17 Sep 2017
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
When does nighttime end and the day begin? Or when daylight end and the night
begin? It’s hard to tell. If you go outside early in the morning and
wait for the sun to rise, it’s just a gradual thing. The darkness of night slowly transforms into
the light of day. And at sunset, just
the opposite happens. The light of days
slowly slips away into the dark of night.
We tend to see day and night as distinct—and they certainly
are. But exactly where one ends and the
other begins...that’s hard to tell. And
this very blurry line between the two is similar to how we view the life of
heaven and the life of earth. Heaven and
earth are distinct, for sure. And, yet,
where one ends and where the other begins isn’t always easy to tell.
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is death. Death is a pretty easy way to tell where the
boundary is. There isn’t much of a
blurred line there between earth and heaven.
And we can certainly grant that.
But, of course, there’s more to life on earth than life in the
body. And there’s more to life in heaven
than simply life in the spirit. Death is
certainly a sign of something, but it isn’t necessarily the dividing line
between earth and heaven.
The rising sun isn’t suddenly “risen.” And the setting sun isn’t here one second and
gone the next. In the same way, life on
earth doesn’t suddenly end. And the life
of heaven doesn’t suddenly begin. The
line between the two—if there even is a line—is pretty blurred; they flow into
and out of each other pretty freely.
And this can be a real challenge for us to accept in the 21st
Century; even for us who profess faith in God, the Maker of “all things visible
and invisible.” When we hear about wars
and terrorism; when we experience mercilessness from other people; when God
seems to be deaf to our prayers, it can be a challenge to believe that the life
of heaven is somehow part of our life on earth.
There’re enough “unheavenly” things around us to make us doubt that.
Our Scripture passages today focus on one particular area of
heavenly life: the area of forgiveness.
The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is similar to when your debts are
forgiven...simply because the king himself is kind and merciful. Forgiveness is part and parcel of heavenly
life. So, too, are mercy and kindness. If I forgive, the life of heaven is already,
at least partially, within me. And if I
am forgiven (and I let myself be forgiven), the life of heaven has touched and
enriched me.
And the idea here is that the “kingdom of heaven” doesn’t
begin when we die; the pearly gates aren’t opened when we breathe our
last. The gates are open now. One aspect of heavenly life—forgiveness—is
something we can live right now. The
“rising sun” of heaven is already beginning to shine; we don’t have to wait to
be a forgiving person, we can do that now, today. We don’t have to wait to experience that part
of heaven.
Now, in the Book of Sirach, we don’t hear anything about
heaven. We hear about the importance of
forgiveness, but he doesn’t mention heaven.
Instead, he says: “Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember
death and decay, and cease from sin.”
And what he’s saying is simply: Know where you’re going, and live your
life accordingly. For Sirach (and many
others at the time), the notion of a life after death was not widely believed;
Sirach himself didn’t believe in any sort of general resurrection.
When he saw death, he saw only “death and decay,” not heaven
or life. And so, we can only take his
wisdom so far. But he does get at
something important when he says, in so many words: Know where you’re going,
and live your life accordingly. If we
desire heaven, if we want to live that life, then begin living it today. And we know we can because, again, the gates
of heaven are open now; the grace of God, the life of God, the love of God is
given for us to share in now, today.
“Know where you’re going, and live your life accordingly,”
Sirach says, as do many of the saints of our Tradition. If you google “heaven,” you’ll probably see
tons of images of clouds; blue sky and clouds, with sunlight; maybe a brilliant
staircase and a few people around gazing toward the holy city sparkling in
gold.” It’s presented as a place, and as
a place which has little resemblance to our life on earth. In short, heaven is presented as a foreign
land; a place we have no connection to.
And so, even if we know we should want to “go to heaven,” it
can be hard to get all that excited about it.
It’s like living in your home for decades; you’re comfortable, life is
good, the weather is great; there’s no reason to live. And then somebody comes and says, “Ok, it’s
time to move. Don’t worry, you’re going
to a fantastic place; it’ll be great.”
My response would be like, “Why?
I’m doing fine here. ‘There’s no
place like home,’ as Dorothy would say.”
And I’ve heard more than a few teenagers say, “You know, heaven doesn’t
look all that exciting to me. I mean,
what’s so thrilling about sitting on a cloud forever? Maybe that would be heaven for a
meteorologist, but not me.”
For some people, maybe for a lot of people, the idea of
“knowing where you’re going, and living your life accordingly” isn’t very
motivational—because heaven itself doesn’t appear to be all that compelling. The vision of what God has in mind for his
sons and daughters looks kind of...flat.
Of course, it isn’t true, but that’s the popular conception.
If we want to have a clue of what heaven is like, a good
person to start with is God himself—Jesus.
He is “the visible image of the invisible God;” the God whose life is at
the heart of what we call “heaven.”
Jesus gives us a view into heaven; he opens its gates to us.
Jesus is...endlessly forgiving. That’s what his remark about “seventy-seven
times” means. In heaven there are no
grudges, no resentments, no ill will, no hard feelings. There are no wounds to be nursed, or
self-pity to indulge in. Instead,
there’s forgiveness; forgiveness and mercy.
When I think of the confessional rooms, it sometimes strikes me how the
door to the confessional is like a “door to heaven.” On the other side is God’s complete
forgiveness, and his unfailing friendship.
Jesus is also...an instrument of truth and wisdom. A biblical scholar once remarked that
“whenever you uncover a bit of truth, you uncover a bit of God.” We could also say “you uncover a bit of
heaven.” In heaven there are no secrets,
there is no ignorance; nothing is hidden away, no one is deprived of the
knowledge of things. And we know that
truth only comes to those who are humble and curious, so we can also say that
in heaven there isn’t any pride; there is no competition—but just the thrill of
“soaking it all in.”
In Scripture, Jesus is revealed as the Bridegroom. And from the first pages of Genesis to the
last pages of Revelation, a recurring theme is that of marriage: the beauty of
union, the beauty of fidelity and companionship. We hear it so often in Scripture: heaven is
the “wedding supper of the Lamb.” Heaven
is a feast, a gathering, a celebration of belonging and, again, reconciliation
and wholeness. In heaven there are no
outsiders, there are no cliques. There
isn’t any “them and us;” instead it’s “us and God.”
Heaven is goodness, truth, and beauty. It’s the experience of harmony, where each
person plays off the other in a divine music directed by God.
Heaven isn’t so much a place, as it is an experience of
life. Heaven is a way of living
life. And whenever we live that life, we
are living the life of heaven—even if we do it imperfectly. When we forgive and are forgiven, we are experiencing
heaven. When we’re thrilled with love
and friendship; when we’re vulnerable with another person we trust; when we
accept and love someone else unconditionally, we are experiencing heavenly
life.
When we’re struck by the beauty of the day, or we’re
captivated in awe at a thunderstorm, we are experiencing heaven. When we learn in school; when we’re honing
our skills and figuring out how the world works; when we’re wondering about God
and sharing our life with him in the quiet of prayer, we are experiencing
heavenly life.
The life of heaven doesn’t begin when we die. It happens today, every time we “let God’s
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
And God’s will is: forgiveness, mercy, beauty, truth, goodness,
friendship, kindness, knowledge, charity, and so much more. It might sound a lot like our life on
earth. But, then again, there’s a blurry
line between heaven and earth, just like the dark of night and the light of
day.
Heaven isn’t just a future life; it’s also our present life. We don’t have to wait to experience it. We don’t have to wait to live it.
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