“The Future is Now”
Rev. Richard Feyen
recorded on 27 Apr 3014
READINGS FOR THE DAY
First Reading: An Excerpt from Experiences in Theology: Ways and Forms of Christian Theology by Jürgen Moltmann
What furthers life is whatever spreads reverence for life and the affirmation of life through love for life.
What furthers life is whatever heals broken relationships and liberates life that has been oppressed.
What furthers life is whatever leads to the new beginning of life in hope.
What furthers life is whatever ministers to God’s covenant with life, and whatever breaks the covenant of human beings with death.
What furthers life is, first and last, whatever makes Christ present, Christ who is the resurrection and the life in person; for in and with Christ the kingdom of eternal life is present, and this kingdom overcomes the destructive powers of death.
Second Reading: 1 Peter 1:3 – 9. From The Message by Eugene Peterson
“What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven – and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all – life healed and whole. I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure. Genuine faith put through this suffering, comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, which God will have on display as evidence of his victory. You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don’t see him, yet you trust him – with laughter and singing. Because you kept on believing, you’ll get what you’re looking forward to: total salvation.”
Sermon audio:
My late wife, Vicki, was the quintessential planner. She would lay out the financial plan for the next ten years, five years, and one year. She’d have trips planned months and months ahead, and she’d store vacation ideas for two years down the road. I would start a conversation about doing something spontaneously and she would thoughtfully and generously say, “Well we ought to put that in the mix for thinking about a few years from now.
When it came time to do it, whatever it was we were doing, it was always fun! We always had a great time; we were extremely well prepared and never ended up in a situation that was not expected. Well almost never, we’ll get to that later.
I tended to be more spontaneous, and as a result I’d be out doing something with my girls and realize that we should have brought this with or we should have come with that. She was the organizer, the planner the ‘lay your clothes out ahead’ kind of person where as I would go with whatever.
My girls and I, we’d always have fun, make do, and get along if we’d forgotten something like a can opener on the camping trip, or a sleeping pad, there would always be a way to get around the details.
When I bought the schoolhouse Peggy and I live in (which I bought 15 months before we got married and actually, before we even had plans to get married) I brought her up one day and said, “I’m kind of picturing it like this and like this”, and she just rolled her eyes. The place was a wreck at the time. But I imagined it as a blank canvas to be brought to life in the way we would live it out. While I thought big picture, Peggy started thinking through details.
Some people are planners, some people even spend their whole lives planning only for where their eternal souls will rest, never realizing that it is what we do each day that makes a bigger difference. They have the whole trip to heaven thing figured out, while their neighbor starves.
So about Vicki; great woman, great planner, like I said – we were going to do this next year and that the year after and in five years we would be going and doing. When she and I got married we had a ten year plan. But then one week after our first anniversary she was diagnosed with lymphoma. The plans were history and we lived waiting for the next bit of news from the doctors. Sometimes you plan and plan and then you die.
I have another little story, if you’ll indulge me for a few minutes. It’s the summer of 1968, we’re at the family cottage in Michigan and my mom and dad are having conversation about a life insurance purchase they were thinking of making. My mother, the planner, says to my dad, the spontaneous one, no let’s wait – we can buy the life insurance later, after you’re established in the new position a little better. My dad agrees with her gets in the car early the next morning and makes the drive back to the Chicago suburbs from the cottage. That Monday afternoon the spontaneous side of his brain kicks in and he signs up for the policy anyway, double indemnity in the event of an accidental death. He called my mom told her what he did she fusses at him for it a little bit, he goes well when the policy is delivered in two weeks we can always turn it down, but I put money with it so it’s in effect.
By ten o’clock the next morning he was dead. A drunk driver in a company truck ran a stop sign. And yes the insurance company paid.
What you do today matters.
Okay … yes someday I will probably tell you a story about a time or two when my spontaneity has gotten me in trouble. It certainly has. And there are plenty of stories to make the case for proper planning, and believe me I’ve learned to listen! But my point is that what we do right now, does make a difference.
What you do to further life, to bring hope to another person, to make a difference for someone else, will bring “a little heaven” into your life . . . right now. Heaven is not the Billy Graham image of streets paved with gold and marble columns that welcome the saintly believers. Heaven is the next state of happiness you find when you lift a person’s spirit for a few minutes each day! Jesus said often enough, “The kingdom of heaven is now!”
Let me paraphrase a few lines of the passage from First Peter that Maetta read for us. “What a beautiful sense of the Sacred that has been revealed to us! And how fortunate we are to have been made aware of the sacred life revealed to us by Jesus! Because Jesus is alive to us today through all he shared, we have been given a brand-new way to live and we have everything to live for, including a future in total happiness – and that future starts now! God is with us now, today, and tomorrow. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all – life healed and whole.”
I believe that the life healed and whole comes to you through doing for others.
There was a study done, not long ago, that examined happiness. A large group of people was asked to rate themselves on a “happiness scale”. The group was then randomly divided into two groups of economically and demographically similar people. Each person was then given ten dollars. One group was told that they had to spend it on themselves, it was theirs – they could do what they wanted – but they could only use it or keep it, they could not give it away or spend it on anyone else.
The second group was told they absolutely had to spend it on someone else, or use it in a way that would benefit another person and they had to do it themselves. They could not give it to a charity; they had to actually do something for another person, or buy something for another person and give it to them.
Then at the end of the day they were all asked to complete the “happiness scale” again. In the group that spent it on themselves, there was little or no change; and what change there was, was negative. Whereas, in the group that had to seek out a way to help someone else, everyone was happier at the end of the day!
There are a lot of people in the world today who, while they will continue to always claim to have found a “savior” in life, never lift a finger for another person. They wait, they plan, they look forward to an eternal bliss – when they could have found happiness . . . now.
I don’t know what lies over the threshold of death. But I do know that tomorrow I can find a bit of heaven by doing a kind deed for another person.
I don’t know what is in store for all eternity, but I know it starts right now – and each of us can make a difference in people’s lives, now.
The life Jesus lived; the teachings of the Christ spirit that are alive within us, the resurrection we celebrate, leads us to a life of service to others through which we can find the power to further life in positive ways for other people.
Jurgen Moltmann offers up a litany of things we can do to further enhance our lives – today! Spreading reverence for life, healing broken relationships, seeking the sacred in all things; review the reading and reflect on ways to build up life and offer Hope to others.
The foundations for our faith, the foundations for our lives, the foundations we build our futures on, are found in the love shared and the community built in this place, as we share a faith in the sacred essence that guides us to live for the sake of all people.
The heaven that people seek does not lie over the threshold of death; but lies, instead, where God is – in any community of people gathering together help one another.
Be there for one another friends!
Amen.
