It was a side-line subject to the overall conversation, but it's an important one. One of the dear friends at the study said what I should said, "We don't get to decide who gets to go to heaven."
True, true, true. We spent a few minutes talking about a subject that might take hours to discuss and still not get full answers. The words judgment, sinners, acts rather than persons and such entered the discussion.
The result? Same as we entered. Jesus says don't judge. Paul says judge the saints of the church, and if necessary, ask them to leave.
How do we reconcile that? Probably we don't or can't.
This morning, always on the look out for what might pass as a blog topic, I ran across a CNN profile of a man who is no relation to me, Ted Turner. In the midst of a long piece on the man, came the revelation he wants to go to heaven. Remember, this is a man who shunned religion.
Turner has done amazing things, gained amazing amounts of money and given amazing amounts of money away to good causes.
Does that equate a trip to heaven? Does giving to the poor, taking care of the planet, all those sorts of things equate a trip up the stairs rather than down?
He has so far made good on $965 million of his $1 billion pledge to the United Nations. He has worked for more than a decade to protect endangered species, grasslands and oceans, championed energy conservation, railed against global warming, fought to rid the world of nuclear weapons -- the do-gooder list goes on and on.
The CNN story revealed a few things:
"Even though he is a son of the Bible Belt, Ted Turner and God haven't been on the best of terms. Despite his strong stance against religion in the past, he's not an atheist. He's an agnostic, trying to make sense of it all -- his way. He revised the Ten Commandments, which he considered outdated, coming up instead with his Eleven Voluntary Initiatives, which he printed on cards small enough to carry in a wallet. He tossed out the commandments that struck him as outdated -- a host of the "thou shalt nots," particularly the one banning adultery. "People have had a lot of fun breaking that one. I know I did."
"Turner's initiatives focus instead on caring for the Earth "and all living things," treating others with dignity, looking out for the poor, having no more than two children, and avoiding the use of toxic materials. As with most things, Turner's rocky relationship with his supreme being, assuming there is one, stems back to childhood. When he was very young, he dreamed of being a missionary. Then his little sister, Mary Jean, got sick at age 12. He watched as she suffered terribly from a rare form of lupus and complications that left her with brain damage and screaming in pain for years until she died. It shook his faith profoundly. He could not understand why any God would let an innocent suffer. "She was sick for five years before she passed away. And it just seemed so unfair, because she hadn't done anything wrong," he said. "What had she done wrong? And I couldn't get any answers. Christianity couldn't give me any answers to that. So my faith got shaken somewhat."
"He once walked into the CNN newsroom on Ash Wednesday and, spotting several staffers with smudges on their foreheads, blurted out, "What are you? A bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox." He has said famously that "Christianity is a religion for losers," even though some of his closest friends have a deep and profound faith. "He knew I was a Christian when he said that," said former President Jimmy Carter. "Ted had a tendency to say things like that just to be provocative. And to stir people's interest. But later he retracted that statement."
Carter continues to hope his friend will someday "have a profound religious experience." Turner said he respects the position of his religious friends, but he's a skeptic by nature. He described himself as an agnostic, although as a younger man he was an atheist, and virulently anti-religious. These days, he keeps the door open a crack. He allows for the possibility. "When I have a friend that's dying of cancer, I say a prayer for them," he said. To whom does he direct the prayer? "Whoever is listening."
Given his childhood," Ex-wife Jane Fonda said, "he should've become a dictator. He should've become a not nice person. The miracle is that he became what he is. A man who will go to heaven, and there'll be a lot of animals up there welcoming him, animals that have been brought back from the edge of extinction because of Ted. He's turned out to be a good guy. And he says he's not religious. But he, the whole time I was with him, every speech -- and he likes to give speeches -- he always ends his speech with 'God bless.' And he'll get into heaven. He's a miracle."
Turner listened intently. There was a long pause. Was he tearing up? Finally, he spoke.
"She said that?"Another long pause. "Well, I sure don't want to go to hell." Pause.
"Did she say I was gonna buy my way in?"
Here's a couple of answers to the very serious question of who gets to "go" to heaven:
I base much of my ministry on Romans 10:9 -- "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Confession of sin, and a repentance to turn the other way of living, is necessary. Believing that Jesus is Lord is necessary. Belief in the resurrection of that man named Jesus is necessary for without it it negates the shed blood of the Lamb as the saving element and a man simply died.
I believe, though there is conflict on what exactly this means and I acknowledge that difference but choose to believe what it says is what it says, that it is significant that Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."
I believe, therefore, that one can not be saved any way but through acknowledgement that Jesus is Lord. All the money in the world won't do it. All the benevolence in the world won't do it. All the good thinking, good effort, good meaning won't do it. All the indifference to who He is certainly won't do it. Ending speeches with God bless is nice, but it won't do it.
I feel sadness about writing this for reasons I don't completely understand, but it's there. I guess part of the reason is this man who was given much, tried to do so much, but doesn't understand the most basic of requirements for what he understands is eternal living.
I've never had nor ever will have billions of dollars. I've never had nor ever will own a World Series winning baseball team, pilot a yacht that wins the America's Cup, own a 24-hour television station or even personally bring back the Bison from near death as a species. I won't ever be the second-largest land-owner in the country nor give away millions of dollars.
But like that old contemporary tune (which is a strange but true construct)
"You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus."
No comments:
Post a Comment