What is a citizen of heaven? Philippians 3:17-4:1
Christ Church and St Mary’s, 11th March
2001
Sign
in a laundromat: AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES
WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT
Outside a farm: HORSE MANURE 50p PER PRE-PACKED BAG 20p DO-IT-YOURSELF
In an office: AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE
DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD
On a church door: THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN. ENTER YE ALL BY THIS DOOR. (THIS
DOOR IS KEPT LOCKED BECAUSE OF THE DRAFT. PLEASE USE SIDE DOOR.)
Karl Marx said that religion is the opium of the people. It’s designed to keep their eyes off the
complexities of this life, off the realities of everyday living, and to focus
them, as if they are drugged up like someone in a hospital bed, on some distant
utopia. It’s like when the woman ran
screaming out of the doctor’s office…..”Cured her hiccups, though, didn’t
it?” Keep their minds off earthly
things, and fix them on the heavenly.
In his view, what we are doing today is some kind of escapist
wish-fulfilment. For “citizen of
heaven” read daydreamer. Superficially,
Paul’s letter seems to encourage this thinking. But the real interpretation of his words, I believe, will lead us
to be more involved in the world, and more concerned about its future, than any
ism would lead us to be.
We perhaps don’t spend a lot of time considering what heaven means, but I'm feeling more and more that it's only when we know our destination, the end of the story that God is writing in our lives, that our present life will begin to have anything like it's true meaning. And that's what Paul's saying to the Philippians - are you focused on heaven? Do you know where you are going, or is your god just your stomach - your appetites of the here and now, your needs for just today?
I canvassed a few opinions
about what heaven is as I was preparing this sermon. I asked my wife - "No ironing" she said. My son would like a permanent ride on Thomas
the Tank Engine; my mum would like a heaven populated with people just like
me. But if I could sketch a traditional
view of what a lot of Christians have thought heaven is about I’m afraid that
Marx might have got it right on one levelIt would be a place of complete other
worldliness-a completely different and shining place, full of golden streets
and harps. It would be an escape hatch from this world, a kind of permanent
worship service, moulded to your own particular taste, where "all in white
stand around" in a never ending cycle of praise, a place of no extremes,
where former pain and struggle is completely forgotten.
Now for many people the idea
of being delivered from the pain of this world into perfect peace is
understandably appealing, and we shouldn't sell short the fact that heaven will
be an end to all suffering. It's very
common, I think, at times of bereavement, that we tend to emphasise the ideas
of escape, or deliverance. But this
version of heaven raises two questions.
The first one is "Is that all it is?" To many people, the idea of a permanent
church service is enough to bore them to tears. (Or even a temporary church service!) Is this the only hope God offers to people?
But the second question is
more serious. If heaven is this kind of
glorious escape, then why are we here at all?
Is it so that we can wait for God to whisk us all away, while this earth
is discarded and burnt up? In
Gloucester Cathedral there is a family tomb of a miserable looking man and wife
and their equally miserable looking children, and inscribed across it are the
words "All is vanity". Oh
dear - is it really all just dross around us?
Are we just meant to hang on by our fingernails? - Negro slaves used to
sing, "This earth is not my home, I'm just passing through." Are we just immortal souls, which started
somewhere else, and are soon to be off on our travels, being kept here only
just so we can decide whether to follow Jesus or not?
I hope you can see that the
view you have of what heaven is about will completely undergird what view you
hold of your present life. But here we
need to go right back to what God's plan was for this creation when he formed
it in the first place. Think back to what
he was doing when he first put Adam and Eve in the garden, and, as the Bible
said, he created the heavens and the earth at the same time. He intended for life on this planet to be
good. He intended for us to fill the
earth, not just with babies, but with history, with art, with culture, with
laughter, with love, with technology, with nouveau cuisine, with buildings,
with football, with everything out of which civilisation is built. He put us on his earth to develop the
potential that he had unleashed, not to sit back and gaze at it. It was never God's intention to get rid of
this earth, and to keep heaven. Why
should he? - it's good.
But while we continue to
fill the earth, we know that the civilisation that God initiated has gone badly
wrong. Our sin has led us into a cycle
of decay, conflict, and dis-ease that makes us look at the world and often say
"How can this now be good? How can
God want to keep this? The sooner we
can get out, the better." Indeed,
Paul writes in Romans that the whole of creation is "groaning", and
is in "bondage to decay."
Into this mess, God sent
Jesus. But what did he come to do? How did he plan to rescue us? Most heroes, fictional or real, are involved
in some kind of rescue, and there are two main types of rescue they
perform. The first is getting people
out of a bad place or situation, like a building that's on fire, or a ship that
is sinking. The hero takes them out of
that place, and takes them to somewhere safe.
The second type of rescue still involves rescuing people, but rather
than rescuing them from somewhere bad to somewhere safe, it involves rescuing
the land they live in from "the baddies" so that they can once again
live in what is essentially a good place in safety. So, for example, Robin Hood rescues people by ousting the Sheriff
of Nottingham from the land, and Batman drives the Joker out of Gotham City so
that the people can live there once again.
The question is, which kind
of rescue did Jesus come to make? Did
he come to ultimately rescue us from a bad place - earth - to a safe place -
heaven, or did he come to rescue the earth from Satan's grip, its bondage to
decay, so we can one day live in safety on the earth? Did he come to take the life of earth to heaven, or to bring the
life of heaven to earth?
But the picture the Bible
gives us is one where one day the earth will be redeemed - bought back for God,
and that we will live here in safety.
Think of the imagery in the Bible that describes our future - the lion
will lie down with the lamb...the earth will be filled with the glory of God as
the waters cover the sea...the meek will inherit the earth...the creation
itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay... God says, "See, I am making all things new!", not just
all people...there will be food, there
will be music, there will be mountains, there will be animals. People will build houses and inhabit
them...They will plant vineyards and eat the fruit. And the New Jerusalem will
come down to earth - we won't be taken off to it. And you know that story of Jesus where "one will be taken
and one will be left"? It will be
the Christian who is left to enjoy the creation as God always intended
it to be. What a hope! A fully redeemed, resurrected, creation -
the fulfilment of God's plan. A
physical resurrection where we not only rest in peace, but we rise in glory. So while Paul says don’t get stuck on
earthly things, things that only have superficial value, the hope we have as
citizens of heaven is precisely a hope for the earth, for civilization, for all
the gifts of creation.
So we need to ask ourselves,
as citizens of heaven, what on earth are we doing? Jesus came to bring God's kingly rule to this earth, to start the
process of heaven breaking in. Heaven
is literally, God’s space – where God is, and it is nearer to us than we
realize. The promise of the future is
that one day God’s space – heaven – and our space – earth – will be fully
brought together in a healed heaven and earth.
But Jesus came to announce that heaven, or the kingdom of heaven, is
among us. The kingdom of God is among
you! Heaven and earth are linked
now. There is not one area of existence
that he does not want to see transformed to make it more like the earth God
intends it to be. God has not given up
on human culture, and neither must we.
The good news is that we can build for heaven as well. There is not one square inch of creation, of
our lives, which cannot be colonised for heaven. We're not here to form little enclaves of a spiritualised heaven,
while we wait for this earth to leave us alone. We are here to invade.
That’s not opium.
You know, when the Romans
invaded Philippi, the job of the citizens of Rome in that place would have been
to secure it for the Emperor by spreading abroad Roman ways of doing things,
Roman customs, Roman culture, Roman laws.
And that's how the Philippians would have seen their role as citizens of
heaven. So we are here to be citizens
who bring the culture of our motherland into every area of life, whether it's
our jobs, our taste in music, our sport, our technology, our politics, the
films we make, the letters we write, our business, our education, our church
life, our families. We need to work to
see sin defeated in people's lives, of course.
But we need to see it defeated in societies, artforms, and cultural
expression. There are no forbidden
areas for heaven - there is no sacred or secular. What we do here in these areas will have an everlasting impact in
the life of heaven on earth.
I'd like to finish with an
illustration from a favourite album of mine - U2's Rattle and Hum. On the cover of this album we see a man
playing an electric guitar. A lot of
people might see this as a very "secular" occupation. The man is surrounded by darkness. But the imagery is strong. There is a bright light shining on this
guitar. This music is being played as
music that will be fit for heaven. What
can be a negative artform is being transformed into something positive,
something that reflects the values and culture of heaven, and something that I
believe will be heard there.
So this week, let's ask
ourselves - where can I start to build for heaven? What areas of my life have I thought of as forbidden territory,
which I now see God wants me to redeem?
In our lives, let's not sit back and wait for heaven, but let's build
for it, and put our hope in a time when we and the creation will be all God
intended it to be.