The 6th Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Mariclair Partee
For the last few days I have been experiencing something that I understand many transplants to the Lehigh Valley experience, a sort of hazing for new residents. Despite growing up in the pollen capital of the south, with no adverse reactions, I seem to have come down with that local brand of hay fever that many have called: the Lehigh Valley crud.
It hasn’t been so bad, just some sneezing and coughing and dripping, and the whole experience has almost been worth it to hear Lulu, my beagle who also is apparently susceptible to exotic pollens, sneezing her way around the house. But all of this is an elaborate backstory to explain why I found myself, last night, spread out on the couch with a box of tissues in one hand and the remote in the other, watching the only thing I could find on the television, which was a Billy Graham Crusade from 1986.
I don’t think this is a clergy habit that I am exposing to the world, we don’t all spend our Saturday nights studying evangelism of the highest style, or if we do we don’t talk about it to each other, but I have seen this particular program before, a collection of classic footage of Graham’s arena-filling crusades from throughout his extensive career, always ending with an altar call as the thousand member choir sings “Just As I Am”.
Last night’s episode didn’t fail me- June Carter and Johnny Cash made an appearance, and that enormous choir sang a few other hymns I love from my youth before swelling into the strains of “Just As I Am, Without One Plea, But That Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.” The altar call began, and hundreds of folks swarmed the field of the stadium, seeking Jesus.
And watching this program last night, I was struck by how often Graham talks about Heaven in his preaching. Heaven is a topic we just don’t hear about that much these days, yet it was something with which this preacher was both intimate and confident- and he seemed to define heaven as God’s eternal reward for a life lived to his glory here on earth.
I know for myself that my earliest thoughts of heaven were informed primarily by cartoons- fluffy clouds, angel wings, harps, that kind of thing. I’m not sure that it ever really matured much from there, and, as is true with most things, seminary left me with more questions than answers about what heaven meant for us as Christians and as Episcopalians.
However, I think that a true idea of what heaven looks like is given to us in the readings today. In the Gospel from John, Jesus says to us: “Abide in my love.” If we love God and each other as Jesus has loved us, we are told, our joy will be made complete.
And so that, I believe, is the closest we will get to a picture of heaven- the Kingdom of Heaven/ Kingdom of God on earth is when, in serving each other for the love of Christ, we become mirrors for God’s love. And as we reflect that divine love to each other, a community of love is born.
This past week the clergy of the Cathedral attended a clergy day at Good Shepherd, Scranton, and our speaker was The Rev. Dr. Courtney Cowart. Her ministry has primarily been one of disaster response. She was serving at St. Paul’s Chapel when the events of September 11 occurred, and she described looking around the historical chapel, days after the towers fell as it became the headquarters for rescue workers, and seeing letters of thanks and prayers from children all over the world, covering the walls (and the recent hundred thousand dollar paint job) to fifteen feet high. She saw Buddhists creating peace mandalas in front of the altar, and monks chanting psalms, and volunteers treating the ragged, rubble-injured feet of searchers in the “holiest of holies”- George Washington’s family pew. In that moment she saw the Holy Spirit working in this group of strangers suddenly made family- in the words from Acts, “the Holy Spirit truly fell upon all who heard the words, they gathered in places of tragedy and pain, and sowed love- without borders, even the Gentiles!” In that instant, that chapel was transformed into the Kingdom of God on Earth.
Dr. Cowart was also a part of the relief efforts in the Diocese of Louisiana immediately following Hurricane Katrina, and again, as residents reached out to one another and volunteers created a human flood of hope from around the country into the Ninth Ward and other devastated parts of the city of New Orleans, heaven became a reality, and the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand in the love shown by one stranger for another.
How do we live into this kingdom of God that we are called to in our everyday lives? How do we become a member of this Kingdom of God on earth, outside of the catharsis and superhuman intensity of tragedy? It is as simple as saying, “Have me, Lord- “Just As I am, o Lord, I come.”
