A taste of Heaven

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Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Here's the thing. Christians know what Heaven is not. We know that we don't magically transform into angels with wings and halos, playing harps just as the inhabitants of Hell have horns and hooves,  and, according to Gary Larsen, play accordions.

Yet, neither is Heaven going to be a place of do-as-you-please. We're not going to be idle on cloudy sun-loungers, supping angelic pina-coladas and watching reruns of Morecombe and Wise.

We know what Heaven is not. Do we know what it is?

[PAUSE]

There is a famous setting of the words "This is the Record of John" by Orlando Gibbons. It is most often sung with a solo by a male alto. Sometimes it is sung by a female alto, and others by a tenor.

It is beautiful music, but there are some who cannot stand the male alto voice. There are others who won't listen to it if it's sung by a tenor. If this is true, and our personal taste varies so much, how can everyone hope to enjoy the music in the presence of God?

You could say that God will only allow into Heaven those who prefer the female alto voice to sing this anthem. If this were so, there would have to be a reason why found in the doctrine of the Church. Since this anthem was written in the Seventeenth Century, and such choral music did not exist as far as we know in the Early Church, it seems unlikely that God would make appreciation of a particular music a condition for salvation. If it were, we would have known about it from the beginning.

It is clear that a matter of personal taste is not going to factor into our Eternal Life with God. However, if our personal taste is something that is part of us, an expression of who we are, how can we expect this Eternal Life with God to be something that we enjoy? We will be not be allowed to be isolated from others as demonstrated by the great multitudes who praise God in St John's Revelation. What if Eternal Life with God is full of grime music, chewing gum and deely-boppers?

[PAUSE]

This is our problem. We tend to think about Heaven, that is our Eternal Life with God, using our own experiences of life. We see, hear or taste something that makes us feel wonderful and we say, "how heavenly!" and expect Heaven to conform to it.

This makes some sense; Our Lord says that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. God does not despise His Creation at all, so why would we expect Heaven not to be the best of what we know now.

Our personal tastes and preferences can then become an obstacle to Heaven because we believe that everyone who goes to Heaven must share the same experiences of life. How can we deal with this?

[PAUSE]

St Paul tells us, "Rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say rejoice." The reality of the Kingdom of Heaven is to allow Jesus to be the King. We ought to discipline ourselves to rein in our taste and preferences so that we can divert the energy that we spend indulging then in rejoicing in God Himself.

This means that we have to stop worrying about the hymns of the Church because of their tunes, but because of how they present the praises of God the King according to what the Church teaches about Him. It means that we have to stop worrying about the Church decor in favour of presenting a space devoted to the worship of God as we have received through the centuries.

Indeed, to see Heaven is to find the same joy in everything God has created that He does. We need to seek out that joy in what we find delightfull according to our personal taste and also, contrary to it. If God created it, then there is goodness within it.

[PAUSE]

But the world is a dark and evil place, isn't it?

Only the Devil would want to convince you of that. Yes, the Devil's handiwork is always around us, but as we have seen these past few weeks of Advent, the time and influence of the Devil are limited. Advent reminds us of hope. Advent reminds us to rejoice in the Lord at Christmas and always.

 Tomorrow, we shall see how Heaven and Earth will effectively become the same place, and it all begins with the birth of a baby.