Heaven: The Abode of Love

I am about to undertake a risky adventure, namely preaching about heaven. That adventure will occupy my heart for the next three Sundays at Seneca Presbyterian Church. I enter the adventure fully aware that its risk lies on multiple fronts. Heaven is something we all contemplate. Exploring the mystery of what happens to us when physical life ceases is a basic human instinct. We each have our images and hopes based on what we have read or been taught or overheard in passing conversations. Even children can speculate on what or where or how heaven is, and they seem to have a delicious freedom in so doing.

The older we get the more serious the issue becomes. We begin losing people who are important to us and we want to know what has happened to them and where they might be. We long to stay connected. We cherish the assurance that we will one day be reunited. And we begin to wonder for ourselves just what our own “next journey” will be. So first of all, preaching about heaven runs the risk of disturbing personal images of something profoundly significant.

Second of all, what one believes about heaven impacts greatly what one believes about God. If heaven is the abode of the Almighty, it is up to God just who is there and who is not. Yet many of us already believe we know who is there and who is not. Allowing ourselves to speculate about that imponderable question runs the risk of challenging cherished beliefs. But I also believe it can deepen our understanding of who God is and how God does.   

Philosophers and theologians have long speculated about heaven, and have invested much ink in sharing those speculations with us common folk. They have the time and wisdom to offer point and counterpoint, and even to reject each other’s arguments. I can easily get lost in the whirlwind!

Yet as someone who does desire to ground my understanding of heaven in the biblical witness, I’ve been aided by the writings of N.T. Wright, particularly in his Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (HarperCollins, 2008). As a consequence, what at first seemed an intimidating challenge has actually proven to be an enlightening journey. I hope I can share something about that journey in this series of sermons. In the process, I think our idea of heaven will be expanded rather than diminished.

But ultimately, preaching about heaven is risky because no one knows for certain the what and where and how and who. We can read accounts of near death experiences and find them credible or not. But even if we do see them as credible, they can only provide us with a faint glimpse of an immeasurable glory. We still see in a mirror dimly.  Perhaps that is all we are meant to see.

I attempt the risk of preaching about heaven because so many of the saints of Seneca Presbyterian have or will soon take that journey. Walking with them is such a blessing to me, even with the loss that it represents. I intend to begin, end, and frequently remind them of this disclaimer: Heaven is where God is, and where God is, there is heaven. Beyond that all details are speculation and faith. Your speculation and your faith are just as valid as mine.

But I believe the journey is worth taking. Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, says it well:

There's one thing I would say about heaven. If you believe that there's a heaven, your life here on earth is different. You may believe that you're going to see your loved ones again. So the grief that you had after they're gone isn't as strong. You may believe that you'll have to answer for your actions. So the way you behave here on earth is changed. So in a certain way, just believing in the idea of heaven is heavenly in and of itself.

Yet I believe there is much more. The risky adventure begins Sunday.

In the Neuro-Trauma ICU

I don’t know if blogs collect dust, since they are digital creatures, but if they could, this one certainly would. The reality is simple. You get a busy week and realize there just isn’t time to post a blog entry and write a sermon. Since the latter is pretty much expected, it becomes the priority. One week becomes two, and then three. Before you know it, you have forgotten how it used to be possible to do both.

I guess it’s something like sleeping in on a Sunday morning. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Since I might need to use that human slippery slope to chide a church member someday, guess I’d better get back into the business of blogging – for the sake of the few of you out there who may have noticed my absence.

                The saints of Seneca Presbyterian Church have had some challenging days of late. Not long ago, we learned that two in our community had been diagnosed with life threatening diseases. One underwent intense treatment for leukemia. We are grateful to God that at the moment he is doing well. That’s a testament to his faith, his family, and his courage. The other is learning how to cope with A.L.S. And he will do it with the same faith, family, and courage – though I’m darn sorry he has to.

Then last Friday afternoon as I was working on that sermon, I read an email from a church member. She was taking her mother to the hospital because something was dreadfully wrong. Her mom had just arrived in Seneca from Madrid, Spain. It’s a long and fascinating story. She was ready to begin a new era of her life back in the states under the watchful and loving care of a daughter and her family. On Friday night, she was admitted to the neuro-trauma ICU unit of a local hospital. The diagnosis was three hemorrhagic strokes – in three different areas of her brain. She died Thursday morning.

Last Saturday morning, I was on my way to check on her when I received a call from the son of a member. His dad had died in his sleep that night. Totally unexpectedly. There are times when you simply don’t believe what is happening around you. And then you remember if it is so amazingly challenging for you, how much more challenging is it for those families? We celebrated his life as a church family yesterday.

So the pastoral components of ministry have weighed heavily on my mind this week. What does presence mean? What words are most meaningful? Can simply being human suffice or are pastors supposed to have more? That is a sincere dilemma, not just a rhetorical question.

In my final year of seminary, an early mentor in my ministry spoke to a class on death and dying. His simple yet wise words have stuck with me even though they were spoken 36 years ago. “When you are present in the midst of death, the only one who easily knows just what to say is the undertaker.”  It is in those times that you hope the relationship you have with “your people” before the moment of crisis speaks in the midst of the silence and mediates, through the grace of God, the holy and powerful presence of the Spirit. Because sometimes that’s about all you have.

As I reflect on this past week, I am once again deeply grateful to these two families who allowed me into some of the most intimate moments of their lives. I learned much about them as I heard their stories – and watched them laugh through the tears. Literally.

We know that God is our refuge and strength – and always there in times of trouble. The psalmist says that means we will not fear. Living from that faith, I believe we are meant to be a refuge and strength for each other. As I continue to reflect on this week, and ponder the weeks that are to come, I invite you to reflect with me.

• How can a pastor most effectively care for her sheep?
• How can we best become a refuge and strength for each other? 

The Mystery of Mortality

Clementine Hunter  -  The Funeral

I’m at a bit of a disadvantage today as I prepare for preaching this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church. The group of faithful seekers who normally engage the text with me were not in session this week. I miss their input because the subject of this final sermon in the series on Christian practices is powerful, personal, and profoundly theological. How do we as Christians mark the moment of death?

            My seminary years were long ago – in the mid seventies. It was a time when the progressive church was challenging traditional funeral practices. We were taught to be wary of funeral directors who wanted to sell grieving families expensive vaults that would protect the human remains of their loved one forever. It would come, we were warned, in a package deal that included limousine service and the use of the funeral home’s chapel where families could sit behind a screen during the service, their tears privately protected from public view.  

            In the years since then I’ve watched many grieving families and seen many different ways for honoring the dead. We have moved away from a static tradition toward many personalized options. In the three years I have served as pastor at Seneca Presbyterian, I have been privileged to walk with roughly two dozen families at the time of death. A few had no service at all. Some were just graveside services. Most were cremations. The ashes of many of those saints are buried in our memorial garden, a ministry that means much to me.

Only a few were conducted the “old fashioned” way – with a casket present in the sanctuary followed by a service at the grave. One of those exceptions was profoundly meaningful. We accompanied a saint of the church and a career military officer to a burial at a veterans’ cemetery not far from a base where he and his family served our country.

I’m grateful for the options and the choices they give families. In all circumstances, we seek to do the three things an early mentor in ministry once taught me about funerals: we honor a life, we comfort each other in our grief, and we celebrate a faith that believes death is not the final word for a God who forever brings life from death. But in the midst of our options, I hope the traditional one is still viable.

Tom Long, a respected theologian and preacher, ignited a firestorm several years ago in his book Accompany Them with Singing: the Christian Funeral (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009). As he wrote the book, he came to a position that surprised even himself: that the Christian funeral is a gathering of believers who accompany the body (the physical body) of one of God’s saints on a journey from death to the portal of life everlasting. His work is profound, and his reasoning is far more complex than can be explained here. But it does offer food for thought.

We live in a world filled with death and sorrow. Too many think too little of taking life, particularly the lives of those they label as stranger or enemy or threat. Yet we worship a God who honors bodies – even dying ones, and even dead ones. What can that God teach us about the way we mark our mortality at the time of death?