Introduction to the series:

You asked for it! These are the sermons that make you and others squirm, the sermons you requested. The purpose of the Squirmin' Sermon series is to reflect together on theological, biblical, and social concerns that are important to you. We hope it is helpful to have combinations of the pastoral staff teaching, and that our divergent approaches and views are useful in supporting your faith journey, triggering your thinking, and challenging your spirituality, study, and service.

Doug Huneke

A Mankoff cartoon in The New Yorker showed an elderly couple sitting in rocking chairs on their porch and he is saying, "No, I don't want to live forever, but I damn sure don't want to be dead forever, either." And to that I say, Amen! Your most frequently asked Squirmin' questions were about the afterlife, heaven, who was going, when we're leaving, and why we would want to go there.

Let me kick this off by saying that my still vital youthful romanticism imagines the heaven of Revelation 21: God's domain with streets paved in precious gems and minerals, and where there are no walls, tears, sorrow, or death.

I do not, however, live my life or base my trust on my romanticism. For me, the afterlife and heaven are beyond time and space, and utterly indescribable -- they are known only to the mind and heart of God. But there is more, heaven is not just about something that comes after I draw my last breath. I know eternity as well in those "heaven's of the moment" that come when I pay attention to the daily experiences and feelings of serenity, ecstasy, meaning, love, and the fullness of life.

Several questions focused on the timing of the afterlife, wondering if it came at death or in what the Bible calls the last or final resurrection. My personal lived experience is that bodily resurrection is less about this frail vessel that holds the core of my being than it is about the full and complete reunion of my spirit and soul with the divine Presence, with ultimate serenity in God's peaceable commonwealth.

Kirk Bingaman

From your experience as a pastoral counselor what's causing us to place such importance on the afterlife and heaven? Is it that series of Left Behind books or is there a deeper anxiety working here?

Response:

Is there a literal heaven and afterlife, an actual place with physicality that is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, "real"? This, by the way, is only something that a people under the influence of the age of science, technology, and reason would ask: Is it really real, in a measurable and materialistic sense? But what if heaven or an afterlife is something other than or more than mere physical reality? If it really does exist, it will inevitably be beyond our wildest imagination.

So maybe, then, the issue is not so much, what will heaven look like or what will its defining characteristics be. Maybe this is something we ought to shelve or place on the backburner, and simply confess that, in the words of the Creed, I believe in a God who made a heaven and an earth, and leave it at that. All of which is easier said than done, especially in these uncertain and unpredictable times: when there are wars and rumors of war, when there is SARS and Anthrax and terrorism, and rumors of SARS and Anthrax and terrorism, when we are on pins and needles with the economy.

Witness the overwhelming success of the apocalyptic writer Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" series of novels — an espousing of "end times" or "last days" or "end of the world" theology. It is, however, important to keep in mind that there is nothing new under the sun. Since the days of the early church, every generation of Christians has had its share of harbingers, announcing that we are living in the final days of human history. Only now it tends to be exceptionally lucrative.

Hal Lindsey, for example, back in the 1970's, wrote "The Late Great Planet Earth," which is the second all-time best-selling book after the Bible. Lindsey made the bold prediction that Jesus would return before the 1980's were over. He was later lampooned in a popular magazine as such: standing outside Chase Manhattan Bank, saying, "Ah, so I was wrong."

There is nothing new under the sun, and that goes for human fear and anxiety. When our fears and anxiety are most acute, when we are living in time of crisis, we want authentic hope in a God who is steadfast, who is faithful to the promise, "I am with you always, even until the end of time." And, I would add, even beyond the end of time.

Not that we should spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how the end of time will unfold, and how we will get from Point A to Point B, from this world to the next. This is for God to worry with. Quite honestly, if you are like me, it is already a tall enough order trying to live by the spirit of the Great Commandment - to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and my neighbor as myself — without trying to divine the secrets of the future.

I believe in a God who made an earth that I see and a heaven that I will one day see, whatever that might mean and however that might look. Enough said. Let us direct our attention toward the fulfillment of the Great Commandment.

Bethany Nelson (8:30 service)

Personally and in your work with the youth how do you think of heaven and the future?

Response:

In today's world, with cable and the internet, we can see a visual picture of just about anything. Want to tour the Great Wall of China or see an archeological dig in Africa without leaving your living room? No problem. Not just the youth, but all of us are innundated daily with visual images. But - - none of us has ever seen heaven. None of us has ever seen what happens after we die, where we go, or what we do. So when I think about heaven and the future, I try to get away from the need for proof — especially visual proof. I like to remember the story of Thomas, that disciple who wasn't with the others when Jesus appeared to them after the Resurrection. Thomas refused to believe what his friends were telling him because he had not seen it with his own eyes. Jesus did end up giving him the proof he so desperately wanted, but what were his parting words to Thomas? "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." So let's stop asking questions about heaven, because chances are we're not going to get the proof that Thomas got. Let's stop being filled with fear and anxiety about what happens after we die. Listen to the scriptures we just heard. From Romans — Not even death will separate us from the love of God. And from John — Do not let your hearts be troubled. We don't have to be afraid. We just have to believe. Believe that heaven exists. Believe that it is a wonderful place filled with God's love. Even though we have not see, or don't have answers to all those questions, we can believe.

Ted Scott (10:00 service)

Would you talk about your personal experiences with death and spirit, and how you connect these to New Testament Christianity.

Response:

Our theme today is life after death, and heaven. The questions are focused on what we believe as Christians, or what one should believe. Some points in response:

1. Jesus is our great and inspired teacher. He has authority because he stood far out there in his level of personal knowledge about spiritual matters. He clearly taught and seemed to know about life beyond death, even before the crucifixion and resurrection. He is reported to have brought people back from death (Lazarus). He spoke constantly of a reality that was bigger than just this one, of a Father Spirit that embraced us in this life and the next. He said things like "I go to prepare a place for you. In my father's house are many rooms." So our teacher gives confidence.
2. Then we have the confidence of people in the early church, who despite persecution even to the point of being killed were confident that they were in God's care. These were the same people who had been frightened and heartsick when Jesus was crucified. What stood out very soon after was that they were unafraid of death, and believed that Christ had arisen and conquered death. Their stance impressed many–just read Acts, the story of the very early church--and fueled the growth of the church. Paul, writing his letters only a few years after Jesus death, also illustrates this fearless resurrection confidence. And of course there is the great visionary statement from the author of Revelations.
3. Reinforcing the confident stance of Jesus and the early church are my own experiences of people after death and near death. An example is my own Father. In the days before he died, as he lay comatose, I was aware of two simultaneous realities. First, a very old helpless man at the end of his life and physical strength. Second, and paradoxically, a sense of expanded spirit which grew to fill his and my mother's bedroom. After he died I experienced his presence in that room but also bursting forth beyond it. Others did as well. Since then I have experienced him on several occasions. These experiences are not woo-woo for me. No séances or mediums required. They are no more strange than our presence here today. Many others can testify to similar experiences with friends and loved ones. So this speaks to the question of how we know there is an afterlife, and who is at peace with and in God.
4. I've spoken until now of life after death. But as Kirk, Doug and Barb suggest, there's also the issue of death-in-the-midst-of-life. Death right now, death of the spirit. The great challenge of being alive is staying alive, really awake and aware to the miracle of this moment, rather than being bored or satiated or angered or distracted away from this current living reality, this moment. One of the Buddhist contributions is their focus on awareness, awake-ness, mindfulness right now. Jesus was fully alive in his life. And the early Christians were confidently and boldly alive in the Spirit. Paul speaks of this as Christ-mind, Christ-mindfulness. In that mind we can experience and have glimpses of heaven now. We don't have to wait.

Barbara Rowe

In Judaism's Mishnah [Abhoth] it is written, "Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than the whole of the life in the World-to-Come." How do you view this in light of Jesus' life and teachings? How do we live in this world and inherit the world to come?

Response:

As Doug said, many of your topics focused on the meaning of heaven. Is it something we experience during our physical lives or sometime that comes after? What will it be like? Where is it? If I manage to get there, will the people I love be there, too? What about the others?? The truth of the matter is that the Bible doesn't give us much detail. The Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, say very little about afterlife. In the Gospels, during his ministry Jesus focused primarily on the present, willing to risk his own life as he attempted to turn the status quo upside down. Instead of living the conventional wisdom that people deserved their condition of being cold or hungry, sick or thirsty, blind or disabled, lonely or psychologically imprisoned; instead, Jesus demonstrated God's hope for abundant life for all people by healing and offering hope to each person he met. In Matthew 25, he said that whoever feeds, clothes, offers drink, or visits those in need has done the same for him and will inherit eternal life…eternal life. In Matthew 7, Jesus said, "It is not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,' who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven." It is not empty worship but worship that shows through in our living that is the key to Heaven. We say in his prayer, "Thy kingdom come. They will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Based on the words of Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven would be here on earth if we did the following: 1) truly cared for each other, 2) used only what we need so there is enough for all, 3) recognized all people as children and adults of God in our thoughts and in our actions, and 4) loved God above everything else in our lives. Jesus is divine because God lived in him modeling Heaven for us. We know glimpses of heaven during our own lives when we experience God's peace in our deepest soul and in our authentic, caring relations with others.

In Paul's time, the church at Corinth was having a similar discussion about the meaning of the resurrection of the dead and the afterlife. He wrote to them: "Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed…." When that happens, ‘Death will be swallowed up in victory.'…Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." Paul's words encourage us to trust in God's mystery, to believe that we will be changed and death will not have the final word. In the meantime, we are invited to live our lives excelling in God's work. All scripture affirms God who does not abandon us at the point of physical death but welcomes us into the mystery — in the twinkling of an eye.

Open Discussion

The following questions were extemporaneously addressed by the speakers, and were not recorded. The responses shown are those of Doug Huneke.

• Who is going to heaven -- what about those who believe in God but practice a different faith? All matters of moral and spiritual judgment belong to God and not to us playing God. I have absolute confidence in God's inclusive love, grace, and mercy. Grace enables us to overcome our fear that we won't make it to heaven, and dispels our fantasy that those we disdain are going to hell!

• What's so good about heaven -- especially if there is nothing to do but sit around and adore God? To think of doing things in heaven is part of the romanticism that places heaven back into time and space. We need to be careful of thinking that heaven is a celestial amusement park: GodWorld, so to speak. Minimally, heaven is pure union with God; anything else is a reflection of the longings that come with human loss, grief, and fear.

• When are we going: when we die or at the final resurrection? Seven years ago I had a cardiac event and my blood pressure was bottoming out. I went into a place of absolute serenity, peace, and calm -- there are no words adequate for the experience. The unutterable peace leads me to believe that our spirits and souls are immediately united with God. What comes after that is anyone's guess.

This is the life that God has given us and we are to live it fully -- here and in the world to come, free of every concern about death.

In summary, the five of us are very much in the same place. Through our personal experiences and ministry we affirm the truth of Romans 8: ultimately, there is nothing, not even death or our questions, our certainty or uncertainty about the afterlife and heaven, that can break our union with Christ, from the love of God in Christ Jesus.