The Extravagantly Generous Gift of Salvation
This paper is written to help persons to see salvation as God’s action of extravagant generosity and begin to understand that extravagant generosity if God’s character of grace.
Salvation is not some abstract future idea. Salvation is something real and tangible, here and now – it can be touched, smelled, heard, and seen. How extravagant is this gift indeed. Salvation means: God with us. And, without the Created world we live in there could be no salvation.
Is there, then, any other reason for God’s act of creating this material world? Is it not for the purpose of ensuring the God with us can be experienced and made real? Is it not the incarnation of the Word of God made flesh in Jesus the ultimate reason for God’s act of creation? With out creation could there have been an incarnation?
God takes matters personally and just like us desires to connect – relate – there is no other reason for creation than this – it is a real and concrete place to connect and relate to the human experience.
Thus, God’s act of creation is SALVATION for us, and it is in this way God has decided to be God for us – God as grace come to us in the material matter of the universe.
What is Creation? It is a generous gift. Creation is donation from God given to us on our behalf. There would be no life without it, and what we do with creation, we do with God – what we do with ourselves we do with God. Or: What we do to creation we do to God and what we do to ourselves we do to God. We are all that closely linked together. When we are generous with one another we are generous with God.
The psalmist (133) sings: How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! This is the ultimate desire of God for all of creation – it is the measure of Peace God wishes for us. Paul speaks of the groaning of creation for salvation. God comes to save not just us but the whole of creation.
Our brothers and sisters of the American Indian race tell us that the created world is kin to one another … Did not God form our bodies out of the dust of the earth? How very good and pleasant when kindred live in unity. Unity calls for extravagantly generous acts of love and care.
Disobedience to God is our primary enslavement, says Barth. We have relegated God to the “man upstairs” so we can “go our own ways” downstairs. Sometimes our disobedience becomes downright religious as we attempt “an impossible ascent” up the mountain as “foolish mountain climbers” who arrogantly refuse to let God descend to us as we piously stupidly attempt to ascend to God through our rituals, churches, beliefs, and deeds.
In this way, it appears that our religion becomes purely something people do for no other reason than to climb the mountain – and, how tiring it must be to day after day struggle in the climb knowing we will never reach the summit?
When we understand religion this way religion becomes only a human enterprise. True, religion is a human invention designed to facilitate our human experiences with something / someone beyond ourselves – that something being Divine and someone being God. E. Stanley Jones accepts that religion means realization and if not this then religion has become ritual and if ritual then our religion is dead.
Barth defines religion as a means God uses to descend down the mountain to us. He or she who knows Jesus knows this Barth reminds us – but knows what? He or she who knows Jesus knows that our Lord – the One who came down the mountain to us, daily faced the harsh questioning from the ones called religious. Religion then must become that important gift where the life of God is being realized in our community and in our world. Such work of realization calls for extravagant efforts and is costly.
The religious chastised Jesus: Jesus, how dare you be so generous with your forgiveness – why are you so free with your time and generous with your energy hanging out with those disobedient ones outside our fellowship? It is as if they are saying: Come now, we are the ones climbing God’s mountain, do not waste your time with those lazy ones.
William Willimon says: The question: “Is there salvation and who is it for?” is an inquiry into the identity of God. As Christians who profess Jesus Christ this question might be: What is the reason God came to us?” Is salvation something we humans think we need or deserved or is it something God wants? If it is something God wants then a “Divine Yes” must first be spoken from God and not from us. Such is the extravagant generosity of our God who comes down the mountain to us and saves. This is the God we are called to reflect in our lives.
