Normally I like to ease my way into a sermon, but today I feel like I need to start with a disclaimer, I am not going to talk about Jesus' use of flesh and blood imagery in John. I'm sure some of you will be disappointed (or not!).
Although a lot of the resources on this reading focus on those images, I agree with theologian Christopher Morse who says: “To preach on matters of less than life and death is not to preach the gospel as John presents it. This point is made explicit in today's lection.”
So as the sermon title says, I'm going to talk about death & eternal life. I want to start with death. It's not usually a popular topic, but it's one that comes to us all through the death of those we know and love and eventually our own death.
When I started in ministry, I had very little experience with death. This wasn't surprising, I was only 28. I had done one funeral as a student, that was about it. So to me, the way funerals and burials were done in my first churches on the Coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence, was normal.
They were very hands on. Family members would write letters, children would draw pictures, and put them in the casket. There was no funeral home, so family members prepared the body and men in the village dug the grave. At the graveside it would take four men to lower the casket on ropes, muscles straining, as the whole village sang and cried. Then everyone present would take a handful of dirt from the piles on the side and throw it on the casket, often with a word of love. It was a very visceral experience, when you left, there was no doubt that you had said good bye to the person who died.
The first time I did a burial in a city with a funeral home, I was quite lost. I got to the burial site ahead of time, looked for dirt to sprinkle on the casket when I said the words of committal, but couldn't find any. When I asked the funeral director, he said they took away all the dirt because it was too upsetting for people to see it. He gave me a tiny container full of sand I could sprinkle on the casket, but made it clear he thought that was overkill.
When we went over the other details, he told me he would just lower the casket so the top edge was level with the ground, then he would wait til everyone was gone to lower it completely.
Why? I asked. It seemed important to me to see the casket go in the ground in order to have sense of closure. He gave the same answer as before, it too upsetting for people to see.
In seminary we had discussed how the modern world has become separated from death, but those contrasting experiences brought that home to me in a powerful way. Our society seems very scared of death, we try to avoid thinking about it at all cost. When it happens, we often try to stay at arm's length from it. At memorial services, people often don't even want the ashes there because it feels too sad, it is too visceral a reminder that their loved one has died.
People know that making wills and preplanning funeral services helps their family immensely, yet how many of us resist because it feels morbid? I'm not going to die! we say, or at least, not yet, so why tempt fate? It's too depressing!
In the reading from 2 Kings, David is more like the people of the Coast, very practical. “I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he says to his son Solomon. “Be strong, be courageous, and keep the charge of the LORD your God.”
No fuss, no bother, this is going to happen like it happens to all of God's creatures. He doesn't seem scared or worried, he just wants to make sure Solomon is prepared.
At the time of David, the Hebrew people had a very pragmatic view of death. They had no real sense of an afterlife, certainly no concept of heaven. They believed that when a person died, they went down to Sheol, a shadowy place where not much happened. It wasn't a scary place, it just was.
That perspective changed between the time of David and the time of Jesus, 1000 years later. Biblical scholar James Tabor tells us: “The ancient Hebrews had no idea of an immortal soul living a full and vital life beyond death, nor of any resurrection or return from death. By the time of Jesus, however, many Jews had come to believe in a future resurrection of the dead.”
Jesus takes this a step further to talk about eternal life. It’s a concept we see quite a bit in the New Testament, but how often do we think about what it really means? Do you ever think about what happens after you die? We talk about heaven, but do we have any idea what it's really like? I think we have more questions than answers, don't we.
Hope (my 14 year old daughter) and I had quite the conversation about this the other day. She wanted to know what happens after we die. She said she wasn't interested in floating on a cloud in the sky. She wanted to know, would she see her grandparents? What about pets? And the most important question, could she still do art?
Over the years I have had many conversations about death and life after death with people. Often the conversations occur when people are ill, but they happen just as often when they aren't. It's natural to wonder, what exactly is eternal life about?
In the United Church we don't talk so much about eternal life, do we. We're very focused on this life, on Jesus' teaching that we are called to help bring about the Kingdom of God or Heaven here, now, not later.
Obviously that is extremely important, but although Jesus focused on creating the kingdom of God here and now, he did talk about eternal life, as we hear in the passage for today. He spoke of us living in him and with him, just as he lives in God. To me that's the heart of what happens after we die. I'm not sure what the details will look like, but we will be with God, living in and with God.
One thing I have come to believe is that when we die, God comes to us in whatever form is most familiar and comforting to us. I have spoken to people who died and came back, and read stories of others who had that experience, for example dying on the operating table and being brought back. Many speak of seeing Jesus in his traditional white robe or of seeing parents or spouses or others who they loved and who died before them. Always they are greeted by an image that speaks to them of comfort and love. I imagine that people from other faith traditions see God in a form that makes sense to them, that gives them comfort and assurance.
I have been in the room when a dying person looks up and speaks to a parent or spouse who has already died and who is clearly there with them, ready to accompany them to life beyond death.
Is there a heavenly mansion where we all have a room? Will we get to play golf or ski or garden or sing? Who knows? What I do believe though, is that if we don't do those things, it won't bother us because they won't matter anymore.
What matters is that we will be living in and with God, however we understand God. Maybe we'll be surprised, but if we are, I don't think that will be a problem.
Death is a part of life. As David put it so well, it is the way of all the earth, but it doesn't end there, life beyond death is also part of life.
May we trust that promise that God is with us, in life, in death and in life beyond death. Amen.