Sermon - 08 January 2012 - Tangent!

[go4tli]

In the vein of this morning's sermon -- which focused more on death
than we Americans tend to find comfortable -- here's a question for
thought: Have you ever wondered why God hid so much information about
what we're going to when we die?

I mean, we literally cannot know what's waiting for us. Could be a
greasy-spoon diner. Could be a dentist's waiting room. Could be a
subway station. Could be a cave. Could be an ice palace. Could be
an intergalactic tiddlywinks tournament.

No one knows. It's not knowable. There's no way to investigate
systematically or with open-ended questions.

It's tempting to grab the Bible and try to figure it out, but the
descriptions are vague, and any pictures we come away with seem to
have more to do with our own personal and cultural backgrounds than
whatever the author might have been fumbling at. (Don't believe me?
Try looking at different descriptions of Heaven created by Christians
over the millennia. Descriptions created centuries ago seem alien,
naive, and laughable to us, but we're coming at them with very
different things that we hope and long for. If human history
stretches out long enough, I expect that Christians centuries hence
will find *our* ideas of Heaven alien, naive, and laughable.)

I wonder if the answer to why God tells us so little and why He keeps
the mystery so impenetrable in spite of its importance is related to
Paul's advice to put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11).
Consider what it's like to be in a large, diverse, fascinating museum
and coming across a locked door. What do you do?

If you're a child, you might try harder to twist the doorknob. You
might jiggle a paperclip around in the lock under the delusion that
you just might pick it open. You might stretch and squint to try to
see through the gaps between the door and the frame. You might
desperately try to imagine what lies beyond that locked door. You
might even throw a tantrum.

But a grown-up realizes that all these things are a waste of time.
It's better to simply assume that those who run the museum know what
they're doing and have their own reasons for not letting people go
through that door(1). Far better to turn away, not think about it too
much, and go back to the museum to enjoy all that it offers to
enlighten and inspire.

Maybe God's vagueness about Heaven and His locking of the door is His
reminder that we should be getting back to the museum. It's His way
to get us to pay maximum attention to the here and now, to starting
the experience of our eternal life *at this very moment*.

Consider how this analogy relates to so much teaching that seems aimed
at getting us to waste our time -- telling us that our chief
responsibility or best endeavor as Christians is waiting for blessed
eternity and the unmitigated bliss we will enjoy after we die (or, as
some might have it, after we are "raptured").

Or consider those who don't want to focus on the museum at all.
Commendably, these folks have taken to heart the curator's promises
that what lies behind that door is better than the exhibits we can see
and interact with. Unfortunately, though, they have decided that this
means that we really shouldn't waste any energy investigating the
museum, no matter *what* it might offer to teach us of the character
and personality of the curator, and no matter how much the things they
can interact with might delight us, amaze us, or cause us to mature as
we learn to see things through perspectives we otherwise might never
have considered.

Think about how perverse it is that these people consider themselves
the mature ones. They have somehow decided that since adults sit
quietly, sitting quietly must be the most mature activity they can
undertake. Sometimes it is -- but it seems to me that under these
circumstances, it is an act of serious ingratitude to the curator for
giving us all this nifty stuff to learn from and grow here and now.
When we need to know what's behind the locked door, we'll know. In
the meantime, why not enjoy the good things God has given us in the
present, and marvel at what sort of curator we must be going to visit
who made a museum like *this*?

We ought to live like Christ *in spite of* Heaven, not *because of*
it. In other words, we should live like Christ *because of Christ*,
not *because of what Christ promised*.

I'd even argue that those who give up on praying for things that honor
God because they're convinced that these things will never happen are
guilty of this, though in a more heartbreaking way. For example,
there's the poor soul who will no longer pray for peace on Earth
because that will only happen, he believes, with the End of Time.
(That was me, for a long time.)

This is dismaying and perplexing to consider. The implication is that
God -- Who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent; Who created the
heavens and the Earth and all things within them; Who ordained the
stars in space and lit the Sun; Who knows the number of hairs on your
head, as well as everyone else's; Who dressed the lilies in finery
more lovely than any belonging to royalty; Who knows when every
sparrow falls; Who defied our understanding of science by impregnating
a virgin with a divine being in order to reconcile humanity to
Himself; Who is the One, the *Only* God, the only being Who is even
*capable* of doing all these things -- is somehow incapable of getting
people to live together in peace. That's a bridge too far. It's too
much. It's too hard.

What great person of God ever thought this way? What person or group
who ever made a difference thought this way?

If we think it's not possible, it's because we lack spiritual
imagination and willpower. We have to be honest and own that as our
own failing.

It's certainly not because it's not God's will. He Himself said that
it is. Look it up. Why shouldn't a child of God want what God wants
and work for things that God says He wants?

It's certainly not because evil is too strong. Evil is not "out
there" -- it's *in us*, waiting to be purified by Christ.

It's certainly not because of circumstances. God allows us to
*choose* between good and evil (Deuteronomy 30:15-19). Our
relationship to good and evil is not passive. We need to stop
pretending that it is, that we are mere pawns that cannot change the
destiny of people for good or evil. The kingdom of Heaven is *within
us* (Luke 17:20-21).

The "good news" we share is not merely what we have waiting for us.
It's the promise of new life that can change the world. A life
characterized by love that turns the other cheek, that loves our
enemies, that would lay down its life. A life that does the good that
it is in our power to do.

Pride -- even self-righteous pride, the force that convinces people
that they are on the Narrow Way because they've read the right books
and have listened to the right teachers and follow the right rules and
have prayed the right prayer -- edges God out and blocks compassion.
Every. Single. Time.

The Wide Way is chock-full of passionate and sincere believers,
because the wide way is the easy way. The inactive way. The
apathetic way. The proud, self-confident way.

The Narrow Way is the way of compassion and love. It is the way of
Jesus. And it is a *way*, not a destination. What John and others
have been saying for millennia is that focusing on the destination
misses the point. Follow The Way -- which, incidentally, was
Christianity's first name for itself, according to Acts 9:2 -- because
if you're on the right path, it can't help but lead you where you need
to go.

(The Wide Way and the Narrow Way come from Jesus -- specifically,
Matthew 7:13-14.)

Our focus -- even our spiritual focus -- is too easily distracted. We
see destinations instead of journeys. Specks instead of planks.
Who's going to Hell instead of who's bringing Hell *here* with their
own lack of self-reflection or self-awareness, and with the kinds of
teachers and leaders they expect others to see as exemplary even as
they make excuses for their reprehensible actions. We think eternal
life is some *thing* we can't see here but which we will have in
Heaven, when Jesus Himself said that it was knowing Him (John 17:3) --
something that, thanks to the Holy Spirit, we're more than capable of
in some sense here and now.

It's understandable human nature to reject the good things we have in
light of things we're sure will be better. But we grown-ups know that
that's a selfish, ungracious, and childish way to behave; we also know
that it's discourteous and unkind to ignore gifts from someone who
loves us because we expect more from them later.

Don't we?

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(1) Don't get me wrong. I'm all for enthusiastically applying the
game of systematic inquiry wherever it *can be* applied. It's a
testament to questioning wherever we can that allowed us to figure out
that the Sun *wasn't* a chariot of the gods circling us -- that it
was, in fact, *us* doing the circling, and that the Sun wasn't a
chariot at all -- in spite of the majority opinion, and the opinion of
those in power, for millennia.

Whenever we *can* apply systematic inquiry, I think we *should*. It
keeps us from fooling ourselves about the nature of the world.
Perhaps someone out there knows a way that what happens after death
*can* be tested, and I'm just ignorant. But for the time being, it
would appear that the afterlife's impenetrability is testament to the
idea that the scope of what we can know is limited to God's
permission. Science is not going to reveal something God didn't
intend for us to find out. (The "there are things man was not meant
to know" argument to prevent this or that scientific investigation
therefore seems like nothing more than a desperate power grab.)