Heaven – Reward or Destination?

Sermon   Proper 12 A        All Saints       7-28-20

  I Kings 3: 5 – 12      Psalm 119: 129 – 136     Romans 8: 26 – 39      Matthew 13: 31 – 33, 44 - 52    

Heaven – Reward or Destination?

Today’s Gospel reading is all about heaven.  Reading it brought to mind the comment of a dearly beloved professor and friend who departed this life full of grace and laughter.  James was talking to a group of us over dinner and when heaven was mentioned, he looked at his beloved wife and said:  Marilyn is in the choir.  She knows nothing about heaven because she leaves class 15 minutes early every Sunday.  We all laughed knowing that heaven is often the destination of a lesson, not the main event.  Today it is the main event. 

Jesus must have intended that His followers know about heaven, and Jesus desired that we would know that we know.  The when of heaven is left a mystery for us, but Jesus gives us assurance that heaven truly exists and that we can rest in the promise of God that it is real. 

I grew up in the South with a Holiness grandmother and a Baptist mother.  I was thoroughly steeped in a faith full of specificity.  There was not much space for mystery or ambiguity.  The Bible says – that means God says – that makes it totally truth and totally clear.  Unfortunately, my mother was gifted with a girl child who could not resist asking why and who wanted a touch of glitter and angels’ wings on everything!  Early on it was important to me that there be mystery.  Otherwise, I felt but could not then explain, that if God could be fully understood by me, that was too small a deity to be worth worshipping. I did wear the mustard seed pendant as a reminder that my little faith counted much with God.

Jesus uses six different metaphors in our Gospel to illuminate heaven for us.  Until this reading, I had not registered that two of the metaphors have the same price tag.  A seeker finds a treasure that someone else had buried in a field and a collector finds a perfect pearl, far more expensive than any other pearl in his collection.  The seeker and the collector both paid the same price for their find.  Each sold everything else he owned to obtain that object of his deepest desire. 

Giving up everything for the one valued thing is a foundation for Christian faith.  Jesus tells us that if we are not willing to lose our lives in His gift of eternal life, we will not belong to Him.  If we are not willing to take up the cross of sacrifice as He sacrificed for us, we will not belong to Him.  If we are not willing to love Jesus more than family, friends and things, we will not belong to Him.  We are called to let go of what we currently have in order to have what God purposes for us.  

We can fool ourselves by saying that this is easy, but in our hearts, we know that it is not.  Our identity is created by what we do and what we have.  We build our self-image on our skills and achievements, and on how others regard us.  It is very seldom that the first identifying description we would put on a resume is that we are beloved children of God, created and blessed in God’s own image.  We certainly would not describe another person that way if we were asked.  But that is in fact the truest description of who we are.

If then, Jesus wants us to know about heaven and know that we know, what exactly is Jesus telling us in these metaphors?  In none of these comparisons does Jesus describe “heaven” as a reward for good behavior.  The yeast must be worked through the bread dough by kneading.  The mustard seed must be planted in appropriate soil, and receive rain and sun, if it is to grow.  The treasure must be dug out of the ground and the perfect pearl must be sought far and wide.  There is no short cut.  We do not get the gift of heaven as a “thank you” for our good work or pious behavior.

Heaven then must be a destination.  Not a PLACE, but a DESTINATION.  Jesus wanted us to KNOW that God’s promise of eternal life in God is a PROMISE, not a condition.  When we believe in salvation offered in Jesus, when we choose to follow Jesus in all that we do, we begin at that moment our forgiven and eternal life.  There is no probation period.  There is no hidden point system.  We are assured that all our life is held by God.  We WILL live our life here with Jesus and then we WILL continue that life with Jesus in the presence of God.  It is never IF I get to heaven, it is always WHEN I get to heaven with God.

Heaven is where the light of God is the only light that is needed.  Heaven is where the presence of God is open and free, visibly all around us.  Heaven is where all the promises and gifts of God come true.  

God’s promise of life eternal in God is not a riddle to be solved or a reward to be earned.  Heaven is an assurance, not an “only-if-you-are-good” tease.  We can go to sleep each night in the truth of God’s love and wake each morning in the promise of God’s Holy Spirit.  All our life belongs to God.  

                              Blessed be the name of our God!