Salvation

This is the second of two week four discussion questions from my Spring 2022 course Making Sense of Theology through Pathways Theological Education.

Compare and contrast the Trimble's experience (Stone and Duke, Chapter 5) of “re-finding” themselves to that of Zacchaeus’ experience of salvation? How do these experiences relate or not relate to your life?

So, I'm not sure we are comparing apples to apples here. If you read the story of Zacchaeus' interaction with Jesus in the CEB translation (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2019%3A1-10&version=CEB), the verbs use the present tense when Zacchaeus talks about giving to the poor and paying back those he wrongs four-fold. So the story perhaps is not that of Zacchaeus' salvation, but Jesus's public acknowledgement that he already is. (And the notes in The Jewish Annotated New Testament point this way as well.) Read this way, the story goes like this:

Jesus is coming to town, and Zacchaeus is excited about the opportunity to see him. (And this excitement itself may be a sign of the fact that Zacchaeus is already saved.) Because he is short and the crowds are large, Zacchaeus finds a tree to climb for a good view. Jesus sees Zacchaeus in the crowd, recognizes him and speaks to him. (Again, Jesus recognizing Zacchaeus may also be a sign that Zacchaeus is already saved.) The crowd, not Jesus, identifies Zacchaeus as a sinner. Zacchaeus defends himself, explaining why he believes he is not a sinner. Jesus acknowledges this and tells the crowd that he (Salvation) is there because Zacchaeus is already a member of the community. In this reading, Zacchaeus was only lost because the community wasn't including him.

The Trimble story, on the other hand, is fairly straight forward. People find something that helps them and isn't (obviously) in conflict with their faith and they attribute it to being a necessary or important tool for faith for everyone. Sometimes, whatever it is that is actually a helpful tool for some people. (I'm reminded of the planner fad - a planner can help me do my daily prayer and bible reading along with my other daily tasks, one of my friends finds it essential for staying on track with that, other people may find it useful for their secular life only, or not useful at all.) Sometimes, it's pretty much unrelated - I've seen this happen with diets, workout plans, even business opportunities, but self-help books and programs are super common sources of this type of confusion.  I think we even do this with things we would all agree are part of Christian life. I think we'd agree that things like church attendance, Bible reading and study, and prayer are all tools for being Christian, but we can get caught up in the details of doing those things instead of loving our neighbor, loving God, forgiving, ...

I think the main difference between these two situations, regardless of whether we interpret Zacchaeus' experience as salvation in that moment or acknowledgement of existing salvation, is that Zacchaeus' salvation involves action. He does more than the average person to make sure he sees Jesus. He gives generously to charity. He makes amends in a concrete way. The Trimbles' renewal is about attitude. The only actions they mention are holding hands and giving thanks. Zacchaeus' salvation moves him to do differently. The Trimbles are only thinking differently.

I think this lines up with my own life. When I really change my mind about something, it almost always somehow results in changed behavior. It might not be as drastic or impressive as Zacchaeus' behavior, but there is a difference over time. For beliefs I'm serious about, I can point at behaviors I do as a result (and sometimes, honestly, places I know I fall short in changing behavior to line up with new beliefs - behavioral changes are hard sometimes, you can't just believe them into being or we wouldn't have problems like addiction.)