It's not about getting to heaven...

Christianity is not about getting to heaven

Most of us like music and singing. I’ve discovered in the churches I’ve served that people love to sing the songs they know. As I travel from church to church on Sundays, or hear students on campus, I pick up right away on that. Whether traditional or contemporary, high liturgy or praise services, the songs people sing best are the ones they know the best.

One of the traditional song hits I know best is “Love Divine All Loves Excelling”, where in line two, we read, “Joy of heaven to earth come down.” The model is that God came to earth in Jesus. The model is that heaven has come to earth. The theological point is not that we die and go to heaven—the point is that heaven comes to earth while we are alive!

In the modern hymn, “Sanctuary” we hear about being “pure and holy”—not there, but here.

In the Lord’s prayer, we hear the ancient story: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Again, it’s not about getting to heaven, but acknowledging that God is remaking earth into heaven.

Our God-talk today is that God is the great recycler—not making something brand new, but something that is re-newed, changed, recycled.

A friend and colleague of mine, Rev. Ebb Munden, recently preached a sermon on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of a church. In the sermon he said:

Too often I revert to trusting in myself or the powers of this world rather than God alone. And I worry about the fact that much of what I have attempted to do in my ministry to achieve peace with justice in our church and in our world has not met with the success I wanted. I still grieve at the pain, the injustice, the violence in our church and our world, and I am impatient with my own unfaithfulness. Nevertheless, I discover that an amazing thing has happened. I find myself filled with a persistent hope for the future even when I see little evidence to justify it.

Hope is different from optimism. Optimism believes that things will always turn out the way we want . Hope knows that things often do not turn out the way we want but trusts that God rules; God’s will, will be done. To say that God rules is not to say that God wants whatever happens, or that God is the cause of whatever happens, or that God controls all that happens. It is to live in the resurrection faith that in everything that does happen God is acting to raise up new possibilities for the future to serve God’s will that there be life, new life, fulfilling life, eternal life for all.

I believe Christianity is not about going to heaven, but about realizing heaven comes to earth, and is recognizable in following God and trusting God. Heaven is God’s will coming being reborn on earth. The earth is being remade—recycled before our eyes. Does not that make us earth keepers?

--fred

Matthew 6:7-13

7“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9“Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.