Luke 16:19-31
Perhaps you have heard the story of the three women, who at the same moment arrive at the pearly gates. St. Peter greets them and says: “Now, you know there are qualifications to get in. Each of you must tell me what you have done with your life.”
The first woman is Roman Catholic and proudly extends her rosary saying: “See how worn these beads are. I went to mass every day and prayed hard every night. Surely that guarantees me a place.”
“Come in,” Peter says.
Now the second woman was quite shy. “I’m not sure if I’m in the right place. I’m Jewish. But I took care of my children and my aged parents, I gave all my money to help the poor and I tried to do a good deed every day.”
St. Peter smiled and said: “Why you are very welcome indeed. Please come in.”
The third woman was getting fidgety. And St. Peter turned to her and said, “Ma’am, what do you have to say for yourself?”
A lifetime Congregationalist, faithful member of the Women’s Guild who always baked for funeral receptions, she proudly steps up to St. Peter and proclaims: “See, I’ve brought you a plate of my very best cookies.”
You know, we’re not told Peter’s response!
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As our morning’s story from Scripture reveals, thinking about what happens after death is actually no laughing matter. Where we ‘wind up’ after we die, if it is at all based on what we’ve done or not done in life, is, in essence, the concern raised by our parable — the story of a rich man immune to the suffering of the poor, who all too late tries to make amends and improve his own lot after death as well as warn his relatives before it is too late for them. And while there are many ways to unwrap this strange passage, what I want to do this morning is spend a little time on THE question I’ve been asked most in 32 years of ministry: “What happens when we die?” Which way at the exit do we go?
Now, there are two things that I want to emphasize from the outset. The first is that there is no one right answer! As you will hear, our faith embraces a whole variety of understandings about the afterlife; and there is no single way that is THE Christian way or the UCC way, given that Scripture, historical tradition and practice offer many diverse and conflicting understandings to answer the questions.
Secondly, (even though it sounds like I’m now contradicting what I just said) as popular as it may be, belief in reincarnation is not a common Christian understanding. And that is because reincarnation, which is the view that we keep coming back and experiencing multiple lifetimes, is based on the understanding that the reason we need to keep coming back is in order to finally get our life right, to be perfect and evolve into the best self we can be. Much as this might be intriguing to contemplate — I’d like to come back as a great blue heron — this view is at direct odds with Christianity in that we believe life is not about getting it right or being perfect. Jesus’ life and ministry frees us from all that.
So what DO we believe about which way at the exit? It is safe to say that there are four primary christian views held about what happens when we die:
1. Nothing. At the moment of death our life simply ceases to be. It is only for this life on earth that we are to be concerned, to do our best in following God in the here and now. While this view may not appear to be Christian, it is consistent with where Jesus put the emphasis in his teaching — that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is present in the here and now in this life. Today and tomorrow and the day after, how we live, how we act, that is meant to be heaven on earth.
2. When we die, we become one with the spirit and mind of God. Our souls continue on as part of the idea of heaven. In this view you and I are no longer the individual selves we once were, but exist as some symbolic, imaginative representation of the unknowable. We become part of a great mystery at one with the divine, held in the mind of God.
3. The third view of heaven believes in a bodily resurrection. After death we are given some kind of embodied presence, not one that would exactly represent us at any one age or point in life, yet we would still be recognizable as who we are. Our individual essences would be clear to each other. In this view, life in heaven continues not totally unlike life here on earth. Family relationships are remembered and honored. There is work and play and service and even the sense of close connection from those who wait upon that eternal shore. This view of heaven is seen as earth glorified.
4. The fourth view of heaven is nearly identical to the third in terms of the sense that we still have some kind of embodied presence after we die, yet that essence is better described as: “the fine celestial substance of light as is native to the stars.” However, the understandings of what heaven is like and what we do in heaven are very different from the previous understanding. In this fourth view, our existence in heaven is not at all as it is on earth with human pursuits and human connections, but a far more spiritual existence, a communion of saints seen as some beatific vision. The one thing that is the same between the third and fourth view of heaven is where heaven is located — in some realm far beyond and outside the material universe as we now know it.
It may seem that I have spent all my time on heaven. “What if hell or limbo are the way we go at the exit?” some may ask. Well, when it comes to limbo, by and large, if Christians believe in the afterlife, they believe as did Jesus, that the resurrection happens at the moment of death, and not at some later moment, which the apostle Paul believed, so there is no need for some place like limbo to wait in between.
And when it comes to hell, our particular faith tradition, the United Church of Christ approaches it this way. The overwhelming love and radical grace of God that we experience in Jesus are so welcoming and forgiving that hell as a place to which God would consign anyone does not exist! However, here on earth, hell does exist wherever people treat one another with brutality and violence, wherever people wantonly abuse and destroy creation, and wherever we ignore the suffering and plight of those in need or on the margins.
Which way at the exit? What do you believe? Wherever you may be on that question, let me assure you — there is no place you and I go that God will not ALREADY be there.
Amen.