So What About Heaven?

Luke 20:27-38

 

        Some folks are convinced every answer to any human dilemma can be found in the Bible. I don’t happen to be one of them. Those same folks also live with the illusion God will answer all our questions if we are faithful enough. I believe more in God’s faithfulness than my own but that still doesn’t make me privy to the mystery of God. Some things simply cannot be proven, only believed. That can be both the strength and the heartburn of any belief system.

        At our pub theology meeting last week John Savides asked the group if hell existed. Now this is an interesting group that has gathered every second and fourth Thursday at Bold Rock. Most are members of this church but some of the folks have no connection with any organized faith. When John asked the question I wanted to excuse myself and run for something to drink. I knew all eyes were eventually going to stare in my direction. Since I don’t drink, I figured one glass of anything would put me under the table. At least if I was inebriated, I would not be held accountable for anything I said. Fortunately, with this group my voice doesn’t hold much authority so I was able to listen to the interesting opinions of others. What I discovered was pretty much what I already knew. When a discussion of heaven or hell evolves, most of our opinions aren’t really all that biblical. Thanks to Dante, Milton, Jonathan Edwards and anyone who has written about seeing a bright light, our most memorable visions of heaven and hell have been created by folks that seem to have a fear of the dark. So what insights does Jesus give us?

While Jesus doesn’t talk much about hell he has a lot to say about the kingdom of God especially in the book of Matthew. Of course on examining those texts, we discover Jesus never speaks about a place with the streets paved with gold or even a gate where St. Peter examines the credentials of anyone who would enter. In fact the more we examine Matthew the more we realize Jesus was talking about how our lives down here on earth need to be more like the kingdom of God. That’s the problem with Matthew. Everything is spoken of on a spiritual level. If we want to get down to brass tacks, we need to turn to the Book of Luke.       

The classic text concerning heaven is found in Luke 20.  The Sadducees had just grilled Jesus on paying taxes and were a bit disappointed when Jesus said, “Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor and give to God what belongs to God.” The Sadducees wanted Jesus to come across as some political insurrectionist but his answer hardly raised anyone’s blood pressure, so they figured they would trip up Jesus with a theological question.

Jesus had begun to talk about resurrection, a concept the Sadducees believed to be heretical.   They weren’t satisfied to just tell Jesus he was crazy. They wanted to embarrass him in front of the masses. Taking a text from the book of Deuteronomy, the Sadducees tried to show Jesus how ridiculous the concept of heaven sounded. They asked him a riddle. A married man had seven brothers. According to the Law of Moses if the man should die, one of the brothers would be responsible to step up and marry the widow. Well what if the brother who married his dead brother’s wife died.  And what if this happened seven times until all eight brothers had married the woman and left her a widow. Then, after burying eight husbands, the woman died. The question asked was, if there is a heaven, when the woman arrived, who was her husband?

These sounds like a question that comes from someone in a Sunday school who loves to present ridiculous scenarios just to get a rise out of the rest of the class. I am sure you have all experienced this. One of the favorites used to be, “If a child is born in Africa and never is exposed to the story of Jesus, will the child go to hell?” That question has been asked so many times it amazes me that we don’t have 10,000 missionaries in Africa. Of course the reason is no one really cares about the child, only the argument.

So the Sadducees, full of themselves after asking a question with no logical answer, sat back and waited to hear the teacher’s answer. There is no way they could have expected to hear what Jesus said. “God is not a God of the dead but of the living.” In other words Jesus said, “How can you make jokes about something you know nothing about?”

Death is serious business. This year we celebrated the resurrection of Kemp, Ralph, Ann, Barbara, Frankie and Sarah. Such an interesting choice of words we use, celebrate the resurrection. I vividly remember each of those “celebrations.” Each death seemed too soon. Each service exposed a sadness that blunted our celebratory nature. Yet we fervently clung to the belief that the journey of those we loved for a moment or a lifetime will continue into God’s eternity. Each time we come back to the grave, we need to be reminded that God is the God of the living because the weight of death is often more than we think we can bear.

The Sadducees could joke about death because at that moment none of them were on the way to a funeral. They could joke about death because the words of this itinerate preacher seemed ridiculous. But death is no laughing matter. It has touched each person in this room and it will touch us again. Yet what we must hold onto is not how our cherished ones died but how they were loved, for in the grand scheme of things isn’t that what really matters.

I loved grumpy old Kemp when he laughed. I loved reserved Barbara when she didn’t have to be “the lawyer.” I loved prim and proper Ann when she worried about Doug. I loved Ralph because he never met a stranger. I loved Frankie every time he told the same story. I loved Sarah just because she was Sarah. What we loved about of these folks continues as we live out the story of our lives. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “Everything will eventually come to a close, except love, and love never ends.” 

I believe God is the God of the living. To be more exact, I believe God is the God of love. This puts no time limit on how long God loves us because God’s love is forever. 

If you must ask me about heaven, I must warn you I don’t have a clue. Are there streets of gold? Well that’s one’s person’s version. Will we know our loved ones when we get there? I can’t tell you. Mary Chapin Carpenter calls it, “A place with a ‘to die for’ view.” Poets are usually better at stringing words together than the rest of us. What I believe is that God is the God of the living and not the dead. What I do believe is God transcends death by loving us more than we would deem possible. Therefore I believe whatever is beyond death is most certainly crafted by the imagination and love of God. That in itself tells me not to worry about it. 

To God be the glory. Amen.