Do This

Sermon

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts help us to know the words of Saint Paul, that “as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”                  —1 Corinthians 15:49  Amen.

And as we have borne the image of the earth(l)y, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. From the get-go, this line of scripture is funny because in some translations it’s earth-y and in others it’s earth-ly. Either way, I found this verse aptly underlined in my Grandfather’s WWII pocket Bible just a day or so after he died.

I was sort of amazed at how easily I had come across this verse that would be perfect for any sort of memorial we’d put together with family in the days and months ahead. I also wondered to myself, hmmm, and then to my grandmother: “Grammy, do you think PaBaer underlined this for the same reason I think he underlined this?”

His middle name was Baer, so we called him PaBaer, and my grandmother and I were now laughing because we were pretty sure this man’s twenty-something-self had likely underlined a Bible verse we now found reassuring because he saw his name in it. As we have borne the image of the earthly, so we shall bear the heavenly.

It’s a fun memory for me and a sacred promise for all of us; one that hopefully you, too, can find you and your loved ones in, even without Baer-inclusive names.

All the scriptures we’ve read today are rich, sacred promises, feasts. Visions of heaven, visions of restoration, of resurrected life. They are nearly all the readings for All Saints Day, this special time when we celebrate those we know, and those we don’t know, who have died; those welcomed home by God, as I learned to say, those who transferred their membership to the church triumphant, as my mentor Jim Hodge would say.

And though some of these visions and writings still sound weird to me at times, “earthy” perhaps is the Portland word there. Portland weird—meaning these visions can make me uncomfortable because I know deep down that big parts of me identify as a proper East Coast intellectual, with a stiff upper lip, passed on to me by some English immigrants, ancestors who are long gone and who I also don’t know… but I’ve become less stiff and more comfortable with heavenly visions in, of all places, therapy.

Some years ago, I was introduced to a particular kind of therapy that required me to develop, for lack of me remembering the actual term, an imaginative safe space—a space in your mind that you could welcome yourself into and dwell in when you’re still processing thoughts that you can’t fully bear yet. And the therapist I was working with—she really encouraged me to go for it; she asked me to be very specific, imagine and be really imaginative with what was in my space. Am I at the beach or the mountains, city or country (both, it’s my space)? Who is there, what food is there, what am I doing, what is the weather like? I spent a lot of time imagining these wonderful, exquisite details that adults often don’t find the time or space to develop.

Our American, efficient, predominantly white Christian theology thinks it’s heaven, duh, pearly gates, angels, clouds, done, what’s the next task on my list? And because I fancy myself efficient and a theologian by trade, I decided, in therapy, that I was using this time to fix that, imagining heaven. I was imagining resurrected life, the restoration of the kin(g)dom of God. I was adding details well beyond the assignment and not just imagining a safe space but doing the Lord’s work—which made it feel more connected and significant, especially since my PC(USA) insurance was paying for it.

But regardless of how significant our inner work feels, or how often we go to therapy (which matters, of course), how and how often we imagine the heavenly also matters. We don’t, generally, as a culture or as a church, spend nearly enough time or energy imagining what heaven, restoration, or resurrection will be like. Even now, after years of doing this meditative practice, I’d say that I’m a novice, at best. (I do this practice even less now since my wife and I took on a new embodied meditation: parenting.) Still, I talked about this practice, me spending efficient theological ministry time imagining a very detailed vision of heaven, at one of our celebrated saints’, Carolyn Zelle’s memorial earlier this year. I talked about how it was easy for me to add her to my meditations on heavenly things, because even in the brief year or so I spent with Carolyn around me, she truly always seemed to be walking around me, near the parking lot, by Peet’s Coffee. And here she is coming back this way again.

Now Carolyn’s often walking the perimeter of my heavenly meditations as she walked the perimeter of this neighborhood and the church property we know as Westminster.

When we practice imagining heaven, resurrected life, a restored kin(g)dom, meditating on these words of scripture that Ada and Junha have read for us today—I think it can be surprisingly quite natural to see ourselves and our loved ones bearing the image of the heavenly. And so it was no surprise that when I thought about Carolyn recently, I also found myself thinking about a newer but no less beloved member who died in the late spring, Al Arboleda, and how he would, in his handsome Filipino style, gently make fun of Westminster for perhaps being a little too eager.

Al began worshipping with us online and saw “Birds!” (where we had put up origami birds as prayers for peace), and then an excited majority white congregation, smiling, and waving at him. He joked with us, he served with us, and it’s easy for me to imagine him doing those things next to Jesus playing basketball, in my mountainous, beach, but also very cosmopolitan heavenly meditation. And that is important. Do that.

Practice imagining heaven, add all the details: like Al’s smile and beautiful suits, and Carolyn’s 15,000 steps a day and unmatched attention to detail, and taco trucks, and feasts of all… Do that. What color is the sky, is it windy, is it cold? Is it raining, is there sun, both? Is there music? What is it? How do your knees feel? I have a historically lousy left knee and so some of the visions of heaven that include running without pain, like the ones found in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, those are favorites for me. Or if it’s the banquet table you’re after, what’s on the table, who’s at the table, what are you wearing? It can be very hard to get dressed as a young-ish, professional, gay, woman with child, so the break of not having to think about what I’m wearing is usually my best meditation, but I can think of some great items that I’ve totally worn out in my lifetime, and it would be great to see them resurrected. This heavenly meditation isn’t a list to accomplish or correct so much as a place to create, recreate, and restore.

After the relentless election coverage we’ve been subjected to, since 1980-something, or however long it’s been, please recreate, restore, imagine and dwell on heavenly things. Practice often, as we practice heavenly things here in worship.

But please don’t see that practice as an escape from being here. Imagining the heavenly, God’s restorative justice, worshipping together is not an escape. Practicing peace in this space, in worship, confessing our sins, assuring each other of forgiveness, is here and now work. Celebrating our saints, imagining resurrection, is a way of living and knowing the not yet, a way that Jesus pointed to as connecting the Portland earthy, or the more academic earthly and the heavenly. Jesus also, gracefully, gave us the sacraments; holy mysteries, by which we can touch and see and smell and taste, and be reminded of this earthy heavenly connection, and know we are intimately involved here. The sacraments are signs and seals, as we say in the reformed traditions. This table is a sign of the banquet table that is to come, like the one we read about in Isaiah.

That is a feast where and when scholar Anathea Portier-Young says, “the Lord prepares a lavish feast… All peoples are invited: oppressors and oppressed, powerful and lowly… The royal feast on God’s Mountain is an event both sacred and political.” And there’s no way to deny that, especially after what feels like decades of intense election coverage and months of intensifying war in holy lands, which we cannot escape from. “Death and suffering were heavy on the heart of God’s guests at this feast,” she continues, but she relishes, too, on another translation of this Isaiah passage, that God, at a feast of lavish foods, swallows death; infinite unfathomable God takes in unknowable suffering… So we can believe that as the things on this table nourish us, God sustains us, sealing the promise of the heavenly that is to come within and around us.

We are right to pay attention here, to remember that what we think of heaven is a sacred work. And yet I also appreciate when Jesus is efficient, and doesn’t talk so much about visions, camels, or the wind, but says, “Do this… Do this in remembrance of me.” There aren’t a lot of places we can find where Jesus says: “Do this.”

Practice restoration, practice heaven. Think about bearing this, as you have borne the earth. And then walk the neighborhood. Make a joke about your too-stiff church. Vote. Advocate for others and for yourself, knowing they’re connected. Use your worship and make your grieving, protesting, protestant, reformed voice heard, yourself seen. Feast. Pass the peace. Meditate on heavenly things, to help you be more down to earthy… do this, the things that remind you that we’re not alone.

Meditating on heavenly things, worshipping together, sharing a table is a way of living.

Do this; this is how we practice heaven, restorative justice, how we remember our saints and restore relationships now… Do this. Amen.