Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and says to the first man he meets, “Do you want to go to heaven?”

The man said, “I do Father.”

The priest said, “Then stand over there against the wall.”

Then the priest asked the second man, “Do you want to go to heaven?”

“Certainly, Father,” was the man’s reply.

“Then stand over there against the wall,” said the priest.

Then Father Murphy walked up to O’Toole and said, “Do you want to go to heaven?”

O’Toole said, “No, I don’t Father.”

The priest said, “I don’t believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don’t want to go to heaven?”

O’Toole said, “Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now.”

Who would want to go to heaven, really? I mean, if heaven really is a specific place and it is the way it’s described in the bible, who would want to go there? Nobody really believes the image of the angel sitting on the cloud with a harp and halo. Anyone who has gone to church has heard how all the lucky souls who make it into heaven will spend eternity singing praises to God. Well, I have to admit that isn’t my idea of heaven. I don’t think I would like that one bit. That would be like spending eternity in church. And I LIKE going to church! But every minute or every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year for all of eternity? I don’t like ANYTHING that much. You hear stories like that and you understand why people give up on religion.

But is that really a description of what heaven is supposed to be? The Hebrew word translated into English as “heaven” is samayim, but this is not a singular noun. Instead, it is a plural word and would best be translated as “heavens,” something that does occasionally appear in some translations. The Greek is also sometimes, but not consistently, rendered in the plural. Traditional theology treats heaven as a single place or existence, but the text makes it clear that we should be talking about multiple “heavens.”

In the Old Testament, heaven is simply the dwelling place of God. Heaven is God’s address, as it were. And yet, ask any good Catholic school student and they will tell you that God is everywhere. In fact, just last week, we looked at the words of Jesus as he spoke to his students right after that last meal together and Jesus said that God, the Father dwells in him and that he [Jesus] dwells in us, and we in him. Therefore, it would seem pretty clear that heaven, whatever heaven is, is an integral part of each one of us. And isn’t that really what all religions are really about, finding the divine spirit within ourselves?

I have taken a detour out of the gospel of Matthew these past few weeks and spent some time looking at the gospel of John during this Easter season. Yes, it is still the Easter season. I know Easter was back in April, but Easter doesn’t end until Pentecost Sunday and that isn’t until fifty days after Easter. And I have spent a good deal of time translating what Jesus said at that last supper out of the original Greek text of the gospel and leaving it pretty literal, so you might get the sense of the real meaning. But I also wanted you to get a sense of the reality of the whole experience.

I know a lot of people think The Bible is a load of hogwash, and I would have to agree that many parts of it are simply stories designed to teach a lesson. Other parts were added by translators later because they had their own particular axe to grind. Many of the books were written long after the events described had happened. Moreover, many of the books were written for specific audiences in order to persuade that particular group of people. But even so, I don’t think that detracts in any way from the over all truth of the story. Just because the story comes from a long oral tradition does not mean that the whole thing is a fairy tale. The truth is that the simple humanity in the story makes it real. Jesus behaves as a real person would. He has the same feelings any of us might, especially faced with the kind of mission he felt he had.

This week, I share with you this prayer Jesus said in front of his students. Since the 16th century, it has been called the high priestly prayer, but that is making it all together way too theological. Listen to this prayer and look at it as a teacher asking God to bless his students at the end of term. Jesus knew he was soon to be arrested and that would mean his death would soon follow. During that last supper he looked at his students all around the table and knew he would not be with them much longer. That’s why he was giving them some last words of wisdom. I know that feeling well, every June, when I send my little flock of fifth graders off to summer vacation before they enter the big bad middle school. And it is also with a certain sense of sadness that I send them off, knowing the difficulties they are going to face, hoping I have prepared them well, knowing that most of them I will never see again. I understand how Jesus must have felt. So he said a little prayer to his Father for his students.

“These things says Jesus and lifted up his eyes to the sky and saying, “Father, the moment comes. Glorify your son so that he may glorify you. (the word, “doxazo”, which is translated glorify, is used both times. The word also means to think, to conjecture, and to praise. Glorify seems to make the most sense, but might there also be a play on words? Most scholars translate it as rendering glory.) Just as him you gave authority (or power, or freedom) of all human kind (or flesh) that you may give them perpetual life. This is perpetual life, knowing you, the only real God, and the one you sent, Jesus, the anointed one. I give you glory by completing your work you gave me to do. And now, at this very time, glorify me, Father, with yourself, the glory that I had before the world (cosmos—literally) was, with you. I made known your name to those men you gave me from the world (again, cosmos). They are yours and you gave them to me. They have kept your word. Now they know that all you For the sayings you gave me, I gave them and they received them and they know (by observation) that in reality I come from you and they have faith (a verb, really, to faithe) that you sent me. I ask about them, not about the world, but rather for those you gave me because they are yours. And all that is mine, is yours, and all that is yours is mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world. I come to you, Holy Father. Keep them in your name that you have given me so that they are one just as we are.” (John, Chapter 17, verses 1-11, Big Daddy translation, as if you couldn’t tell)

How human is that? Don’t read the Bible like it’s some kind of religious text. Read it like it’s a story, because it IS a story. Put flesh and blood on these people. Can you not feel the pain Jesus must be feeling and how much he wants for his students, his friends? He considered them a gift from God.

This prayer is important for me also, at my age,  having been to so many funerals now, where words about heaven and eternal life fly around like talk of tax cuts at a republican convention. Everyone may wonder what eternal life may mean, but Jesus is quite clear about it. Regardless of what those evangelical bible thumpers say about eternal life, Jesus says that eternal life is knowing God, plain and simple. And you know God by knowing Jesus (as he said to Phillip), not the man, but what he did, because God is present in love, and love is something you do. You see God in loving kindness and compassion. Jesus had just told his students, “There are many homes up there where my Father lives, and I am going to prepare them for your coming. When everything is ready, then I will come and get you, so that you can always be with me where I am.” And where is he? Jesus himself said that he dwelt in us, and we in him, and in the divine.

So when I said last week that we continue to live on in the people we love, I wasn’t just making a figurative statement. I meant that quite literally. Heaven is all around you. It’s not some place off in the sky where we sit around singing praises to God all day long for all time. And I might add that singing praises to God isn’t exactly what you might think it is either, if we explore the Greek text.

Remember that the word doxazo in the text means to glorify, but it also means to praise. And notice what Jesus says about giving glory to God (the same word, by the way). He says he gives glory to God by doing His/Her work that was given to him to do. In other words, you praise God by doing what God wants. And what God wants is for us to love one another. In which case, being in heaven means to spend all eternity in love, giving love, receiving love, sharing love, being love. Well now, that’s different. That sounds pretty much like what my idea of heaven would be, that, and a Martin 000-45 guitar made from Brazilian rosewood and red spruce built before 1940. And so, heaven isn’t about all of us jumping around saying oh, God, you’re so wonderful and a really really great guy for all eternity. Heaven is about sharing love. You praise God with every breath you take, by simply living in love.

You don’t have to check your brains at the door in order to be a Christian, or even to believe in God. I know some people do. That is their choice. But don’t blame the religion. I also know that it isn’t very cool or fashionable to be a Christian. I make no apologies for my faith. Whenever I read criticisms of belief in God, whatever the religion might be, those criticisms are always made by people who have never taken the time to really learn or study what the religions they criticize might be teaching. It’s easy to criticize organized religion. Organized religion does some crazy shit. But to give up on God because of organized religion is like blaming math because people embezzle money or language because people say some hateful things. I might add that in spite of the fact that people have used both for evil purposes, Math and language both exist. So does God…and heaven.

So, unlike O’Toole, I don’t mind going to heaven. Heaven, it seems clear, is where your heart is. And my heart is with the people I love, and with all of creation, really. And so, Father Murphy, I don’t want to go to heaven. I’m there already.