Slave, Son, Saint

Seeing how salvation really works in our lives

03/21/2024

Jn 8:31-42 Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, 'You will become free'?" Jesus answered them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains. So if the Son frees you, then you will truly be free. I know that you are descendants of Abraham. But you are trying to kill me, because my word has no room among you. I tell you what I have seen in the Father's presence; then do what you have heard from the Father." They answered and said to him, "Our father is Abraham." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works of Abraham.

What did Jesus come to accomplish in becoming a man, suffering and dying, and rising from the dead? Well, the short answer is he came to save us. We all know this because we see graffiti on overpasses that state: “Jesus saves.” But what is that salvation, the technical term is soteriology, that Jesus came to give us? Does Jesus just snap his fingers and save us? No, it took his 33 years of living, and three hours of dying on the cross to save us.

Now, can we just snap our fingers and accept that salvation? No, it will take our whole life and our death to allow Christ’s saving grace to seep into every crack and crevice of our souls. Salvation is really a three step process of going from slavery, to sonship, and finally sainthood. In other words, you cannot go from slave to saint by snapping your fingers. There is no shortcut to salvation.

In the gospel today Jesus outlines these three steps of salvation. First, he helps the Jews to see they are slaves, saying: “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” And that includes everyone, even the Jews, but they vehemently deny it. Second, he insists they must become sons by adding: “A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains.” To which the Jews retort: “We were not born of fornication,” meaning we are not illegitimate but legitimate sons.

And finally Jesus teaches that only his disciples will reach sainthood: “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” That is, what I am offering you, Jesus says in effect, which is salvation, will not be fast or easy. It will be long and arduous. But the end of the road will be a glorious resurrection.

I would like to illustrate what Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel with a book and a movie. The book is Addiction and Grace by a psychiatrist named Gerald May. This book completely changed my way of thinking about addiction. I used to think (and maybe you do too) that addicts were those enslaved to drugs or alcohol or other illegal substances. But in fact, May argues, we are all addicted to something: coffee, our work, our schedules, our clothes, even other people. May helped me see that a better word than addiction is attachment.

May wrote: “Addition makes idolaters of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another.” In other words, we are all, without exception, attached to something, or maybe even someone, and that is the source of our slavery. The first step of salvation, therefore, is identical to the first step of AA: to admit we are powerful (slaves) to some attachment. That humble acknowledgement is the first step on the long, hard road of salvation.

The second illustration comes from a Denzel Washington movie called “Flight.” He plays a very talented pilot who saves a plane full of people by actually flying the airliner inverted, that is, upside-down and safely crash-landing it in a field. The only fly in the ointment of his talents is that he was drunk while he did it. He is investigated for his negligence and finally confesses his deep addiction to drugs and alcohol.

While he is serving time in prison he gives his testimony to other inmates and says: “But at least I am sober. I thank God for that; I am grateful for that. And this is going to sound really stupid coming from a man who’s locked up in prison, but for the first time in my life I am free.” In other words, the salvation, the freedom, that Jesus has come to give us is not fast or easy. It is always a long, hard road to the resurrection.

Incidentally, when Captain Whip (played by Denzel) landed the plane in the field, he clipped the tower of a small church. And he landed close to a pond where people were wearing white robes and being baptized. I am convinced that baptism scene was where Captain Whip would also be born again. I love how C. S. Lewis begins his book The Problem of Pain with this quotation: “The Son of God suffered unto death not so that we would not have to suffer, but so our suffering could be like his.” And when our suffering is more like his, we too go from slaves, to sons, to saints.

Praised be Jesus Christ!