First Presbyterian Church
What about Heaven?
Sermon for November 7, 2004
by Pastor Susan Barnes

In our old testament reading, the Babylonian exile is finally over; the Hebrews have returned to Israel . But Jerusalem isn't a hub city anymore; seventy years earlier, the Babylonians sacked the city. In all that time, only a few farm workers lived in the area. It was mostly a ghost town.

And so the exiles have been rebuilding the temple. Some of the oldest people remembered what it had looked like before Babylon destroyed it. They criticized this new building. Haggai prophecies to them during the Feast of Booths, Succoth. It is the holiday celebrating God's sustaining care and the harvest. Succoth commemorates Solomon's bringing the ark of the covenant into the temple, as well as Israel 's release from slavery in Egypt . Listen for the word of God as it is found in Haggai 1:16b-2:9.

1 in the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:

2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah , and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say,

3 Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?

4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts,

5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt . My spirit abides among you; do not fear.

6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land;

7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts.

8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.

9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

This ends our reading from the prophets. Haggai assured them that the restoration would happen. He wanted people to hope in God, rather than to despair their slow and unimpressive progress in rebuilding the temple.

This is a good text to read after an election. In the city, county, state, and nation there were some candidates we really believed in who were not elected , and some candidates we feared would be terrible leaders who were. It is important to hear God's words: “take courage, all you people of the land, work, for I am with you. My spirit abides among you, do not fear.”

The temple was rebuilt, although not so grandly as before. The land of Israel continued to experience cycles of prosperity and poverty. Through it all, God remained with the chosen people.

By Jesus' time, the temple was allied with the nobles and aristocrats. The priests, Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees backed the kings, caesars, emperors and lords more often than not. We tend to think of the priests, Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees as the group out to get Jesus. But really, these were four different groups separated by ancestry, nationality, and religious views, as well as by occupation. All of them vied for power during the civil unrest of the first century.

As you listen to the gospel lesson, notice who it was who liked Jesus' answer.

Listen for the word of God as it is found in Luke 20:27-40.

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.

29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married , and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died . 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

34 Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed , in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

39 Then some of the scribes answered , "Teacher, you have spoken well." 40 For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

This ends our reading from God's word.

This story brings up some serious questions for us. What does happen to us and the people we love when we die? My grandmother outlived three husbands. Some of her marriages lasted longer than others; some husbands were kinder than others. Grandma is worried about who she will be buried next to. In heaven, who will she be with? This story doesn't address my grandmother's concerns. The Bible does not tell us what will happen to us when we die. It only says that we are in Christ.

Christians have made a lot of guesses over the years about where we go when we die, based loosely on Bible verses about heaven. The Hebrew word for it is grammatically plural: heavens. There is more than one description of the heavens in the old testament. The heavens are where the weather comes from. The heavens are both the sky and God's home; the heavens are like a tent stretched out over the earth; the heavens are like an expanse beaten out so it is thin and pliable, like precious metal. The heavens are full of windows and held up with pillars. The heavens are where God lives; the heavenly army is there. The heavens are where Israel 's salvation comes from.

Sometimes the new testament uses the plural form, following the old testament tradition. Sometimes heaven is singular, without a change in meaning. In the new testament, heaven is where God is and where God's messengers, angels, are. Heaven is also very near earth; it is ‘at hand' when God's will is done. Jesus tells us how things are in heaven so we might have hope of how things could be on earth. He describes what the kingdom of heaven is like so people will know about God, and will choose to do God's will. The crowds as well as the disciples misunderstand what Jesus is saying about God. Revelation offers hope to the churches by speaking about heaven winning a cosmic battle.

The Bible does not tell us exactly what will happen when we die. We can take comfort from Romans 8:38: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The Bible writers were much more concerned with telling us how we should live while we are on earth. In our gospel lesson, the Sadducees were trying to discredit the other Jews' theology about the resurrection. Instead, Jesus discredited their ideas.

The Sadducees thought they were asking a valid question about property. The widow belonged to each one of the seven brothers at some point in her life; which husband was her rightful owner in the resurrection? Jesus responded that in the resurrection, no one owns anyone else. The brothers didn't need to worry about having children of their own to carry on their name; they will be children of God.

Did you notice it was the scribes, not the Saduccees, who said Jesus had spoken well? And even then, it wasn't all the scribes, just some of them.

Some of our ideas about heaven miss the point of what the Bible teaches us, as you can tell from these stories.

"Our church decided to stop its outreach program.”

"How come?"

"We believe that only a small percentage of people get to heaven.”

"So?"

"We figured that every one we convert makes the odds that much worse for the rest of us."

A person arrives at the gates of heaven.

St. Peter asks, "Religion?"
The man says, "Methodist."

St. Peter looks down his list, and says, "Go to room 24, but be very quiet as you pass room 8."

Another man arrives at the gates of heaven.

"Religion?"

"Baptist."

"Go to room 18, but be very quiet as you pass room 8."

A third man arrives at the gates.

"Religion?"

"Jewish."

"Go to room 11, but be very quiet as you pass room 8."

"I can understand there being different rooms for different religions, but why must I be quiet when I pass room 8?"

"Well, the people in room 8 think they're the only ones here.

A new resident in heaven was being shown to his mansion, which turned out to be a humble, run-down hovel on the wrong side of the tracks. He turned to his angelic escort and said indignantly, “Why, this is nothing more than a shack!”

The angel said, “It is indeed . But you must realize that we did the best we could with the money that you sent.”

There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him.

An angel hears his plea and appears to him. "Sorry, but you can't take your wealth with you."

The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules.
The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him.

The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him.

Overjoyed , the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed . Soon afterward the man dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter.

St. Peter seeing the suitcase says, "Hold on, you can't bring that in here!"

But, the man explains to St. Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord.

Sure enough, St. Peter checks and comes back saying, "You're right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through." St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims, "You brought pavement?!!!"

Heaven is both deeper and higher than we expect. We pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We are supposed to get our priorities straight, and let Jesus' words about heaven impact our behavior on earth.

A nun kept a vigil over her mother as she lay dying. She tried to reassure her mother by saying “In heaven, everyone we love is there.” Her mother said, “No, in heaven I will love everyone who's there.” (1) We need not fear death nor politics.

St. Augustine says, “Let us sing alleluia here on earth, while we still live in anxiety, so that we may sing it one day in heaven in full security….We shall have no enemies in heaven, we shall never lose a friend. God's praises are sung both there and here, but here they are sung in anxiety, there in security; here they are sung by those destined to die, there, by those destined to live forever; here they are sung in hope, there in hope's fulfillment; here they are sung by wayfarers, there, by those living in their own country.” (2)

(1) Norris, Kathleen, Amazing Grace, p. 367.

(2)Norris, Kathleen, Amazing Grace, p. 368.