"Relational" | Saved Week 2

Salvation isn't private- it's relational.

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

This post is week 2 of a sermon series I’m teaching through at Meizon called Saved. Through November, I’ll be sharing my full sermon manuscripts here on Substack — one each week as we explore what salvation really means.

Not as an escape from the world, but as a transformation within it.
Not as a ticket out, but as a way of seeing in.

If you’ve ever wrestled with the word saved, this series is for you.
Each week, we’ll peel it back, reframe it, and maybe—just maybe—rediscover something sacred underneath all the baggage.

We’re in week two of our series called Saved — exploring what that word really means.
Not as a slogan or a sales pitch, but as something that still has weight and texture and depth for our lives right now. Here’s the definition we’re working with in this series: Salvation is wholeness, not escape.

It’s not about getting out of here — it’s about being made whole, right here. It’s the restoration of what’s been fractured — in us, between us, and around us — until everything is brought back into harmony.

Last week, we started with Nicodemus — the religious leader who came to Jesus at night — and we said that salvation isn’t about saying the right words, but about seeing with new eyes. Seeing the world, and ourselves, as sacred, interconnected, and redeemable.

But that’s not how I first learned to see it.

I got “saved” more times than I can count. If it didn’t happen during the school year, it happened at church camp — usually more than once that week.

Maybe you know how it went: the preacher would start preaching, the lights would dim, the music would swell — that one song that makes you question every decision you’ve ever made — and before long, we were sprinting down the aisle like it was the 100-meter dash to heaven. Tears flowing, arms around each other, promising to stop saying bad words and be nicer to our siblings. For about 36 hours, we were unstoppable saints.

And if somehow that didn’t get you, don’t worry — Cry Night would. That last night of camp when we were all running on caffeine, hormones, and teenage angst — the emotional sermon, the skit with the cross and fog machine — and suddenly a hundred kids were vowing to change their lives forever.

And I say that with love. Those moments were real. They shaped me. But no one told me what came after. No one told me that salvation wasn’t a moment at an altar — it was a way of life.

Because what Jesus preached wasn’t just about getting right with God. It was about getting right with each other. It wasn’t about escaping the world — it was about transforming it. It wasn’t about me — it was about us.

If last week was learning to see differently, this week is learning to live differently — together. Here’s the central truth we’ll look at: Salvation isn’t private — it’s relational. It happens when love turns inward-looking hearts— outward. When what we’ve received starts moving through our neighborhoods, our systems, and our shared lives.

And that’s exactly what happens in the story of Zacchaeus — a man whose encounter with Jesus didn’t just change his heart; it changed his whole community.

The Story

Luke 19:1–10 (NRSVUE)
He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.
All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”

Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Zacchaeus in the Crowd

We’ve heard that story so many times it’s easy to skip straight to the happy ending. Zacchaeus climbs a tree, meets Jesus, gives away his money — roll credits. But if we slow down, there’s more happening.

Zacchaeus isn’t just a quirky short guy trying to get a better view. He’s a chief tax collector — the one skimming off the top of everyone else’s suffering. He’s part of the machinery of empire — collecting from his own people for Rome, taking a cut for himself along the way.

In modern terms, Zacchaeus is the guy who profits from the system. He’s Jeff Bezos...heck- he’s almost every lifelong politician we have. And just like we all know it now, everyone in Jericho knew it then too.

So, when Jesus stops and calls him by name — “Zacchaeus, come down. I must stay at your house today.” — it’s not just unexpected, it’s offensive. Jesus doesn’t say, “Repent first, then we’ll talk.” He doesn’t hand him a tract or start a theological debate. He simply says, “I’m coming over.”

And that one act — that one moment of shared presence — begins to unravel Zacchaeus’s entire worldview. Because for the first time, someone sees him as more than the worst thing he’s done. And when you’re seen like that — truly seen — it changes you.

That’s what salvation looks like here. Not an altar call. Not a formula. But a man waking up to the harm he’s caused and deciding to make it right. “Half of my possessions I’ll give to the poor. And if I’ve cheated anyone, I’ll pay them back four times over.” That’s repentance with receipts. That’s salvation you can see.

And notice — Jesus doesn’t say, “Now you’re forgiven.” He says, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Because love didn’t just restore a soul — it began repairing a community.

Salvation turns greed into generosity.
Exploitation into repair.
Isolation into community.

Because salvation isn’t private — it’s relational. It’s what happens when grace ripples outward — when one person’s awakening becomes everyone’s liberation.

Salvation Now

I think a lot about how the church taught me to see sin. We were really good at naming the personal kind — the ones you could confess at an altar or burn on a slip of paper at camp: don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t cuss, don’t fool around. And sure — personal integrity matters. But what we almost never talked about was systemic sin — the kind that hides in plain sight.

We didn’t talk about the systems that profit off poverty. Or the laws that protect the powerful and punish the vulnerable. Or how racism, greed, and white nationalism all hide under the same steeple and call themselves “God’s plan.”

Somewhere along the way, we made salvation small. Something that happens inside your heart, but not in your neighborhood. Something that gets you into heaven but doesn’t make heaven any more visible here.

But Jesus was always talking about systems. Everywhere he went, he disrupted how power worked. He healed on the Sabbath, fed the hungry without permission, and blessed the people religion had written off. And then he looked at people like Zacchaeus — people inside the system — and said, “You can change this. You can make it right.”

Zacchaeus didn’t just repent privately; he began redistributing the wealth he’d hoarded. He started repairing the harm he’d caused. That’s the part of the story the modern church has struggled to live out. We’ve preached “Jesus saves,” but left people hungry, houseless, and afraid. We’ve built denominations around personal salvation while giving moral cover to injustice and cruelty.

But friends — the Zacchaeus story isn’t old or out of date. It’s a mirror. It’s Jesus still walking through our streets, still calling out to people in power, still saying, “You — yes, you — come down. Let’s talk about what love looks like in your house, your systems, your life.”

Not a threat. As an invitation.
It’s the gospel breaking in, right here, right now.

Friends, that’s what salvation has always been — not escape, but restoration. From the very first pages of Scripture, the creation poem tells us that God calls the world good. And that Hebrew word — tov — doesn’t just mean “morally pure.” It means in harmony. Everything in right relationship — with God, with itself, with one another.

When Jesus talks about salvation, he’s not inventing something new — he’s calling us back to that original harmony. Back to the rhythm where everything belongs, where nothing is exploited, where love holds it all together. That’s what it means to live out salvation as relational — it’s joining God in the ongoing work of restoring all things.

Practicing This Kind of Salvation

Friends, we’ve got some restoring to do b/c we are living in a moment when empire is loud again. When explotation dresses itself up as freedom. When cruelty masquerades as conviction. When religion is being used as camouflage for control. And into all that noise, the voice of Jesus still cuts through — steady, unafraid — calling us back to love, back to justice, back to each other.

This is not the time to shrink back or look away. It’s the time to stand up in the full light of day and say:
We will not trade compassion for comfort.
We will not confuse nationalism for faith.
We will not mistake charity for justice.

This is the time to be the kind of church that doesn’t just preach good news but embodies it — the kind that refuses to thrive on systems that harm our neighbors, the kind that believes salvation must touch our economy, our politics, our compassion — or it isn’t saving anyone.

And part of embodying that good news means telling the truth about the moment we’re in.

Because while Jesus is still calling people like Zacchaeus down from their trees, whole sections of the American church are climbing higher — clinging to political power, patriarchal control, and nostalgia for a world where only a few people’s dignity mattered.

We are watching pastors, denominations, and Christian institutions openly support authoritarian leaders and extremist movements. We are watching Christian leaders campaign for the repeal of the 19th Amendment — insisting women shouldn’t vote, shouldn’t lead, shouldn’t have equal rights or equal voice. We are watching the rise of a fundamentalist movement that wants to dominate the nation in the name of God — a Christian Taliban vision of the world — and they are saying it out loud. No more whispering. No more dog whistles. It’s all on the livestream.

It has unleashed people like the Neo Nazi Nick Fuentes and the growing movement of young men who follow him called “groypers”— young men being discipled into violence, hierarchy, male supremacy, and white nationalism with a religious vocabulary. Men who say women secretly want to be controlled. Men who preach racial purity. Men who fantasize about theocracy. And the terrifying truth is that they learned this script inside churches that never taught them how to follow Jesus but did teach them how to worship power.

And it needs to be said clearly:

When churches bless domination, they are choosing oppression.
When pastors align themselves with authoritarian power, they are abandoning the way of Jesus.
When Christian institutions advocate for stripping the rights from people of color, women or LGBTQ+ folks, they are committing spiritual violence.
When churches platform voices that preach male supremacy, white nationalism, or Christian theocracy, they are participating in evil.
And when they attach Bible verses to it, they are weaponizing Scripture to harm the very people Jesus came to liberate.

This is not an interpretive disagreement.
This is not a theological nuance issue.
This is a moral and spiritual crisis inside the American church.

And followers of Jesus cannot look away from it.

Practicing salvation in a moment like this means refusing to let white supremacy pass as Christianity. It means refusing to bless systems that exploit, silence, or dominate our neighbors. It means refusing to hand the microphone to people who speak hatred with a cross around their neck. It means naming what is evil, standing with those harmed by it, and choosing the path of repair rather than the path of power.

Because salvation was never meant to stop at the threshold of our hearts. It’s meant to spill out — into boardrooms and classrooms, onto sidewalks and social-media feeds, into how we vote, spend, build, and belong.

It’s not just personal forgiveness — it’s collective liberation.
Not just freedom from guilt — but freedom from greed.
Not just making peace with God — but making peace with our neighbors.

Because salvation isn’t private — it’s relational.
It’s love on the move — tearing down walls, restoring dignity, rebuilding what fear tried to destroy.
And when that kind of love starts to flow — when people wake up and say yes to what’s real and good and true — the systems that once divided us start to heal, and the world begins to look a little more like the kingdom Jesus imagined.

Living It Out Together

And maybe the most hopeful truth in all of this is that we don’t have to wait for heaven to start living like salvation is real. We get to practice it now — here, in our neighborhoods, with these lives, with whatever we have in our hands.

Because salvation becomes visible when ordinary people decide that love is their responsibility.

It looks like meals cooked and tables built. Bills paid. Hands held. Stories shared. It’s not charity — it’s community. And community isn’t something we stumble into; it’s something we choose, again and again, especially when the world keeps pulling us toward isolation, outrage, or apathy.

What we’re building here — what you’re part of — is more than programs or events. It’s a living parable. Every time you show up, you are telling the world: This is what salvation looks like in public.
A room where no one stands alone.
A table where every story is welcome.
A people who refuse to let anyone fall through the cracks.
A community where repair isn’t a metaphor — it’s a practice.

And yes, it looks like the events that are coming. On Sunday, November 16th from 3–6 p.m., we’re joining with people across the city — across churches, faiths, and backgrounds — for Hope and Love Are Stronger at Trinity (show graphic) UMC. A collective protest for something: for shared salvation, for mutual flourishing, for a love louder than fear.

Then on Thanksgiving, November 27th from 5–8 p.m., we gather again at The Bull for Thanksgiving Together (show graphic) — to feed hundreds, to raise funds for the Pride Center, to stand shoulder to shoulder with neighbors crushed by the very systems we’re trying to heal. That is salvation in real time. That is the gospel you can taste and carry home in a to-go box.

But there’s more God is asking of us than big moments. Because salvation isn’t just lived out in gatherings — it’s lived in the mundane, the unglamorous, everyday choices that slowly change a city.

Living this out together means:

• We create a culture where every person is known, not just greeted.
Where no one disappears quietly. Where loneliness is met with presence. Where we notice who’s missing — and we reach out.

• We practice repair as a lifestyle, not an apology.
We turn our time, our money, our privilege, and our energy into healing. We ask honest questions about where our choices impact our neighbors — and we adjust.

• We refuse to mirror the cruelty around us.
We become a community where kindness is the baseline, not the exception. Where courage is shared. Where gentleness is strength. Where love is non-negotiable.

• We make space for sorrow and joy — side by side.
Because salvation is not pretending everything is fine. It’s committing to walk together even when nothing feels fine.

• We imagine beyond ourselves.
We ask: Who is not yet here? Whose liberation is tied to ours? How do we widen the table until it begins to resemble the kingdom?

• We choose the long work of building a world where everyone belongs.
Not a safe world for some — a safe world for all. And when that work gets heavy, we carry it together.

Because salvation isn’t just what Jesus does in us. It’s what Jesus does through us. And the world is desperate — starving — for communities who live out a love this tangible, courageous, stubbornly hopeful.

So yes — we cook meals. We worship. We stand in the streets. We feed hundreds.
But we’re doing more than that.
We are forming a counter-story in a world addicted to domination and despair.
We are building a community where fear loses its voice and love finds its strength.
We are creating a home where the kingdom looks possible — not someday, but now.

That is what it means to live salvation out together.
Not just belief — but belonging.
Not just confession — but participation.
Not just words — but a way of life.

Closing Movement

Friends, this is the call of our time — to come down from whatever tree we’ve been hiding in. To let grace meet us in the middle of our contradictions. To say yes to a salvation that looks like repair, that sounds like laughter in a room once divided, that feels like home in a world still healing.

Maybe that’s the real miracle of this story — not that Zacchaeus changed, but that his whole neighborhood did too. When one person says yes to love, a house becomes a home. A crowd becomes a community. And the kingdom starts breaking through in places we thought were lost.

Last week, we stood in the dark with Nicodemus — learning that salvation begins with sight, with new eyes that see the sacred everywhere. This week, we’ve come down from the tree with Zacchaeus —
learning that salvation doesn’t end with what we see; it continues in how we live. And next week, we’ll discover that salvation doesn’t just begin or continue — it becomes. It’s something still happening in us and through us, remaking who we are even when the world feels unredeemable.

It’s not a moment — it’s a movement. Not a formula — a way of being. Because salvation isn’t private — it’s relational. It starts in the heart, but it doesn’t stay there. It moves through our hands, our systems, our cities — until love becomes the loudest thing in the world.

So may it be true of us, too. May salvation come to this house — to this church, this city, these hearts. May it come not as an idea to believe, but as a way to live. And may we keep walking this road —
seeing with new eyes, living with open hands — until the world starts to look a little more like Jesus imagined it could.

Reflection Questions

• Where might Jesus be inviting you to come down from the tree — to move from observing faith to participating in it?

• How have you experienced salvation as something relational — something that restores connection rather than rewards belief?

• What would it look like for you to practice repentance with receipts — to turn what you have into healing for others?

• In what ways can our community make salvation visible — not just in what we believe, but in how we live together?

Closing Prayer

God of open tables and mended hearts, you meet us where we are — in the trees we’ve climbed, in the systems we’ve built, in the silence we’ve mistaken for peace — and you call us down.

You remind us that salvation is not a secret to keep, but a life to share. You take what we’ve called mine and turn it into ours. You take what was broken and begin to make it whole again.

So, open our eyes to the neighbors we’ve overlooked. Open our hands to the work that love requires.
Open our hearts to a salvation that moves — through our homes, our streets, our city — until grace has touched every corner of our lives.

Bring comfort to the afflicted, healing to the broken, freedom to the chained. In the name of the One who came to seek and to save, to restore and to reconcile, we pray. Amen.

Benediction

Friends —
you’ve heard the story,
you’ve felt the invitation,
and now you are part of the continuation.

Go from this place as people who have seen with new eyes,
as those who have come down from the tree,
and as those who know deep in your bones that salvation isn’t private — it’s relational.

May your love be louder than fear.
May your generosity be bolder than greed.
May your compassion be stronger than cynicism.
And may your life — right here, right now —
become the place where salvation keeps breaking through.

Go in peace.
Go in love.
And go together —
for love is already on the move.
Amen. And so it is.