A Glimpse of Heaven and nothing else matters

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER    Year A   May 7, 2023

Acts 7:55-60  •  Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16  •  1 Peter 2:2-10  •  John 14:1-14

A glimpse of heaven.  How would it impact us if we had a vision of Heaven and saw the glory of God?  Stephen, the church’s first martyr, is not the only person to have had a vison of the glory of God.  If you google search glimpses of heaven, there are some incredible stories of experiences telling of the love of God.  I imagine from what we know of God, a vision of Heaven would be an experience of surprisingly thorough love and acceptance.

 

In contrast to that love and acceptance, is our experience on planet earth.  Once upon a time children being called nasty names would reply, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  In our modern times this is never quoted in the playground, as our generation has realized the power of words and the lasting impact that these make.  Children who are told all their lives that they are stupid will often grow up believing that they are not very capable.  And on the flip side is the story of Thomas Eddison.

 

The story goes like this; “One day, as a small child, Thomas Edison came home from school and gave a paper to his mother. He said to her "Mom, my teacher gave this paper to me and told me only you are to read it. What does it say?"

Her eyes welled with tears as she read the letter out loud to her child ...

"Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn't have good enough teachers to train him. Please teach him yourself."

Many years after Edison's mother had died, he became one of the greatest inventors of the century.

One day he was going through a closet and he found the folded letter that his old teacher wrote his Mother that day. He opened it ...

The message written on the letter was "Your son is mentally deficient. We cannot let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled."

Edison became emotional reading it and then wrote in his diary:

"Thomas A. Edison was a mentally deficient child whose mother turned him into the genius of the Century." A positive word of encouragement can help change anyone's destiny.”

 

Similarly, rejection and acceptance are powerful in our society.  This is one of the basic things we try to teach our street Chaplains.  Our acceptance of people on the street conveys love and, most importantly, the love of God.  Recently I saw the movie, The Jesus Revolution, where this openness to accept the hippies gave rise to the revival in the church.

 

But I also need to talk about the negative side; Rejection, because, unlike St. Stephen who was stoned to death, rejection is how most of us will experience persecution.  In Jesus’ day the aspect of rejection was just as powerful as it is today.  People followed Jesus or rejected him, sometimes based on the opinions of those around them.  Peer pressure is powerful.  The Pharisees had rejected Jesus and so Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of night.  It was a crowd, a mob, who called out “crucify him” when Jesus was on trial.  Did they all really reject Jesus or were they just scared of being rejected themselves?  And on Palm Sunday, did they all follow and accept Jesus, as they cried, “Hosanna” or were they wanting to belong… to be accepted themselves…. And not rejected. 

 

We still tend to go with the loudest voice.  Our society’s values have been largely shaped by the media and those voices who make us feel that we might too be crucified if we disagree… well, maybe not crucified, but certainly rejected.

 

Rejection is powerful.  What we witness in our readings, is that once we know we are loved and accepted by God, we can then overcome the power of rejection in our lives.  We see this in Saint Stephen.  In fact, St. Stephen, showed no fear at all!  It is quite probable that the key to nullifying the fear of rejection is to understand and experience the unconditional acceptance we have in Christ.  As the Bible tells us, perfect love casts out all fear.  This is the love we need to experience in our relationship with God.

 

I hope and pray that none of us ever have to face violent persecution for our faith such that we are stoned to death, but we already face the name calling, discrimination and other kinds of persecution.  Recently, a muso friend of mine, who has recently become a Christian, was doing a gig.  He said that it was going really well… people were enjoying the music, and he was enjoying being the entertainer.  As he finished, he said something to the effect of, “May the good Lord, Bless you all”.   Within a very short space of time, he received a call from his manager to say that the venue manager never wanted him to perform there again due to his speaking about God.

 

We are sometimes called flat earthers… even though we are not, and when I worked as Youth Worker in the Anglican school in Cairns, the teenagers informed me that I hated gays because I was Christian. I had never and would never say anything of the kind, and even have some gay friends.  Rejected and judged quite wrongly, but all because we bear the name, Christian.  But should we justify and explain?  We could, and there is a time and a place to do so, but to some extent we need to quote that old playground rhyme; Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me….  And we need to do a Taylor Swift and “Shake it off”.  As Taylor says, “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate… I’m just gonna Shake it off… shake it off.”  And we are called to do more than this… to love.

 

Our letter from St. Peter tells us again, what we already know, that Jesus was rejected.  We should understand that we, as his followers, are bound to be rejected sometimes.  Saint Peter tells us that Jesus is the cornerstone that the people rejected, but the stone that God has chosen and we being his people need to become stones like him, built onto that corner stone.

 

But what gives us the power to Shake off the pain of that rejection?  It isn’t the exhortation from Taylor or even that childhood rhyme.  The power to shake it off comes from knowing that God has chosen us and to know the acceptance and love of God through Christ.

 

And here is where it gets tricky.  We can be told that God has chosen us and that God loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us, but we need to receive it, and experience it for ourselves, for it to have any impact in our lives… and even that is easier said than done if all we have experienced in our church family and in our world is rejection.

 

In our Gospel reading we have Jesus talking about going away to prepare a place for us.  This is the most common reading for funerals because it indicates that there is something beyond the grave and a place for us in the kingdom of God, but possibly the more important part of this reading, for the purpose of our discussion, is when Philip asks Jesus to show them the father.

 

“Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?”

 

Jesus is making it clear that He and the father are one…. He is in the father and the father is in him… the mystery of the deity as trinity is puzzling, but one thing is certain; the unity of the Father and the Son is such that if you have experienced one, you have experienced the other.  The disciples had experienced Jesus and knew that they were loved by him.  Jesus said there was a place for them in the Kingdom of God and they knew that because Jesus loved them and accepted them, God the father also loved and accepted them.

 

Many years ago, I was part of a group of young adults who worked together to put on an event called Youth Encounter.  The guest speaker was a man called Mike Nelson.  As part of the organising committee we got to know Mike really well.

 

Mike was a regular speaker with the international Bible school Capernwray.  At one of his speaking engagements, I heard him speaking about love and how he didn’t find it easy to love people so he deliberately prayed that God would help him to love people with the love of God. 

 

In about 1999 Mike Nelson died.  He had long struggled with an hereditary liver disease and he passed away during an operation to try to prolong his life.  It came out among the comments after and during the funeral, that people generally had the sense that God loved them, because they felt Mike loved them.  There was this strange sense of God’s love in the relationship that we had with Mike.  I would say, God well and truly answered Mike’s prayer and, though he may have been largely unaware of it, God loved people through Mike and his willingness to be a vessel of God’s love.

 

Likewise, others can feel rejection or God’s love through us.    Through the Holy Spirit we can allow the love of God to flow and show in our lives – through our actions and words.  I really do believe, like Mike Nelson, that most of us need to pray for God to love through us.  We are not naturally able to be loving and show the love of God… in fact sometimes God’s love might have boundaries.

 

When we are on Street Chaplaincy, the challenge is to always be loving, but this sometimes means we need to be firm and tell someone, in as caring a way as possible, that their action needs to stop… and even sometimes we may add that if they don’t stop, we will need to call for police help.

 

Loving with the love of God can not be achieved very effectively in our own strength.  On the flip side, even when we are unaware of it, if we are asking God to love through us, he will most certainly do so.  He will do so because this is His will.  He wants to love and work in and through us.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

 

We have this promise of answered prayer through the words of Jesus in our Gospel reading; “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.  I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

 

We know that amazing things happened after the Holy Spirit came on the disciples, but the question is; are we seeing these things today?  We desperately need to see these promises of Jesus realized in our day and age… and the key is the Holy Spirit.

 

The disciples, after the resurrection were joyful, but still fearful.  They hid away and prayed behind closed doors.  At the coming of the Holy Spirit everything changed.  Through the Holy Spirit they experienced for themselves the love of God and they knew the total and sure acceptance of God.  The Holy Spirit taught them this … taught their hearts, not just their heads.

 

It was Saint Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, who saw the vision of heaven…. And through that same spirit he, full of the love and acceptance he had in God, could intercede for those who were stoning him saying, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

 

It is not a natural thing to be able to show the genuine love of God, and continue in unconditional love for our persecutors, but it is possible and even natural when we are filled with the Spirit of God.  It is more than likely that there will be times ahead when there will be more rejection and even persecution for those who follow Christ.  How will we respond?  How are we responding now?  Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names will never hurt us when we are totally secure in the love of God and surrounded by a loving Christian community.

 

As we journey to Pentecost, we reflect on our need for the out pouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in our church, and in our community.  There is a world of people out there who are desperate for the indescribable love of God.  May we be like Saint Stephen in the face of persecution, declaring the vision of Heaven and lavishing love on those in our world.