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

Dear Friends,

Happy Halloween and tomorrow is All Saints’ Day, which we will transfer to this upcoming Sunday. All Saints’ Day is one of the oldest feast days in the Christian year. The roots of this feast day go back to the Diocletian persecution of the church in the fourth-century. So many Christians were being martyred for the faith in certain parts of the Roman Empire that it seemed right and good to combine everyone together. It became official across Western Christendom in the seventh century when the Roman Parthenon was consecrated and dedicated to All the Saints in 609 AD.

It is an important feast day because it reminds us that, for Christians, death does not have the final say and that we (the church militant) join our voices with the church triumphant and all the company of heaven in our unending hymn praising God and his salvific work on our behalf.

James Tissot (French, 1836-1902). Saint Thaddeus or Saint Jude (Saint Thadée ou Saint Jude), 1886-1894. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

One interesting saint who was commemorated on Monday is the apostle St. Jude. He is an interesting saint because Jude is short for Judas. It must be tough sharing a name with one of the most vilified men in history; the man who betrayed our Lord. Nobody lights a candle for Judas Iscariot and no church has a feast dedicated to him. It was for this reason that many believe St. Jude—the good Judas—became the patron saint of lost causes. St. Jude was petitioned when the rest of the company of heaven seemed to be silent.  

Now, today is also Reformation Day, and as a Protestant the idea of petitioning saints sort of weirds me out. However, the point of a saint day is to read the Gospel and learn about Jesus through the lens of the life of that particular saint. St. Jude reminds us that it is only through the Gospel that lost causes are transformed into divine causes, that lost causes in Christ are always given hope.

Whatever your lost cause maybe, take heart: Christ knows and in him you are always found. For Jesus is working out all things for your good and his glory.

This Sunday, we will celebrate All the Saints, including you and those saints yet to come. We will also wrap up the formal aspect of our stewardship campaign. I want to thank everyone who has turned in their pledge. For those who have not gotten their pledge in, I ask that you would do it by Sunday.

This helps us shape our budget so we can get the Gospel out and through preaching and teaching, love and care, letting New York City know that by virtue of the cross of Christ, no one is a lost cause.

In an age where it seems like there are a lot of lost causes, Calvary-St. George’s and her mission is tremendously important to help fund.  

We will see you Sunday,

The Reverend Jacob Smith

Dear Friends,

Your citizenship is in Heaven.

As the engine of American politics revs up to another election, I want to remind you of this fact.

Sure, you may have a piece of paper that says you are an American citizen, but the apostle Paul makes clear that Christians are actually citizens of the kingdom of God. 

Paul makes this point explicit in his letter to the Philippians, residents of an ancient Roman colony renowned for its patriotism. The Philippians were, first and foremost, proud Romans. Paul’s best missionary strategy would have been to emphasize that to be a good Christian is to be a good Roman, but Paul was not a great strategist. When he came to Philippi to spread the good news about Jesus, Paul dared to proclaim among these proud Roman citizens that Jesus, and not the all-powerful Caesar, is Lord. 

What does this mean for you and me? It does not mean that we do not care about this world. It means that you and I pledge allegiance not to a flag, a group, or an ideology, but to a King. 

Paul cared very much for this world, and, like him, we work and pray for it too, in the midst of all our joys and sorrows, so that the reign of God might be known to all.

So fellow aliens, may the peace of Christ, which passes all understanding, guide your hearts and minds as you live as a sojourner in this world,

Ben

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.

Dear CalStG Family,

I am currently in chilly Uppsala, Sweden sending Calvary-St. George’s greetings from E. F. S., the mission and evangelism arm of the Church of Sweden. I was invited to preach and teach this week at their national conference. During the conference, I was invited onto a discussion panel with other pastors and theologians to discuss the church’s mission and climate change. If you thought Greta Thunberg was a big deal in New York, she is on par with the second coming in secular Sweden.

However, amongst their children, Sweden is seeing a rise in what psychologists are calling, “eco-anxiety”: a condition of crippling fear that is being induced by the apocalyptic language that is framing the current debate on climate change. 

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Next week, the church officially remembers and celebrates the life and witness of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of environmentalist. In the famous prayer attributed to Francis, he asks God to make him an instrument of his peace. “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.” The approach of the world to climate change will not work. 

I think we can all agree that collectively the human race needs to be better stewards of the Earth; it is our vocation.

However, yelling at people, shaming governments, and frightening children in the end will not work. These are all means to be consoled, understood, and loved. These are all means which focus first upon the self. It means nothing to a person in India to tell them to stop with pollution because it will be unbearably hot in 2037, when their children are starving right now. 

This is where the church can lead the way differently.

From the Gospel, a place of forgiveness, we might seek the way of Francis and console, understand, and love. The church is absolutely everywhere from New York City, Stockholm, and especially in the developing world.

To help developing countries, on a local level, because governments won’t do it, through the church help educate and develop environmentally-friendly jobs and industries, which seek to honor the dignity of people, instead of shaming them into it. 

Also with a clear understanding that while this is the only earth we have, it shouldn’t be worshiped, for behold he makes all things new.  

If you have any thoughts on this, I would love to hear what you think, please comment right below on this blog.

Finally, I want to tell you about two very important things happening this week:

First, this Sunday, at the 10 A.M. and 11 A.M. services, we will have The Right Reverend Mary D. Glasspool, the Assistant Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of  New York. She is an engaging preacher and we are thrilled to have her in our midst.

Second, we are just more than a week out from beginning our season of stewardship. By now most of you have received stewardship information in mail, if not call us or you can go online. This year we are giving out tote bags that read, “Enjoy Your Forgiveness,” to the first 200 pledgers. We need your pledge as our mission continues to grow. So begin to consider your generous commitment today.

Mel and I fly back tomorrow so we will see you all this Sunday.  

Pax,

Jacob