Heaven on Earth: Easter 6C

This is “Come Dream With Us” Sunday at Trinity. The congregation is meeting to share their dreams about the future. All three lessons include visions of what is to come. It’s a good time to remember how important dreaming is. Real creativity comes when we let ourselves go and use our imaginations to picture what might be. And, of course, our visions of the future shape how we act in the present. Dreaming about how to make more money can lead to some very selfish actions; dreaming about better ways to serve other people to very loving ones. .

I began to understand this when I read Mark Twain’s “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” as a teenager. With great humor he showed how the vastness and age of the universe reveals the way many of us picture heaven is very funny. In the story Stormfield is a salty sea captain who died thirty years ago. Ever since he has been speeding toward heaven at a million miles a minute, blazing past stars and easily overtaking comets whose top speed is only 200,000 miles a minute. Slightly frustrated he decides to have some fun racing a ship carrying brimstone to hell and goes off track. He does eventually find himself among billions of people closing in on a brilliantly lighted heaven, but ends up at the wrong gate, among all sorts of strange creatures with two heads, eight arms, and such.

He can’t across to the no-nonsense clerk from where he comes: San Francisco- never heard of it. California – blank stare. America- Come on. Come on There’s a long line behind you. The world – Which world, there’s billions. The one the Savior came to save- Right, he saved world after world after world. At least give me a galaxy, something to go. After Stormfield comes up with a little more information, an assistant boards a hot air balloon to check it out on a map extending into the sky that appears to be the size of Rhode Island. After two days he returns for a microscope to check if he has found it or only is looking at a flyspeck. when he returns, he confirms it is Stormfield’s world. They call it Wart.

Twain is obviously claiming if there is a heaven, it must include multitudes of creatures, most of them incredibly different than you and me, so different Twain claims they would look down their noses at us as late-comers in the universe.

We often forget most, not all, but most, of the biblical pictures say the same thing. They assure us there will be plenty of room for all of us. People usually totally misread Revelation, thinking its144,00 saved is a small number, forgetting how few Christians were part of their world and that this is a symbolical signifying a multitude. But beyond that the passage immediately says there will also be people beyond numbering from all the ends of the earth, strange creatures people they had never met. Many some will have two heads.

Both Twain and Revelation want you to be prepared, because not everyone in heaven is not going to be like you, not at all. Many years ago my parish was regarded as the most racial congregation in the town. After a painful episode, I preached a sermon that proclaimed chances are when we get the heaven the Communion Cup will be passed to us by a black woman, and w shall be expected to pass it to a yellow man, so we had better get prepared now.

Twain goes on to show people get what they want in heaven, sort of. When Stormfield arrives at the proper gate, he expects a halo, a harp, some palm branches, and wings, so he gets them. Off he goes to find a cloud. On the way he meets people going the other way who ask if he will hold their harp or wings for them and then disappear. After depositing these extras on large piles he passes, he finally find a cloud, climbs on and begins trying to play his harp, wave his palm branches, and sing heavenly praises, however, it does not take long to discover he makes a lousy musician and only a bit longer to find himself bored out of hi mind. He climbs off his cloud and walk back until he can find someone to carry his harp.

Twain says if there is a heaven, we are only going to enjoy it if it is something like what we know, except everyone would be able to do what they are cut out to do. For instance, a bar tender might be a pastor. And Twain intimates he might be better than some pastors he knows.

Again Revelation echoes Twain. Heaven will be like earth except God’s will is done, love is all around, and there is no suffering. But in order to understand John’s vision, I have to correct my misuse of the word “heaven”. I have been using it as we usually do to designate the place we go after we die. The Bible speaks of heaven simply as the place where God lives in contrast to earth where humans live.

This becomes very significant when John sees heaven descend to earth. We usually think of it the other way around. We say we go to heaven to be with God. Revelation and the rest of the Bible says, “No, God descends to earth to be with us”. He fulfills the prayer we offer every day, “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”.
In John’s vision the city has no temple. It has no need for one, because God himself will be there. God makes his home among people. God personally wipes the tears from our eyes. Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

The Old Testament in Isaiah 65 explains what this means: “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime…They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall enjoy the work of their hands. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox. Enemies will be friends.

Revelation updates this rural setting to an urban one. Heaven is a gigantic city, but a healthy city, an ecologically prosperous city, with a river of pure water running through it, and trees bearing fruits of the month on either side, just what we need. If we have hope in Revelation’s dream, we should be making our cities safe, healthy, clean and creative places now.
Dreams, visions show you how to prepare to meet your God. If Revelation is right, then we should be helping those who are crying, caring for those in pain, comforting those who have lost children, aiding those who have built houses but can’t live in them. Jesus says w prepare by loving our neighbors which includes loving our enemies. Christianity is the only religion that command us to love our enemies. John’s vision says we should be doing that now, because the leaves of trees alongside the River of Life in the Heavenly City will heal the nations. In heaven our enemies will be our neighbors.

Many of us respond this is too hard, too expensive. These are only dreams, only silly visions. Who knows what we really will find in the future.

Hmm. We all shall see soon enough.

Tags: Captain Sotrmfield's Visit To Heaven, Ecological City, Heaven on Earth, Love enemies, Mark Twain, Revelation, Revelation 21-22, Sermon