As the snow falls, and my regular routine is halted, I am forced to do something different than what I always do. I love routine - the comfort of not having to think. I think too much. But alas...here I am, thinking. So I'll just lean into it for today.
My father died recently. His memorial is a week away - at the church I left 13 years ago, and partially returned to last year. It's so much to explain; a lot has happened since my last post. To sum up: I want to live as if everyone is my brother and sister. I don't want differences in belief to get in the way of how I love...so I try to show up at church whenever I can and tell myself I belong.
But I am struggling. Case in point: the thought of the "salvation message" being brought at my Dad's funeral is causing many emotions. I met with the Pastor who is doing his funeral - a dear friend of my dad's and a dear man. It's not that love is missing. We are just on totally different pages when it comes to what a message of salvation looks like. When I was trying to explain what I was nervous about to the Pastor, I said I didn't want people to feel manipulated. He replied by saying we are told not to be "ashamed of the gospel."
My Dad feared death. That's a normal reaction - the unknown is scary. But his faith was supposed to give him assurance, right? Except he couldn't help worrying that he wasn't going to "make it in." (Something he only confessed at the end.) So for all the talk of Jesus sacrifice erasing his sin; his sin still felt like a weight. As hard as he tried to do everything right, it never felt like enough. He was anxious, all the time, about pretty much everything. And though I'm sure much of that was his Parkinson's, I never knew my Dad as peaceful. His world view was quid pro quo, reward and punishment, and justice as retribution.Therefore, Jesus sacrifice was a payment, buying my dad out of hell. A transaction. And so Dad owed gratitude to Jesus, and devotion. But did he feel loved by God?
What would my message of salvation be?
"I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love."
And when we can believe this (possibly the only "correct belief" that matters)...when we know in our heart that love is never earned - that all the gratitude and devotion and good deeds and tithes and church attendance and Bible memorizing will never earn it - we will be changed. (Salvation!) And that love, flowing now because it's not trying to be generated within our small, selfish egos, will pour out into everything and bring salvation to the whole earth. Such different good news than "Believe in Jesus so you won't go to hell when you die" -- a gospel that I am indeed ashamed of.
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