Decisively.

On behalf of everybody who's ever been stepped on by the machine, exploited, abused, forgotten, or mistreated.

G.o.d puts an end to it.

G.o.d says, "Enough."

Of course, to celebrate this, antic.i.p.ate this, and find ourselves thrilled by this promise of the world made right brings with it the haunting thought that we each know what lurks in our own heart- our role in corrupting this world, the litany of ways in which our own sins have contributed to the heartbreak we're surrounded by, all those times we hardened our heart and kept right on walking, ignoring the cry of someone in need.

And so in the midst of prophets' announcements about G.o.d's judgment we also find promises about mercy and grace.

Isaiah quotes G.o.d, saying, "Come, . . . though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (chap. 1).

Justice and mercy hold hands, they kiss, they belong together in the age to come, an age that is complex, earthy, partic.i.p.atory, and free from all death, destruction, and despair.

When we talk about heaven, then, or eternal life, or the afterlife-any of that-it's important that we begin with the categories and claims that people were familiar with in Jesus's first-century Jewish world. They did not talk about a future life somewhere else, somewhere else, because they antic.i.p.ated a coming day when the world would be restored, renewed, and redeemed and there would be peace on earth. because they antic.i.p.ated a coming day when the world would be restored, renewed, and redeemed and there would be peace on earth.

So when the man asks Jesus how he can get eternal life, Jesus is not surprised or caught off guard by the man's question, because this was one of the most important things people were talking about in Jesus's day.

How do you make sure you'll be a part of the new thing G.o.d is going to do? How do you best become the kind of person whom G.o.d could entrust with significant responsibility in the age to come?

The standard answer was: live the commandments. G.o.d has shown you how to live. Live that way. The more you become a person of peace and justice and worship and generosity, the more actively you partic.i.p.ate now in ordering and working to bring about G.o.d's kind of world, the more ready you will be to a.s.sume an even greater role in the age to come.

But Jesus is aware that something is wrong with the man. Rich people were rare at that time, so there is good reason to believe that Jesus knew something about him and his reputation. Jesus mentions five, not six, of the commandments about relationship with others. He leaves out the last command, which prohibited coveting. To covet is to crave what someone else has. Coveting is the disease of always wanting more, and it's rooted in a profound dissatisfaction with the life G.o.d has given you. Coveting is what happens when you aren't at peace.

The man says he's kept all of the commandments that Jesus mentions, but Jesus hasn't mentioned the one about coveting. Jesus then tells him to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor, which Jesus doesn't tell other people, because it's not an issue for them. It is, for this man. The man is greedy-and greed has no place in the world to come. He hasn't learned yet that he has a sacred calling to use his wealth to move creation forward. How can G.o.d give him more responsibility and resources in the age to come, when he hasn't handled well what he's been given in this age?

Jesus promises him that if he can do it, if he can trust G.o.d to liberate him from his greed, he'll have "treasure in heaven."

The man can't do it, and so he walks away.

Jesus takes the man's question about his life then then and makes it about the kind of life he's living and makes it about the kind of life he's living now. now. Jesus drags the future into the present, promising the man that there will be treasure in heaven for him if he can do it. All of which raises the question: What does Jesus mean when he uses that word "heaven"? Jesus drags the future into the present, promising the man that there will be treasure in heaven for him if he can do it. All of which raises the question: What does Jesus mean when he uses that word "heaven"?

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First, there was tremendous respect in the culture that Jesus lived in for the name of G.o.d-so much so that many wouldn't even say it. That is true to this day. I occasionally receive e-mails and letters from people who spell the name "G-d." In Jesus's day, one of the ways that people got around actually saying the name of G.o.d was to subst.i.tute the word "heaven" for the word "G.o.d." Jesus often referred to the "kingdom of heaven," and he tells stories about people "sinning against heaven." "Heaven" in these cases is simply another way of saying "G.o.d."

Second, Jesus consistently affirmed heaven as a real place, s.p.a.ce, and dimension of G.o.d's creation, where G.o.d's will and only G.o.d's will is done. Heaven is that realm where things are as G.o.d intends them to be.

On earth, lots of wills are done.

Yours, mine, and many others.

And so, at present, heaven and earth are not one.

What Jesus taught, what the prophets taught, what all of Jewish tradition pointed to and what Jesus lived in antic.i.p.ation of, was the day when earth and heaven would be one.

The day when G.o.d's will would be done on earth as it is now done in heaven.

The day when earth and heaven will be the same place. will be the same place.

This is the story of the Bible.

This is the story Jesus lived and told.

As it's written at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21: "G.o.d's dwelling place is now among the people."

Life in the age to come.

This is why Jesus tells the man that if he sells his possessions, he'll have rewards in heaven. Rewards are a dynamic rather than a static reality. Many people think of heaven, and they picture mansions (a word nowhere in the Bible's descriptions of heaven) and Ferraris and literal streets of gold, as if the best G.o.d can come up with is Beverly Hills in the sky. Tax-free, of course, and without the smog.

But those are static images-fixed, flat, unchanging. A car is a car is a car; same with a mansion. They are the same, day after day after day, give or take a bit of wear and tear.

There's even a phrase about doing a good deed. People will say that it earns you "another star in your crown."

(By the way, when the writer John in the book of Revelation gets a current glimpse of the heavens, one detail he mentions about crowns is that people are taking them off taking them off [chap. 4]. Apparently, in the unvarnished presence of the divine a lot of things that we consider significant turn out to be, much like wearing a crown, quite absurd.) [chap. 4]. Apparently, in the unvarnished presence of the divine a lot of things that we consider significant turn out to be, much like wearing a crown, quite absurd.) But a crown, much like a mansion or a car, is a possession. There's nothing wrong with possessions; it's just that they have value to us only when we use them, engage them, and enjoy them. They're nouns that mean something only in conjunction with verbs.

That's why wealth is so dangerous: if you're not careful you can easily end up with a garage full of nouns.

In the Genesis poem that begins the Bible, life is a pulsing, progressing, evolving, dynamic reality in which tomorrow will not be a repeat of today, because things are, at the most fundamental level of existence, going somewhere.

When Jesus tells the man that there are rewards for him, he's promising the man that receiving the peace of G.o.d now, finding grat.i.tude for what he does have, and sharing it with those who need it will create in him all the more capacity for joy in the world to come.

How we think about heaven, then, directly affects how we understand what we do with our days and energies now, in this age. Jesus teaches us how to live now in such a way that what we create, who we give our efforts to, and how we spend our time will all endure in the new world.

Taking heaven seriously, then, means taking suffering seriously, now. Not because we've bought into the myth that we can create a utopia given enough time, technology, and good voting choices, but because we have great confidence that G.o.d has not abandoned human history and is actively at work within it, taking it somewhere.

Around a billion people in the world today do not have access to clean water. People will have access to clean water in the age to come, and so working for clean-water access for all is partic.i.p.ating now in the life of the age to come.

That's what happens when the future is dragged into the present.

It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die.

Jesus teaches us to pursue the life of heaven now and also then, antic.i.p.ating the day when earth and heaven are one.

Honest business, redemptive art, honorable law, sustainable living, medicine, education, making a home, tending a garden- they're all sacred tasks to be done in partnership with G.o.d now, because they will all go on in the age to come.

In heaven, on earth.

Our eschatology shapes our ethics.

Eschatology is about last things.

Ethics are about how you live.

What you believe about the future shapes, informs, and determines how you live now.

If you believe that you're going to leave and evacuate to somewhere else, somewhere else, then why do anything about this world? A proper view of heaven leads not to escape from the world, but to full engagement with it, all with the antic.i.p.ation of a coming day when things are on earth as they currently are in heaven. then why do anything about this world? A proper view of heaven leads not to escape from the world, but to full engagement with it, all with the antic.i.p.ation of a coming day when things are on earth as they currently are in heaven.

When Jesus tells the man he will have treasure in heaven, he's promising the man that taking steps to be free of his greed-in this case, selling his possessions-will open him up to more and more partic.i.p.ation in G.o.d's new world, the one that was breaking into human history with Jesus himself.

In Matthew 20 the mother of two of Jesus's disciples says to Jesus, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and other at your left in your kingdom." She doesn't want bigger mansions or larger piles of gold for them, because static images of wealth and prosperity were not what filled people's heads when they thought of heaven in her day. She understood heaven to be about partnering with G.o.d to make a new and better world, one with increasingly complex and expansive expressions and dimensions of shalom, shalom, creativity, beauty, and design. creativity, beauty, and design.

So when people ask, "What will we do in heaven?" one possible answer is to simply ask: "What do you love to do now that will go on in the world to come?"

What is it that when you do it, you lose track of time because you get lost in it? What do you do that makes you think, "I could do this forever"? What is it that makes you think, "I was made for this"?

If you ask these kinds of questions long enough you will find some impulse related to creation. Some way to be, something to do. Heaven is both the peace, stillness, serenity, and calm that come from having everything in its right place-that state in which nothing is required, needed, or missing-and the endless joy that comes from partic.i.p.ating in the ongoing creation of the world.

The pastor John writes in Revelation 20 that people will reign with G.o.d. The word "reign" means "to actively partic.i.p.ate in the ordering of creation." We were made to explore and discover and learn and create and shape and form and engage this world.

This helps us understand the exchange between the rich man and Jesus. Jesus wants to free him to more actively partic.i.p.ate in G.o.d's good world, but the man isn't up for it.

And his unwillingness, we learn, leads us to another insight about heaven.

Heaven comforts, but it also confronts.

The prophets promised a new world free from tears and pain and harm and disgrace and disease. That's comforting. And people have clung to those promises for years, because they're inspiring and can help sustain us through all kinds of difficulties.

But heaven also confronts. Heaven, we learn, has teeth, flames, edges, and sharp points. What Jesus is insisting with the rich man is that certain things simply will not survive in the age to come. Like coveting. And greed. The one thing people won't be wanting in the perfect peace and presence of G.o.d is someone else's life. The man is clearly attached to his wealth and possessions, so much so that when Jesus invites him to leave them behind, he can't do it.

Jesus brings the man hope, but that hope bears within it judgment.

The man's heart is revealed through his response to Jesus's invitation to sell his things, and his heart is hard. His attachment to his possessions is revealed, and he clings all the more tightly.

The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3 that "the Day" the prophets spoke of, the one that inaugurates life in the age to come, will "bring everything to light" and "reveal it with fire," the kind of fire that will "test the quality of each person's work." Some in this process will find that they spent their energies and efforts on things that won't be in heaven-on-earth. "If it is burned up," Paul writes, "the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved, even though only as one escaping through the flames."

Flames in heaven.

Imagine being a racist in heaven-on-earth, sitting down at the great feast and realizing that you're sitting next to them. Those them. Those people. The ones you've despised for years. Your racist att.i.tude would simply not survive. Those flames in heaven would be hot. people. The ones you've despised for years. Your racist att.i.tude would simply not survive. Those flames in heaven would be hot.

Jesus makes no promise that in the blink of an eye we will suddenly become totally different people who have vastly different tastes, att.i.tudes, and perspectives. Paul makes it very clear that we will have our true selves revealed and that once the sins and habits and bigotry and pride and petty jealousies are prohibited and removed, for some there simply won't be much left. "As one escaping through the flames" is how he put it.

It's very common to hear talk about heaven framed in terms of who "gets in" or how to "get in." What we find Jesus teaching, over and over and over again, is that he's interested in our hearts being transformed, so that we can actually handle heaven. To portray heaven as bliss, peace, and endless joy is a beautiful picture, but it raises the question: How many of us could handle it, as we are today? How would we each do in a reality that had no capacity for cynicism or slander or worry or pride?

It's important, then, to keep in mind that heaven has the potential to be a kind of starting over. Learning how to be human all over again. Imagine living with no fear. Ever. That would take some getting used to. So would a world where loving your neighbor was the only option. So would a world where every choice was good for the earth. That would be a strange world at first. That could take some getting used to.

Jesus called disciples-students of life-to learn from him how to live in G.o.d's world G.o.d's way. Constantly learning and growing and evolving and absorbing. Tomorrow is never simply a repeat of today.

Much of the speculation about heaven-and, more important, the confusion-comes from the idea that in the blink of an eye we will automatically become totally different people who "know" everything. But our heart, our character, our desires, our longings-those things take time.

Jesus calls disciples in order to teach us how to be and what to be; his intention is for us to be growing progressively in generosity, forgiveness, honesty, courage, truth telling, and responsibility, so that as these take over our lives we are taking part more and more and more in life in the age to come, now.

The flames of heaven, it turns out, lead us to the surprise of heaven. Jesus tells a story in Matthew 25 about people invited into "the kingdom prepared for [them] since the creation of the world," and their first reaction is . . . surprise.

They start asking questions, trying to figure it out. Interesting, that. It's not a story of people boldly walking in through the pearly gates, confident that, because of their faith, beliefs, or even actions, they'll be welcomed in. It's a story about people saying, "What?"

"Us?"

"When did we ever see you?"

"What did we ever do to deserve it?"

In other stories he tells, very religious people who presume that they're "in" hear from him: "I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" (Matt. 7).

Heaven, it turns out, is full of the unexpected.

In a story Jesus tells in Luke 18 about two men going up to the temple to pray, it's the "sinner," the "unrighteous man," who goes home justified, while the faithful, observant religious man is harshly judged.

Again, surprise.

Jesus tells another story about a great banquet a man gave (Luke 14). The people who were invited, those who would normally attend such a feast, had better things to do. So, in their absence, the host invites all of the people from the streets and alleyways who would never attend a party like this.

Unexpected, surprising-not what you'd think. These aren't isolated impulses in Jesus's outlook; they're the themes he comes back to again and again. He tells entire villages full of extremely devoted religious people that they're in danger, while seriously questionable "sinners" will be better off than them "in that day."

Think about the single mom, trying to raise kids, work multiple jobs, and wrangle child support out of the kids' father, who used to beat her. She's faithful, true, and utterly devoted to her children. In spite of the circ.u.mstances, she never loses hope that they can be raised in love and go on to break the cycle of dysfunction and abuse. She never goes out, never takes a vacation, never has enough money to buy anything for herself. She gets a few hours of sleep and then repeats the cycle of cooking, work, laundry, bills, more work, until she falls into bed late at night, exhausted.

With what she has been given she has been faithful. She is a woman of character and substance. She never gives up. She is kind and loving even when she's exhausted.

She can be trusted.

Is she the last who Jesus says will be first?

Does G.o.d say to her, "You're the kind of person I can run the world with"?

Think about her, and then think about the magazines that line the checkout aisles at most grocery stores. The faces on the covers are often of beautiful, rich, famous, talented people embroiled in endless variations of scandal and controversy.

Where did they spend those millions of dollars?

What did they do with those talents?

How did they use their influence?

Did they use any of it to help create the new world G.o.d is making?

Or are we seeing the first who will be last that Jesus spoke of?

When it comes to people, then-the who who of heaven-what Jesus does again and again is warn us against rash judgments about who's in and who's out. of heaven-what Jesus does again and again is warn us against rash judgments about who's in and who's out.

But the surprise isn't just regarding the who; who; it's also about the when when of heaven. of heaven.

Jesus is hanging on the cross between two insurgents when one of them says to him, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Notice that the man doesn't ask to go to heaven. He doesn't ask for his sins to be forgiven. He doesn't invite Jesus into his heart. He doesn't announce that he now believes.

He simply asks to be remembered by Jesus in the age to come.

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