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.