Heaven On Earth

February 18, 2007

            It was just a passing comment, not all that important to our overall conversation but it caught my attention anyway.  Talking about a retreat center where he goes regularly for meditation and spiritual renewal, our son told me that the reason he goes there is because “it is just like heaven on earth!” 

            “Just like heaven on earth.”  I think we all, at least at some moment or season in our lives, are searching for heaven on earth.  There is so much in our lives that seems at odds with our concept of the peace and tranquility of heaven… so many experiences and events and realities that seem so far removed from the happiness and wholeness that we believe is heaven.  Pressures at work… pressures at home.  Problems in our personal lives… problems in our family lives.  Stirrings in our hearts… wanderings in our souls… disappointments too many to name.  We all experience so many situations that leave us longing to find our own piece heaven on earth.

            In recent years, around the edges of all things spiritual, there has been more and more conversation about what the Irish call “thin places.”  Thin places are heaven on earth kinds of places.  Thin places are those holy moments when, to quote award-winning preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor, “the veil between this world and the next is so sheer that it is easy to step through.”*  Imagined in a Kodak moment by a photograph of silver sunbeams breaking through the clouds on a misty mountain, thin places are those holy places where in one dazzling moment or one unbelievable instant, we know we are in the presence of God.  Thin places are those holy moments when we know, in the very depths of our souls, that God is real and alive and present in our world and in our lives.  Thin places are those heaven on earth places that we long to make our own.

            The story of the Transfiguration that we just heard from Luke’s Gospel is a story about a thin place.  It is a story about getting a glimpse of heaven on earth.  The Gospel story bears repeating this morning, because most of us, even though we may have heard it before, can’t really say that we know the story.  It doesn’t make our list of top ten favorites from the Bible! 

Finding a place in three Gospels… Matthew, Mark and Luke… Biblical scholars are far from consensus as to the Transfiguration story’s historical roots.  Is it a mysterious event that really happened during Jesus’ ministry?  Is it a post-resurrection appearance that has been recorded too early in the Gospel story?  Or is it entirely the creation of the early Christian church… something added after the fact to affirm that Jesus was indeed the Messiah… the one sent by God to do the work of God?  The truth is, we will never know.  For me though, the power of the story of the Transfiguration isn’t in the facts, it is in the faith.

            According to Luke’s account, Jesus and his followers had been busy doing the work of God – things like teaching in parables about a new meaning of faith or feeding 5000 people with a few loaves of bread or healing those who had been suffering from diseases that had kept them from being fully alive.  For eight chapters, Luke tells us that the pace of Jesus’ ministry had been hectic and that the disciples had followed him to places that nobody much wanted to go.  Seeking a quiet place, Jesus took a few of the disciples – Peter and James and John, the inner circle – up to the mountain to pray.  And while they may have welcomed the change of pace – the chance to get away from all the demands on their time and energy and spend time alone with Jesus – they could never have dreamed of what was going to happen next. 

            According to Luke’s Gospel, eight days earlier Jesus had promised that some of the disciples “would see with their own eyes the kingdom of God”  and there on that mountaintop the disciples had that heaven-on-earth experience.    According to the story, something or someone interrupted the peace and quiet of their prayer time and Jesus was “transfigured” before their eyes.  In one unbelievable instant they knew that they were in the presence of God.  Jesus’ face changed.  His clothes became dazzling white.  He was joined by Moses and Elijah – two of the greatest Jewish leaders from the past.  And if that wasn’t enough, the voice of God could be heard, speaking from a cloud, saying “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!”  Special effects just don’t get any better than that!

            But special effects aside, what I really like about this Gospel story is Peter’s response.  Have you ever noticed that Peter’s response was always so spontaneously human?  He saw Jesus walking on water and got so carried away that he jumped out of the boat to see if he could walk on water as well, only to discover, of course that he didn’t quite have faith enough to keep from sinking.  He pledged his undying love and devotion to Jesus only to discover, of course, that he didn’t have faith enough and denied Jesus when the going got really tough.  He had the once-in-lifetime-heaven-on-earth experience, seeing Jesus change before his very eyes and he was ready to build a shrine commemorating the event for all time.  Peter’s response was always so human.  So much like mine… so much like yours.

            Imagined in a Kodak moment by a photograph of silver sunbeams breaking through the clouds on a misty mountain, like Peter we want to hold on to those experiences when we have known, beyond any doubt, that we have been in the presence of God. 

            This past summer while on renewal leave in New Mexico, we had the opportunity to visit a heaven on earth kind of place.  On the last day of our time of desert wandering, we participated in a pilgrimage to Sanctuario de Chimayo.  Carrying the prayers of our hearts… prayers for ourselves, prayers for others, prayers for our world… we walked the last three miles of the Holy Week pilgrimage to Chimayo, a place considered to be holy by many people of faith.  For centuries, people have come to Chimayo seeking God, experiencing there the opportunity to step through the sheer veil between this world and God’s world.  For centuries, Chimayo has been experienced as a thin place… a place to be with God.

No one can really explain it.  There is a small Catholic Church there where people come to worship and to pray.  In a room off to one side of the sanctuary is a hole dug into the ground, filled with loose dirt.  People come from all over the world to receive the gift of this holy dirt, finding in it God’s healing presence.  Every afternoon when the crowds have subsided and the priest is closing up for the day, he goes down to the edge of the ancient waters that flow near by and fills a bucket with new dirt that he uses to replenish the soil that so many have taken away. 

            Over the years the Sanctuario de Chimayo has grown in popularity as a thin place… as a heaven on earth kind of place.  The first time I visited there, there was only the church and a small gift shop on the side.  Now there are picnic grounds, an outdoor chapel, several restaurants, additional gift shops where you can buy elaborately decorated containers to hold the sacred soil, newly constructed stations of the cross, and a much bigger parking lot to hold the cars of those who choose to drive, not walk on the pilgrimage.  It has become a destination place… a tourist attraction… and yet, there is something unbelievably holy about the place.  In the time we spent there at the end of our short pilgrimage, I was keenly aware of the presence of God in both the people and the place.

            As I read this week’s passage from Luke’s Gospel I wondered what might have happened if Peter had successfully built three booths to house the great figures of faith that appeared on that mountaintop.  Would it be today a tourist attraction where you could have your picture taken with a 3-D image of the transfigured Christ?  Would we buy postcards and send them home to family and friends, pointing to the exact location of God’s presence on that mountaintop?  

            It is only human to want to capture the holy, commemorating for all time, our experience of the presence of God.  We want to hold on to heaven on earth.  We want to return again and again to those places where our lives have been transformed.  Whether it is a chapel at the water’s edge where we heard God’s call while attending summer camp or a sacred spot in the middle of a mountain meadow where we felt the palpable presence of God at a decision-making moment in our lives or a deserted stretch of beach where we first experienced the overwhelming grace of God in our lives or the sanctuary of the church where we spent our childhood, hearing the Gospel stories for the first time... we want to hold on to our experiences of heaven on earth.  It is only human to want to stand on holy ground acknowledging the presence of God. 

But today’s Gospel story reminds us that faith is more than clinging to a past experience of God’s presence.  The disciples wanted to build booths and stay on that mountaintop.  They wanted to stop time and live forever in that moment.  But discipleship involves following.  Faith involves living right now, believing that God is present right now in the middle of whatever is happening right now.  In that moment when Peter wanted to start building a monument that would forever stand as a reminder of his experience of the presence of God in Jesus, the voice of God reminded him that what was expected of him was to listen to Jesus, and in listening to follow.  God, present in Christ, called the disciples to stay in the world and live in the world.  Jesus, the Messiah was the One sent by God to do the work of God right smack dab in the middle of the real world of God.  The disciples needed only to listen and to follow to have a real experience of heaven on earth.

            It is true… we all, at least at some moment or season in our lives, are searching for heaven on earth.  Stirrings in our hearts… wanderings in our souls.. disappointments too many to name … keep us searching for those holy moments when we will know, in the very core of our being, that God is real and alive and present in our lives.  

But heaven on earth isn’t so much a place as it is a way of life.  Heaven on earth happens when we who follow Christ take his words to heart and live faithfully.  Heaven on earth happens when we who follow Christ live as Christ would have us live.

*From a sermon by Barbara Brown Taylor on page 59 in Home By Another Way