By
the Rev. Lee Woofenden
Bridgewater,
Massachusetts, September 9, 2001
Psalm
16 At God's hand are pleasures
forevermore
Protect
me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I
say to the Lord, "You are my Lord;
I have no
good apart from you."
As for the holy ones in the land, they
are the noble,
in whom is
all my delight.
Those who choose another god multiply
their sorrows;
their
drink offerings of blood I will not pour
out
or take
their names upon my lips.
The
Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold
my lot.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in
pleasant places;
I have a
delightful inheritance.
I
bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the
night also my heart instructs me.
I keep the Lord always before me;
because he
is at my right hand, I shall not be
moved.
Therefore
my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body
also rests secure.
For you do not give me up to the grave,
or let
your faithful one see the pit.
You show me the path of life.
In your
presence there is fullness of joy;
at your
right hand are pleasures forevermore.
John 4:31-38 The fields are already
ripe for harvest
Jesus'
disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat
something."
But
he said to them, "I have food to
eat that you know nothing about."
Then
his disciples said to each other,
"Could someone have brought him
food?"
Jesus
said, "My food is to do the will of
him who sent me, and to finish his work.
Do you not say, 'Four months more and
then comes the harvest'? But I tell you,
lift up your eyes and look at the
fields! They are already ripe for
harvest. The reaper is receiving wages,
and harvesting the fruit for eternal
life, so that the sower and the reaper
may rejoice together. Thus the saying
'One sows and another reaps' is true. I
sent you to reap what you have not
worked for. Others have done the hard
work, and you have reaped the benefits
of their labor."
Heaven and Hell #527
Our personality
remains after death
I
can testify from a great deal of
experience that it is impossible to give
heavenly life to people who have led
lives opposed to it in the world.
Some
people have believed that they would
easily accept divine truths after death
when they heard them from angels, and
that they would then become believers
and lead different lives, so that they
could be accepted into heaven. However,
this has been tried with many people
(though only with those who believed
this), so that they could learn that
there is no repentance after death. Some
of them did understand true things and
seemed to accept them; but the moment
they turned back to the life of their
own love, they rejected them and even
argued against them. Some rejected them
on the spot, unwilling even to listen to
them. . . .
These
and similar experiences teach simple
good people that there is no way to
change anyone's life after death; no way
to rewrite an evil life into a good one,
or a hellish life into an angelic one.
This is because the character of every
spirit from head to toe is determined by
his or her love, and therefore by his or
her life. . . . Our
character after death is determined by
the quality of our life in the world.
Do
you not say, "Four months more and
then comes the harvest?" But I tell
you, lift up your eyes and look at the
fields! They are already ripe for
harvest. (John 4:35)
Back
when I was in Junior High School, the
music teacher used to like to hang
inspirational posters on the walls of
the music room. The only one I actually
remember said, "Today is the first
day of the rest of your life."
Probably the reason I remember it is
that it has become such a commonplace
saying--so commonplace that it has lost
much of its force. For me, though, the
music room was my first time
encountering it, and it made an
impression on me.
The
message, of course, was that whatever
has happened so far in this life, a new
beginning is always possible; and that
new beginning can start today--right
now! There is no need to be a
prisoner of our past experiences and
choices. Every day is a new opportunity
to begin again. Each day we can make the
choice to start a new life that is
closer to our ideals.
However
clichéd the saying may be by now, it is
just as true as it ever was. Yet the
death of our friend and fellow church
member Beryl Foster reminds us that this
saying doesn't go quite far enough.
Perhaps some of its force would be
restored if instead we say, "Today
is the first day of eternal
life." When someone close to us
passes from this world to the next, we
realize that each day we are not only
beginning the life we will live for the
rest of our time here on earth; each day
we are beginning the life we will live
to all eternity.
Based
on his extensive experience in the
spiritual world, Emanuel Swedenborg
assures us that whatever kind of life we
have built for ourselves here on earth,
we will continue in that same kind of
life after we have died. Of course, this
especially means our inner life:
the life of what we love and believe.
Our outward actions have meaning only as
they express our true, inner desires and
beliefs. And conversely, our real
beliefs and desires are the ones we
actually live by. If we say that
we love other people and want to make
them happy, but in fact we make life
miserable for those around us, our
actions are telling the true story.
It
is our inner loves and desires, beliefs
and attitudes, and the way we live them
out in our lives through our actions,
that determines who we are, and where we
are headed both in this life and in the
next. And it is the choices we make here
on earth, and especially the choices
that we make today, in this very
moment (which is really the only
moment we ever have) that will determine
our fate to eternity.
And
just in case we think we can put it off
and wait until we have died, when we
will have angels to teach us and guide
us, we are assured by both Swedenborg
and the Bible that if we don't start
here on earth, we'll never start after
we die. Just as those whom Swedenborg
encountered would not listen to the
angels, Jesus tells us in the parable of
the rich man and Lazarus that if we are
unwilling to listen to the witnesses we
have right here on earth, we will not
listen to anyone from the spiritual
world, either.
In
the parable, the rich man, who was in
torment in hell, reluctantly came to
accept that he himself was stuck there
to eternity. But he asked Abraham to
send Lazarus to his brothers who were
still alive, so that they wouldn't come
into torment in the afterlife as well.
Abraham
replied, "They have Moses and the
Prophets; let them listen to
them."
"No,
father Abraham," the rich man
replied, "but if someone from the
dead goes to them, they will
repent."
He
said to him, "If they do not
listen to Moses and the Prophets, they
will not be convinced even if someone
rises from the dead." (Luke
16:29-31)
There's
the stick. Where's the carrot? The
carrot is in our reading from John's
Gospel:
Jesus
said, "My food is to do the will
of him who sent me, and to finish his
work. Do you not say, 'Four months
more and then comes the harvest'? But
I tell you, lift up your eyes and look
at the fields! They are already ripe
for harvest. The reaper is receiving
wages, and harvesting the fruit for
eternal life, so that the sower and
the reaper may rejoice together.
Yes,
God does warn us to shape ourselves up
using what we have already been given,
or we'll be shipped out. But God also
gives us a wonderful promise. And God
holds that promise in front of us every
day--if we will only lift up our eyes to
see it. It is a promise of reward and
rejoicing, of reaping a harvest of
goodness, most of which we do not even
have to work for. God has given us
everything we need; we simply have to
make good use of it.
When
someone close to us does die, we tend to
rethink our priorities. We realize once
again that no matter how much we have
built up for ourselves here on this
earth, we don't take any of it with
us--except what we have built up within
ourselves. None of our accomplishments
here on earth will mean anything once we
die--except the human ones. The
things we have done that have helped (or
hurt) other human beings will live on in
the minds and hearts of those we have
left behind. And they will live on in
our own hearts and minds, too. Because
everything we do here is practice for
what we will do in the life of eternity.
And
though we will not bring any of our
material possessions with us, we will
bring those spiritual possessions that
we have truly made our own. The ways we
have learned to love (or hate), we will
bring with us. The understanding (or
misunderstanding) we have developed for
our fellow human beings, we will bring
with us. The habits of useful (or
useless) life we have built up here on
earth, we will bring with us. And we
will forever be the person we have built
ourselves into in this life.
Today
is the first day of that eternal life.
We don't have to wait four months; the
fields of goodness are ripe for harvest today.
We all have regrets about the things we
did, or didn't do, in the past. We may
have regrets about yesterday. Something
we said that we wish we hadn't.
Something we didn't get done that we had
promised ourselves we would. We indulged
in some bad habit that we have been
saying all along we are going to break.
We let pass some opportunity to say that
extra word or do that extra deed of
thoughtfulness, out of fear, or shyness,
or pride, or for some other reason. We
have all fallen short of our best ideals
for ourselves. We all wish we could be
someone better than we are.
The
first thing to do is relax. There is no
one who is truly good except God (Mark
10:18; Luke 18:19). And no one is
perfect except God. Yes, perfection is
the ideal to strive for (Matthew 5:48).
This keeps our ideals always ahead of
us, so that we always have farther to
go. But at the same time, we must
realize that we will never actually reach
perfection. And it is no use beating
ourselves up because we are not perfect,
because we make mistakes, because we are
less than what we could be. This is
simply part of the human situation.
The
first thing to do is relax about
ourselves and our lives. And it helps us
to do this if we realize that God loves
us fully, right now, just as we are at
this moment. God does not reject us
because of all of the failings that we
see in ourselves. God does not reject us
because we fall short of perfection.
Instead, God looks for the good in us.
And though it may sometimes be hard for
us to believe, God actually does find
good in us to love. Right now, right at
this very moment, there are good things
in us, and God loves us for that.
So
the next thing to realize is that God
created us for something good, and to be
someone good. God created each one of us
to be an angel. Even if we have fallen
short of perfection, there are some
things about us that are good right now.
These good things are gifts from
God--and God wants to give us even more.
Of
course, we do have to recognize and be
honest about our shortcomings. We do
have to put energy into resisting our
destructive tendencies and wrong
attitudes. However, it helps us
tremendously to do this if we have
something positive and inspiring to
focus on. A sense of hope and a promise
that something better is on the way can
keep us going in a way that pure
self-criticism and self-condemnation
simply cannot do. I am reminded of
Aesop's fable of "The North Wind
and the Sun":
The
North Wind and the Sun disputed as to
which was the most powerful, and
agreed that he should be declared the
victor who could first strip a
wayfaring man of his clothes. The
North Wind first tried his power and
blew with all his might, but the
keener his blasts, the closer the
Traveler wrapped his cloak around him,
until at last, resigning all hope of
victory, the Wind called upon the Sun
to see what he could do. The Sun
suddenly shone out with all his
warmth. The Traveler no sooner felt
his genial rays than he took off one
garment after another, and at last,
fairly overcome with heat, undressed
and bathed in a stream that lay in his
path.
Aesop's
moral: "Persuasion is better than
Force."
If
we view the North Wind as the accusatory
blasts of withering truth that we are
quite capable of directing at ourselves,
then we can see that such harsh
self-condemnation is likely only to
cause us to clutch to ourselves even
more tightly the familiar clothing of
our current attitudes and habits. If we
see nothing good and redeeming in
ourselves, what is our incentive to give
up anything about the way we are right
now?
The
sun, on the other hand, we can see as
God's love shining on our souls, and our
own acceptance of ourselves when we are
warmed by that love. Even
when we are
bundled up in many faulty ways of
thinking and acting, God still shines on
us with pure, warm, and very intense
love. As we realize this, all those
false coverings that are hiding the
angel God created us to be start looking
less and less appealing. We realize that
we no longer need that defensive posture
toward others. We no longer need that
argumentative spirit. We no longer need
that complaining attitude. We no longer
need that self-deprecation.
Gradually
we realize that nothing but love and
understanding matters. Nothing but the
core human realities of mercy and
compassion, of mutual love,
understanding, and service means
anything in the long run. And one by
one, we begin to shed every piece of
false clothing that has hidden our best
self from God and from one another. And
finally, we stand in God's presence with
nothing to hide from ourselves or from
those around us, because we have reached
the good essence of who we are--of who
God created us to be.
This
opening up to God and to one another can
start today, and every day. Each day we
can shed a little more of the false and
limiting self that keeps us from being
God's best creation of us. Each day we
can move a little closer to the presence
of God that is unique and special in
us--for God created each one of us to
express some particular part of the
divine love, goodness, and
understanding. Each day, we can express
to the people around us a little more of
that divine spark within. And each day,
we can realize and experience a little
more of the warmth and the joy that
comes from being the angel we were
created to be.
As
we read in Psalm 16:
The
Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold
my lot.
The boundary lines have fallen for me
in pleasant places;
I have a
delightful inheritance.
I
bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the
night also my heart instructs me.
I keep the Lord always before me;
because
he is at my right hand, I shall not be
moved.
Therefore
my heart is glad, and my soul
rejoices;
my body
also rests secure.
For you do not give me up to the
grave,
or let
your faithful one see the pit.
You show me the path of life.
In your
presence there is fullness of joy;
at your
right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Today
is the first day of eternal life. Amen.
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