The View From Heaven

On All Saints’ Sunday, perhaps more than any other time in the church year, our minds and imaginations turn toward heaven. We honor the communion of saints, past, present, and yet to come, and marvel that we are all connected. It’s especially bittersweet to remember the saints we love who have gone before us. I believe in life after death. But there are so many questions, and this is a good day to ask them. Where is heaven, exactly? What is heaven like for my loved ones? And what exactly does heaven look like?

So, I did what any good preacher would do to prepare a homily on heaven. I googled it. Specifically, I searched for images of heaven. I found what you might expect. Lots of angels and clouds and pearly gates; glass stairways rising into the sky; beams of light coming out of clouds, and even some mythical creatures, like unicorns. I also came across an ad for Heaven Hill Kentucky whiskey. I’m not entirely sure how that relates to our search for what heaven is like. The most frequent images were of Jesus, sort of spread out over the sky, with his arms outstretched. Honestly, I finished my little search feeling less than inspired. Sometimes, there seems to be a fine line between what’s uplifting and what’s just kitschy. 

Which led me to the unsurprising conclusion that we just won’t get very far in finding out what heaven is like until it’s our turn to go. We can’t know what the saints in heaven actually see. But before we give up on our search completely, imagine for a moment that heaven might not be completely hidden from us. Would you believe me if I told you that we do have some access? It’s right there in the sixth chapter of Luke. But first a spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with angels or harps or the pearly gates. It’s not a view of heaven. It’s more like a view from heaven. 

Heaven might not be the first thing that comes to mind when reading Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. It’s a rather complicated passage. Blessed are the hungry, the sorrowful, and the hated ones, Jesus begins. Classic sermon on the mount material. But this is Luke’s version, better known as the sermon on the plain. Jesus speaks from a great symbolic leveling place, where, in addition to all those blessings, there are woes. Woe to the rich, the full, the joyful, and the respected ones. Jesus says that those on the bottom will rise to the top, and those on the top will inevitably start their descent, as if riding a great ferris wheel of human life. Luke always loves a good reversal. And I think Jesus is being descriptive here rather than prescriptive. Life is actually like a ferris wheel much of the time. His message is that there is a kind of blessedness that comes from knowing that our ultimate dependence is on God. In hard times, we understand that dependence instinctively, but the truth of it can be harder to see when we’re comfortable, so woe to us when we are at the top of the wheel.

I appreciate Luke’s version of the blessings and woes, but it’s not a very "All Saintsy” message. It seems like a strange passage to choose for one of the greatest feast days of the church year. Wouldn’t Matthew’s version of the beatitudes, the one without the woes, have been a more appropriate, or at least, a happier choice? There must be something more here for our quest of heaven. 

Luke continues with what sounds like a standard list of good Christian practices: loving our enemies, blessing those who curse us, offering the other cheek, giving to those who beg from us, giving our shirt to the person who takes our coat, and the ultimate summary statement: “do to others as you would have them do to you.” We could easily see this simply as a list of good works. All good stuff. But Jesus’ sermon on the plain is far more radical than that. A second spoiler alert: this list is actually about shame and how to get rid of shame. Understanding this might just bringing us closer to the view from heaven. 

Take turning the other cheek, for example. It’s not exactly what we think it is. Scholars have pointed out that Jesus is describing a scenario about power and shame here. If someone more powerful than you hits you across your face with the back of his hand, and then you offer your other cheek, he has to hit you with an open hand in the other direction, and see your face. According to first century rules, by doing this, you are claiming to be an equal to the one who thinks they are more powerful than you. Likewise, giving your shirt to the person who takes your coat is about changing the dynamics of shame and power. Say a tax collector not only takes your money, but also your coat. Jesus says keep going, strip down. By those same set of cultural rules, nakedness isn’t just shameful for the one who is naked, it’s shameful for the person who beholds your nakedness. In a society steeped in an elaborate system of shame and honor, Jesus is trying to reverse that system and rob shame of it’s currency altogether (pulpitfiction.com).

If heaven has anything to teach us before we get there, it is that we can let go of our currencies of shame. It’s easy to look at first century Palestine and see how shame and honor worked in that culture. It’s harder to be aware of those same dynamics in our own culture because we are so used to them. But they are everywhere. Shame is a toxic force we wield against our opponents and against ourselves. Shame is that emotion which says not only did you or I do something wrong, we are something wrong. Shame is everywhere. We move through a world that still runs on a strict stratification of shame. Society tells us that there is shame in being hungry, or hated, or poor, or rejected, or different. We can all too easily get caught up in shaming others, and in feeling shameful ourselves. The gospel insists on turning that whole system on its head. Shame has no power or currency in the kingdom of heaven. The saints there already know this, but we still need to learn. There is no shame in being at the bottom of the ferris wheel. And when we find ourselves at the top, we need to not be tempted into shaming others. 

This is surely a view from heaven. The saints in heaven already know what it is like to live in grace. Heaven runs entirely on it, which is a very different kind of economy than the one we’re used to. It’s something we can glimpse here. Jesus’ old sermon on the plain reminds us that shame is not welcome here, only grace. This is a place for blessedness. In a moment, we will baptize Henry and Harrison into the blessed communion of saints. The world will try to teach them all about power and shame and their place on the ferris wheel. But Jesus will show them a different way, one filled with grace instead of shame. He will show them the view from heaven itself.