Peace on Earth - a sermon for fourth advent

Peace on Earth

Sermon for the Advent of Peace

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Dec 14, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7; Luke 2: 8-14; Heavenly Secrets 8455

Heavenly Secrets 8455

Peace has within it confidence in the Lord, that He is in charge of everything, and is taking care of everything, and that He is leading to a good outcome.  Those who practice this confidence experience this peace; they fear nothing, and no worry about the future disturbs them.  So far as you and I grow in love to the Lord, so far do we experience this state of peace.

The angels proclaimed to the shepherds, "Peace on earth and good will toward all human kind." Some translations render this, "Peace to all whom God favors," but this implies a sort of "gonna find out who's naughty and nice," God—a God who has favorites and who leaves coal in the stockings of the rest of us. That doesn't align with a God of radical grace and love.

It is we humans who expect God to exclude some of us from His love. It is we humans who like to think that some of us are more worthy of God's favor than others. But worthy/unworthy doesn't apply to God's immense and all-encompassing love. God's love is available always and without condition, the way the sunlight shines unceasingly in the heavens. It is barriers inside and around us that make it seem as though God's favor is inconstant. Things in our life can block our ability to feel God's love just the way the clouds sometimes block the sunlight; still God's love shines perpetually and without ceasing, just waiting for our clouds to dissipate once again.

So I believe God desires "Peace on earth, and good will for all human kind," not just a few lucky ones.

But unfortunately current events show that peace and good will toward all human kind is far from the status quo in our world. Indeed it is even far from the status quo in our nation. Would you say that peace and good will exist in this state? In this town? This congregation? How about in your home? What about inside your very heart?

Because they are all connected.

When I think about the decided lack of "peace and good will toward all human kind" on earth, I can get very discouraged. Listening to the news and the choices being made by some of the world's leaders, I can get impatient and frustrated and angry. I want to shout at the idiots who are making the choices that create all the strife and cause so much harm.... Surely we know better by now! Surely we should have learned from our past mistakes and stopped doing such idiotic things to our planet and each other?

But one fact of human kind is that the more anxious we get, the less "mindful" or enlightened we behave. The more threatened we feel, the more the rational mind shuts down, and our less evolved coping strategies take over. It doesn't matter what I may know "with my whole head;" all wisdom will go out the window the minute I am under duress unless I have made an intentional practice of mindfulness and peace-keeping. Peace requires deep trust in the Lord, deep compassion for the neighbor, and intentional peace-keeping behaviors.

So as much as I might enjoy blaming the idiots "out there" for their choices, this probably isn't my most helpful response. It serves the purpose of giving vent to the hurting I feel inside over the human suffering and injustice, but it probably also just contributes to the problem. To quote loosely a Canadian radio comedy, "Tom, Tom, Tom. Do you really think you're going to get greedy, short-sighted, and arrogant people to amend their ways by calling them 'greedy, short-sighted, and arrogant'?" (Dead Dog Cafe) In other words, accusations and name-calling rarely evokes the response we desire. Shouting indignant accusations is often our most immediate response to injustice, but it just makes people defensive, and defensive people are not good listeners.

Now, before I proceed further, I want to talk about true peace and fake peace. True peace comes from a heart at rest—one without malice, that trusts completely in God's providence. There is a reason we call peace "resting in the Lord."

Smiling and saying things are fine when they are not is not true peace. Not allowing dissenting voices does not allow true peace. Covering up unhappiness and silencing complaints creates only a false peace.

True peace requires that all sides have the courage to address the conflict. True peace can be found when all sides probe with compassion the deep sources of the pain and then work to resolve them. True peace can only be found when we become willing to see our own part in the conflict and to make the necessary changes in our response. It requires that we be trustworthy, even when we are not sure the other parties will also be trustworthy.

I am sure we have all had encounters with the person who smiles to our face and then complains to everyone else behind our backs. Perhaps we have even been this person?

It is the default human response to discuss our outrage with anybody but the offender, to lick our wounds and bolster support. It feels much safer to do this. But it is a problem. It takes real courage to address the issue with the one who offended us and try to work it out before we start recruiting others to fortify our side. Taking our problem to a third party and recruiting them against the other "side" is called "triangulation," in counseling circles. This behavior is common, but it is rather unenlightened. Triangulation is by definition a conflict-escalating behavior because it reinforces the impression of opposition. It asks for loyalty to one's own story against the other side's story sometimes before the other party even knows there is a problem.

When you or I are the one who is being whispered about, we may have no idea there has been a problem until a whole army shows up on our doorstep, so to speak. By that time the triangulator may have such an investment in being the injured party that it is often too late to defuse the misunderstanding or make easy amends. By that time we already have a sort of war on our hands whether we like it or not. Poorly chosen words have become a cherished wound, the defenses are up, and the injured party is taking no prisoners.

Does this dynamic sound familiar? Has this happened to you? I know I have experienced both sides of this dynamic. I have been the outraged triangulator (I hope I have learned since then!) and I have been the one who has had no idea there was a problem until it was far too late and the grudge was well and truly entrenched.

What versions of this scenario have you experienced? How did you like it? Were you the triangulating injured party or the oblivious offender? Or perhaps you have been sucked into the conflict of one triangulator against another triangulator and you didn't know how to get out of the middle. In any case, triangulation creates a mini war. It is different from big war only in scale. It is not the way of peace.

The hardest part of divorce on children is not the divorce itself, but the ways the parents can try to recruit the children against the other parent. This is deeply unfair to the children and creates a terrible inner conflict for them. In some cases, it is a form of abuse. Yet until we discipline ourselves into more enlightened behaviors, triangulation is our first go-to coping mechanism when we are hurt or threatened. We humans tend to "go to war" as a default, and in war innocents get killed. They are the first and worst casualty of every war whether global or personal.

Sometimes our wars are cold or silent. We may be so conflict-avoidant that we choose to dodge all interaction with the "problem" person. Perhaps we harbor resentment towards that person, holding arguments with them in our heads, though we would never actually attempt the imagined conversation in reality. Resentment feels like we are getting back at the other person, but it actually only harms us. "Resentment is like eating rat poison and expecting a rat to die," they say. It eats us up inside, not the one we are mad at.

Bearing a grudge, holding resentment, pretending everything is fine, and simply avoiding the problem all create a false peace, because the conflict remains inside us. There is a knot of unresolved negative energy that stays with us wherever we go, affecting us, and not the one with whom we are in conflict. And it will not go away until we change ourselves—not the other, ourselves. Passive aggression is still aggression. It is just pretending to be nice. It is fake peace.

To quote Jeremiah 6:14: "They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace."

So how do we change our default response of attack and defense to something entirely other—to something that transcends the war impulse and taps a deeper wisdom?

Today's reading from Swedenborg says that peace comes from trusting God. We must cultivate a deep confidence in God's all-powerful and benevolent providence that is so strong we cannot be shaken "though the earth be removed, and the mountains be swept into the midst of the sea" (Psalm 42:6). In fact, I believe today's verse from Luke is also showing us the way to peace. When it says, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to all humankind," I believe we can read it as when we "glorify" God in the highest (which is to adore and put our absolute trust in the most-powerful and most-high God) the result is peace in our natural lives ("on earth") which comes from a cessation of ill-will. When we deeply trust that God has everything under control, we realize we have nothing to fear. When our soul is at peace and we have nothing to fear, we truly do begin to wish well to all of God's created children, not just the ones who have pleased us. This is the Prince of Peace born in us indeed.

It is the nature of our earth-bound mind to be attached to temporal outcomes and worry about short-term goals. It can't help it. It can't help but think it is alone, and that every outcome is its responsibility. It is run most often by the ego. Resistance and struggle and "victim" are its default.

But according to the 'Borg, (Swedenborg) "Resistance is futile." We can fight the flow of Providence or relax into it. It will carry us toward the happiest outcome that we will allow, regardless.

When you go from this place today, I ask you to cultivate an attitude of peace. I ask you to work on an ever-deepening trust in providence, no matter how much the ego-mind scoffs.

Yes, this life may sometimes give us very scary situations. Trusting Providence does not mean this life will be easy. Rather, trusting in providence changes what we pay attention to. It shifts our attachments from earthly values to spiritual ones. It makes earthly disappointments much easier to bear, and opens our eyes to coming joys we never even imagined before. So, no matter what comes our way in this life, we are at ease, because we know that God is always turning everything into the best possible spiritual outcome, no matter how things look temporarily in this life.

To quote the mystic Julian of Norwich, "And all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. Trust in God, and all indeed will be well.

Let the Prince of Peace be born in your heart, and then you will find "peace on earth and good will toward all human kind." Amen.

The Readings

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned

 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Luke 2: 8-14   Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward all humankind!”

Small Joys in a Big World - a sermon for third advent

Small Joys in a Big World

Sermon for the Advent of Joy

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Dec 14, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Luke 2: 1-7; John 15:9-17; Heavenly Secrets 543

These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  (John 15: 11-12)

The small, snuffling sounds of a newborn.  The solid weight of that new bundle in your arms.  All the promise inherent in that new life.  Enter the presence of a newborn and it is hard NOT to feel delight and joy.

Swedenborg says that the highest angels are with a newborn from conception.  I believe we can feel those angels when we are around a newborn. We all get a little softer.  We can’t help but smile.  Maybe we can even feel a subtle peace, an ineffable sweetness, and a gentle JOY.

If we are to believe Swedenborg, that joy is present because the angles with that baby live in constant joy.  Their sense of God’s love and protection, their absolute trust in God’s providence, and their deep wisdom from years of experience have made them able to sustain that deep, deep, peace and joy on a constant basis. 

God plans for each of us to live in that bliss—a bliss that we ALL knew once when we were newborns. We too were surrounded and cared for by the highest angels, and that experience is imprinted on our souls.  It is a gift from God.  And it contains part of the road map back to that place of deep peace and joy.
 

Because you see, that innocent joy doesn't last.  It can’t.  According to Swedenborg, as we become more and more self-aware, these highest angels must pull away from us and be replaced by lower angels and then still lower angels to respect our spiritual freedom. This protects us from being overwhelmed by the intensity of their love.  And so, as you and I grow up, our surrounding spirits are gradually exchanged from more exalted ones to less exalted ones until we are surrounded by spiritual beings much closer to our own level of spiritual development—closer to what we can tolerate.

These lower guardian beings are still angels.  They still far surpass our capacity for love and wisdom and joy, but not so much so that we are overwhelmed.  They are advanced beyond us just enough to make good spiritual mentors; and their energy invites us to advance into our own love and wisdom—towards something closer to what they have—for the sake of our own happiness.  

The paragraph I quoted before the sermon from Swedenborg’s long work “Heavenly Secrets” essentially says that even the most intense joy you and I might experience today can’t even come close to touching the dullest joy of these lowest angels.  In other words, God gives us as much joy as we can handle, but not so much that it hurts.  We are on a continual path of spiritual growth, and as we grow spiritually more adept, God grants us deeper and deeper joy.  As we grow stronger, wiser, more loving, and closer to God, we become increasingly able to sustain this heavenly joy which is our birthright.  It is God’s plan for us.  But we must undergo a lot of preparation before we can handle it in its full expression.

So on this Advent Sunday of Joy, what is it that we must do to be worthy of this joy?  How do we grow stronger, wiser, more loving, and closer to God?  How do we prepare ourselves for the birth of this incredible joy into our lives?

Our scripture reading contains the answer.  We are to keep God’s commandments, particularly the command to love one another as God has loved us.

If only it were as easy as it sounds.

“Loving one another” is both very simple and very complex.  On paper it sounds easy.  But once we try it in real-life settings—once we get down to matters of division of labor and money, issues of trust and expectation, commitment and entitlement, loyalty and betrayal, it all gets rather muddy.  We realize we must learn the difference between “tough love”—which doesn't look like love but is, and codependency—which looks like love but isn't.  We must learn how to give without resentment, and how not to give without guilt, and when each is appropriate.  We need to develop great compassion and great clarity of mind—things which only come through time and experience and lots of personal work.

One terrific aid to help us along this learning curve is the Ten Commandments.  In them, God gave us a simplified break-down of how to love God and our neighbor well. (P.S. These rules and guidelines can be found in many other world spiritualities too, with slightly different wording.  This fits with the Swedenborgian teaching that God put into each world religion all that we need to find our way back to true loving-kindness and wisdom—aka “God”). 

These basic human laws of respectful co-existence provide the path back to joy, back to that heaven we experienced as newborns, and back to God.  They help mend our relationship with ourselves, with God, and with each other.  So how come we are not all living in peace and joy and love right now? 

It would be convenient and easy to say that life is not the blissful dream it should be because “bad people out there” in the world are ruining things for all of the rest of us and we are all victims of their dishonesty and greed and fear. There is some truth in that, but thinking that way is also “playing the victim card” which tends to trap us in hopelessness and helplessness.  A stronger and more empowering truth is that you and I have many ways we are complicit in the same dishonesties if on a much smaller scale. Therefore you and I working on and healing the ways we are contributing to the problem right now DOES make a difference.  

We only have the power to change ourselves.  In fact the only way we can truly ever change any “them,” “out there,” is to look for how the things we so dislike out there are also in our own skin, and to make them better inside us first.

Indeed, many spiritualities teach that me changing myself and you changing yourself for the better right here, right now, does move the whole world toward something better in a real way.  By acknowledging and correcting the increasingly subtle ways I am lying to myself, and any way I am doing harm to those I deal with, I make things better, even if it doesn't feel like it some days.  Each one of us becoming just a little more honest and kind does make the whole world more honest and kind, period.  Our greatest potency is rarely in fixing “them.”  It is found in what you and I can do in our small ways inside ourselves right here and right now.
   

Swedenborg, in the book True Christianity, says that the potency of the Ten Commandments lies in their deep spiritual application rather than in their letter.  It is the spirit of these laws that the angels pay attention to, not the simple words. 

“Thou shalt not steal” certainly means in the concrete sense “don't shoplift or mug or break into people's homes or cars to take their stuff.”   But more deeply it means “don’t steal” in your mind and heart and attitude.  Stealing in your mind and heart and attitude shows up as entitlement, taking credit for things not ours, and generally feeling more valuable or worthy than someone else. 

The cry “black lives matter” that has arisen strongly in the US over the last several weeks is calling attention to a deeply ingrained cultural attitude that steals human worth from one group or person and hands it to another.  We must stop this stealing as a nation.  In any way any one of us individually deems ourselves better than another, we too are stealing from that other.  An attitude of entitlement breeds contempt for that other and gives us permission to take what we like from them, because they are less than us.  A very real way you and I can work to heal this sickness in our nation is to be on the alert for how you and I individually deem ourselves better than or objectify any other human or group in our personal lives.  Yes, speak out against the injustices you see in the broader world.  But also look for and work on any injustices inside your own spiritual space that may show up.  Because that is the most powerful way you can help.

The saying that “if you break one commandment you break them all” (James 2:10) has a lot of truth to it.  My sick attitudes invite me into hurtful behaviors that I then justify. And because some part of me knows that I am not in integrity, I will feel a niggling unease.  Unwilling to hear or see the truth, I will lie to myself.  Do you see the pattern? Entitlement leads to stealing behaviors, which then leads to lying and covering-up.  In fact, I will develop an entire inner “public-relations team” to protect me from seeing my own dishonesty and lack of integrity.  One bad choice can start a whole spiral of bad choices, calling me into greater and greater self-deception, entitlement and denial.  It is easy to see this when it is happening in others.  It is harder to recognize it in ourselves.

But before we get too discouraged, let me remind us all that to the extent that we keep even one commandment, we are keeping them all.  The spiral goes in the other direction too.  It depends on where our focus is.  Are we generally lying and hiding, or disclosing and coming clean?

If we are focusing on being more honest, we will be open to seeing more and more the ways we have been lying to ourselves.  This will invite more personal integrity, which will open us to more compassion, more humility, and more honesty.  If we are working on not stealing, physically or emotionally or psychologically, we will grow in respect for ourselves and others.  We will see how we have been stealing from ourselves and our loved ones as well as from others—stealing integrity, stealing security, stealing trustworthiness.  And as we stop stealing, and we stop lying to cover up our stealing, we start to grow in trustworthiness, security, and integrity.  Intentional steps toward right relationship with ourselves and others and God starts a progressive cycle of right relationship in every corner of our being.

If we intentionally set our minds to chipping away at our blindnesses, God assures us that we will reach a state like that of the angels—so pure of heart and mind that we no longer lie, we no longer steal, we no longer need to invalidate (kill) any other to ensure our own sense of well-being.   And that is when our joy will be more full than we can possibly imagine.

That is why I like to see the Ten Commandments as the Ten Promises.  Because until we are completely angelic, we are pretty much breaking the Ten Commandments in small ways all the time.  We can’t help it and we can’t see it until we are ready.  We don’t even know we are doing it.  But fear not; we are not held accountable for the things we cannot yet see.  Genuine openness to seeing what we are ready to see and changing it as we are able is all God asks.

God wants our joy.  God wants it with every fiber of “his” being.  But God will never force on us anything we don’t want or aren't ready for.  And so the invitation stands open; the path is always waiting; and joy awaits us like gold at the end of the rainbow.

Meanwhile, these holidays are likely to be a mix.  There will be moments of exhaustion, discouragement, disappointment, and despair.  There will also likely be moments of delight and magic, heart-warming interactions and joyful connections.  All the while I invite you to trust in the promise—not that this season will be perfect—but that each holiday is moving us closer to heavenly joy so long as we are doing our inner work.  Good will to all human-kind is both the destination and the journey; and so long as we are taking the steps we can today, we have in some sense already arrived. 

Joy and delight. These are our birthright and our promise. May you be open to them in the coming days in big and small ways.  Indeed, may you be overcome with such joy, that you touch the joy of the angels at the Lord’s birth, if just for a moment.

Amen.

The Readings

Luke 2: 1-7   

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.  He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

John 15:9-17

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.

Heavenly Secrets 543

543. Certain spirits wished to know what heavenly joy was. Therefore they were allowed to perceive their own inmost joy, even to a point where they could not bear it. But even this was not angelic joy. It barely resembled the slightest of angelic joys. These spirits were allowed to realize this by sharing their joy. Their own joy was so meagre that it seemed rather tepid, yet they called it utterly heavenly since it was the deepest joy they could manage. From this it is clear that when we are allowed to experience our deepest joy this is for us heavenly joy. Nor can we tolerate anything deeper, as it becomes painful.

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.