Eternity Now

Propers: The Seventh Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2020 A

Homily:

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

Eternal life, it appears, is not what we tend to think it is. It isn’t what most of us imagine most of the time. Heaven is not pie in the sky by and by. Rather, Heaven is loving your neighbor here and now, forgiving your enemy here and now, as Christ has first loved and forgiven us.

There appear to be certain universals in religion: the conviction, for example, that the mundane world set before our eyes is merely the tip of the iceberg; that there is an objective standard of right and wrong, good and evil, which we call the Law or the Dao or the Eightfold Path, or what have you; and that the way we live this brief life now will affect whatever sort of life comes hereafter.

And the truly great religious traditions furthermore agree that true life, true joy, true morality is found in grace and mercy overflowing; in unmerited and indiscriminate lovingkindness; in the spiritual conviction that we can only ever really keep the things we give away.

They say that while theologians the world over may argue, mystics all speak the same tongue. And the language of the mystics is love: not sappy, sentimental, limp-wristed love, mind you, but clear-eyed, hard-bitten, freely-chosen, self-sacrificial love, the love we call agape, the love which God pours out infinitely from Himself for all the world, for all that He has made.

Now for most people, in most religions, eternal life is this: that we do good in this life, we choose the hard and narrow way, and we are rewarded at the end for the good that we have done. Conversely, those who squander life, who live selfishly, greedily, vengefully, will reap a just reward: payment for their crimes, penance for their sins. Do good, get good; do bad, get bad. And there is of course a certain truth to this. There is a ladder of morality which determines our actions here below and our reward hereafter.

It is truth, but not ultimate truth. For there is a truth higher than justice—or should I say, a justice higher than mere punishment and reward. And that truth is grace, mercy, unmerited indiscriminate forgiveness. Divine grace is liberation from guilt and sin, liberation from ladders and ledgers. It is the freedom of having our debts forgiven as we forgive our debtors. Love fulfills the Law, after all, just as Enlightenment breaks the karmic wheel.

One of the best examples of this spiritual truth comes to us from the Buddhist tradition. In Buddhism, mind you, the goal is to end suffering—to end all suffering—by ending attachment to ephemeral things. And the way to do this is by following the Eightfold Path, which is not at all unlike the Ten Commandments. By living a life of generosity, kindness, humility, and mercy, one can reach Enlightenment and be liberated from this world of pain.

Enlightenment is when one “wakes up” from the dream of earthly attachments—a Buddha is literally “one who is awake”—and lives instead in the eternal reality of Nirvana, of the changeless, formless, infinite. Yet having reached Nirvana—some might say having achieved heavenly bliss—a Buddha might then choose not to leave the world. A Buddha might instead turn back around, away from Nirvana, away from liberation, and dive back into this fallen world, for one reason only: to help save and enlighten others. Such a Buddha, who chooses to suffer out of love rather than pass on into heavenly bliss, is known as a bodhisattva, a saint.

But here’s the kicker. By choosing to return to earth rather than pass blissfully into Nirvana, choosing to come back and to suffer for others, the bodhisattva thus achieves Nirvana. In other words, loving sinners here and now, for their own sake, rather than for the sake of any heavenly reward or to avoid any hellish punishment, is in fact Heaven itself—Heaven not in some distant higher level of reality but Heaven here and now, come down to earth, down into the mud and the blood.

It is a paradox. If I reject Heaven out of love for others, then I already have Heaven. If I seek not eternal life for myself but give my life for other people, I am already living an eternal life. We only really keep that which we give away.

The ultimate bodhisattva, of course—the first and last and only bodhisattva for us—is Jesus Christ. Christ Himself is God come down, God in the flesh, who freely chooses, out of love for us, to leave the realms of heavenly glory, to put aside His majesty, His honor, His might, and His crown, all in order to save us. To love us. To forgive us. To heal us, teach us, feed and correct us. And to raise every last one of us up and out from the dead. Not because we deserve it. Not because we’ve earned it. But simply because Christ is God and God is love.

“This is eternal life,” sayeth the Lord, “that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” And that life begins now.

They say there are three levels of morality. The first is simply naked self-interest: I’ll behave because it benefits me; I’ll follow the law so I won’t get punished. This is the morality of brutes, of carrots and of sticks. The second level is higher and has to do with righteousness: I’ll behave because it is right to do so; I’ll follow the law because the law is good. Most people, decent people, operate on this level most of the time. And they’re right to do so.

But there is a third level of morality, and that is the selfless, self-giving love, spiritual love, taught only by the great religious traditions: I will do right, I will do good, because I love you, and nothing you do can ever make me stop loving you. That’s the level on which the Buddha operated, the level on which Christ operates. And that is the level to which He calls us all. Not because it is difficult, and we must be better than other people. We’re not. But simply because love is liberation. It sets us free. It is eternal life, for us, here and now on earth.

I want you to try something with me, something I’ve been working on for years and will probably have to wrestle with until the day that I die. I want you to trust in Christ. I want you to trust that the future is secure, because it rests in His almighty and crucified hands. I want you to assume that you will be saved, period, not because you’ll earn it—you won’t, and neither will I—but because Christ has promised it. Christ has promised you: that He loves you, He forgives you, and He is with you always even unto the end of the age.

That doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen. They will, quite a lot. But evil will not have the final say. Sin and death and hell will not have the final say. Their defeat has already been accomplished for us upon the Cross, and so we have nothing left to fear. We need have no thought of punishment or reward—not for ourselves. And so we are freed by Christ to ask a more immediate and more important question: how shall we live right now? What shall we do with the time that has been given to us? Show me, Lord; show me how to live.

“Make me according to Your heart, O God. Make my thoughts yours.” Make me humble and loving and forgiving and patient, passionate for justice, profligate in mercy, ever seeking the Goodness and Beauty and Truth that are God, here and now before me in this world, in the needy, in the neighbor, in the enemy who seeks my life. Put Christ within me, His Word, His Spirit, His Body and Blood. Make me like Jesus—even against myself, in spite of myself—and I will already have Heaven. Glorify Jesus in me, and I will already be living a deathless life.

For “this is eternal life,” sayeth the Lord: “that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” And that life begins now.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.