I know that many of you have been following me as I've graduated and begun a new job. It's a time. It's been a hard two months. Just this week, it’s been a long couple days.
It’s only Tuesday.
But salvation is a sinkful of dishes.
Salvation is an achievable task, a sign of life, in a sea of impossible and overwhelming hopes that reach for an impossible and unknowable future.
You see, I believe deep in my being that this world was made in goodness and grace and that goodness and grace surround us with every step we take. I believe that in goodness and grace we were born, each of us, and to goodness and grace we will return, each of us. I believe that even in the most horrifying situations, there is still a glimmer of goodness. It’s hidden, of course. It’s overwhelmed by the evil around it, of course. But it is not gone. It’s never completely gone.
It’s a ridiculous belief. I know it. The world is overpoweringly awful. I could sit here and name sins as easily as Paul catalogs them, though our lists would sound different. I would talk about racism and sexism and classism and colonialism and xenophobia and heteronormativity and greed and apathy and pettiness where he talks focuses overmuch on the sins of the body, but for Paul, bodies were the only thing within his control. He could not name the sins of empire as I can today. He doesn’t stand on the other side of the movements that I do, movements that damaged bodies and minds and souls in ways that he never imagined.
But even as I name those sins, I know some of their cures. Understanding. Reparations. Economic justice. Equality. Repentance. These things are surely biblical. They are surely from God. I could spend days giving you receipts, biblical foundation for these ideas, but honestly, I don’t have the energy for it, not when those who are wiser than me have written more intelligently about it. In their work, I see goodness breaking back in. I see redemption. I see a story of salvation that doesn’t require a profession of faith to get behind. I see work that we can all do, no matter what we believe.
But especially as Christians, especially as people believe in the in-breaking of the reign of God, we must work on our sins, to correct the consequences of our sins. Jesus was not born a first-century Jew in Roman-occupied Palestine so that we would shy away from the reality of his life, from the consequences of the Word’s presence among us in the flesh. We who in the United States occupy the position of the Roman Empire in the parables and teachings of our Lord and Savior must always be ready to name the sins that keep us from him. Not only to name them, but to repent of them. That’s Jesus’ first message, when he begin his ministry.
Repent. Repent for the reign of God is near.
And we may as well answer: How?
How to we repent of this much pain? How do we repent of this much harm? How do those of us who are white in the United States repent of genocide against Indigenous nations? How do we repent of chattel slavery? How do we repent of generations of benefitting from these sins? How do we repent of the continuing systems of subjugation, more polite and ignorable genocide and slavery? How does anyone outside of poverty repent of the sins that entrench and perpetuate the impoverishment of our siblings, our earth?
If we cannot repent, how can we be saved?
Well.
Salvation is a sinkful of dishes.
Salvation is an achievable task, a sign of life.
Repentance is dish soap and a good scrubbing pad.
And grace is the strength to begin again. Grace is endurance that continues until the task is done. Grace is someone else who comes in with a dishtowel to dry as we wash, to sing and laugh and encourage. Grace is the assurance that the task requires nothing more than willing hands and a teachable spirit. The rest will come. All we have to do is start.
So, friends. Let’s start.
