I love funerals. I know that’s sort of weird, but I do. And why? Because funerals have so much to teach us
about being alive.
After last Saturday’s funeral, a couple of
parishioners said they were surprised at what they’d heard me say – that a Christian
view of eternal life means we continue to be us, the same people we’ve been
here in our first chapters of eternal existence. They said that message was important enough
that I should preach it sometime on a Sunday, when more people would hear it. And today, here’s Jesus talking about eternal
life in the Gospel reading, including maybe his most famous line, John 3:16 – “God
so loved the world that he gave his only Son that everyone who believes in him
may not perish but have eternal life.” Seems
like the timing is right for the sermon those parishioners were asking for.
So, here’s what I said at that funeral. The reading was from First Corinthians,
chapter 15, which is where the apostle Paul lays out most clearly the Christian
hope. If Christ has been raised from the
dead, and if we follow Christ’s path, then we, too, will live in
resurrection. For Paul, that means something
very specific. It does not mean simply
that our memories will live on among those we love. It does not mean we will be disembodied
spirits, floating on the clouds. It does
not mean we will come back here as someone or something else, punished or
rewarded with another harder or easier shot at living. For Paul, the next chapter of eternal life is
specifically your life, continued.
Death will be no more, and the body we’ve watched decline will be “raised
a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44) – made new, and whole, and without decay, but somehow
a body still – and not just any body.
In eternal life, we unique children of God can keep living, as us, forever.
Now, we often act like that statement must
be true for everyone – that if you’ve been alive, eternal life is waiting for
you. Instead, Christian teaching would say
that what’s awaiting everyone is “the general resurrection” – that when Jesus
returns in glory, the dead will be raised for judgment, some coming to know “eternal
life in [their] enjoyment of God” and some coming to know “eternal death in [their]
rejection of God,” as our prayer book’s catechism put it (862). So, the question isn’t whether
resurrection will happen; the question is what awaits us afterward – living
forever in relationship with God and others … or not?
Most of us here in the Episcopal Church
aren’t crazy about judgment. In fact, for
some of us, that’s why we’re here. We’re
much more comfortable being functional universalists, assuming that, in the
fullness of time, life with God and neighbor will continue for everybody. On one hand, I think there’s a healthy
humility in that, in recognizing that God is the one who makes the call about
how person A or person B will spend eternity, not me. But there’s this pesky doctrine of free will
that gets in the way of universalism. Here’s
what I mean: If we’re free to choose what
path to follow, it stands to reason that some will decline God’s invitation to walk
the way of love. And God respects our
free will enough to let us to follow our own path, if that’s what we choose.
I think that’s where Jesus is going in our
Gospel reading today. Nicodemus, one of
the religious leaders, comes to Jesus, not to give him trouble but because he’s
basically on board, acknowledging that Jesus is indeed a teacher sent by God. As we might say, Nicodemus doesn’t disagree
with Jesus. He just doesn’t understand what’s
behind the signs he’s doing.
My guess is that Nicodemus is looking for
proof from the Hebrew Scriptures pointing to a messiah who acts in such
surprising ways. Or maybe he’d like evidence
from the law of Moses justifying Jesus overturning the tables of the merchants
in the Temple, which is what happened just before this story. Instead, Jesus takes Nicodemus’ curiosity about
God’s kingdom and asks him to look at himself. You like the signs I’m doing? Jesus asks. You want to see the reign and rule of God come
to life here and now? Here’s what you
need: You must “be born from above,” he
says (John 3:7).
What does that mean? Nicodemus asks. Well, Jesus sort of clarifies it this
way: “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and
Spirit,” he says (John 3:5). In other
words, truly human life, fully human life is both physical and
spiritual. And to receive that fully
human life, we have to choose it. In our
first birth, our physical birth, there’s not a lot of choice involved. When bodies get pregnant, babies come, ready
or not. But as for our second birth, our
spiritual birth – well, God asks us to sign on for that ourselves.
And Jesus is astonished that this religious
leader, this “teacher of Israel,” doesn’t already “understand these things”
(3:10). After all, the wind is certainly
real, he says – and, by the way, the same Greek word here, pneuma, means
both “wind” and “spirit.” You know the pneuma
is real when the wind blows your tent down, Jesus says. So you also should know the pneuma is
real when God’s Spirit blows through your life, knocking down what you thought
you knew and pointing you in a new direction.
So, why should this “teacher of Israel”
already have understood such things? Well,
because God’s Spirit has been working that way a long time. Go back to our Old Testament reading today,
one of the fundamental stories of the people of Israel and a paradigm of giving
ourselves over to the Spirit of God blowing where it will. It’s the beginning of the story of Abram, who’s
just out there, minding his own business. Years earlier, Abram had moved with his family
from what’s now southern Iraq to a community on what’s now the border between Syria
and Turkey. They’d settled there, and
built a new life; and now all’s well as Abram is tending his sheep or whatever,
when suddenly God blows in and says: “Go
from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to a land that I
will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Abram
ends up making his way to Canaan, which will become the Holy Land we know. But not only is there no GPS for the journey,
there’s not even a map. In fact, there’s
not even a destination. Instead, there’s
an instruction from God – “go” – and a promise: “I will make of you a great nation,” God says,
“and I will bless you, and make your name great … and in you, all the families
of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)
That’s remarkable enough, but even more remarkable
is what doesn’t come next in the story.
Now, if this happened to us, what would we say? “Well, God, I don’t really want to move, and
why should I believe you anyway? If I’m
going to be blessed, show me.” So, what
does Abram say? We don’t know. We’re told he just goes, as the Lord told him
to; but we aren’t told what might have come between the call and the response.
So, is Abram the automaton the story
makes him out to be? I doubt it. After all, Abram is Abram. Later in Genesis, he’ll go through a long
process of negotiating with God to save the lives of innocent people who might
have been collateral damage from an act of divine judgment,1 so
Abram is no wallflower. In fact, in his
questioning and his arguing, he builds such a close relationship with his Lord that
later Scripture gives him the title, “God’s friend.”2 Now, we don’t hear any of that in today’s
reading. But do you really think that
when God told him to pull up stakes and move his family to an undisclosed
location, Abram just said, “Okey dokey”?
Well, neither does God expect blind
obedience from us. If we thought God expected
blind obedience, our Anglican way wouldn’t include reason as one of the three legs
of the theological stool. So, we don’t
have to be automatons. But we do have to
make a choice.
Go back to the end of the Gospel reading
today: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who
believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Think what it would mean if just a few words
in that text were different. What if it
said, “God so loved the world, that he imposed his only Son, so that everyone
would not perish but have eternal life.”
Well, if it said that, then Christianity would be universalism. But instead, there’s still that pesky gift of
free will. God “gives Jesus in love to
all people, and whoever receives this gift will receive eternal life.”3 It’s not a divine mandate. Love is an offer, and we can take it or leave
it.
So, what does all this have to do with the
parishioner’s question after last week’s funeral? Everything. Both now and for the ages, we are us. Each one of us is a unique child of God made
in the divine image and likeness, and each one of us will continue to be that
unique child of God forever. And as someone
bearing the divine image and likeness, you have the free will to live within God’s
reign and rule … or not. God is gracious
enough not to impose the outcome but to leave the choice to us. But we do have to choose it. And not just once – in an altar call, or a
baptismal rite, or a confirmation – but thousands of times, maybe several times
a day, making the choice to be born from above, to be born anew. We have to look to the one who was lifted up, to
Jesus Christ, as the way toward God, and the truth about God, and the embodiment
of life with God. And then we have to
decide, over and over again, whether we’re willing to let God work through us
to bring divine purposes to life.
So, with Nicodemus, when we come to the end of our conversation with Jesus, when we run out of our baffled questions, when we just stand there, listening – I think what we hear is this: I’m not here to judge you, Jesus says. I’m here to bring you love from the Source of Love itself. But you’ve got to decide whether you want it. It will cost you something. After all, it’s the love that gives itself up for others, the love that lays down its life for its friends and that always rises again. But I won’t push it on you, Jesus says. You’ve got to ask yourself: Eternal life is waiting for me, now and later. Life blazing with God’s own love is beckoning me to walk in it. Am I willing?
1.
Genesis
18:22-33
2.
2
Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23
3.
New Interpreters Study Bible, 1913 (note).
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