Salvation and Human Response— The Exile 07-27-15:

Three biblical stories or narratives provide overarching paradigms for the whole concept of salvation. And those stories suggest some significant ways for human involvement and response.

The Exile: The second biblical story of salvation is the story of Jewish exile in the foreign empire of Babylon. This images the human problem as exile, living under an alien empire, a separation from our homeland and a longing for home. It’s marked by yearning, grief, loneliness, anger and

despair. Psychologically and spiritually, exile is a condition of alienation, a sense of being cut off from a center of meaning and energy, even the sense of being separated from God and others. We live in fragmentation and isolation.

The solution—salvation—is a journey of return, one that God both invites and energizes. This story of salvation is a story of reconciliation, reconnection with the highest Value and deepest Meaning in life. It’s about the ending of estrangement and the new beginning of relationship, whether with God or significant others or our place in the world of human family.

Here, too, the New Testament Jesus is introduced as the Way out of exile. The story of his death, burial and resurrection both symbolizes and embodies the way of return and reconciliation. It’s the story of homecoming. Salvation, in this metaphor, is homecoming, coming back to our true selves in the midst of alien places and people claiming to give us our identity, coming back to a personal peace with God, and coming back to experience others as Home again, a place we had run from out of fear, hurt, discouragement, distraction, a false sense of satisfaction.

In this salvation story of release from exile, if the exiles in Babylon had not set foot on their journey of return and had chosen to remain, they would be there still. Even so, our human response encompassed by this picture of salvation is to turn our faces back Home again and begin the journey of reconciliation and restoration. It’s to be willing to accept our true lineage as sons and daughters of God and the human family. It’s to take up our place as people of value and worth and acknowledge that same value in all others. It’s to join with God in bringing peace, harmony and shalom to the world so all living things can return Home and live in reconciliation.