· Revelation 7:9-17
· Psalm 34:1-10, 22 (9)
· 1 John 3:1-3
· Matthew 5:1-12
In my Bible, there is a note beside the text of the beatitudes:
"Luther understands God's spoken word as creative power, not information. When God speaks, God's word creates what it declares. God's word called the universe and everything in it into existence. The beatitudes create reality.
"The word blessed also can be translated as 'happy'. So Jesus now declares people blessed in light of God's coming rule. The beatitudes create what they declare. Jesus makes the new world of God's rule actual now in this broken world. Yet it also remains a promised future. Notice that they do not depend on faith or even on knowing Jesus. This is one way God creates salvation."
Interesting. All of us, whichever religion we claim, spend a lot of time theorizing about how to get saved. Faith? Works? Killing infidels? Large donations to the church? Meditation? Can someone I don't like be saved? Am I at least more saved than him?
Apparently not. You get saved if God says you get saved. That's what we mean by "we are saved by grace."
How does God decide who gets saved? Exactly as he pleases. He can make stuff up any time. That's the great thing about being God, one would think: what you say goes. Period. You can invent all kinds of crazy new stuff, just say the word, bam, it happens. God could look at Jean Chrétien versus Gandhi and say "this Canadian guy cracks me up, I'm saving him; the other one is just annoying." Or vice-versa. Or both. God doesn't have to explain his actions.
Luckily, God is not flighty and unpredictable. So he offers us a reliable way to get saved, by making a deal with him. That's what "covenant" means. God offers us a deal: follow me, and you're saved. And this is true because God said it and his word creates reality.
Many people, especially in the less scripture-intensive churches, say that we're saved by God's [scare quotes gesture] "love". I don't like that, because love is capricious. If salvation depends on God's love, one day you could be saved, and the next day God is angry and you're not saved anymore.
You might say "no, God isn't like that. God loves you forever." But how do you know? God gets angry, then he gets over being angry. It's all over the Old Testament. So God's emotions can vary with time. Otherwise they wouldn't be emotions. In Catholic high school I was taught that God is perfect and therefore he doesn't change over time; but if he didn't change with time he wouldn't get angry and then no longer angry. Then in Grade 12 they taught us that in reality God is actually outside of time so that we can't think of God on a timeline, and that eternity is a mystery none of us can grasp.
Sure, ok, fine. But it still says in the Old Testament: God gets angry, God stops being angry. There are pages and pages of examples, but to give you just one: "Now when the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, the Lord heard it and his anger was kindled. Then the fire of the Lord burned against them, and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. But the people cried out to Moses; and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire abated." (Numbers 11:1-2) So if God's anger can come and go, so can his love. I don't trust anyone with the word "love", not even God.
Besides, if this was about [scare quotes gesture] "love", why is there a deal involved? Isn't love supposed to be unconditional? Well, actually, not really. That's a rather modern concept. In the Bible, it says "love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) It does not say love is "unconditional". Nowadays many people think love should be "unconditional" but forget about love being patient and kind; but that's a different story.
In any case, God does not propose to sell us his love. The Covenant isn't "do this and I'll love you forever." Love is not a covenant. Either God loves you or he doesn't. But that's not what salvation is about. If salvation came from God's love, you could be the most saintly man after Christ, and you could die and go to heaven and God could say "you know what, I don't like you, you're really annoying, get out of here." God could do that. But he won't, because salvation isn't about getting God to love you.
Salvation is a covenant. A deal. A contract, if you will. I do this, you do that. Now we could say that God offers us this deal out of his love for us. Like a behaviour modification trick. "I want you to succeed, so I'm gonna positively reinforce good behaviour with salvation, and punish bad behaviour with damnation." So we accept this contract. Or not, mind you. You don't have to accept the contract. If you notice in the Bible, God doesn't do things to people so much as with people. Just look at the annunciation to Mary. The angel comes and talks to her and Mary says "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." (Luke 1:38). The Lord didn't do anything to her without her consent. So if you want to decline God's deal, that's fine. God lets you do that.
If you take God's deal, though, you have a contract. A professional understanding. I like to think of it that way, because I don't trust [scare quotes gesture] "love", and I don't trust most business owners as far as I can throw them, but I do believe in God's professionalism. If God says we have a deal, we have a deal. God is gonna do his part. That I count on.
The question is, are you doing your part? If you take the deal, you're now a saint; as it were, a subcontractor to God in saving the world. Would God recommend you to a friend, or would he call Mike Holmes on you? When your neighbour prays to God for help, is God gonna call you? God could look and say "well we got Tom, Dick and Harry available, but Tom is just a mouthpiece, he just talks and talks and gets nothing done; and I paid Dick in advance for another job that never got done; but Harry is a good worker, I used him before, he does good work, on time and on budget; let's call Harry."
Well, maybe you don't want to be the one who gets that call from the Lord. Calls from the Lord usually involve all kinds of hardship, but that's for another sermon. So maybe you want to take God's deal and then do as little as possible on your end. And that's between you and God. Me, I have a deal with God, and I expect God is gonna do his part, so I think I'd want to do a really good job on my side.
Praise be to God, the Enricher, the Preventer of harm, the Afflicter, the Wise.
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