The Fourth Sunday of Easter: "Tastes like Heaven"
[Scroll down for current homily: Third Sunday of Easter: "Lovin' Those Chores"]
If heaven were a town,
it’d be my town
on a Sunday evening, 1985.
When everything I wanted was out there awaitin’
and everyone I loved was still alive.
If heaven were a pie, it’d be cherry
so cool and sweet and heavy on the tongue.
And just one bite would satisfy your hunger
and there’d always be enough for everyone.
If heaven were a train it’d be fast one
to take this weary traveler ‘round the bend.
If heaven were a tear, it’d be my last one.
And you’d be in my arms again.
Words from a country song by Andy Griggs.
They’ll strike some of you as comforting,
others as sentimental and homespun.
Yet the impulse to imagine heaven
in colors of the earth
and shades of love and emotion
is as old as the human race itself.
St. John received a spectacular vision of heaven
one Sunday morning on the Isle of Patmos
and we read the opening episodes of that vision
in today’s second reading.
For John, heaven looked a lot like church.
He doesn’t mention hometowns or cherry pie or summer nights
but he does paint a picture of a place
where there’s no more suffering or death
and every tear is wiped away.
It’s impossible for human minds to conceive the details of heaven.
But whether you listen to country music
or read philosophers from Aquinas to Pascal,
it’s easy to conclude that
the hope of heaven
runs so deep that, without it,
the world would be in a terrible shape
and we’d all be less than human.
Think of it this way:
If not for heaven,
your house is your only mansion.
Without heaven,
career advancement becomes your major.
Without heaven,
a Caribbean Cruise could end up being
the most important even of your life.
In short, without heaven
physical realities replace spiritual realities
and the ramifications aren’t pretty.
Without a spiritual dimension,
a marriage license is equivalent to a tax form.
Infatuation gets exalted as the highest form of love.
Compassion and self-sacrifice become the butt
of comedy-hour jokes.
Education has nothing to do with Wisdom.
And art itself functions as a means of confrontation
as opposed to a source of illumination.
Some people think heaven’s a sentimental notion
but without heaven’s light, earth turns mighty dark.
Maybe thinking about heaven in terms of cherry pie
and a summer night in your hometown isn’t as corny as it sounds.
Maybe the hope of heaven is what makes us human.
And maybe that’s why the Church prompts to us to think about heaven
on this Fourth Sunday of Easter
because, when it comes to the Christian faith,
heaven is more than wishful thinking,
it’s the culmination of our belief in the bodily Resurrection of Christ.
Don’t let the skeptics fool you.
And don’t let sentimentality obscure the powerful message
of the Easter Season.
You see, Jesus doesn’t just “live in our hearts,”
he “reigns in highest heaven.”
He broke the chains of death
to fling open the gates of a new creation.
Belief in a life-that-never-ends
isn’t some country singer crooning about cherry pie on a summer night.
Rather, it’s the honest-to-God testimony
of Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, Thomas and others
that what remained of the tortured body of Jesus
was not devoured by a pack of wild dogs!
No. He lives in eternal light
and for one brief moment
they beheld his glory.
It is that glory, and that hope of attaining that glory,
that enables a mother to sit at the bedside of a child with leukemia.
It’s the glory of heaven that emboldens a sergeant
to throw his body atop an enemy grenade
to save the soldiers in his platoon.
It’s the hope in the Resurrection of Christ
that gets a crack addict on his feet in a storefront church
to give testimony and try again.
It’s the vision of what lies ahead
that compels a young woman to join the Peace Corps
in the hope that the hungry will be fed
and the wounded bandaged
and a bit more of the earth’s crust
will resemble the fair and bountiful fields of the Lord.
* * *
So you see,
it doesn’t matter if you think of heaven
in terms of catfish on the line
or saints in white robes waving palm branches in their hands,
the fact that we can’t imagine life without the hope of heaven
means we too have caught a glimpse of God’s glory,
the glory of the Risen Lord himself,
the glory St. John witnessed
on a Sunday morning on the Isle of Patmos
…to the peace of a summer evening in your own hometown where
everything you want is out there awaitin’
and everyone you love… is alive.
If heaven were a town,
it’d be my town
on a Sunday evening, 1985.
When everything I wanted was out there awaitin’
and everyone I loved was still alive.
If heaven were a pie, it’d be cherry
so cool and sweet and heavy on the tongue.
And just one bite would satisfy your hunger
and there’d always be enough for everyone.
If heaven were a train it’d be fast one
to take this weary traveler ‘round the bend.
If heaven were a tear, it’d be my last one.
And you’d be in my arms again.
Words from a country song by Andy Griggs.
They’ll strike some of you as comforting,
others as sentimental and homespun.
Yet the impulse to imagine heaven
in colors of the earth
and shades of love and emotion
is as old as the human race itself.
St. John received a spectacular vision of heaven
one Sunday morning on the Isle of Patmos
and we read the opening episodes of that vision
in today’s second reading.
For John, heaven looked a lot like church.
He doesn’t mention hometowns or cherry pie or summer nights
but he does paint a picture of a place
where there’s no more suffering or death
and every tear is wiped away.
It’s impossible for human minds to conceive the details of heaven.
But whether you listen to country music
or read philosophers from Aquinas to Pascal,
it’s easy to conclude that
the hope of heaven
runs so deep that, without it,
the world would be in a terrible shape
and we’d all be less than human.
Think of it this way:
If not for heaven,
your house is your only mansion.
Without heaven,
career advancement becomes your major.
Without heaven,
a Caribbean Cruise could end up being
the most important even of your life.
In short, without heaven
physical realities replace spiritual realities
and the ramifications aren’t pretty.
Without a spiritual dimension,
a marriage license is equivalent to a tax form.
Infatuation gets exalted as the highest form of love.
Compassion and self-sacrifice become the butt
of comedy-hour jokes.
Education has nothing to do with Wisdom.
And art itself functions as a means of confrontation
as opposed to a source of illumination.
Some people think heaven’s a sentimental notion
but without heaven’s light, earth turns mighty dark.
Maybe thinking about heaven in terms of cherry pie
and a summer night in your hometown isn’t as corny as it sounds.
Maybe the hope of heaven is what makes us human.
And maybe that’s why the Church prompts to us to think about heaven
on this Fourth Sunday of Easter
because, when it comes to the Christian faith,
heaven is more than wishful thinking,
it’s the culmination of our belief in the bodily Resurrection of Christ.
Don’t let the skeptics fool you.
And don’t let sentimentality obscure the powerful message
of the Easter Season.
You see, Jesus doesn’t just “live in our hearts,”
he “reigns in highest heaven.”
He broke the chains of death
to fling open the gates of a new creation.
Belief in a life-that-never-ends
isn’t some country singer crooning about cherry pie on a summer night.
Rather, it’s the honest-to-God testimony
of Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, Thomas and others
that what remained of the tortured body of Jesus
was not devoured by a pack of wild dogs!
No. He lives in eternal light
and for one brief moment
they beheld his glory.
It is that glory, and that hope of attaining that glory,
that enables a mother to sit at the bedside of a child with leukemia.
It’s the glory of heaven that emboldens a sergeant
to throw his body atop an enemy grenade
to save the soldiers in his platoon.
It’s the hope in the Resurrection of Christ
that gets a crack addict on his feet in a storefront church
to give testimony and try again.
It’s the vision of what lies ahead
that compels a young woman to join the Peace Corps
in the hope that the hungry will be fed
and the wounded bandaged
and a bit more of the earth’s crust
will resemble the fair and bountiful fields of the Lord.
* * *
So you see,
it doesn’t matter if you think of heaven
in terms of catfish on the line
or saints in white robes waving palm branches in their hands,
the fact that we can’t imagine life without the hope of heaven
means we too have caught a glimpse of God’s glory,
the glory of the Risen Lord himself,
the glory St. John witnessed
on a Sunday morning on the Isle of Patmos
…to the peace of a summer evening in your own hometown where
everything you want is out there awaitin’
and everyone you love… is alive.
posted by BlueCollarPreacher at 3:43 PM
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