I don’t want to be rescued – I want to be redeemed.

“I don’t want to be rescued. I want to be redeemed.” When I first heard JJ Heller sing these words (listen here) I didn’t quite understand the difference. Why not rescued? Don’t I want God to rescue me? What is the difference between being rescued and being redeemed? I listened to the song again and again (something I like to do with music in general, listen on repeat!). A friend gave me this album just when I needed it – I was “running ragged,” as JJ Heller sings, and “tired of this old routine” – absolutely. Being rescued sounded great, honestly – take me away from this, take away the struggles, just make it all go away and take me somewhere better! What a natural, human response! We don’t want to suffer, and indeed sometimes our resistance to suffering generates more suffering.

Rescued vs. Redeemed

But JJ Heller said she didn’t want to be rescued, she wanted to be redeemed. The more I listened to the song, the more I fell in love with the way she expressed redemption, the more I understood why she hungered for redemption, not rescue. When I think about being rescued, being my dorky self, I immediately think of Superman – or really Spiderman, I’ve always liked him better! – swooping in, grabbing the girl and swinging away into the sky, far away from whatever harm was below. But redemption goes more along the lines of the wisdom of old, faithful Albert. Throughout his many falls, Albert reminds Bruce Wayne of the lesson he learned from his boyhood fall into the bat cave: Master Bruce, why do we fall? And the answer, of course, is so that we can learn to pick ourselves up.

There is a component of self, of choice, in learning to pick ourselves up, that is not present when we are just carried away from our trouble. Likewise there is an element of self and of choice in redemption. God will not redeem us unless we allow Him to – we have to choose the redemption that God constantly offer us. We have to choose to open our hearts to God and to ourselves, to take an honest look at our own need for redemption. JJ Heller sings “break me and remake me, make me new.” Redemption is an inner renewal and transformation of our nature, not just a mere removal of temptation to sin. Indeed, JJ Heller’s song is called “Create in Me,” and is rooted in Psalm 51: “Let the bones which Thou hast broken rejoice,” and “Create in me a clean heart, O God, renew within me a steadfast spirit.” (51:8-10).

Is redemption just having a clean collar?

What does it mean to have a clean heart? Does it just mean moral perfection? We can look to a talk Fr J. Kentenich gave on redemption for a response:

“How do we like to see redemption? On other occasions I have used the contrasting expression of a “clean collar.” We think that we are redeemed to the extent that we have a “clean collar.” We think that the grace of redemption should free us from the struggle for our soul and our battle against sin.” ¹

So that would be like rescuing – God swinging in like Spider-man and taking us away form the struggle. Fr. Kentenich continues:

“There is no bigger mistake we can make…The meaning of redemption is not, in the first place, being without spot and sin. What does God want? Why does He allow people to have deeply rooted passions, why does He let them fall repeatedly? What is the immediate meaning? God wants to uproot people from the soul of their own selves. People have to be pulled out of it. And God can only do this when He allows us to fall. That even includes people who have already reached the higher levels of a life of prayer…Why does He let us fall, why does he allow powerful passions to explode within us from time to time. Only to redeem us fully.”

Why does God let us fall? So we can learn to get up! With grace! Fr Kentenich goes on:

“Let us apply this to ourselves. How many sins and faults can occur! We will never be free from them. God doesn’t want it either. (Interjection from myself: God doesn’t want to merely rescue us!!!) He can give us a “clean collar” to the extent that our nature has been up-rooted and re-rooted in Himself. Can you feel how false our concept of redemption is, and how we actually drive people away from Christ when they are struggling hard to reach him?”

So if we are never freed from sin fully (in this life), are we condemned to like Sisyphus, to eternally roll the boulder up the hill only to watch in desperation as it rolls right back down?  Not at all. Rather, in Christ, we can feel quite the opposite in the face of our need for redemption. In Christ, we can feel a deep hope, and even, as Fr Kentenich says, peace:

“If you have understood correctly what I am saying here rather clumsily, you will remain calm and at peace despite all your sinfulness and impulsiveness. You will then be able to say with inner feeing: thank God I do such stupid things, not because they are stupid but because I am humbled by these stupidities. God wants us to be small. That is the meaning of redemption. We have to be uprooted, so that we can be re-rooted in God. If we only look into the dungeon of our unbridle nature, we will go mad. People today cannot cope with this. So the process of being uprooted hast to go hand in hand with the process of becoming re-rooted, otherwise we will develop an inferiority complex, a morbid feeling of guilt. That would be wrong. At the same time we must be rooted in God through boundless trust. That is such a profound insight. It is true holiness. That is God’s will. He does not want my ‘clean collar’, he wants me to become deeply humble and to give myself to Him with boundless trust.”

We can feel totally calm! In Christ, out of trust in Him, we can feel calm and we need not despair before our sins.

But do I want to be redeemed? Or rescued?

And here we come again to the theme of the self as being a part of the redemption process. Because there is a part of the self – in you and in me- that does not want to be humbled, that does not want to be made small. We would rather just be rescued, we would rather beg God to send a magician rather an Savior, to make the symptoms of sin magically all go away. This part of me and you does not want to do the daily work of making the hard choices it takes to become holy, to give our will over to God. Original sin and our own laziness want to drag us down, “an ever-present force of entropy” as Dr. M Scott Peck calls it. ² That’s why it’s so important for us to grow in child-like trust and a deep rootedness in God. If we try on our own, we’ll exhaust ourselves. I know I exhaust myself like that all the time. It may seem at first like the exhaustion of real spiritual effort, but it’s really selfishness because I’m trying to do it “own my own.” This is the great lie of being able to “redeem yourself.” It is actually the exhaustion of laziness, expending energy to avoid growing, to protect the ego and avoid suffering. Dr MS Peck speaks about this laziness:

“The idea that God is actively nurturing us so that we might grow up the be like Him brings us face to face with our own laziness…Ultimately there is only one impediment [to spiritual growth], and this is laziness. If we overcome laziness, all the other impediments will be overcome…Laziness is love’s opposite. Spiritual growth [ie, love] is effortful.”

So thank God that I exhaust myself and fall! It’s actually really beautiful, because only then do I realize my own nothing-ness.  Only then do I know myself in truth and humility. It is then that I remember to reach out to God as a child and ask for help. It is then that I know my need for redemption in Christ.

Humbling our selves in truth is essential for redemption. Kentenich continues:

“Let me repeat: we will gradually acquire a “clean collar,” not because we want to have one, but because God will give it to us once we want to become little children before him….I presuppose that you know that humility is truthfulness…Think about it and pray for a clear understanding. You will see how God’s grace is upholding us, and we will make use of the battles and difficulties facing us at the best possible means of reaching God’s embrace. He will manage it, he will do it, we cannot. We must become aware of being a member of the Mystical Body. Christ lives in me, He does it in me.”

Humility is truthfulness! The more we fall, the more we will grow in humility and truth. I’ve heard it said that the saints are the ones who know they are truly sinners, that the closer they grow to the Light of God, the more clearly they see their own sins standing out against the light. Dr M Scott Peck says, “p276 Those who are in the relatively more advanced stages of spiritual growth are the very ones most aware of their own laziness. It is the least lazy who know themselves to be sluggish.”

Psalm 51 again ties truth to redemption and a clean heart, in verse 8: “Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.”

In my secret heart – how beautiful is that. I hear JJ Heller’s voice rising again – “my heart is a cathedral…build something beautiful, don’t leave until you do.” We can have hope and a peaceful heart on the road to redemption, we can allow God to uproot us from ourselves, to allow Him through falls to educate us, seeing each fall as an opportunity to “learn to get back up,” to discipline our ego and our laziness and work in harmony with God’s grace that wants to elevate our nature. With JJ Heller I have learned to pray in earnest, to sing in earnest with her: I don’t want to be rescued, I want to be redeemed.

Create in Me – by JJ Heller

I am running ragged
My mind is full of words
That I’m too scared to say
I am running ragged
But you still love me this way

I don’t want to be rescued
Oh I want to be redeemed
Won’t you break me
And remake me
Create in me again
Create in me again

My heart is a cathedral
These halls would echo
In the darkness for so long
My heart is a cathedral
Come and fill it with song

I don’t want to be rescued
Oh I want to be redeemed
Won’t you break me
And remake me
Create in me again
Create in me again

Build something beautiful
Don’t leave until you do
I’m tired of the old routine
Make me new

I don’t want to be rescued
Oh I want to be redeemed
Won’t you break me
And remake me
Create in me again
Create in me again

1: Free & Wholly Human, Fr. Joseph Kentenich, p 176-177

2: The Road Less Traveled, Dr M.Scott Peck, p 271-277