Community Church Sermons

Year A

November 6, 2011

Pentecost 21

All Saints Sunday

Watching for Heaven

Matthew 25:1-13

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Senior Pastor

LISTEN IN!

Today, we turn our eyes toward heaven. All Saints Sunday invites us to remember those loved ones who have gone on to heaven before us. It also encourages us to look into the future of our own lives.

Someone recently asked me if I believe in heaven. I said, “Yes,” and, “No.”

Let me explain.

The heaven I don’t believe in is the heaven that lets people off the hook for living irresponsibly in this world. A man walks down the aisle to accept Christ and to receive the promise of heaven. Then he goes home and beats his wife, expecting that his faith in Christ trumps his crime against his spouse.

I don’t believe in that kind of heaven. Do you?

A teenager confesses her faith in Christ because her youth leader has convinced her that without doing so she will burn eternally in the flames of hell. So she fearfully and tearfully comes to the Lord in order to avoid hell and go to heaven instead. Heaven is nothing more than an alternative to hell.

I don’t believe in that kind of heaven either. Do you?

And I do not believe in the kind of heaven that Christians often offer to those who suffer life’s injustices. The future promise of a heaven is of no help to a mother whose children are starving, or to a man who can’t find work. When heaven becomes an excuse for us not working for peace and justice here on earth, that heaven is long ways from the kind of heaven we are taught about in the Bible.

Jesus did not go around Galilee inviting people to go to heaven. No, he went around inviting people to come and follow him. Not once did he say to anyone, “Come and follow me and you’ll go to heaven when you die.” No, he simply said, “Come and follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.” And doing so, Jesus taught, will bring about the kingdom of heaven in other’s lives, our own lives, and our world. And when we die, that gift of heaven will open even wider to us and bless us with life beyond our wildest imagination. Heaven is what the road of faith turns into when we walk faithfully with the Lord.

Today is a special day set apart in the Church to think about heaven and those who have already finished the journey. I’m sure that you have already brought to mind mothers and fathers and siblings and children and relatives and neighbors and friends. It is good to remember them and to give thanks once again for the gift of their lives and for their gifts of love to us. Thank you, God, for all the saints.

But remembering the saints is not enough. This is the day in the life of the Christian Church when we recognize what God has done for our loved ones through the experience of death. So today, we not only lift our eyes to heaven, but we also look death straight in the eye. This is not something we like to do. Many of us avoid even thinking about death. We live in a death-denying world. But as someone has said about this life: “Nobody gets out of here alive.” Not you. Not me. Not any of us.

So what about death – and God – and heaven?

I’ve read a lot about death, studied the subject, and have heard many sermons about it. But I have to say that most of what I think I know about death I learned from my mother.

She was in her 70’s when she was diagnosed with COPD – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. The doctor pulled no punches with her and told her that the disease was advanced in her case, there would be no cure, and that it eventually would take her life. She seemed to handle the news pretty well, and watching her that day in the doctor’s office, I knew that her very strong Christian faith was holding her up. My mom was one of those people who looked daily for the second-coming of Christ. She read all those books, and watched the news every day to look for the signs of the end. My mother so wanted to be with Jesus and – most importantly – to be reunited with my dad. He had died at 50 years of age, and she missed him terribly. It seemed to me the doctor was telling her it would not be long until her hopes were fulfilled – she would be with Jesus – and with the man she loved. What an amazing faith my mother had!

A nurse brought us into a little office where she helped my mother create medical directives. My mother didn’t quite understand, so the nurse said, “Mrs. Singley, if we were to come into your apartment and find you unconscious on the floor and not breathing, would you want us to try to resuscitate you?”

Because of her strong faith and desire to be with Jesus and my dad, I knew what my mother would say. Or so I thought.

“OF COURSE I’D WANT YOU TO RESUSCITATE ME!” my mother said, shocking me and Sandy and even the nurse!

So the nurse continued, “Okay…let’s try it this way. If we found you that way and got you to a hospital, would you want us to use machines and tubes and extraordinary measures to try to keep you artificially alive?”

“OF COURSE!” my mother said.

“And if you were in a coma and we were able to keep your body alive but only with machines and artificial devices, how long would you want us to continue?”

My mother paused for a moment as if calculating and then said, “Well, FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS ANYWAYS!”

And that’s why I say that most of what I think I know about death I learned from my mother. She – like us – did not want to die! And lest you think her attitude revealed a faith that was not really as strong as it seemed on the surface, let me say that what I learned from my mother about death is more deeply faithful and biblical than I realized at the time.

We live in a society that works very hard at denying death, and one of the ways we do it is kind of surprising. All around us are voices that try to convince us that, “Death is just a natural part of life.”

Really!? Because of my mother, I find myself asking questions about that. I hope you don’t find them unfaithful questions. Maybe they are questions you ask too. Questions like this:

If death is just a natural part of life, doesn’t that mean that we were created only to die? What kind of life is that? What kind of Creator would do something like that – create people just to die?

Another question: If death is just a natural part of life, then why does it feel so UNnatural? We don’t even want to think about it, let alone deal with it when it comes into our families. And why do we GRIEVE as we do when death comes, as if we have been delivered a blow to the very soul within us? And if death is just a part of life, why do we do everything in our power to avoid death - including eating food we don’t even like, and meeting Tim Meadows up at the Wellness Center at ungodly hours where we spend an hour or so torturing our bodies as if we can actually get away from the Grim Reaper?

And if death is just a natural part of life, then why do people of faith who look forward to heaven and the life everlasting - people like my mother – and maybe like you – why do they fight it to the very end? And if death is just a natural part of life, why do we all nod our heads in agreement and keep the beat as Kenny Chesney sings, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody want to go now”?

But here’s the most important question of all: If death is just a natural part of life, then why does the Bible call death an “enemy?” 1 Corinthians 15:26 tells us that when Christ returns the last enemy to be defeated is…death. Death is the enemy.

And my mother’s refusal to give in to death, and the resistance you may feel in your heart about dying, are really echoes of the Spirit’s voice within us, and of the biblical teaching that death is not the life God created us for.

Now this is not to say that Christians should ever deny the reality of death or avoid preparing for it. And this is not to say that we should continue chemotherapy or other treatments when there is no hope, or when the treatment causes more suffering, or even when we just get tired of it all and are ready to let go. This does not mean that we should prolong existence by means of machines and medicines and extraordinary measures when life is gone or no longer has quality. As Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time to be born and a time to die.” Death is a reality.

But death is our enemy.

Let me tell you why my mother – person of faith that she was – answered the nurse’s questions the way she did.

My mother loved her life.

She loved her children, and grandchildren. She loved her church. She loved religious shows on TV and studying the bible. My mother loved drinking milk and eating Mallomar Cookies. She loved reading about the scandals of the Kennedy family, and about organized crime. She loved her afternoon nap, and talking on the phone with my sister. My mother loved her little apartment, and the picture of my dad that was set on the old cedar chest. My mother loved to write, and she was a great writer. And she loved to paint – even when she was nearly blind.

To others, my mother’s life may not have seemed like much, but to her it was a rich life – a gift from God – and she was not going to give it up without a fight. And all the way to the final moments, my mother squeezed everything she could out of the life God had given her. And when we who loved her knew it was time to remove the breathing tube and end the treatments, we knew we were not giving her over to death but instead to the God who created her for life, and who loved her life as much as she did!.

God loves LIFE. God loves YOUR life as much as you do!

And God is not about to give it up!

So he sent Jesus, and Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full!”

Life is not about dying. Life is about living all your days as fully as they can be lived, and when death the enemy comes, to trust the God who loves your life, and who is stronger than death, to overcome the enemy and give you life in all its abundance. And here are the saints, surrounding us today like a great cloud of witnesses, to tell us its true!

God loves life! God loves YOUR life!

The whole sweep of the biblical narrative is about a God who loves us so much that He promises to overcome this enemy called “death.”

To the Thessalonians, he says through Paul that they can be sure our loved ones are safe in his keeping, and that there is coming a day when we will be together with them and with the Lord – celebrating LIFE! In the meantime, we are told, it’s okay to miss them, and to grieve their passing from our lives. But, as Paul writes, “We do not grieve as those who have no hope.” Cling to the hope of heaven’s promise – LIFE WINS!

And to the bridesmaids in the parable from Matthew, the Lord teaches us how we should live in advance of the day when heaven comes, “Keep watch, and keep working for you never know when the moment will come when the Lord returns, or when you will go to the Lord.” In other words, live your life for all its worth. Live as a follower of Jesus Christ. Live faithfully!

And to all of us, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. They who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live!”

Do you believe in Jesus?

Then believe in LIFE!

And come, dear friends, and follow him…all the way to heaven.