Evangelism: Do you Want to be Saved?

There's a story about a little fish out exploring his world one day. Or perhaps exploring her world. She swims very fast from the bottom of the river upward, breaks the surface of the water, and is astounded at the world she glimpses before splashing back into the river. She swims home to tell her mother that outside of the water there is a wonderful world. Her mother replies, "Water? What's water?" Often, the context in which we live is invisible. Finding new and wonderful worlds means becoming aware of our limits. In Richard Rohr's devotion on Wednesday, he talked about the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis, a common practice of the Eastern church, but one ignored or even denied here in the West. Rohr says: The Eastern fathers of the Church believed we could experience real and transformative union with God. This is in fact the supreme goal of human life and the very meaning of salvation... I buy it. That's the message I hear Jesus try and get through our heads. I hear that far better than I hear "believe in Jesus and be baptized so you won't go to hell." (I know...I'm probably going to hell for that!) "Follow me" and be changed is what I hear. It's what I see in the stories of the gospels and the early church. Rohr says: Salvation isn't about replacing our human nature with a fully divine nature, but growing within our very earthiness and embodiedness to live more and more in the ways of love and grace, so that it comes "naturally" to us and is our deepest nature. This does not mean we are humanly or perfectly whole or psychologically unwounded, but it has to do with an objective identity in God that we can always call upon and return to without fail... Full salvation is finally universal belonging and universal connecting. Our word for that is "heaven." Perhaps the most significant change here is salvation being communal, not what I do to ensure my well-being or future fate. Universal belonging and universal connecting draw me into community and compel me to action. As I grow into my belonging (God doesn't move away from that...I do), I must do so with all other people, otherwise I'm still not connected fully in the ways of love and grace. That's the invitation. I don't need you to come into the church to fix you or to fix the church. I need you to come into the church, because you have something to teach me, and I have something to teach you. I need you to belong to me, and I need to belong to you. That can happen because of our identity as children of God that is not dependent on us in the least. If you won't cross the threshold of my church, you are still connected to me as family...and I, to you. Back to context. The water in which we swim is water that assumes individuality is supreme, that independence is the ultimate goal, and that those who are "other" are to be feared, avoided, or defeated. God came incarnate in Jesus to encourage us to check out the world beyond the water that keeps us from universal belonging and universal connecting. We couldn't manage to follow then, but God didn't quit. The reality of the universal-belonging-and-connecting-God is the constant. Do we need to be saved? Do we need universal belonging and connecting? Let's call that the evangelism pool. Heated. Open all year round. Come be immersed in belonging and connecting.