The Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near
A sermon on the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany 2011
All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Morristown, Tennessee
Henry G. Selby
“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” AMEN.
Do you want to be citizen of heaven? Do you want cross over Jordan, be cleansed whiter than snow, to be a member of the choirs in a never ending Sabbath in that place where there are no sorrows or tears, but rather an ineffable joy . . . an indescribable peace . . . ? Do you want to ride the glory train? (Oh, how I wish that train would blow its whistle this morning right on cue!)
I have no idea what your conception of heaven is. Chances are, it’s been influenced, as has mine, by artists of the Renaissance or perhaps Gustav Doré’s engravings from the Divine Comedy. Who can forget Beatrice and Dante, as etched by Doré, gazing into the Empyrean, highest heaven, at what appears to be a vortex of winged angels? Highest heaven. Beings so spiritually advanced that they are nothing more, but nothing less, than light.
Heaven. God’s abode. St. Peter at the pearly gates. A crystal sea. Halos and wings and harps for everyone! Sort of a nebulous affair . . . where it’s always sunny even though you move through the clouds . . .
I don’t know what it looks like. What I do know is that I want to go there. I’m guessing you do to! And today, the third Sunday after the Epiphany (a season of light-in-the-darkness symbolism) we have Jesus telling us to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. So it seems pretty clear to me that if I want to be a part of the celestial congregation, I’d better repent.
On the other hand, this reminds me of the parish priest in Dublin who entered a pub to spy on some of his flock. “Michael O’Shaughnessy,” he exclaimed upon spotting one. “Don’t you want to go to heaven?” “Yes, father, I do.” “Then stand over here.”
The Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near, page 2
Then he saw another one: “Sean Patrick, don’t you want to go to heaven?” “Yes, father, I do.” “Then stand over here.” And Kevin O’Malley: don’t you want to go to heaven? “No father.”
He couldn’t believe his ears.
“What? Kevin! You mean when you die you don’t want to go to heaven?”
“Oh yes, father, when I die. I thought you were getting up a group to go right now!”
You see, Kevin was probably willing to repent, but just not quite yet. It’s a funny story, but the truth is that Kevin didn’t get the bigger picture . . . that the Kingdom of heaven is near and the time to repent is now.
Today’s Gospel lesson is instructive on many levels. We are given the history of Jesus’ call to some disciples and his earliest ministry. It footnotes our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, and it is a clear instruction and call for repentance. Finally, it is a model for us to follow Jesus’ example in taking care of others.
And here’s a thought: what if the kingdom of heaven came near and you couldn’t recognize it when you saw it? What if it were right there, inches from you, but you couldn’t see it because you were facing the wrong direction?
I imagine that everyone knows what repent means. Just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you. It means “turn around.” It’s not a curse. It’s not some high falutin’ religious rule or commandment from an angry overseer. “Repent”, I would suggest, is in fact a very loving statement. Put very simply, if you saw someone running toward the edge of a cliff, you might suggest that he turn around and run in the opposite direction!
The Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near, page 3
So the loving intent of our Lord when he speaks to us should be obvious: if you want to see the nearness of that place that seems impossible to describe, the place where you say you want to spend all eternity, you’re going to have to start by repenting. And brothers and sisters, let me share with you from my own experience: true repentance is the door to a transformed life. But how do we recognize the need to repent? How do I know that it’s time to “turn around”?
Some folks have counselors or spiritual directors to help them see the need. Others have real friends . . . you know . . . the ones who love us enough to tell us the truth . . .
For the lucky ones among us, we have these human mirrors to reflect our needs in such a way that we can see outside of our own selfishness once in a while.
It’s like the young woman who decided to give the convent a try. She entered one of these cloistered nunneries where the sisters take a vow of silence. At the end of her first year the Mother Superior called her in, commended her for diligence in her spiritual path, and as a reward, allowed her to say two words. The girl responded, “Beds. Hard.” The Reverend Mother was miffed, but said nothing and sent the novice on her way. Another year passed and she allowed the novice to say two more words. This time? “Food. Bad.” Again, she was sent back without a comment. At the end of her third year the Superior gave her another chance to speak before making her perpetual vow. “I quit.” The Rev. Mother didn’t bat an eye! “It’s no wonder! You’ve done nothing but complain since you got here!”
And here in today’s Gospel our Lord seems to be saying that, whether we know it or not, if we want to glimpse the Kingdom, we’d better turn around.
The Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near, page 4
There’s this Gregorian melody that is mysterious, haunting, and just, well, sort of heavenly. It’s been floating around sacred spaces in the western church for well over a thousand years. Not too many years ago a French composer named Maurice Duruflé made a choral setting of the melody. You’ll hear our choir sing it today. But it’s not just this heavenly melody that is profound, it is the ancient text that goes along with the music:
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Where there is charity and love, God is there also.
Another translation has it as ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est: Where there is true charity (or love), there is God also.
My friends, the Gospel lesson today is powerful. Think about it. Imagine it! Imagine the possibilities that are out there for us if we follow this simple and loving direction: Repent!
I suspect there’s a temptation here to say, “hey. I’m a truly loving person. It’s time for me to help my child or my wife or my neighbor or my politicians REPENT. Well, this is not the time for you husbands to be jabbing your wife and whispering, “I hope you’re getting this!”
No. This is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ teaching on removing the log in your own eye so that you can see the mote in your neighbor’s. Our Lord is giving the direction to each of us, individually. Repent.
So it’s a good-news bad news thing: the good news is that the kingdom of heaven has come near; the bad news is, we have to repent to have a taste of it. But the really, really good news is that repentance doesn’t imply that we’ve been doing something “bad” at all. Hear that again: repentance does NOT imply that we’ve been doing something “bad”. It just means that we need to turn around: to head ourselves in the best direction.
The Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near, page 5
Jesus sees two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, casting their nets. He calls out to them. Can you visualize this? Can you see them turn to see who is calling out to them from the shore? And they turn around and follow him. He sees Zebedee’s boys, James and John sitting in a boat and he calls to them. They, too, turn around and immediately follow him.
Do we have ears to hear our Lord calling us? In today’s collect we prayed for the grace to answer God’s call. It is a call to repentance, and it is a call made from pure love.
“Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.”
And there’s the proclamation of the unlimited possibilities of a life transformed. I didn’t say it would be an easy life. I didn’t say it would be a hard life. But what I am saying is that we don’t have to make our new journey alone. We have each other . . . and shortly we will be united with millions of others – millions of others! – who are strengthened today by the body and blood of God who calls us.
Do we want to be citizens of heaven? Do we want cross over Jordan, be cleansed whiter than snow, to be members of the choirs in a never ending Sabbath in that place where there are no sorrows or tears? Do we really want to ride the Glory train?
Brothers and Sisters: the Kingdom of Heaven has come near this morning. Turn around and take a look.
And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power, dominion, and glory, both now and evermore. AMEN.
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