Wednesday, April 15, 2009

18. Heaven

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Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

"Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'

"But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

"Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.

"Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
"For many are invited, but few are chosen."
................Matthew 22:1-14 (NIV)

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The long and short of it....

Heaven isn't the end-game. Heaven isn't the destination. Heaven isn't the goal. God Himself is all of these.


Imagine you are sitting in your house and you hear a knock. You get up and find a man outside, banging on your front door. He is old, filthy, smells of horses, and he carries a large bag over his shoulder that moves disturbingly by itself every few minutes.

“May I help you?” you say.

“Bob!” the man says, “you're Bob, right? Don't you recognize me? Let me in! I've traveled ages to get here and I'm starving! I need food and shelter NOW!”

“Uh,” you say, “my name isn't Bob. I don't know you.”

The man at the door begins screaming at you, “All praise Bob! Let me in! I am a good person! I want in now! All praise Bob! Let me in!”

You look up and notice your house is completely surrounded by strangers, tens of millions of people stretching out in every direction, each carrying baggage, every one of them glaring at you as they prepare to rush the door muttering, “All praise Bob.”

You step back inside and close the door. Welcome to the end of time!

Heaven
All “heavens” have the same address, turn right and travel straight to the end of life. But whose heaven is it? Which “heaven” will you find at the end of time (which, coincidentally, comes at the end of your life)? Do you care?

When I first became a believer I had a conversation with a dear friend who believed that all good people go to heaven. I asked her, which heaven? She said, “Heaven heaven, of course.” So a man who does not believe in God but lives a good and helpful life, the life of a saint, will go to heaven when he dies? I asked. Of course, because he is a good man. She believed that people naturally have different ideas about God and heaven, but as long as they live a good life and are happy with their idea about God then when they die they will go to heaven and see all their friends and favorite pets and they will be happy—it will all get sorted out in the end. “But what about God?” I asked, “He is the owner, doesn't He have a say in who comes in His house? Do we all just rush the door screaming, 'I am a good person! I am a good person!'?” The conversation disintegrated into a stew of relative, circular reasoning and we dropped it, but I must confess this conversation has never left my mind. One burning question struck me that day that is still indelibly burned in my thinking—whose heaven is it?

Soul Proprietorship
Why the big focus on Paradise? Why the big focus on being good and getting through the Pearly Gates? Why the big focus on eternal bliss? Because the pursuit of this kind of “happy heaven” is all about pleasing the Self, while the pursuit of the real heaven's owner is a pursuit of Other, the Ultimate Other in fact.

The idea of an eternity of happiness is very appealing, especially living in a world full of decay and death and violence and hunger and need, but we must be very careful that we don't start thinking about heaven as some sort of Disneyland that allows free rides forever. The trap is thinking that I will be happy forever, when the real focus is that Others will be happy, and most importantly the Ultimate Other will be happy, and from His and their happiness will come my joy and peace. Eternity is not made paradise because the digs are so nice; it's not the resort but rather the proprietor who is the main attraction.

Whose heaven is it, then? It is God's heaven. Heaven is God's house. But heaven is all about the man standing in the door, not the house standing behind him—heaven wouldn't even be heaven without God. Want to know the thing I marvel at the most about God? I marvel at His love for us. Oh, it's not just a passing love, a fleeting interest in pet ownership that ends up in the sewer. This is the kind of love that requires sacrifice that requires chance that requires danger and pain and death. Grace is the real deal. This is the kind of love that travels around the world and adopts a complete stranger, but multiplied by the number of every human who has ever lived. This is the kind of love that throws open the doors and invites in the lame, the crippled, the sick, the human refuse that are routinely left behind, habitually abandoned by our cultures of affluence and health. God loves the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame, the fat and the ugly, the stupid and the least of us; He adopts these as His children. Why? They are not wealthy, beautiful, sought after by the press and the public, famous, rich, well-bred, well-educated, powerful, genteel—why is it that God loves us most when we have nothing to offer Him back? Ah, but the least of these do have something to offer, and He joyfully takes it—they are His children because they love Him. All they have is love, and they give it to Him.

Heaven is a love story, and we make it into a theme park. Heaven is a relationship, and we make it into shopping spree. Heaven is about God, and we make it about us. Are you a good person? Great. That's not enough—your “good person”ness is irrelevant to God and His heaven because being a good person is about doing good works, and all the good deeds in the universe aren't enough to pay the price of admission. Jesus traded His life for your entry pass, so how does that stack up to your “good person”ness? You let people go ahead of you in line? Great. Jesus had the skin flogged off His back for them. You are polite to strangers? Great. Jesus died for them. You are kind to animals? Wonderful. Jesus Christ died for you. Is that a good trade, your “goodness” for His life? Suppose you gave everything you had, everything you ever will have, your very life for the love of your life, even for your child, and he turned and patted your cheek and said, “Thanks. In return I'll be a nice person.” Raw deal.

Heaven is a love story; heaven is a relationship; heaven is about God. I used to think that the thing God wanted from me related to His sacrifice, the work of suffering and death of God Messiah, was gratitude, thankfulness for His sacrifice, belief in Him as God, Messiah, Counselor, and this was to be my response for His saving grace. I was wrong. God wants something more than gratitude. He wants me to love Him. The way to God's heart is not guilt for the price He paid for me, it is not remorse for my evil nature, it is not good works paving the path to paradise. It is simply love. Jesus, you did this thing for me! You give this gift to me! You made this sacrifice of love for me! Jesus Christ, God Almighty, I love you.

Heaven is not the end game, God is. So if heaven is all about God and none about you, and not a single person there will care the slightest bit about your goodness, do you still want to go?

A New Command...
Few names illicit such a strong response anywhere is history or geography as Jesus Christ. Why is that? He is a man who claims to be God, who jumps into Self and Other and Culture and everything else and says,”No! All the songs, all the legends, all the gods, all the paths to the end game are meaningless without me. Without me, there is no end game!” He says, “I am God, I am the way and the truth and the light in the darkness,” and humanity responds, “Which god are you again? What darkness was that? What is truth?”

Why?

I watched some Atheist video on YouTube the other day about how miracles do not eclipse Free Will. It seemed their beef was that God, if He really loved his children, would put up miracle shops on every street corner like fast food restaurants so we children could go in and be convinced on a daily basis, perhaps pop through the drive through for a cup of water-into-wine. And if we lacked convincing, we could go back in the next day and see more miracles, and more, and more, and more, until we finally believed. This kind of thinking is not new. Even as Jesus was dying on the cross the crowds wanted more—

    Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.' " (Matthew 27:39-43)
Were these the same people who had not long before seen Him heal the lame, heard Him teach about love in the Temple courts, were there or had heard about raising Lazarus from the dead? Free Will isn't about being persuaded, and it's not about God performing tricks to convince us. Free Will is about accepting what's right there in front of you—either you do or you don't.

Why is it that Jesus Christ is a lightning rod, a dividing point, a fulcrum between extreme love and extreme hatred, between extreme joy and extreme wrath? Because He did come down, He did stand on the street corners, He did perform miracles, He raised people from the dead, and how did humanity respond, how did His own people react? They murdered Him, just as He knew they would. The truth is, the truth is. Jesus did nothing in secret. Jesus hid nothing. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” This is the point. This is everything. God came here to save you—either you believe this or you don't. There is no other alternative, and this is what makes people bristle.

The Exodus is a beautiful illustration of God's nature as our King and our nature as His subjects. He is present as a pillar of flame, we complain about the smog. He presents Himself in person, we glance over at what the neighbors have and say, “Thanks for showing up, but we'd rather have what the Jones' have.” The bitter truth is, man will be presented with God, in person, clear as day, and even in the face of that truth most men will choose to look away, will shop around, will take the path of least resistance. “You say you are God? Yes, well, that's all well and good, but this god is easier, this god is clearer, this god I can handle. You demand that I love you, but this god over here, he is less demanding, he is more concerned with my happiness, with my wealth, with the immediate righteousness of killing the heathens and pagans. This god, now this is a god I can relate to. None of this love your neighbor as you love yourself stuff.”

There it is again. Love. This is why Jesus Christ is hated—because He commands us to love, and we would rather simply love ourselves and those we decide to love. Love of Self is easy; love of Other is hard. Grace for me is great; grace for Others is challenging. I want to get in, I want to be forgiven, I want and deserve the easy path, but I don't want them to get in. I don't like them. I deserve to get in, they must prove their worth. Grace is too hard; law is nice and simple. Grace requires that I care, that I forgive, that I accept. Law requires the bare minimum—less for them, more for me.

What if you viewed every female you encounter from now on as a daughter, a sister, a mother, an aunt? What if every man you meet from now on is your son, your brother, your father, your grandfather? What if other humans were not simply robots, or meat, or slaves or operating systems for cars, but rather they were you. What if the cultural biases we all hide behind suddenly evaporated? What if we were all suddenly blind and could not longer see the looks of Other? What if the poor were no longer supposed to starve and die, but we were required to care for and feed them? What if there were no strangers, and you were directly and personally responsible for the well-being of every starving vagrant you encountered? What if that were more than a law, but instead it was a requirement?




    "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35)
Love others as you love yourself. 1 or 0. Grace or Law. Love or hate. The choice is clear, simple, there. We just don't want to make it.

Few are Chosen
For the longest time I have felt uncomfortable about the guest who was thrown out of the wedding banquet in the parable above. He seems so shocked and surprised when the King comes upon him and asks why he had come to the banquet unprepared. And to be bound up and thrown out among the wretched who had refused to come in the first place; it all seems so unfair. But then it occurred to me that I had it all wrong. It is not a right to be at the banquet, but rather a privilege. If we take that privilege lightly, or worse, see the privilege as a right, as an entitlement, then we shift focus from God onto ourselves. “I'll dress any way I want to at this party, or any other party for that matter. He should be glad I am even here!” Such arrogance...

Here is a simple analogy. I am invited to my brother's wedding, and when the day arrives I show up wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Is it my wedding? What right do I have to show such disrespect, to make so little effort, to show so little honor to the event to which I was generously invited? I am his brother! He should be glad I showed up at all. Nice. In the end, decisions, attitudes, actions taken (or neglected) by the guest impacted how he showed up for this feast, and how the King responded. The guest mattered. He neglected to take the invitation and the wedding seriously, and his lack of respect for the occasion was painfully evident. To me the analogous group in reality would be those who say, “Oh yes, I am a believer, a real Christian. Of course I plan to go to heaven. I am a good person,” and then show up on the big day wearing shabby clothes and unable to recognize the bride-groom. The King will come over and look down on such a one and say, “I don't know you.”

So how does one prepare for the wedding feast of God's Son? What wedding clothes should I wear? Faith—desire and belief and trust and obedience, braced with love, real grace-filled love, this is a garment pleasing to God.

In what do you place your faith?
    See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him... ................Deuteronomy 30:11-20a