Heaven Come Near - a sermon

“The Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near”

Rev Alison Longstaff, October 19, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 9: 1-4; Matthew 4: 12-17; HS 3195 [2]

  

This sermon is in anticipation of All Saints Day and All Souls Day, both of which are drawing near.   In this sermon I play around with the gender of God.  Use the gender you prefer in your own mind.  Here we go:

“The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” 

These were the final words of our Gospel reading today: “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”  

What feelings does that phrase evoke in you?   

“The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

When I truly sit still with this statement, it evokes a sort of trembling awe.  It is as if my spirit becomes quite still, and my eyes and ears open wide.  There is a kind of inner excitement and anticipation.

But that reaction isn't true every time I see this sentence from scripture.  Sometimes it brings up quite another response.  After all, the full phrase is: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” And on days when I feel like a failure, and when I doubt my worth and lovability, my response might rather be to pull the blankets up over my head and whimper, “Kingdom of Heaven, please go away.” I feel too overwhelmed by my own flaws, and tend think that the “Kingdom of Heaven” drawing near would just make me feel extra unworthy in contrast.

But I’m talking to Swedenborgians, and Swedenborgians in particular are very good at remembering that God is a God of Love and Mercy, not judgment.  Right?  Right? 

          

Well, whatever we feel, I bet we could all agree that God probably doesn't want us cringing and cowering away from His outreaching love.  S/he does NOT want us, when we think of the Divine, to expect a beating.  After all, what loving parent would ever want their child to respond to their approach by cringing away in fear?  When God draws near, God always lifts us up in love.  It is we who judge so harshly, and then we project it onto God.             

So, having said this, why would God say, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near”? It sounds rather shaming.

I do know that when God draws very near to us, we can get a sense of the overwhelming Divine Love for us all.  And anyone who has felt this great love—this transformative, redemptive, passionate delight in us—cannot help but be changed.  Experience just one close encounter with the Divine Love, and one changes, which is another way of saying one “repents.”  Being changed by God’s love is just as genuine a repentance as any shame-filled, hand-wringing litany of all the ways we've messed up. In fact, self-shaming without any redeeming compassion or sense of God’s love and forgiveness is an incomplete repentance. 

After all, “repent” means “re-think” or even “re-frame.” Repentance means seeing things in a whole new way.  Repentance doesn't have to involve feeling bad or beating ourselves up at all.

 

Yes. Repentance means seeing things in a whole new way.  Why else would Scripture say, “The people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light?”  We see things in a whole new light when God’s great Love enters our life.  That is the effect of God drawing near: new love; new sight.

Who are the people that walk in darkness?  All of us. All of us. You and me and Joe the mechanic down the road....  In fact, most of us most of the time “walk in darkness.”  But eventually there are times in each of our lives, each differently, when the kingdom of heaven draws near, and we feel touched, we feel changed, and things look suddenly much different. Upon each of us, the light does shine. God is near each of us, all the time, and sometimes we can feel this.

Let's each take some time to reflect on if and when such encounters with the divine might have happened in our lives.  Sometimes these experiences are quite profound and sometimes so very gentle that they might be described as a whisper into our consciousness, or a “still, small voice.”  What, if anything, has happened to you in your lifetime, that you felt, or maybe thought you sensed something quite extraordinary and sacred move just beyond the veil of the ordinary?

Just sit with that a moment.

I had such an experience in my hospital training when I witnessed a “Code Blue”.  I stood with the other chaplain just outside a gentleman’s room while the emergency team worked urgently to keep this man’s spirit in his body.  Instead of fear or sadness, I was filled with a sense of overwhelming beauty.  The absolute focus and silent respect of the medical team and the prolonged endurance of their fight to bring this gentleman’s spirit back affected me deeply.  It was rather like an honour guard standing in respect at the passing of a great leader. 

And all the while I had an indescribable sense that the man was somewhere up above, watching the whole show, not the least bit upset, hand in hand with his partner who had been waiting for him.  Call me fanciful.  I don’t know what is true about any of what I sensed that day.  But as I passed through that experience, I got goose bumps. Something, that I choose to call “heaven,” was near. 

It turned out that the gentleman did indeed pass on. The medical team called the time of death. Then it was time for the pastoral team to move in to support of the grieving family.  It was terribly sad, and yet the witness of their grief and the team’s expertise and compassion was terribly ... beautiful.

Celtic spirituality uses the term, “thin places” to describe physical locations where they believe that the veil between the spiritual realm and the physical world are particularly thin.  Pilgrims seek these places out in Scotland, Ireland, and England in search of a spiritual encounter, a new direction, or a new sense of self or mission.  Sedona in Arizona is also considered such a place. 

But I don’t know if we need to go anywhere to seek out the thinning veil, though there is nothing wrong with doing so.  In my experience, it finds us.  Did I sense a thinning of the veil when that man passed through?  I don’t know. I think so. I do believe the thinning veil happens all the time, though we generally don’t have ears to hear or eyes to see it.  Maybe there are places on the earth where it is easier to sense things on the other side. But most people I know have had some experience where they sensed a divine presence, or felt there was something deeper and sacred overlaying a quite ordinary experience, regardless of where they were on the planet.  And I believe this sort of experience is heaven drawing near, no less and no more.  I also believe that God guides even whether we are open or not open to such encounters, so we are not doing something wrong if we don’t have such experiences often.  I don’t think we need to stress about any of it, but just simply to sit in stillness and awe if it happens to us.

In our culture, we tend to dismiss such happenings.  We tend to doubt our own inner experiences, even the most profound.  Why is that?  Well, one reason might be that such spiritual events, such divine encounters leave no evidence, they leave nothing scientifically measurable as proof of their passing.  They leave only a mark on our hearts—not on our physical heart muscle—but on our spiritual heart, on our love. We can’t measure such experiences or record them or photograph them or get a certificate of authenticity for them. Anyone not open to the mystical tends to ignore such things.

Also, when God draws that close, and touches our hearts, it can be so intimate, that we may not want to share it.  We may scarcely dare to acknowledge it to ourselves, let alone anyone else.  We know just how ready the world is to mock stories of such experiences, and scourge them and crucify them. So it is understandable that we tend to keep such experiences quietly to ourselves.

With that said, let me reassure you that nobody needs to raise their hands—just answer quietly inside yourself—in what ways have you ever sensed the kingdom of heaven drawing near?  Perhaps you think you never have, and maybe that is true.  If it is, that is nothing to stress about either. We are all made differently, and God designed each one of us, perfectly formed for the task S/He has in mind for us.  Some of us are particularly sensitive that way, some less so.

I consider myself rather dense to spiritual reality.  Of the few experiences I have had, all but one could be written off as a fanciful imagination.  God protects even my freedom to believe in them or not.  But I do know, that whatever these experiences are—that so many of us have and are afraid even to admit to ourselves—they leave us changed.  We’re never quite the same afterwards.  We may have felt goose bumps, or a racing heart, or felt slightly shaky during the encounter. We may have seen things or heard things a little out of the ordinary.  If it is positive, it is heaven drawing near.

Think about it: if God loves us so much that He was willing to die for us; if God says She is always knocking and all we have to do is open our hearts; then maybe, just maybe, the kingdom of heaven is nearer than we ever imagined, and maybe that little thrill you felt as you watched the candles being lit, or that new baby sleep, or the way the light fell across the fields when you drove in here, wasn't just a nice feeling, but God’s hand, brushing the hair out of your eyes.  Maybe, just maybe, God is very close indeed, just waiting for the day we open your eyes and look Him or Her full in the face and smile.

The kingdom of heaven is drawing nearer all the time and we do not need to be afraid of it.  All we need to do is allow it to be so, and trust that God has our future for good in mind.  Repent?  Of course we repent!  If you are like me, I’m always thinking and rethinking whether I’m good enough or doing the right thing.  I can’t help it.  God might just wish I worried less about whether I’m good enough, not more.  But in any case, I do know our spiritual well-being is always in God’s sight, and we can see it in our glimpses of the light of God’s love for us, and the warm feelings that stir whenever heaven draws near.  And heaven is always nearer than you might think.

And so, as we leave this place of worship today and head out into our lives, let’s see if we can be a little more attentive to the whispers of God’s presence in our lives.  Let’s see if we can notice the brush of His robes, the whir of angels wings, and the warmth of Her steadying hand in our lives over the coming weeks, and be comforted, for the kingdom of heaven is indeed drawing near. Amen.

The Readings

Isaiah 9: 1-4

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan— The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.  For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.

Matthew 4: 12-17

When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee.  Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Heavenly Secrets 3195 [2] 

In the Word frequent mention is made of “light.”  The inner meaning of “light” is right-thinking from a good heart. On the deepest level of the Word “light” means the Lord Himself, because S/He is goodness itself and truth itself.  There actually is light in heaven, yet it is infinitely brighter than the light on earth.  Spirits and angels see one another and all the beauty of heaven by this heavenly light. The light of heaven seems to be just like the light on earth; but it is not like it, for it is spiritual in nature.  It is made out of wisdom; so that it is actually wisdom which illuminates the eyes of the angels.  The wiser the angels are, the brighter is the light in which they are.  This light shines within the understanding of mortals, especially within the minds of mortals who are actively pursuing a heavenly life.