On Earth as it is in Heaven
Since Easter, we have explored what it means to us and to the world beyond us that:
A disciple experiences the forgiveness and acceptance of God
A disciple follows the life and teachings of Jesus Christ
A disciple demonstrates the fruit of the Spirit
A disciple shares in the life and witness of a community of disciples
A disciple serves in some form of ministry every day
A disciple anticipates a future life in the presence of God….
Last week, we talked about sharing at the table – about communion as one way that we actively live into or practice living in the presence of God. At this table, we gather with the communion of saints – past, present and future. We receive bread and juice, we nourish our bodies and we pray for oneness, anticipating that this is how it will naturally be when Christ comes in final victory.
This week, we are exploring some of Jesus’ teaching about the “Kingdom of Heaven” in the gospel of Matthew. We are exploring why the prayer we are taught as early Christians includes the petition that God’s kingdom come on earth as in heaven. We are exploring this in order to understand how it is that we anticipate a future life in the presence of God.
Some were taught from an early age that we are all living for the day when we are transported through some amazing pearly gates to a place called heaven. All of the weight of the physical world will be past us and we will live into an amazing uncomplicated and joyous life in the presence of God with all those we love.
I want to slow us down a bit. It would seem, from Jesus’ teaching, much of that could be available here and now.
There is an escapist quality to thinking of heaven as a place beyond here, so much different from here, where everything is resolved. Where we get away from the hard things of life.
There is a delayed promise – that there are just some things that are just too hard and our work is to seek an ultimate reward which is separate and apart from this time and place.
The idea of a heaven that is beyond this place has been offered as a lifeline for the historically oppressed. The notion of “being good so that….” you have an ultimate reward is a carrot on a stick always out before us. So many black spirituals were (and are) rooted in an historic promise that beyond the life of slavery or racial oppression, there is freedom in heaven with God. But beyond all this. You have to get through all of this.
Think about it….
I’ll fly away…
Marching to Zion…
Steal Away to Jesus…
It is possible that this interpretation of “heaven” and the Kingdom of God is a handy tool for oppression. If you are good, if you mind the rules, then there is a divine reward.
Who makes the rules?
Well, God does.
But who has typically interpreted those rules?
Whatever human holds power over another. And so….I confess that I am a little uncomfortable with the “at a glance” interpretation of this week’s particular mark of being a disciple – that a disciple anticipates a future in the presence of God.
And it would seem to me that the God of creation is pretty cruel if the expectation is that some folks live oppressed lives – but the good news is that heaven awaits!
Our scripture for today sits in the midst of a LONG teaching that Jesus does with a gathered crowd. This long teaching begins with the beatitudes, where Jesus proclaims a blessing on the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted…the falsely accused.
From today’s scripture, after explaining wrong ways to pray, Jesus teaches a bare bones basic prayer to thousands. And in that, Jesus instructs folks to call on the kingdom of heaven in their midst.
In the here and now.
As if heaven was right here and right now.
What is that about? What does that even mean?
Matthew’s gospel is written to a primarily Jewish-Christian or Christian-Jewish audience. They seem cut off from gentile Christians – probably believing that Jesus was a Jew and therefore his teaching was for the Jews – but they were also living in some sort of tension with the Pharisee leaders of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple. And there was also, of course, the foreign occupying power of Rome.
So…the writer is pushing back against the Pharisees throughout the text, pushing back on political rule and power over God’s power, highlighting the risk of false teaching, and lifting up an obligation to the marginalized and oppressed.
It’s like a guidebook for any age, amen?
Throughout Matthew’s gospel, Jesus teaches about the “Kingdom of Heaven.” In the other Gospels it is more often referred to as the Kingdom of God – but a good Jewish teacher would not speak God’s name and therefore “Kingdom of Heaven” got to the idea but avoided articulating the name of the most Holy for this particular audience.
The Kingdom of Heaven would have been a concept deeply familiar to Jews – who would have understood God as ultimate – God’s “reign” defined God’s ruling power and the expansiveness of it – geographically, socially, theologically.
So…Jesus, referring to the Kingdom of Heaven throughout the gospel of Matthew is not setting everyone’s sights on something that is beyond them. He’s teaching them, again and again, that the kingdom of heaven is in their midst.
His very presence is a sign of the Kingdom. God is so near that the Son of God is walking and breathing, eating and teaching in flesh, right there with them on a hillside. This same person in flesh is quoted in John’s gospel – I come that they might have life and have it in abundance.
He’s calling them to stop giving up on this life and to be concerned about the welfare of others right here and now.
When you pray, pray like this –
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth right here and now as it will be in heaven.
What would it look like for each of us to dedicate our lives to fostering the Kingdom of Heaven right in our midst? Do we pray that with clear eyes and hopes for what it means for the oppressed, the marginalized, the meek, the mourning?
I have a confession.
My father, a preacher’s kid, had rejected so much of the traditional Christian teaching that his own father preached from for a lifetime because as a child, my father had lived in the hypocrisy of the institutional church. He had watched my grandfather’s congregations withhold pay because he preached full inclusion of black people or because he supported unionizing underpaid workers. He watched crosses burnt on the lawn of the parsonage and knew that my grandfather recognized the eyes of Klansmen behind the white hoods because they were sitting in the pews in front of him on a Sunday morning.
Some of my deep theological truths, shaped by study and deep dives in scripture, were planted by my dad pushing back on the hypocrisy of the church as he lived it.
And about heaven, my dad always said – we make our own heaven and our own hell – both in the here and now.
Actually, what he really said, in an exchange he and I had via email in the weeks before he died of cancer was this:
“I do not believe in a vengeful God, Laura. I believe in a hands-off God who allows us to create our own heaven and our own hell. I may believe in Armageddon if we don’t care for the planet God has given us. And I may believe that the earth is a huge single cell which we must keep in health….”
This he said after a series of apologies about not being “learned” and fearing he had become the student and I the teacher.
What a gift this exchange was. Because life had taught him so much more about God than the church had.
Here’s what I take from the scriptures, from the tradition, from the Holy Spirit and from experience.
We are living in the both/and.
We are living in the already and the not yet.
We proclaim that Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.
Has, Is, Will. All at the same time.
And I believe we cannot understand what it means to anticipate a future in the presence of God if we are not seeking it right here and now.
I believe we can live as if we anticipate a future in the presence of God unless we are practicing that living in the here and now.
KMy study this week led me to a new expression that helps…I have been reminding us throughout this season that God is near. BUT God is also ultimate.
We cannot know the ultimate God if we are not seeking the God who is near.
So are we praying for God’s will and kingdom, on earth as in heaven?
Are we praying with our mouths?
And perhaps more importantly, are we praying with our feet and our hands?
With our bank accounts and our time?
Are we praying with our choices?
On earth as it is in heaven.
May it be so.
Amen.
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