Spiritual Hiccups - Save Me!

In today's verses from Acts, Paul and Silas are in prison when a violent earthquake throws open the doors and frees them.  The jailer presumes that everyone has escaped and so pulls his sword to kill himself.  (Apparently this was preferable to what would happen to him for letting prisoners escape.)  But Paul shouted for him not to kill himself, that none of them had fled.  The jailer rushes in to Paul, falls on his face, and cries out, "What must I do to be saved?"

This passage was used by Brian McLaren at the Church Unbound Conference I recently attended.  And as Brian pointed out, seeing that the jailer was just about to kill himself, it seems highly unlikely that his desire to be saved has anything to do with the disposition of his eternal soul.  His life has just been spared - for the moment - and he would probably like to make that a long term proposition. 

This jailer is a part of the Roman empire, a small cog in that massive kingdom.  His allegiance is to the emperor, but Paul suggests that he will be saved if he switches allegiance to a different king, Jesus.

We are so used to thinking that "saved" has to do with our approved or disapproved status in God's little black book that we presume a Roman jailer who moments earlier was more than ready to kill himself has somehow suddenly become concerned about the fate of his soul.  Surely "saved" has a much more concrete meaning for him.  Of course if we hear "saved" in the manner the jailer likely meant it, then that may require us to rethink what save means for us.

I think that the Church desperately needs this sort of saving.  I think that our society and culture desperately need this sort of saving.  Like the jailer, we need to turn away from our loyalty to Caesar, to the Almighty dollar, to a particular political view or ideology, to status and power, even to Church institutions and transfer that loyalty to Jesus.  Two traditional titles for Jesus make this clear, Lord and Master.  Both were ways to address someone who has power over you, who can tell you what to do.  Caesar was supreme Lord in the First Century, Mediterranean world, but those who followed Jesus defected from Caesar and became obedient to Jesus.

This sort of thinking sometimes gets labeled heretical, but I would go so far as to say that if someone did all that Jesus commanded, but didn't believe in him, she would be closer to the Kingdom than lots of people who profess Jesus as their Savior but seem to have forgotten the Lord part.  And Jesus himself says as much in a number of places, notably in the parable of the Judgment of Gentiles in Matthew 25:31-46.

And when I think of it this way, I need saving as much as anyone.  Lord, save me!

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