When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
“Life sucks, then you die.” My eye caught the bumper sticker on my way to work the other day. I read it again, and then I glanced at the passengers inside the car. I couldn’t tell by looking what had brought them to such a state of heart. “Really?” I thought. “That’s it, then? That’s the final statement of reality on life. It’s simply a drag, then it’s over?”
It’s along the same lines, really, with the phrase I’ve heard a million times growing up in the Midwest, “All you have to do in life is pay taxes and die.” It’s said with a little smirk, and always just following a conversation on all of the duties and tasks that you have to accomplish in any given day. You just spent hours running back and forth between the license bureau and the tag agency to make sure your vehicle is road-legal. You hurry back from working eight hours to rustle up a quick dinner for hungry children before you have to get them ready for bed and prepare their lunches for the next day, only to find just a couple of precious hours left in the day to do a couple of loads of laundry and feed the dog. The doctor has diagnosed yourself or someone close to you with a serious illness, and you have some life-altering choices to make concerning everyone around you. Heavy decisions. Drudgery duties. A line like “all you have to do in life is pay taxes and die” feels at a time like that a lot like consolation, something you say to make yourself believe that these other things aren’t that important in the end, that all of life will be over anyway one day, so why worry so much.
So much of our days are a tug-of-war between worry and resignation, and we manically maneuver back and forth on that tight-rope walk fearful of losing our footing and desperate to balance everything.
And too often the church hasn’t offered much else to that dilemma. Still the most commonly preached message is that we need to shape up or be shipped out, and that if we can just get it all right morally (more to balance, you see), then maybe one day when we die we can find a little rest. In other words, “Pay your taxes (taxing duties) to God or to the church or to those that matter, and then you get to die.” The message is called salvation, but it has nothing to do with salvation, really. Biblical scholar Dallas Willard says that really the word salvation in the Bible could be replaced simply with the word life. Try it out. Give it a whirl. Look up some Scriptures like Psalm 13:5 (“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.”) and Psalm 27:1 (“The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?”) or 2 Corinthians 6:2 (“For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.”) and replace salvation with life. Is that what those messages we so often hear really offer? Life to the full? Does your heart rejoice when you hear about how much more you need to get right, that not only your life depends upon it, but your eternity? Does it seem as if that message paints the Lord God as a “stronghold of my life,” one who sustains and builds up and brings life to your bones? Does it sound like that message of “salvation” is one of help from God?
Because here’s what I read: “How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him.” That’s from Ephesians 1. Do you hear the passion? “High places of blessing.” Whoa. Really? Okay, my ears are pricked. What’s that about? Paul is exultant. I mean, he is practically jumping up and down in his sandals. Why? What’s got him so hooked, so excited? He goes on to say, “Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love…” And he continues, “…to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.” (Ephesians 1:3-6, The Message)
Look at the key words here. Blessed. Focus of his love. Whole and holy. Adopt. Family. Celebration. Lavish gift-giving. Beloved.
This ain’t your grandma’s salvation religion. We’re talking something wholly better and greater than we have ever yet dared possible.
In his daring book "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore," Jake Colsen tells the story of working in a large, profitable church but feeling incredibly empty and dead inside. He encounters a man, John, who seems to know Jesus very personally, intimately. The conversation between them goes like this:
“You know what this whole thing is about, Jake?” John sat back on the bench,
crossed his arms over his chest and looked out across the playground. “It’s
about life—God’s real life filling your own. The life of God is not some theological abstraction. It is fullness…freedom… joy and peace of living in him that endures in the face of your worst circumstances. That life was in the Son and he came to share it with anyone who would put his or her trust in him."“It’s not about working hard, big ministries or new buildings. It’s about life that you
can see, taste and touch; something you can frolic in every day that you live. I know my words fail to describe it adequately, but you know what I’m talking about. You’ve had moments like that, haven’t you?”
