leaving after 12 years and a new minister was coming in to try and straighten the furrows I had ploughed there. In discussion with some relatives about the person, they asked, “Is the person saved?” Again, there was that word. What did they mean by that term? What did the Bible say about it? It got me thinking. What do these people mean when they say the word, “saved?” Usually when we save something, we are reserving it for another time.

I am reading a book by N.T. Wright entitled, “The Day the Revolution Began.” In it, he notes how we have Platonized our reading of Scriptures and have forgotten how the first Christians saw and understood the things Jesus did and said, every day. According to Scriptures, God saved the people of Israel on a number of occasions. For what? As Wright has studied the Scriptures, Israel was not saved so they could go to heaven, but they were saved to become the priesthood of the faith. Jesus’s death and resurrection brought heaven and earth together and because of the covenant written on all of our hearts, we have become the new Temple where God resides. We are saved so that we can show and tell others what heaven is like, how love can and does change everything.

Heaven’s ways are written in all of our hearts and it is our task to share that vision with our world and boy, does our world need it! Jesus died on a cross, took upon himself our sinful nature, so that we may be saved to share with the world the peace that is heaven.

Love one another as Christ loves you. We are saved, through Christ, to be givers of love. May God bless you all, the priesthood of God.

Doug Pillsworth is a retired United Church minister and regular contributor to Faith for Today.