1. What do you think heaven is going to be like?

That’s a good question as we approach the final Sunday in the Church Year, a Sunday filled with themes of the end of time and the final judgment and Jesus coming back.

Do you remember Fred Astaire singing to Ginger Rogers while he’s dancing with her in the 1935 show,“Top Hat”? The song is “Dancing Cheek to Cheek”. And the opening words are: “Heaven, I’m in heaven…” Pretty cool description of heaven - being able to sing like Fred Astaire and getting to dance with Ginger Rogers.

As usual, C.S. Lewis is a great help in thinking about what heaven is going to be like. He writes in his classic book, “Mere Christianity”:

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of “Heaven” ridiculous by saying they do not want “to spend eternity playing harps.” The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible… People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

Here’s another question for the last Sunday in the Church Year:

2. Of all the people in the Bible, which one (not including Jesus) would you most want to hang out with when you get to heaven?

That question is a teaser for the sermon this Sunday. I’ll refer to a famous person in the history of the Christian Church, and I’ll tell you his surprising answer to that question.

Here’s one last question - and maybe it’s been lingering in the back of your mind as you’ve been reading this blog:

3. Do you think you’re going to heaven?

Now, the theological answer to that question is that the decisive factor in determining whether you’re going to heaven is not your behavior. If that were the case, heaven would be, well, empty. The theological answer is that when you are baptized, you are “sealed as Christ’s own forever.” The theological answer is that Jesus has taken the initiative to swing wide open the gates of heaven by his death on the cross, where he became “the propitiation for our sins”.

But here’s another way to answer that question. A CPA died and went to heaven. St. Peter welcomed him at the pearly gates and entered his name in the book of life. The CPA, being a CPA, examined the book with some care. Then he did a survey of the population in heaven and reported to St. Peter that there was a discrepancy. Apparently, the number of names in the book didn’t match up with the number of people in heaven.

St. Peter sent some angels to investigate. After a bit, they came back with a report. They said, “We’ve found the problem. Jesus is out back, lifting people in over the fence.”

See you on Sunday!

Jim

If in life you are ever feeling totally swamped or overwhelmed, the average condition of most New Yorkers, might I encourage you to pray “An Order For Compline” found beginning on page 127 of the Book of Common Prayer. One of the Psalms appointed for that office is Psalm 4, traditionally known as the Evening Psalm. I was praying the office with two members of the vestry and we are all amazed at how the song of King David just washed over us and became a real source of comfort.  

In this particular Psalm, David is dealing particularly with slander and injustices he is enduring as King of Israel. Now maybe you are not facing the pressures of being the King of Israel and dealing with a son who is trying to usurp your throne, however you are dealing with pressures that come from living in this city and you are feeling overwhelmed, Psalm 4 is for you.

As we see David make his plea to God, we see him transformed in the prayer from an anxious mess, because of his accusers, into an anxious mess who, for a moment, has a quite trust in God. As David states:

“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.“

So often, we are trying to buck against the trend that we are not in control and, in the process, we make ourselves even more anxious.

Psalm 4 reminds us that, in the midst of life, which is so often out of our control, prayer is really, really good.

Prayer refocuses on what is actually real: we need saving and we have a God who has saved us. Prayer in this way becomes almost a form of therapy. It does the Psalmist and all of us good. As James Boice commenting on this Psalm wrote, “There are days in the lives of all human beings which require a psalm like this at their end.”  

So pray and enjoy your forgiveness. We’ll see you this Sunday.

Pax,

Jacob

This month, we’re focusing on our financial commitment to the ministry of Calvary-St. George’s Church in the year ahead. And as a means of making this focus, Jacob and Ben and I are preaching a sermon series on “Mission: Immeasurable.” This Sunday, we’re delving deep into “Immeasurable Joy because of the Gospel.”

However, this coming Sunday, it looks at first as though it’s a bit of a stretch to see much joy or thanksgiving to make a pledge. 

Here’s why. If I were to ask you to make a list of the things you have prayed about that have not come to pass, how long would your list be?

That’s why, at first glance, the lessons for this coming Sunday are a problem. It seems as though Scripture is telling us that if we pray hard enough, and long enough, and in the right way, we’ll get what we pray for. It seems as though we are being told that the key to answered prayer is our own ability to pray hard and long and right.

So what about my wonderful Christian friend who had leukemia and who had hundreds of people praying for her and who died at the age of 35, leaving behind a devoted husband and three young children?

Right here, of course, you can add all sorts of examples of your own, as well as stories of feeling like dropping out of this whole Christian business when our prayers seem to fall on deaf ears.  

That’s why you and I really need to be in church together this Sunday, along with all of our unanswered prayers. Because waiting for us at Calvary-St. George’s will be:

• One who prayed harder and longer and better than you and I ever have.

• One who had his own (temporarily) unanswered prayer - “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

• One who utterly identifies stands beside us with our own (temporarily) unanswered prayers.

• One whose grace is the deepest answer to our deepest prayers, prayers that finally are always answered.

Because, as the writer Anne Lamott puts it, “God’s grace bats last.”

See you Sunday morning!  

- Jim

P.S. Here are two other writers who will help us see God’s grace this Sunday: Watty Piper and Francis Thompson. I’ll have a prize for whoever can tell me the books by these fellows that I’ll reference.

P.P.S. If you won’t want to make a pledge by the end of our worship this Sunday in thanksgiving for God’s Amazing Grace, I’ll eat my socks.

There’s no direct evidence that Jesus was into funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music.

But his words in this Sunday’s gospel surely set the stage for the musical genius of Sly and the Family Stone. In 1968, Sly sang, “Are you ready?”

“Don’t hate the black

Don’t hate the white

If you get bit

Just hate the bite

Make sure your heart is beating right

Get ready!”

Other musical greats have sung the message of this Sunday’s gospel as well:

“Get ready, ‘cause here I come” - The Temptations, 1966

“Ready or not, here I come” - Delfonics, 1969

“Are you ready for love” - Elton John, 1979

And how do you get ready?

Well, there’s also no direct evidence that Jesus was a Boy Scout. But he would have approved of the Boy Scouts founder, Robert Baden-Powell, articulating the essential foundation for being a Boy Scout - “Be prepared” - as a response to the issue of how you get ready.

How do you get ready?

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus says - by being prepared. And my goodness, examples of the wisdom of this advice are all over the place right now.

• Folks in the Bahamas got ready for Hurricane Dorian this past week by preparing with plywood window covers, extra water and batteries, and access to emergency shelters.

• Thousands of runners are getting ready for the NYC Marathon in November by preparing with daily workouts. (When I got ready for the NYC Marathon many, many years ago, I prepared by cutting back from two packs a day to one…)

• The staff members of Calvary-St. George’s are getting ready for the fall season by preparing all sorts of amazing programs.

• I have a friend who is getting ready for his death by preparing his will. (He also prepares by calling me once a week to change the names of the participants in his funeral…)

• I have another friend who was not ready for getting a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s this past week - pretty hard to prepare for that.

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus tells us to get ready for the work of following him. And the truth of the matter is that not one of us can fully handle the preparation needed for that work.

• People still died in the Bahamas.

• Runners still get cramps and drop out of marathons.

• Our programs this fall will not make headlines in the Times.

• My friend will never get his funeral program just right.

• My other friend’s husband shares with me how unprepared he is for his wife’s Alzheimer’s.

Here’s the invitation:

Bring your failed preparations with you to church this Sunday. Because here’s the news: Jesus has already gotten ready for us by bearing the consequences of our failed preparations on his own shoulders on the cross.

And here are two teasers for this Sunday’s sermon:

1. If you smoke a cigar, you are especially welcome.

2. Refrain from saying the phrase, “Count the cost” - for the rest of your life.

See you Sunday!

- Jim

Growing up in an Evangelical Episcopal home and church, I was spared from much of the American religious kitsch, which is wreaking havoc upon the spiritual lives of so many people who have abandoned the faith and identify now as “dones.”

However, when I was in college, for the first time I was exposed to this kitsch’s crown jewel, a book by Joshua Harris entitled I Kissed Dating Goodbye. On most college campuses in the 90s (heck all college campuses, since people have been going to college), everything was about sex, sex, sex, and nobody actually had a clue as to the emotional and spiritual power of sex, sex, sex. To sort of quote the shoe brand Nike, “they were just doing it.” While thrilling for a moment, a lot of this sex was leaving young people sad, confused, and unable to sustain the emotional wherewithal required for a long-term relationship. One important lesson our culture has learned from the #metoo movement is: no matter what you may think, sex is a really big deal!

Harris’ book had several important insights, one being that life and healthy relationships were about more than just sex. Harris emphasized the importance of friendship and romance in people’s relationships. In his book, Harris called for what at the time—and especially today—seemed extremely countercultural: abstinence, chastity, and ultimately the avoidance of dating before marriage altogether, hence the title of his book. Harris persuaded young people of the importance of not only not having sex before marriage, but more importantly, protecting one’s emotional self from the dangers of simply moving from one partner to the next.

“I thought about it,

but the problem was Mel was the best girlfriend I had ever had and I wasn’t about to screw that up.”

Many of my Christian friends gobbled up this book. I thought about it, but the problem was Mel was the best girlfriend I had ever had and I wasn’t about to screw that up. I also found out Harris got married shortly after the book was published so he was not even in the single realm for the long haul. Nevertheless, I was surprised to read in the news, two weeks ago, that Joshua Harris had renounced his Christian faith altogether. On Instagram, he wrote, “by all measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.” My first response was: WTF! By all measurements that you have for defining a Christian... and pray tell, what would that be?  

I Kissed Dating Goodbye had and has many valid critics, which now include the author. However, the theological criticism of it is the mixing of purity culture with one’s justification before God. That Jesus especially loves virgins, and if you’re not a virgin anymore, I don’t know if you meet my measurements that I have for defining a Chrisitian. This is not Christianity, instead this is a recipe for despair or Pharisaism.

Defining Christianity by any other means than the perfect imputed righteousness of Jesus, given to us freely as a gift from God, in our baptisms, is not Christianity. 

This is Jesus’ entire point in our upcoming Gospel reading this Sunday. In Luke 12:49-56, Jesus delivers some unsettling words about not coming to bring peace, but a sword. He talks about dividing home and parents from children. However, when one reads this passage in context, it is clear that Jesus is speaking about achieving peace, specifically with God, the way the world offers it, through our own works. In this passage, Jesus is essentially saying: do not come and think that I have come to celebrate your achievements, your virginity, your morality or stances on justice issues. Rather, I have come to wash all of that away in the baptism of fire that falls upon me in order to make you the righteousness of God. Jesus goes on to talk about how we can interpret the signs of nature, yet we miss how to interpret the ultimate sign of his presence in his baptism, which is him upon the cross.

Let me tell you, friends, that sign, and that sign alone, is Good News for Joshua Harris and his Christian measurements. It is good news for those of you who’ve kissed dating goodbye, and those of you, who like me, just couldn’t do it. Jesus has not come to reward our efforts at being good, rather he has come to save us from our failures to do so!

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday as we celebrate the grace of God alone found in Jesus Christ alone, and the peace this brings in the midst of our world truly divided by their own self-justification projects. 

Pax,

The Reverend Jacob A. Smith