In her book, Freeing Jesus, Diana Butler Bass chronicled her understanding of “Jesus as Savior”, which began with her family’s incorporation of the children’s bedtime prayer: Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. As I reflect on this prayer, I think the best thing I can say about it is simply this: it rhymes. For a rote prayer for their kids, perhaps parents can step it up a bit. A lot. Drilling this prayer into kids heads makes the primary focus of God’s role “death management,” and while there is hope implied that God can handle such things, the fact that we are asking that God would keep or take our souls implies that perhaps, if we don’t, God won’t. This runs counter to Jesus’ claim that God’s love is unconditional, and the later Christian declaration that in Christ everything has been reconciled to God. We need not ask anymore for what is already and eternally ours. Perhaps the prayer could shift toward gratitude for unconditional love that is our ground of being, our source of inspiration, and our hope for the future.
As Bass notes, the focus on fear of death has been capitalized upon and used as a tool of coercion for centuries, and in the US it has been leveraged heavily since the rise of Evangelicalism in the late 1960’s. The narrative behind it? God is too holy to allow sin in “His” presence, we have all sinned (the penalty warranted is death), Jesus died for our sins while we were sinning so that all who call on his name will be saved (from death and condemnation). The image of savior is one who saves us from the doom of death’s finality and the threat of damnation. How many of us have unwittingly adopted this narrative as THE Christian narrative? How many people are walking away from Christianity because they don’t buy the story anymore? Many – and many more at an increasing rate.
I almost left myself while I was a pastor because it felt so shallow. I felt like I was selling afterlife insurance. That’s not nothing, of course, since we human beings are aware of our future and generally freak out about it! Yet it still didn’t feel like a compelling enough vision to keep me in the game. I’ve told the story many times – I used my Doctor of Ministry thesis project to help me determine what salvation God was offering, what it meant to call Jesus “Savior”, and whether or not it was worthy enough to invest any more of my life. I’m still writing about this as a pastor nearly 20 years later, so you might guess that what I discovered was worth it!
My doctoral thesis focused on soteriology, the study of salvation. “Soter” is the root Greek word that gives us the English word “save”. Most of the people who lived in the Greco-Roman world in the first century CE understood the word soter to mean to heal. The salvation God offers is healing. The vision or purpose of the healing is health, or, more profoundly, holistic wellbeing. What word captures this vision in Jesus’ Jewish tradition? Shalom. Shalom – holistic wellbeing, peace, harmony – is the goal. Why is “healing” the “salvation” God offers? Because we struggle to stay well.
Sometimes – rarely – people experience what appears to be instantaneous healing which is often called miraculous. I believe such things happen at times, not because God intervened from above, but because of a wide range of influences including an ever-present God in the moment and moments leading up to the so-called miraculous event. Healing of every kind, though, is miraculous, amazing, and incredible. Healing of every kind involves myriad influences and processes working in sync with each other. The salvation of God, being healing, is such a combination.
What other words describe what this healing-salvation looks like? Renewal, restoration, and even resurrection come to mind. All refer to a before-and-after story whereby a less desirable, former expression gives way to a more desirable future. To get from the former to the latter requires a process. I submit to you that the Way Jesus taught and modeled is that process from less whole, less healthy, less peaceful, less lovely life to something more whole, healthy, peaceful and lovely. For such a process, such a Way, we don’t need a super hero to fly in and save the day. We need someone who cares for us, guides us, nurtures us, attends to us, protects us. We need a shepherd.
Jesus saw himself in this role as remembered in the Gospel of John:
I came so that [all] could have life—indeed, so that [all] could live life to the fullest. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. When the hired hand sees the wolf coming, he leaves the sheep and runs away. That’s because he isn’t the shepherd; the sheep aren’t really his. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. He’s only a hired hand and the sheep don’t matter to him.
I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and they know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. I give up my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that don’t belong to this sheep pen. I must lead them too. They will listen to my voice and there will be one flock, with one shepherd. – John 10:10-16 (CEB)
What Jesus says about himself fits with what he said earlier in the same Gospel:
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life (and whole and lasting life). God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved (healed) through him. – John 3:16-17 (CEB)
Does the shepherd motif align with the biblical tradition? Read Psalm 23 again, or listen to it put to music.
If Jesus is our shepherd who guides us along the Way that leads to abundant, whole, healed, shalom-dripping life, then knowing what that Way looks like makes all the difference regarding our healing. If you’ve been around CrossWalk for long or scoured our website, we try to make known the Way that leads to life. The process involves how we think, how we live, who we live for, how we stay grounded, and with whom we do life. We use the following terms to describe this: Stretch, Kneel, Justice/Grace, Connect, and Incarnate.
When we think of healing/salvation, I believe the above process represents principles that work for every type of problem or wound that needs healing, be it intrapersonal, interpersonal, or on a larger scale – all the way to global issues like war, famine, extreme poverty, etc. You can also note that these principles find resonance with other processes that seek healing, like the 12-Steps that help people overcome addictions. This is simply because, as Richard Rohr puts it, what’s true is true everywhere. We should expect related themes and principles across the board wherever healing is sought. Below is the basic process, followed by examples of how this plays out using very broad strokes.
Jesus the Good Shepherd’s Path to Shalom: A Choice
• Stretch: Be curious.
• Kneel: Serving humanizes and equalizes.
• Justice/Grace: ID culprits, consequences, charity.
• Connect: Stay in the flow that leads to shalom.
• Incarnate: We’re all dust and Breath. Embrace it.
Disturbed Shalom: Self-Esteem. The Enneagram personality paradigm suggests that we all carry wounds that we try to manage in various ways specific to our personality type. Perhaps you are a Type 3 Performer who bases personal value on audience response (audience being a parent, siblings, friends, lovers, bosses, new acquaintances, etc.). The wound often experienced by threes is a feeling of being unworthy of love or simply unloved. Three seek to manage/heal that wound by performing harder to impress/win the affection of our audience. This may work for a while to varying degrees, but it does not bring true healing. Does Jesus’ Way of salvation-healing work? Let’s find out.
· Stretch: What needs to be learned that would help a person see themselves and their situation more fully? Perhaps in this case, learning about personality types and their patters might help the person see themselves more clearly and help them understand the root of their pain, how they are managing it, and healthier ways to find healing. Perhaps some good theological reading will help the person discover that they are fully and forever loved by God – warts and all. Perhaps love as a foundation might begin to heal the heart and reduce the need to perform for affection. What do you see that might be helpful to learn for such a person?
· Kneel. How might serving others in some way – with no expectation of anything in return and perhaps anonymous – help a Three serve for nothing more than the love and joy of serving? How might this help reshape their motivation for service? What about self love? How can a Three practice self-care – an expression of loving ourselves that goes hand in hand with loving others?
· Grace and Justice. Threes never perform well enough in their own minds. How might grace toward the self help? Accepting oneself “as is” can be incredibly liberating, letting go of the pressure of performance. Unless they are really unhealthy, Threes don’t slack off, so this acceptance is not an excuse to be idle or lazy – that’s just not in their DNA. There is a personal justice component here as well, namely that they judge themselves overly harshly – much more than they judge others. They hold court all the time and are overly harsh on themselves. If a Three saw this happening for someone else, they would call it injustice.
· Connect. Threes can get so busy performing that they don’t take time to connect to the Ground of Being – God – a term coined by theologian Paul Tillich. While this is a self-care move, it is also a reconnecting to Reality, being still and silent with no audience, being reminded that Breath is everything. Quiet for long enough, the Three might just sense the gentle whisper of God reminding them that they are loved for who they are, not because of what they do.
· Incarnate. Who we hang around influences us significantly. Surrounding ourselves with people who are pursuing shalom will help us stay on the Way Jesus taught. These people, knowing that Spirit lives in them and the Three, are more apt to sense and say what the Spirit prompts, and the Three who is invested in the Way will be more likely to do the same. This community of Spirit, recognizing each other as incarnate beings, supports each other in their identity as Beloved.
· Results. Taken together, with all of these pieces working together, I think healing to varying degrees can be greatly facilitated. Sometimes the process helps us see that we need professional help. Isn’t it great that there are professionals who can help? BTW – I am familiar with this process for Threes because – surprise – I am a Three!
Disturbed Shalom: Relationships. Can the Way offer healing for relational wounds? This could be applied to intimate lovers or global adversaries. Let’s see what that might look like...
· Stretch. What needs to be studied to gain more clarity and understanding about the relationship dynamics that are the context of your painful experience? Who can give insight?
· Serve. If we’re talking about a safe relationship, sometimes serving the other is a big step in staying connected and seeing them as fellow human beings. We’re in trouble when we “other” those we are in relationship with, which usually puts us on higher moral ground.
· Grace and Justice. What injustices have been experienced in the relational issue at hand? Who has not been heard? Who has been offended? What infractions need to be recognized and addressed? What grace needs to be offered?
· Connect. Especially when entering dialogue, what grounding work has been done to center, humble and connect each other with God for strength, insight, courage, grace, etc.?
· Incarnate. How are both parties in the relationship able to recognize the presence of God in each other?
This simply scratches the surface, I know, but I hope you recognize along with me that the framework of this process can be applied widely, and I believe has the capacity to greatly increase shalom, which is salvation, which is what Jesus as savior came to offer.
In what areas of your life do you need the Shepherd to guide you to and through The Way that leads to healing and a more shalom-filled life? Simply ask for help and be open, remembering that the Spirit of God so evident in Jesus led him to be a bridge, not a barrier, to God’s love and healing. Perhaps this song might woo you to the Savior...