Pie-In-The-Sky When We Die?
Sermon
There's a section in the Church Times for people to write in and ask any questions they might have about the Christian faith. The questions are very varied, and range from "When did Michael, Raphael and the other archangels start to be treated as saints?" to "Are there alternative Bible readings for a marriage service other than those already listed in the service book?"
Anyone may write in to answer the questions, so the answers tend to be really interesting as well, and there's often more than one answer to the same question.
A recent question was this: "Is it pie-in-the-sky to believe that in the end God will make everything all right?" This provoked three answers. One simply said that if we knew the answer to that, we wouldn't need faith. Another was from a priest, and predictably, spoke about the hope enshrined in the pages of New Testament, quoting the New Testament at some length.
But it was the third one which caught my attention. It said very bluntly, "Yes, I think the idea that God will make everything all right in the end is a cop-out." The reply then went on to use the example of global warming, saying that although it may be true we can leave it all safely in God's hands, that hope shouldn't prevent us trying to do something. In other words, it's too easy to use God making everything all right in the end, as an excuse to do nothing about bad situations.
This has been a recurrent temptation through the ages. If God is on the side of the poor, and if, like a camel going through the eye of a needle, it's nearly impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, then why try to help the poor? Isn't it much better that they should remain poor, with all the spiritual benefits that poverty will bring them? For God will make everything all right in the end, as the first will be last and the poor will rise to glory after death.
Today's passage from Revelation is full of pie-in-the-sky. It paints a picture of God on his throne in heaven, surrounded by myriads of heavenly creatures all singing praises to him. But it doesn't just stop there. It goes on to include every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, singing, "To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!"
So everyone and everything is pictured as eventually united before God, singing praises to him. Real pie-in-the-sky stuff, with the young child playing over the hole of the asp, and the lamb lying down with the lion.
It all sounds delightful and idyllic, like a warm summer's day in the country, but is it true? Well, warm summer days in the country aren't necessarily predictable, at least not in this country, but they do happen. Likewise, I don't think what God has in store for human beings after death is necessarily predictable, but I do think it will happen.
When Jesus rose again after his death on that first Good Friday, he was at pains to show that he was flesh and blood just as we know it. He clearly wasn't the same as he was prior to his death, for few recognized him without a good deal of prompting, and he was fit and well. But he was recognizably human. His skin could be touched and felt by others, notably Thomas, who needed to feel Jesus' wounds before he could believe. Perhaps, if he was worried that Jesus might be a ghost, Thomas expected his hand to go straight through when he reached out to touch the wounds. And Jesus himself had human needs. He was hungry, so organised breakfast with his friends by the lake.
At the same time, he was more than human, since he could apparently be in two different places at the same time, walk into locked rooms without using any keys, and predict where to find an overwhelmingly huge catch of fish in what had seemed to be a barren sea.
So although he looked and sounded like an ordinary human being, in this new stage of being after his death, Jesus was far from ordinary. He'd always had out-of-the-ordinary powers, especially the power to heal, but this was something different.
For the first time, he didn't seem to be bound by the normal barriers of time and space. And although he was seen and heard just as though everything was normal, there was a real change in his relationships with his friends. He looked like flesh and blood, but he was somehow remote, and even though seen by them, was removed a step away from them into some different dimension.
And that's one thing we can be sure life after death will produce for all of us. We shall be removed into some different dimension, and are much less likely than Jesus, ever to be able to contact this dimension of life on earth in quite the same way again.
After bereavement, quite a lot of people have a sense of the loved one always with them. Some people actually occasionally see the loved one in the early weeks after the death. And some people claim to be able to contact the dead through spiritual mediums of various sorts. So it would seem that there may be some limited experience of the loved one in the other dimension, whatever that might be. But things are definitely different. Those who have died are removed at least a step away from us, and our relationship with them is not the same as it was in life.
None of us know quite what life after death will be like, although the Bible does give us some graphic and exciting pictures. But we can be sure that for those who learn in this life how to love, it will be good. Whether or not everything will suddenly become "fair", who knows? I can't help feeling that by the time we reach eternal life our criteria of "fairness" may well have changed, and we'll see things as they really are, instead of distorted through our humanness. As St Paul said, "Now we see in a glass darkly, but then face to face."
Being face to face with God is likely to be such a mind-blowing experience that we may find all our values turned upside down. But in that different dimension maybe every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, really will sing,
"To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" Amen.
Anyone may write in to answer the questions, so the answers tend to be really interesting as well, and there's often more than one answer to the same question.
A recent question was this: "Is it pie-in-the-sky to believe that in the end God will make everything all right?" This provoked three answers. One simply said that if we knew the answer to that, we wouldn't need faith. Another was from a priest, and predictably, spoke about the hope enshrined in the pages of New Testament, quoting the New Testament at some length.
But it was the third one which caught my attention. It said very bluntly, "Yes, I think the idea that God will make everything all right in the end is a cop-out." The reply then went on to use the example of global warming, saying that although it may be true we can leave it all safely in God's hands, that hope shouldn't prevent us trying to do something. In other words, it's too easy to use God making everything all right in the end, as an excuse to do nothing about bad situations.
This has been a recurrent temptation through the ages. If God is on the side of the poor, and if, like a camel going through the eye of a needle, it's nearly impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, then why try to help the poor? Isn't it much better that they should remain poor, with all the spiritual benefits that poverty will bring them? For God will make everything all right in the end, as the first will be last and the poor will rise to glory after death.
Today's passage from Revelation is full of pie-in-the-sky. It paints a picture of God on his throne in heaven, surrounded by myriads of heavenly creatures all singing praises to him. But it doesn't just stop there. It goes on to include every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, singing, "To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!"
So everyone and everything is pictured as eventually united before God, singing praises to him. Real pie-in-the-sky stuff, with the young child playing over the hole of the asp, and the lamb lying down with the lion.
It all sounds delightful and idyllic, like a warm summer's day in the country, but is it true? Well, warm summer days in the country aren't necessarily predictable, at least not in this country, but they do happen. Likewise, I don't think what God has in store for human beings after death is necessarily predictable, but I do think it will happen.
When Jesus rose again after his death on that first Good Friday, he was at pains to show that he was flesh and blood just as we know it. He clearly wasn't the same as he was prior to his death, for few recognized him without a good deal of prompting, and he was fit and well. But he was recognizably human. His skin could be touched and felt by others, notably Thomas, who needed to feel Jesus' wounds before he could believe. Perhaps, if he was worried that Jesus might be a ghost, Thomas expected his hand to go straight through when he reached out to touch the wounds. And Jesus himself had human needs. He was hungry, so organised breakfast with his friends by the lake.
At the same time, he was more than human, since he could apparently be in two different places at the same time, walk into locked rooms without using any keys, and predict where to find an overwhelmingly huge catch of fish in what had seemed to be a barren sea.
So although he looked and sounded like an ordinary human being, in this new stage of being after his death, Jesus was far from ordinary. He'd always had out-of-the-ordinary powers, especially the power to heal, but this was something different.
For the first time, he didn't seem to be bound by the normal barriers of time and space. And although he was seen and heard just as though everything was normal, there was a real change in his relationships with his friends. He looked like flesh and blood, but he was somehow remote, and even though seen by them, was removed a step away from them into some different dimension.
And that's one thing we can be sure life after death will produce for all of us. We shall be removed into some different dimension, and are much less likely than Jesus, ever to be able to contact this dimension of life on earth in quite the same way again.
After bereavement, quite a lot of people have a sense of the loved one always with them. Some people actually occasionally see the loved one in the early weeks after the death. And some people claim to be able to contact the dead through spiritual mediums of various sorts. So it would seem that there may be some limited experience of the loved one in the other dimension, whatever that might be. But things are definitely different. Those who have died are removed at least a step away from us, and our relationship with them is not the same as it was in life.
None of us know quite what life after death will be like, although the Bible does give us some graphic and exciting pictures. But we can be sure that for those who learn in this life how to love, it will be good. Whether or not everything will suddenly become "fair", who knows? I can't help feeling that by the time we reach eternal life our criteria of "fairness" may well have changed, and we'll see things as they really are, instead of distorted through our humanness. As St Paul said, "Now we see in a glass darkly, but then face to face."
Being face to face with God is likely to be such a mind-blowing experience that we may find all our values turned upside down. But in that different dimension maybe every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, really will sing,
"To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" Amen.
