All Are Saved?

How we have indulged over the years in creating complexity out of simplicity! We get tangled up in the very myriad of rules and regulations which Jesus came to untangle for us. He brought us the best of Good News in his proclamation of the Kingdom. 1 Timothy reinforces the Good News that God wants everyone saved (1 Tim 2:1-8). And if that is what almighty God wants, then surely we are saved! Any sense that the Creator’s will is a barrier or hindrance to our salvation is turned on its head. But the final decision remains ours! Only we ourselves can be the obstruction. God wants everyone saved but, in our free will, we need to accept the offer of salvation.

How then do we accept? What are the rules? Jesus teaches that the rules are pretty simple. “Jesus is so simplistic and naïve as to reduce 613 clear Biblical commandments down to two: Love of God and love of neighbour,” (Luke 10:27) (Rohr, R. What do we do with the Bible? p57).

So often our love of God is reflected in our love of the poor and vice versa. We turn to our Creator, “praising the Lord who lifts up the poor” as our responsorial psalm urges us (Ps 112) and “lifting up our hands reverently in prayer (1 Timothy 2: 8) without anger or argument”.

Jesus himself tells us in this week’s gospel, “You cannot be the slave of both God and of money” (Luke 16:1-13) and the prophet Amos (Amos 8:4-7) starkly warns us against trampling on, swindling, deceiving, and oppressing the poor. If our actions set us apart from the Lord who lifts up the poor, we exclude ourselves from salvation but, if we turn to God, loving him and actively loving his children (our neighbours), we have every reason to hope for salvation.

Deacon Mark Kelly