November 6, 2010
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Living in this world or the next
The majority of people have one of four attitudes about heaven. One group does not believe in heaven, a second group believes in heaven but isn’t very interested in what heaven will be like, the third group believes in heaven and spends a great deal of time thinking about what heaven will be like, and the fourth group believes there probably is a heaven and wonders what it might be like but doesn’t dwell on it. Christians accept the reality of heaven because Jesus was very clear about there being a heaven. Not all faith communities have a belief in heaven, at least not a place where we go after we die. In the time of Jesus, the Sadducees were a Jewish sect that did not believe in life after death. We read the Hebrew Testament from the perspective of what we know in the Christian Testament. Without the teachings of Jesus to clarify the Hebrew stories, there is very little in the Jewish tradition that speaks of a place where souls go after the death of their earthly shell. The Sadducees believed in God and the sacred writings, they just didn’t believe in life after death. It is more common for those today who don’t believe in life after death to also deny the existence of God. Some faith traditions that believe in reincarnation rather than a place where the soul goes to spend eternity with God and some traditions like Buddhism believe in reincarnation without believing in God. What most faith traditions have in common is that what is experienced after death is directly related to how we lived during our mortal lifetime, after death is seen as a time of rewards or punishments.
I am curious about what heaven will be like and I do spend time occasionally thinking about how we will know and be known by others in heaven. I wonder what I will do for an eternity and not get bored. However, I mostly think the time spent thinking about heaven is not a very good use of my time. I won’t know for sure what heaven is like until I get there and I will have an eternity to work it out once I am there. Jesus even says, we will have other things to think about in heaven than the things that concern us here on earth. I do not believe Jesus intends us to interpret this to mean we should not be concerned about these things while we are here on earth. To the contrary, I understand Jesus to be teaching us to be about the work of living in this world, to be about bringing heaven on earth. I think Jesus would agree with the statement that being too heavenly minded is to be no earthly good. Jesus taught very little about the life that follows this mortal life other than to say we should be preparing in this life to enter the life eternal.
I think it is often easier for us to believe we do not need to work for justice, peace, compassion in this world because all will be made right in the next world. Some even go so far as to suggest those who suffer in this life will have a greater reward in the next life so we do them a favor by allowing their suffering. I do not believe this is what God wants and I do not believe this is what Jesus taught. God spoke through Haggai and told the Jewish people to get to work and restore the Temple. We no longer worship God in the Temple. For us, as Christians, Jesus became the Temple of God. Jesus said the Temple would be torn down and rebuilt in three days. We believe he was referring to his death and resurrection three days later. We, as Christians, are called by God to restore the Temple, the life of Jesus on earth. We are to work so that God’s will is followed on earth as it is in heaven. We are not to wait for our death to serve God, we are not to wait for the second coming of Jesus to be Christ like on this earth. We are challenged to be the coming of Christ to a world that desperately needs to hear of God’s love, know God’s justice, and to receive God’s peace.
We must be about the work of God through our lives and the life of this congregation in this world and in this time. Coming to church just so we can feel secure about how we will spend our eternity and not to find the ways that we can bring the dominion of God into our lives and into this world is to disappoint God and to be so heavenly minded as to be no earthly good. Coming here, being in worship should make a difference in how we live the other 6 days of the week. Coming here should be to equip us to go into this world and make a difference rather than a time of anticipating when we go home to be with Jesus. It is my opinion, if we don’t spend all of our time with Jesus in this world, we aren’t going to be all that comfortable spending eternity with him after we die. Amen.
