Salvation by Community

There’s an old joke that says Universalists (of the Unitarian Universalists) believe we are all saved because  God is so good. Unitarians believe we are all saved because we are so good.  

These two traditions merged and while not incompatible – both groups believe we are all saved – they are  not the same.  

Universalism was founded in the late 18th century entirely around the idea that there is no hell, that  everyone is saved, that God is Love and Love can only Love. The early Universalist theologian Hosea Ballou said  that Jesus didn’t atone for our sins with his death, but that he released Love into the world so that atonement was  no longer necessary. In other words, Love was released for the sake and in service to everyone, everywhere. What  we have when Jesus was killed isn’t an appeasement for an angry god who needs a blood sacrifice; what we have  is a moment when god refuses to retaliate, refuses to abandon humanity and in that moment sets loose in the world  a power stronger than death. 

Unitarianism stepped back from the question altogether, leaning into reason instead. Rather than creating  a fulsome theology of salvation, the Unitarians shifted the focus to what we can know and what really matters in  the life we are living. While orthodox Christianity debated the nuances of the next life, Unitarians dismissed it all  as distraction imploring people to make this life as good as we can for as many as we can without losing plot  through speculation on the unknowable. 

So, the Unitarians said, “this isn’t something to worry about” and the Universalists said, “and it’s all good  anyway”.  

Martin Luther, the man credited with sparking the Protestant Reformation, was obsessed with the question  of salvation. A whole lot of theological and political energy at the time was spent on who was in and who was out  and what we had to do to be invited to the party. The Roman Catholic Church was convinced that what we DO  will be the determining factor which led to a whole lot of prescriptive behavioral ethics and the first step out was  confession. There were different categories of sins and a variety of responses a person can engage to cut down  the time they’ll have to suffer in hell. Because the process started with confession, Luther would jump from  confessional to confessional constantly naming every unkind thought or worry. As a monk who lived in a  monastery with other Catholic priests, there were jokes about avoiding him in the hall lest he try to confess  something to you.  

But, Luther was just living into the logical conclusion of the theology. It’s almost impossible not to be in  a state of sinfulness, that is until he realized the presupposition for this mania was wrong. We aren’t saved because  of what we do, he decided, but because of what we believe. Jesus said over and over, “Your faith has healed you.”  Salvation by Faith. Not action. Not even redemptive action like saying the 10 Hail Mary’s the priest told you  would be required. It is your faith alone that will get you into Heaven.  

John Calvin took it all one step further. You were saved before you were even born. God has chosen you.  You will live a good, faithful life, and you will be rewarded. It is predetermined. Or, at least it’s true for most of  us, you know, us and our friends. We’re fine.  

So we’re saved by faith and/or many of us are saved in advance and we demonstrate that through faith.  Then the Universalists come forward and say, actually, it’s not just some Christians who are saved. Not just all  Christians who are saved. It’s EveryOne. Every person has been chosen, every person is Loved, is redeemed,  every person will spend an eternity in Heaven. There is nothing we can do to alter that trajectory. Our task is one  of acceptance. Knowing you are loved, living in that Truth. Letting go of the idea that you have to do more, be  more, to win the approval of a distant god, seeking your restoration.  

*The god of the question of who is saved has always been too small for me, too stingy, and not the god I  know through the trees, the oceans or the extravagance of the night sky. That god is not judging our sinfulness,  not presenting a prescription for redemption. And yet, so much of popular American religion teaches us that our  individual behavior is the key to our eternal punishment or reward.

As Universalists, we reject that entire concept. There is no pedestal of perfect purity to stand on and  striving for it is an ego game anyway. That isn’t our spiritual task. That isn’t our work. Our work is that of letting  go of the ego boundaries that allow us to think we’re better or worse than anyone or everyone else. 

Paul Tillich who taught here at Union Theological after being expelled by the Nazis – side note, Nazis  can’t bear the concept of universal love – says this beautifully: 

You are accepted… by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do  not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps  later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything;  simply accept the fact that you are accepted.” 

This is where UUs have landed on the question of salvation. Essentially, we have no real idea about life  after death, but it’s all going to be fine. There is nothing you have to do or confess or repent to be brought into  the circles of Love, and it’s not even that you have to believe the right thing because we know revelation continues  to unfold. We are born into a world where Love has been let loose and there is no power greater. It’s Love in the  beginning, Love in the end, and it’s Love all the way through. The human task is knowing and living into the  reality that we have been claimed by this Love. 

And while that’s no easy task, acceptance isn’t the end of the story. We aren’t worried about life after life,  but life during life still has some tripping points. We might not be at the mercy of an angry god, but we are very  clearly at the mercy of an angry humanity.  

So, what does all this talk of salvation, of Love all the way through, mean for people imprisoned at Delaney  Hall? What does this mean for the woman whose little sister starved to death in Palestine? To the teenager hiding  under his desk as an active shooter looks for people to kill? To the man sitting on the corner of 34th street waiting  for the shelter to open. We might be certain there is no hell after death, but what about the hell we created before  it?  

The real threat is not from a vengeful god, but from us. And the real salvation does not arrive after death  but in the ways we embody the Love always available to us now, here, for each other.  Theologians of the past weren’t wrong when asking questions of salvation; they were wrong in thinking  it was a distant or future necessity. Redemption, Liberation, these are immediate needs with real life consequences  and the God who let Love loose in the world is begging our attention, calling us to save each other from the hell  we ourselves have created.  

Luther feared his personal sinfulness would lead to his damnation, but it is our collective sinfulness, our  shared rupturing of right relationship that is creating the chaos, the hellscape too commonly known in this life.  Redemption is the shared work of embodying that Love that spoke our names before we were born, of making  that Love manifest in the systems that are damning us, setting it free to roam familiar, human-made halls of chaos  and grief. 

The racism that fragments and others, the colonialism that erases history and culture, the economic  systems that destroy mutual dependence, the tech that commodifies attention, the myth of independence that  isolates all of us, forcing us into cocoons of fear telling us lies of loneliness. This is the hell to which we’ve  condemned ourselves and each other.  

Church is the laboratory for our collective restoration. Authentic communities become the body of the  Holy. We are fully human only in relationship and it’s only in relationship that we can untangle the systems that  set this planet on fire with hate and fear.  

The people at Delaney Hall standing in solidarity with the victims inside, witnessing the deplorable  conditions that have sparked a hunger strike, are active participants in our collective salvation.  The people running what has become something of an underground railroad helping trans families escape  southern states where they are under direct threat are active participants in our collective salvation. When you, when we, enter this space and tell each other how beautiful or missed someone is or how happy  we are to see you or donate a little cash to help someone else eat tonight, we are all participating in our collective  salvation. 

God has no hands but ours. And our salvation is found in our cooperation in the healing of the world. We  are obligated to participate because this is the only road leading to mutual liberation. Reconciling the difference  between what is and what should be is the healing work that can only be done together. We are redeemed when 

we are flourishing. All of us. It’s not my work, but our work, not my sin but our sin, and the confessional is ours  to bear together.  

Because Love has been let loose in the world, and we have to accept it for ourselves and for each other,  living into the promise that liberation will be ours if we open ourselves to the unconfined Love running free in  and through us. What we do in response is entirely on us. 

We will either save each other or we will be damned alone.