“Eternal Life, a Given or a Reward?”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – February 9, 2020

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 112:1-10; Matthew 5:13-20

 

    This morning we are going to consider what role you and I play in becoming the proverbial angels that we hope to be when we leave this life. Through the centuries, the information coming from the Scriptures, the teachings of the Church, and the understanding of the clergy has been all over the landscape of possibilities.  

    I can remember vividly my teenage-experience with a group called, The Christian Youth Crusade.  Its leaders were definitely committed to saving the souls of young people. They drilled into us about how to walk The Path to Salvation.  For them, beliefs were essential.  Receiving Jesus Christ as our personal savior was absolutely necessary if we expected to enter Heaven.  From my point-of-view, these leaders were spiritual terrorists who used fear-based theology to brainwash the youth.  They totally ignored some friends of mine today who are Jews, Buddhists and Muslims.

     In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus reportedly taught:

Whoever disobeys even the least important of the commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever obeys the Law and teaches others to do the same will be great in the Kingdom of Heaven.

    However, Jesus reportedly went further by teaching what appeared to put salvation out of reach for most people.  He added this teaching to what he already said:

You will only be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven by being more faithful than the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in doing what God requires.  (Matthew 5:19-20)

    The Apostle Paul also concluded that Eternal Life would be the reward for living a righteous and noble life. He wrote:

I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith.  And now there is waiting for me the victory-prize of being put right to God that the Lord will give me on that Day. (2nd Timothy 4:6f)

    Can these teachings and assumptions be correct?  If so, how do we explain what Jesus said to the thief who was crucified next to him?  The men on either side of Jesus were being executed for crimes that they had committed.  They may not have paid attention to the Laws of Moses. Yet, they appeared to know that Jesus was a holy man. One of them pleaded for mercy, "When you come into your Kingdom, please remember me." Jesus said, "Today, you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:42-43)

    How do we understand what we need to do, think, or feel about our role in going to the next level of life that we call Heaven?  The answer is that our beliefs, our faith, our hope, and our trust in God will never accurately define the natural process that exists for all of us.  God's Will does not change.  If this is true, is our spiritual welfare ever in danger regardless of our beliefs, attitudes, or lifestyle?

    One year our family visited Disneyland in California. We heard the enthusiasm from a number of newcomers to the park as they exclaimed, "Wow, Walt Disney really had an imagination to create something as magnificent as this place." However, there were others who did not think so. 

    While we were standing in a line to experience one of the exhibits, there were children behind us that wanted to return to their hotel so that they could play in the pool.  They whined and complained for some time due to their waiting in long serpentine lines until their father had heard enough.  He abruptly turned around and scolded them:

Look! You whined and cried for us to bring you here.  We have spent a lot of money to give you an experience that you will never forget.  And, you want to return to our hotel so you can play in the pool? You can do that at home. Get over it! That is not happening! If you are choosing not to have a good time, stop complaining so that your mother and I can enjoy being here.

    We may think that this is a poor analogy, but think about it.  The quality of any experience in this life depends on our responses to what is happening. Sometimes, our responses do reflect our level of maturity, so we can understand the responses of children. We quickly learn, however, that we have the freedom to decide whether or not we like any of our experiences.

    Life teaches us that some of our most painful and challenging moments are ones that later on, we would never trade for anything in the world.  They gave us strength of character.  They helped us gain access to skills that we never thought we had.  In addition, we learned that by polishing our people-skills during those trying times, those skills paved the way for countless successes that we could never have imagined.

    Have we ever thought that God is a lot like that father when he addressed the whining needs of his children?   What might God say if God decided to push back on a number of our beliefs?  Think about this. How many of our experiences have we defined as God blessing us. Does God really single out people to bless who have accumulated wealth or who have sailed through life unscathed by the mishaps and miscues that others experience? 

    During our lives in the Church, we have heard many times that the faithful want to please God or do God's will.  How do we define pleasing God or doing God's will?  Do we define our role in life as being a pleaser? If so, when do we allow our spirit to show up regardless of our level of spiritual maturity?

    Let us imagine going back in time when Jesus and his disciples went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prayed for God to "take the cup of suffering away from him" but then he prayed, not my will but thine be done.   (Luke 22:42) We know what happened. He was captured, tried, convicted, and eventually executed.  The Church has interpreted what happened as being God's Will¸ but was it?

    Let us imagine what God might have said to Jesus once his son graduated from this life and found himself standing face to face with his Heavenly Father. God spoke:

My will is that people remain free to decide to do, think, and feel, whatever they wish. If people want me to make a decision for them, trusting that I have a preference, they are mistaken. What people decide makes their lives the adventure that it is. Each will live with the consequences of those decisions. I do intervene in people's lives, but I do so in a way that their inspiration comes from accessing their invisible world within them. Making decisions for people is not one of them. 

Everyone will eventually find the spiritual path on their own.  They will find the path because nothing else creates attitudes that work for their happiness. When people nourish their spirits with decisions that will serve others in some capacity, the result creates confidence, fulfillment, satisfaction, and inner peace.

 

You could have easily decided to leave the garden that night and travel north so you could take your message to the Greeks who would have gladly welcomed you. Such a decision might have given you the opportunity to meet Saul of Tarsus in person. Your decision, however, sealed your fate.  

    Of course, this line of thinking is different from what the Church has taught for thousands of years. However, from a pastor's point of view, I have had to pick up the pieces from fragmented people who were faithfully seeking God's will.  They prayed not my will but thine be done. When death became the eventual outcome, they assumed that it was God's will that their 14-year old daughter die from a congenital heart defect.  Really?

    What Jesus reportedly prayed, leaves people with the idea that it was God's will that Jesus would eventually be murdered.  Think of all the theology that has grown as a result of Jesus trusting God to make this critical decision for him.  Jesus actually taught just the opposite.  (Luke 11:11)

    The nature of God's essence is within every woman, man, and child in spite of their beliefs.  That presence, however, does not mean that God intends to live our lives for us. God's presence within each of us has been in place since our birth even though that presence often goes unrecognized by countless people.

    I mentioned last week that what we experience is defined and determined by how our filters function.  These filters reflect our preferences and passions.  Filters were what caused the responses to be different among the family members during their vacation to Disneyland.   

    We are infinite spirit-beings who have come into the physical world to see how we do with our decision-making.  Most of us have no knowledge of where our spiritual essence had its origin. Only from Jesus do we get a hint of the origin of our own spiritual essence.  (Luke 17:21) Our temporary adventure begins when we are born into a vastly different world of shiny objects and moving forms.  Our creativity, however, does not begin until we access and develop our inner world that inspires our imaginations to create from our preferences.

    We are the ones who are learning, stretching, and reaching for the next big thing.  The more that we use our imaginations in our search for more answers to life's mysteries, the more our lives and the lives of others will be enriched.  Our search is what stimulates the growth of our thoughts, emotions, and spirits that allow us to create the next BIG things.  

    When the energy created by our bodies enters the phase of shutting down, we return to our home in the world of spirit where we can ponder our choices and understand what resulted from our adventure.  God's Will is that we enjoy ourselves while living in a world where our experiences are created and defined by the invisible reality within us.

    At the end of our lives, each of us will be spiritually supported with the good news that all is well for us as it was before we were born.  Clearly, only one answer can  be given to the question asked in the title of my message this morning. Jesus taught: In my Father's House are many rooms. (John 14:2) He also taught in our lesson today that in Heaven there are spirit-beings who are the least and others who are great.  Since the essence of God's nature is loving energy, everyone's arrival in Heaven is a given not a reward.

     

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Merciful and loving God, the more we become energized, the more we can spread enthusiasm to everyone around us.  We have learned that your will is not complicated.  You want us to enjoy our lives and influence as many people as we can to enjoy theirs.  Yet there are times when we become discouraged and frustrated by events in our common experience.  There are times when our disappointments cause us to assign blame to others.  When these moments come, may we realize that our sadness will never brighten anyone's day.  Inspire us to let our inner lights shine.  Amen.

 

PASTORAL PRAYER

Eternal God, thank you, for the oasis of peace that is made possible by our being in church.  As we enter our house of worship with our church-family, it seems as though we constantly need to be reminded of who we are.  It is comforting to remember that we are your children, when the problems on our island and around the world seem to communicate something else.  It is comforting to sense your presence when we fear that our beliefs and faith do not appear strong enough to realize that reality every day.

Lead us to insights, O God, to carry our energy with peace, to shoulder our perceived burdens with confidence, and to enter moments of uncertainty with unwavering trust. Thank you for your support when we enter fragile moments.  Thank you for giving us the ability to make course-corrections when we feel entitled to hold on to painful memories and hurt feelings.  Thank you for giving us the ability to let go of the feelings and thoughts that we fear we can no longer manage alone.  We know that nothing we need is ever served by holding on to anything in this world.

As we move into our tomorrows, we are glad that we can choose to keep our minds focused on the idea that this is your world and how privileged we are to be a part of it.  Somehow, the world's people need to learn that we are all citizens of one world and loved equally by you. We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray . . .