What We Imagine
What We Imagine” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning. I want to say, once again, what a privilege it is to lead the service of remembrance this morning. I knew, or was familiar with almost every one of the thirteen people whom we remembered this morning. Some of them I counted as friends; all of them were significant to someone in this family of faith, and I imagine, that if it were up to us, they would all still be with us today. Although life and death are matters which are out of our hands, remembering the people who have gone before us shapes the people we are and the people whom we will become.
I don’t know what you imagine when you think of life after death, either for yourself or for those whom you love. Of course, no one living on earth can know for sure, and the ideas which have crept into popular culture come from a surprising variety of sources, including our wishes for the people we love. The Jewish faith did not have a clear theology of heaven and hell == there is Sheol, a kind of shadowy place where folks are separated from God.,. but not a developed picture of an afterlife. A heaven where angels with harps fly around in the clouds is kind of a mash-up of several world traditions: the Greeks pioneered the idea of an immortal soul, the Persians added the duality of good and evil and the afterlife as a place of reward and punishment, and Christianity expanded on the idea of souls becoming like angels, and heaven as a place of divine judgement. Some of the details of streets of gold, pearly gates, and a Book of Life come form John’s vision recorded in Revelation. These have given rise to all kinds of jokes == I’m sure you’ve heard some == about Peter stopping folks at the pearly gates, folks who couldn’t sing or who were afraid to fly on earth, and golfers having their best game ever.
All this is to say that, understandably, we imagine life in eternity as a place where there is none of the stuff which made us miserable on earth. Universally this would mean no more pain and no more sorrow. It could also mean a chance to rest in safety for people whose life was filled with hard work and hardship. It might also mean more time to do the things you loved on earth: playing golf, fishing, or cooking. Or maybe for me, not cooking == or at least having one of those folks who loves to cook cook for me.
Other people is certainly a component of what we imagine in heaven == maybe what makes us worry about hell, as well. We long for the relationships and the company which enriched and gave our lives joy on earth, and trust that we’ll be able to renew those relationships in the next life. There are some challenging logistics about that (will I be the same age as my grandmother?) and those are a mystery beyond my imagining.
The biblical writers didn’t have any more knowledge of heaven than we do today, but they have left some interesting records behind them. I had Deb read both Old and New Testament texts just as a sampling. The text from Isaiah 25 was written to a people who had been separated from their physical and spiritual home == Israel, and the Temple of Jerusalem. They were in exile, and had dishonored God and themselves by their disobedience. They have been besieged, starved, seen their Temple destroyed and have been covered with shame and suffering and death. And in the midst of passages of judgement and lament and retribution, Isaiah 25 gives us this beautiful description of a banquet on Mount Zion. It isn’t described as a “vision,” but it is certainly imaging something which has not yet happened: plenty of rich food and good wine are on the menu for everyone. God will swallow up death forever, wipe away the people’s tears, and take away their disgrace. The hand of the Lord will rest upon the holy mountain of Zion.
Revelation 21, the pen-ultimate chapter of the Bible, has some similar imagery with some interesting differences. There is a new heaven and a new earth, and heaven comes down to earth. There is no sorrow and no death, and God is with the people. Earth and heaven are completed by becoming one and the same. It is not the destruction of earth to make way for something else. Theologian Vernard Eller wrote in his commentary on Revelation, God is making all things new, not making all new things.
The striking thing for me about each of these passages is first, the presence of God. Heaven, the new earth, whatever you call it, is a place where God’s will is unopposed by evil == either evil forces working independently, or the evil within our human nature. Heaven is a place where God is present, and God’s will is done. The second thing which is noteworthy is the presence of other people: salvation is communal, not individual. Salvation is the work of God == perhaps with the people participate by waiting for God, as they did in Isaiah, or by being thirsty and partaking of the water of life, as they do in Revelation, but God’s will is not dictated by human action or inaction. God is on the move and people can participate or get out of the way: this is a place where God reigns and people do what God wants == because what God wants is an end to sorrow and death.
It is an interesting question, do we have to be dead for all this to happen? What if we were working and praying and participating right now in making God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Isn’t that a description of what the Christian life is supposed to be? Living not so that we will get to heaven when we die, but living to make earth a place where God’s will is done while we’re still here with other people. We don’t have the power to end sorrow and death, but a community which walks along side those who are going through sorrow and death and remembers the hope of a new heaven and a new earth and the power of God’s Spirit is a community which is bringing earth and heaven a little closer together. What we imagine heaven to be should affect the way we live on earth: are we just waiting until God comes to take us home, or are we actively participating in the vision of God who wants all people to experience the feast of eternity? The names we spoke this morning are a reminder of people who have made a difference, in their families, but no only there == in the communities and churches and organizations where they lived and worked to make the world a little bit more like heaven.
We have been given that charge, we have been given that hope, we have been given that eternal promise. I want to close with a saying by Mahatma Gandhi, who certainly said it better than I can:“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny”