The Paradise Pub

Propers: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 16), AD 2021 B

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

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

I once dreamt of heaven as a great library, high up in the mountains, built into the side of a cliff. The views there were naturally quite spectacular. There were high wingback leather chairs, a soft carpet, a warm fire, and of course beautiful leather-bound tomes with gilt edges and hand tooling, to be enjoyed in an all-immersive silence. It was a place of utter peace and sublime sabbath rest.

I once dreamt of heaven as a cathedral, a great church with soaring ceilings and tall classical pillars, a narthex and sanctuary bursting and bustling with life, crowds of people everywhere, who somehow managed never to bump rudely into one another but glided lithely past with energy, purpose, and vigor. There were marble pedestals on which a dozen weddings were celebrated simultaneously every hour on the hour, an eternal wedding feast. And the fellowship hall was a gigantic cube of glass carried on poles out into the streets of the world as a sort of perpetual parade, with Chinese dragons dancing alongside.  

And I once dreamt of heaven as a pub—a true public house built into the side of a grassy hill covered in wildflowers, yet with tall, clear, open windows, so that the interior felt more like a cozy cottage than any dark borrow or hole. The hearth was massive, of great irregular stones, the fire crackling merrily within, and tall glass steins of ice-cold black stout were served to calm and happy patrons on well-worn wooden tables. I dreamt of that place often. I miss it sometimes.

All three of these visions, these dreams, were really of the same place, the same state: that of rest, safety, gratitude, welcome, and home. They were places without concerns, without anxieties, without fears, sanctuaries where there was no need for a mask, no need to put up a false face or guard of any kind. Here I found only joy, the blessed release of consciousness, being, and bliss. I have no doubt that this was some snapshot of reality on its deepest, truest level: reality as it really is and is really meant to be; a spiritual haven at the heart of Creation—the inn at the end of the world! —which Jesus called His Father’s house, and we tend to call heaven.

Such glimpses of eternity give us the faith to endure the hardships of time here below. Because once you have even a peek at heaven, it’s there in your soul forever.

Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known and best beloved of all the 150 Psalms. We read it rather often in our lectionary cycle, and it strikes us differently in different seasons. One reads Psalm 23 a certain way in Lent, another after Pentecost. Perhaps we read it differently in youth than we do in middle age or dotage. I’ve read it before surgeries, in the middle of liturgies, and at a fair number of funerals. It’s one of those for which most folks still prefer the old King James:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

It’s not the most scholarly of translations but I daresay it is the most poetic.

Heaven—he’s talking about heaven, isn’t he? The Psalmist, I mean. Not that he’s dead. Heaven isn’t necessarily content to wait for us beyond the grave. Nor is hell, for that matter. Heaven indeed is an eternal reality, beyond space and time, beyond life and death. Heaven is the presence of God, known, experienced, and welcomed. For indeed, bidden or unbidden, God is always present; what’s lacking in us is awareness.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Now there’s an interesting way to start it off. Shepherding is no easy task, especially not in steep and rocky Judea, before the old Asiatic lions died off. You had to be strong, tough, independent, and a bit of a scrapper. But shepherding was also the metaphor par excellence for kingship.

Ancient Near Eastern kings, who wouldn’t deign to touch a sheep, nevertheless loved to call themselves shepherds—like modern politicians wearing cowboy hats after graduating from Harvard Business. The shepherd guides, provides, and protects. To say that the Lord is my shepherd, Yahweh is my shepherd, is to say that God is King. And this is subversive in any age. To believe in God is to believe that other powers are not God. To trust Him as King is not to trust other kings, not fully.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. Ah. What better image of sabbath rest, of holy peace, than a rich and verdant landscape beside still waters? It’s what every shepherd and every sheep would dream of. There is abundance, and more than enough to share.

He leadeth me in right paths for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. It is righteousness God wants for us, righteousness God gives to us, so that our lives may not simply be easy or pleasant but beautiful, good, and true: a life not merely of virtue but of holiness. That’s what it is to live life fully, a life so full that we no longer fear death, no longer fear darkness, for we have seen the One who overcomes it all. And if He is for us, then none can stand against us. None can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

And He does this for His name’s sake, because it’s His identity, it’s who God is. He is Yahweh, the Creator, the great I AM, the One who is Goodness and Truth and Beauty, Consciousness, Being and Bliss, who pours out His life for the world.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Well, the purpose of the shepherd’s staff is to guide the sheep, and when necessary to hook them out of holes and snares. The rod, meanwhile, exists to beat off wolves and bears. It is a defensive rod, a comfort to the flock. With it God batters down the evil that would threaten us.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. We show loyalty to those who feed us, do we not? It’s practically my family’s motto. The Lord prepares a table of abundance and provision—indeed, of superabundance, with our cups running over. And this is done in the presence of our enemies, who presumably sit at this table as well. In an honor-shame culture, there is no greater honor than being seated by the Lord, by the founder of the feast, in the face of the enemy, honored before all.

Anointing, meanwhile, is a double blessing: a sign of cleanliness and health, yes, but also a sign of choosing, a sign of setting apart. Kings are anointed. Priests are anointed. “Messiah” in Hebrew and “Christ” in Greek both mean “anointed.”

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Again we see heaven not just as a posthumous event but as an eternal reality. Heaven is the presence of God, knowing the love of God. And yes, it is a fathomless comfort to know that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. But remember also that He is with you, His goodness and mercy shall follow you, all the days of your life, here and now, here below.

We speak of sanctuaries as holy places. We speak of sabbaths as holy times. What they are, really, is space set apart, silence set aside, in order to allow ourselves to be opened to the love and the presence of God. They are foretastes of the feast to come, eternity breaking into time. That’s what this community is. That’s what this liturgy is. That’s what the Sacraments and the Word of God are for us: a minute morsel of heaven, the smallest sip of God. Heaven is the presence of God, and God with us is Christ. It really is that simple.

Because all it takes is a moment, a prayer, a dream, to open ourselves to the One who is always with us—beyond us, around us, and in us—in whom we all live and move and have our being. And that one glimpse, that flash of reflection in a shard of shattered mirror, can refresh us, restore us, liberate us, kill us and make us alive again! It is a foretaste of resurrection; infinity in a nutshell.

It is heaven. And it is ours forever.

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