Sunday, November 1, 2015

New Life, Here and Now: All Saints Sunday and Debunking the "Cloud Model" of Heaven

(The following is a sermon I gave on 1 November 2015 for All Saints Sunday. I preached it at St. Luke & the Epiphany Church in Center City Philadelphia. The texts are from Isaiah 25, Revelation 21, and John 11.)

I think I was in second grade when my Sunday school teacher talked to all of us about Heaven and then asked us to draw it. I’ve never been a great artist, but I gave it my best shot, waiting impatiently for the chance to use the same colors of crayons that all the other kids were using: blue for the sky, whites and grays for the clouds and robes of the angels, golds and silvers for the harps and for the pearly gates.

But I remember that the kid sitting next to me, Seth, had very different crayon colors lined up by him: reds and greens in addition to the blues and whites. I peeked over at what he was doing and saw what I thought was the wrong picture. It was of him and his family (stick figures, of course), next to their red brick house and green grass, and with the sky and clouds above them. I think I asked him something like, “What’s that?” “Heaven,” he said. “It doesn’t look like Heaven,” I replied, the way people do when they think they’ve got all the answers. “Mrs. Walters says Heaven is where you feel safe and loved and with Jesus.” I think the class ended after that, and I wasn’t curious enough to keep asking him about it. Nor do I think we would have had a very theologically-deep conversation about it. But years later, I finally came to the conclusion that he really may have been on to something with what he drew. 

Heaven has been on my mind a lot lately as we’ve approached All Saints Sunday. And today, I want to follow the Seth model of Heaven by looking at the ways in which Heaven and Earth intersect, the ways in which that eternal life that God offers us in the Bible is accessible in the here and now.  

Again and again in today’s readings, the Bible hints that the heart of God’s plan for us may not be that we just go up to Heaven when we die, but that Heaven and new life would also come down to us. I think we’re told that God has a strong desire to meet us where we are, redeeming our situations and our lives until the day when all of God’s physical creation is restored, when Jesus returns. 

So in our Old Testament passage, Isaiah writes of God wiping away tears and providing a great feast for all peoples, and of death being swallowed up. He writes not of what happens when we die but what would happen when God’s people would return to the Promised Land after their exile in Babylon. And the setting of this passage isn’t some otherworldly, non-material afterlife, but the very physical Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Isaiah’s God is one who fervently wishes to enters into events of human history.

In our reading from Revelation, which has adopted much of the same vision of Isaiah, note that it’s not we who go up to Heaven to dwell forever with God in the New Jerusalem, but that the holy city itself descends from Heaven to earth. 

In Revelation, God and God’s reality come down to us. And not for the first time, for at the very center of our lives as Christians is that Word-made-flesh, Jesus, who God sent to dwell among us, who ate and breathed and worked in the dirt and dust of Palestine, and who died on the Cross so that we would have new life, sometimes against all appearances or expectations.

There was no expectation that new life would come to Lazarus. By the time we enter into our Gospel passage for today, Lazarus has gone from being deathly ill to being in the grave for long enough that he is stinking. It seems like death is the end of his story. But new life does come. Jesus, the embodiment and messenger of new life, commands that Lazarus's tomb be opened and floods it with light. The one who makes all things new starts life over for Lazarus when he loudly calls for him to walk out of his tomb. 

The Bible passages this week tell us that what we do in this world matters, that our days on this earth are not just a prelude or prologue to the real story, because God continues to come down to us as much as for the characters in the Bible. Our Lord continues to call us out of our tombs (whatever they may be) and offers us new chapters to our story, healing our relationships with God, others, and ourselves. Heaven comes down to our world in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in the mundane-seeming water and bread and wine that keep us connected with one another as God’s beloved children. God has sworn to be in the places and in the people we would least expect God to be: on the cross, in our weakness, in our neighbors in need, in the poor, the hungry, the unfamiliar, the sick, the imprisoned. And, I would add, in our struggles for justice and humane treatment of all people. God came to this congregation in its ministry of care for people with HIV and AIDS. And God is with us today as we mourn those who we have lost. 

The real pain that we have this day, thinking about the people who have meant the world to us but have died, is but one indication that the reality I’ve described about God's Kingdom of Heaven being in the midst of our daily lives, has its limitations. 

We are Lazarus, suddenly experiencing the power and love of God. But just as often, we are Lazarus's sisters Martha and Mary. We are the ones waiting and weeping, mourning our losses and lamenting what seems like God's inaction in situations like gun violence, racism, anti-gay and transgender bigotry, the Syrian refugee crisis, and instability around the world. Like Mary and Martha before Lazarus walks out of the tomb, we might challenge God in anger and sadness, saying "Lord, if you'd been here, this would not have happened.” This person that we loved would not have died. This natural disaster would not have occurred. This act of injustice or violence would not have happened. We might question God's ability to bring about God's Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven, or question Jesus' ability to call out the dead.

But then, we see it happening in front of us. We see lives transformed and enemies reconciled. We see how God provides us new opportunities to start over. And if we’ve already seen how much God is present while we are in this imperfect world, how much more should we have hope and confidence for that reign of God to be truly fulfilled, when Jesus comes once more to bring all situations under God's care in a new heaven and new earth? 


On that day God will bring us together again with everyone we have lost, on an Easter to trump all Easters, when God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes, when death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more, because Christ will have made all things new. In the meantime, we can try to absorb into our hearts and minds the promise that Jesus made to Martha, that “Those who believe in [him], even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in [him] will never die.” Give us that life, Lord, now and forever. Amen. 

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Mother's Day and Being Easter People During Difficult Times

Note: This was my farewell sermon at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, where I spent the 2014-2015 academic year as a seminary student. 

It was just a small slip of paper, but I dreaded seeing it a little bit every Sunday. It was this slip of paper, calling on the congregation of St. Paul’s to add the names of their mothers or other important women in their lives to an annual Mother’s Day list. Every Sunday morning for the last few weeks, I would grab a bulletin, take out the insert, and place it in the garbage can by the water cooler. I have nothing against the idea itself; I think it’s a great way to honor our mothers. It was just too painful for me to look at. 

What I really dreaded wasn’t the slip of paper, but the fact that Mother’s Day was coming up. This will be the second Mother’s Day without my mom, who passed away last April on the Saturday after Easter. So seeing inserts like that, hearing announcements about Mother’s Day, and watching tv ads for cards and chocolate can be difficult for me. So can Easter, as I found out last month. Easter this year didn’t feel like any of the previous ones in my house. It didn’t feel like a day of new life and hope. It felt sadder, more like a Good Friday than a resurrection day. 

The last sermon that I gave here, on Doubting Thomas, was in many ways my own way of working through some of my experiences last month, working through the challenges of trusting in a god of unimaginable love and mercy, believing in a god of resurrection and new life when the world around us sometimes doesn’t seem to allow for such a god to exist. Thomas’s realization that the first Easter morning had already dawned, that his master had defeated death and sin on the cross and given us new life in his resurrection, was something I badly wanted to feel this past Easter, as I sat in my bedroom missing my mom. 

Luckily for me and for all of us, God’s new life and hope are not confined to our annual commemoration of Easter. In many congregations I’ve seen, people tend to forget about Easter a week or two after celebrating it, and the long countdown to what many people consider to be the more important holiday, Christmas, begins. That’s why I’ve really resonated with and appreciated Pastor Kopp’s frequent reminders about us being Easter people and encouraging us to give this time of the year its due celebration. Because, in the midst of all of our church seasons, as we worship here during Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Pentecost, even as we solemnly remember Jesus’ death on Good Friday, the light of Easter shines on everything. In spite of appearances to the contrary, God’s Easter presence lies over our hearts, over our lives, over a world that is even now in pain from natural disasters, social injustice, and violence.

Easter dawns on the world every day, even if it’s hard to see. There are hints of it everywhere, if we only know how and where to look. Peeking outside and seeing how beautiful the weather is, noticing the vibrant colors of all the trees and flowers, helps me to see new life. Being here worshiping with you all, and being fed and given strength to go out into the world at our celebration of the Lord’s Supper, helps. 

Perhaps most helpful for seeing new life, however, is the sacrament of baptism. It seemed like every time I was having a rough week, a baptism would be scheduled here. And, sitting up by the choir watching it or by the baptismal font for Andy Lau’s baptism, I loved every minute of them. Baptism for me is more than an initiation ritual into the Christian community, an occasion to get the family dressed up and take pictures, though it is certainly that. In baptism, we become brothers and sisters of each other, children of God, because we have died and been given new life, the new life of Easter, in that water. God comes to us in such commonplace and mundane things as water, bread, and wine, because God has promised to be there. “This is my body,” Jesus said on the night on which he was betrayed. “This is my blood.” 

In the midst of our crazy lives, God has promised to be with us and amongst us. Our Lord Jesus Christ has sworn that he would be with us whenever we are gathered together in his name. And he has sworn that he would be in the places and in the people we would least expect God to be: on the cross, in our weakness, in our neighbors in need, in the poor, the hungry, the unfamiliar, the sick, the imprisoned.    

These promises to be with us and amongst us are unconditional and unwavering. It doesn’t matter how sad we might be that day, how angry, how much in pain, how unworthy we might feel of even receiving these gifts of the sacraments and of each other. It doesn’t even matter if we can feel God’s presence at those times. Those gifts are given to us by our eternal God, and so they are there for us always, helping us to know that we are God’s children, that we are new life children, that we are Easter children. 

And so, my brothers and sisters in Jesus’ resurrection, I want to thank you for allowing me to see God in this congregation, in your ministries, your mission, in each of you. Thank you for allowing me to worship with you all. Thank you for listening to me as I’ve tried my best to preach God’s Word in the pulpit. Thank you for your kind words, your guidance, for our conversations before and after worship, for welcoming me to your Bible studies and youth education classes, for sharing your joys and concerns with me. Thank you for letting me get to know you. Thank you.  

I’d like to leave you by asking you a favor and then telling a story. Life, as we all know, is uncertain and often difficult. Although we come up with lots of plans for ourselves and our families, life has a way of throwing us for a loop. We have no idea what kinds of joys and sorrows our futures hold. So I ask that we try our best to grasp on to what is certain and steadfast: the promises of God. Let us hold onto the forgiveness of our sins and our status as beloved children of God which Jesus Christ has bought for us with his blood. Let us hold onto those promises of new life and hope which cannot possibly be taken back, because of who has promised them to us. Let us stand firm in the love of God in Christ Jesus, which nothing in all of creation can keep us from.

And, a story:  It was the Friday after Easter 2014. I was in my mom’s hospital room, getting ready to leave because visiting hours were over. I held her hand and said, “I love you, mom. I’ll see you on Sunday.” I wasn’t able to keep that promise, because that was the last thing I ever said to her. The next morning, she slipped into a coma that she never came out of. 

After my mom passed away, my dad, my sister, and I went out into the hallway of the hospital. Over the previous weeks we had spent a lot of time there when we we weren’t allowed to be in my mom’s hospital room for various reasons. There was a big window there that overlooked much of the city of Newark. And as we talked and watched, a rainbow started forming. And it grew bigger and brighter and more colorful, until there was a crowd of nurses, doctors, and visitors around us at the window, all in awe and in agreement that it was the biggest rainbow they had ever seen.


I don’t know if that rainbow was intended for my family, for someone else, or if it was just a natural phenomenon that happened to occur right after my mom died. Whatever it was, it sparked a tiny bit of hope in my heart in the midst of all that pain. The day before she passed away, I made a promise to my mom that I couldn’t keep. But I hope, and even more than that, I trust, that God will make it a reality nonetheless. As much as I struggle with faith sometimes, I believe in my core that God will bring us together again on a Sunday a long time from now, on an Easter to trump all Easters, on a day when God will truly be with us, when God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes, when death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more, because Christ will have made all things new. The signs of Easter will be undeniable then, and all will shout together, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!” Amen. 

Friday, January 2, 2015

Love and Not Being Single During the Holidays

A few days after Christmas last year, I wrote a short blog post entitled “Love and Being Single During the Holidays.” In it, I critiqued the high priority that our culture places on romantic love or, more particularly, a specific brand of Hollywood love that delegitimizes other types of love and deemphasizes how we love. I believe God’s priorities lie elsewhere. From Jesus’ perspective, I wrote, “love wasn't finding ‘the one person waiting for you,’ (as a recent eHarmony ad claims), or even going to Zales to show your spouse how much she means to you. In his mind, there was no greater love than laying down his life for his friends, than dying for us while we were still sinners.” I urged that we trust in God’s definition of love instead of Hallmark’s. What I regretted most about 2013 wasn't that I hadn’t found my “soulmate,” but that I hadn’t loved as selflessly as God wanted me to. I ended the post with the wish that in 2014 I would be able to show love in deed and truth to family, friends, strangers, and (God willing) that special someone. 

As sincere I was in writing about that hope, though, I actually thought that the odds of meeting someone that would love me in a non-plutonic way were quite small. It had been so long since I had had a girlfriend, and I had had so many disappointments in the romance department, that I had resigned myself to the likelihood that I would be single for the rest of my life. Much of the time, I convinced myself that I was okay with that idea. For the times when I was sad or envious of the relationships I saw my friends enjoying, I came up with a sort of three-pronged mantra:  God is going to make sure that you have a life full of love, regardless of whether or not you ever have a significant other; what matters more than your romantic life is that God’s word of love and joy continues to go out into the world, i.e. you are not the center of the universe; and that God often brings about what we think of as impossible or unlikely for God’s glory. As helpful as this mantra was occasionally, I usually had a difficult time really believing that they were true. I was even going to write an article about these three points with the goal of not feeling so down about my long-held status as a bachelor. 

As it turned out, I never got a chance to write that post. Before I could, I met Alina, and everything changed. Inexplicably, this gorgeous, brilliant, amazing girl loves me, and brings out the very best that I have. What I so foolishly and shortsightedly thought was impossible happened. She happened, and I thank God every day for allowing someone like her to be in my life. 

The beautiful, raw truth is that she came into my life just when I needed her. Two thousand fourteen was a difficult year for me. I lost my mom in April at the age of 54. I was her best friend, and I wasn’t able to do a thing to stop her from slipping away. She always had my back; she was always on my side; I could always go to her for advice or for someone to listen to my problems. More than anyone else I knew, she taught me what God is like, modeling in her words and actions towards me how I believe God loves:  fiercely and unconditionally. Months later, I still feel her loss, as well as the tragic way that she passed, quite strongly. 

I have struggled with my relationship with God as a result. I haven’t been angry at God for taking my mom away. Rather, it’s been hard for me to truly believe in or sense a god that has promised so much life and love, when death and despair have often seemed so much more like a reality. I would pray to God to comfort me, to put peace into my heart, to strengthen my faith, and remind me of a hope that seemed so distant. For a long time, it seemed like God was doing absolutely nothing to answer those prayers. Only recently did I realize that God was listening to me. God was so concerned for me that God allowed that comfort and peace and hope to be embodied in this beautiful woman who has loved me better than I ever could have deserved. My expectations that God’s love would come to me through a disembodied Spirit almost prevented me from seeing that it was right in front of me. As usual, God’s plans were grander than my own.


My first holiday season without my mom was difficult, especially since they coincided with the stress of final exams and papers. I thought about her a lot in the weeks before Christmas, and her absence while exchanging presents with my family was palpable. Nonetheless, not being single during the holidays made all the difference for me. Because of Alina, 2014 didn’t end with regret or loss or despair. It ended with the persistent call of hope. It ended with her beautiful face in front of me. It ended with her love reflecting God’s own. This year, I can only pray that I will be able to pay back even a tiny bit of the grace that has been shown to me, and that 2015 ends the exact same way.