Sermons are better when you listen to them, I promise.
Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from the Holy Trinity. Amen.
Approximately one year ago, I joined a Facebook event called “post rapture looting” or something while toasting the end of the world with some friends. We figured a toast was a reasonable way to end the world, because if we were raptured, we’d be appropriately celebrating, or if we were “left behind” we’d have something to numb our sadness at not being one of God’s chosen.
Obviously, there was no rapture, and I didn’t get to loot any of those fancy mansions of the really good Christians like those prosperity gospel TV preachers. Such is life. But moments in history when people are sure the apocalypse will happen are nothing new. Just in my life time the world was supposedly going to end several times already.
The guy who wrote the book of Revelation, who we call John of Patmos, had a vision in a jail cell about what the end of time was going to look like – and we heard part of that vision today in our readings.
But…there is a big distinction between the vision John had, and the vision the Left Behind series had, and that difference has to do with heaven.
Today, thanks to the Left Behind book series, pop Christian theology, and the ever present praise song, society and the church have both gotten into this mindset that heaven is somewhere you go after you die. There’s some sort of pearly gates you pass through and you get a mansion, and a gardener, and someone to do your ironing...if you’re one of the lucky ones who had enough faith or prayers or spirituality. Heaven seems like a great timeshare you get to fly to after you die with no limit on how long you can stay, because there’s magically room for everyone who is worthy of entry.
On the other hand, this view of heaven means that earth is not the place you want to be, it’s just a place to pack your bags while you wait for the eternal life of something much better and less crowded.
And I get it. I get why heaven being a place that is far off in some distant galaxy far far away is appealing to people. It’s appealing because, at least right now, earth doesn’t seem like a very good place to live. Given the choice, I think we’d rather have paradise than shootings at pot rallies and schools and movie theaters in our own hometown. I think we’d rather choose living with God than living with no one. I think we’d rather have eternal mental health than a lifetime on earth with depression. I would rather live in heaven where I wouldn’t have to ever think about what it will be like to leave a community I love.
It’s so appealing. To think about that day when we all fly up, up, and away to something better, something shinier, something more fulfilling than what we have on earth.
But, unlike preachers and pop christian lyric composers who want to see heaven as anything but here and now, John of Patmos, in Revelation, shows us a different heaven. John shows us a heaven in light of the resurrection. And that heaven is here, on earth. God’s home is not somewhere far off, among the stars. Revelation tells us “the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them; and they will be God’s peoples, and God himself will be with them.” And while I hope for the life we have after we die to be a life with God and each other, somehow glorified and made new, the details of how that will work are unknowable on this side of everlasting life. But what we do know for certain, what John of Patmos is saying to us is that God has chosen to dwell with us here. God has chosen this place as God’s heavenly home. Heaven is in Boston. Heaven is in Texas. Heaven is in the 16th Street Mall. Heaven is in the places the media doesn’t pick up on, deportations, white people murdering people of color, school bullies, workplace bullies. Heaven is in these places. Our tears are in these places too. Tears that fall for ourselves and our situations, and tears that fall for others in our lives, and tears that fall for people we don’t even know. Tears that fall and cloud our vision, blocking our view of God’s mercy, sometimes making us unable to see our lives as they are: with God in them.
And yet our God promises to make all of these things new. God promises to wipe away your tears. God’s promise to wipe away tears doesn’t just confine itself to tears you may have shed about how messed up our world is, a world where children can get assault rifles and single moms can’t feed their babies. God’s promise to wipe away tears is so broad that God even wipes away tears of anger, curbing our need for revenge against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (jo-khar Sar-nye-ev). God wipes away tears of hatred you shed toward yourself when you look in the mirror, or read that poem you wrote that just doesn’t fit together correctly, or think about how often you find yourself clearing your browser history.
God wipes away tears and promises to make all things new. A new heaven, a new earth. A new heaven where God will dwell with us and in us, a new heaven where God will raise the dead and unite them with the living. A new heaven where God comes to us, disregarding our overcrowded earth with dwindling resources, because when God comes to dwell with us, God doesn’t care about space.
With God present in our lives and in our world, there is always room. There is room for people who have never gotten a speeding ticket and there is room for people convicted of felonies. There is room for those of you who have families that love you, and room for you who have families who have cast you out. There is room for all of you who like Doctor Who, and room for all of you who would rather watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
There is room for everyone, because in God’s world, here....with us...God makes all things new, which means God creates space for all things. God resurrects the parts of the world and the parts of our lives that we’d rather bury and not have space for. God resurrects those parts, and not only brings them alive in us and in the world but God makes them new. Our God is not a God of stagnation, of sludge covered pools, but our God is a God of new life, like a mountain stream gushing water from the rocks around it. Cool, and refreshing. Our God is a God of Easter, not content to be confined to a tomb for eternity, but only content wiping away our tears, bringing our dead back to life, and redeeming the unredeemable.
I can’t bring myself to imagine a God that doesn’t make his home among mortals...removed...enjoying his celestial mansions and golden brick roads, and cloud pillars, and calorie-less chocolate. But, I don’t have to imagine a God like that...because I know a God who does live among us. I know a God who picked a peasant girl to give birth to Christ, God’s son who came to live among us. I know a God who is present with us in bread and wine and the forgiveness of sins. I know a God who wipes away our tears, a God who destroys death, and a God who makes all things... both earthly things and heavenly things new. Even us.
Amen.
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