Living in Dangerous Times: COVID-19 and Our Mortality

            Every few years, Canadians collectively raise our eyebrows and notice that something quite out of the ordinary is happening, and . . . it might not be good. Do you remember, for example, the Y2K scare? The stock market crash of 2008 and 2009? Or SARS?

            When the Y2K scare happened, Irene and I, as well as our friends Nick and Nandy and our kids, loaded a large picnic cooler with mementoes of our lives—tapes and a tape player, articles we had written for journals, pictures, newspapers, awards and even a coin collection—we loaded it all into the cooler, wrapped the cooler up in multiple layers of plastic, and on New Year’s Eve, before a roaring bonfire, we buried it, at midnight. We left maps for our grandkids to find it back and open it in the year 2050. It was our way of thumbing our noses at Y2K.

            And yet, given our raised eyebrows, we also socked away several jugs of water and a few weeks’ worth of canned food, rice and beans at home. You can’t be too careful.

            When the stock market crash happened, in 2008, we again did as all the experts suggested. Nothing, this time. We didn’t panic. We didn’t buy gold or sell our stock portfolio. You can’t be too careful.

            And now we are all collectively raising our eyebrows again, this time on account of the COVID-19 virus. We don’t know how serious this epidemic will be, compared to, say, the 2003 SARS outbreak. It spreads more easily but fortunately the COVID-19 virus is less dangerous than SARS, if you catch it. The vast majority of people who catch COVID-19 will be fine.

            So, we are now washing our hands more often and bumping elbows in church and wondering about whether or not we should travel. Irene and I have cancelled a vacation to Baja, Mexico. We were supposed to fly out March 18. But you can’t be too careful. We’ll have a staycation, instead. Our dog, Jex, will thank us.

            Still, if we’re honest, our eyebrows are raised and it is all a bit unsettling. What can I say? I’m not a doctor. I see guidelines for washing-hands everywhere. We ought to be religious about following them!

            The elephant in the room when it comes to COVID-19, of course, the thing we’ve all thought about more than a few times, even if only briefly, is death. I read a nice little story about death this week. It goes like this:

            Once some tourists from Canada were visiting Poland. They had heard about the famous Polish rabbi Hafez Hayyim and managed to receive an invitation to visit him in his home.

            When the tourists arrived, they were surprised to see that the rabbi’s home was only one simple room filled with books. His only furniture was a table and a bench.

            “Rabbi, where is your furniture?” they asked.

            “Where is yours?” replied the rabbi.

            “But we are only visitors here,” answered the tourists.

            “So am I,” said the rabbi.

            When it comes to life—and death—we are all tourists. That is why as a minister in a United Church I have made a point about preaching sermons about death regularly over the years. But preaching about death is challenging for me.

            In part, it is challenging because the members of the church I serve hold to a variety of views about what happens when we die. For example, some of my parishioners have beautiful traditional beliefs. They hope that when they die they will go to heaven. They are with the Apostle Paul when he writes, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us,” And, “We wait for the redemption of our bodies,” he adds, in case we were not sure what he was talking about.

            But other members of my congregation are much less certain about all that life-after-death stuff, or maybe don’t even believe in God at all, or believe in some very different kind of God, as “post-theists.” These members of my congregation take what Paul says about life after death with a large grain of salt. They are more with the Psalmist who says, “In death there is no remembrance of Yahweh; in Sheol, [the afterlife], who can give you praise?” These parishioners believe that death is simply the end of the road. And there are many, many positions in between.

            What do I think? Well, I am okay with the uncertainty.

            Many Christians, and for that matter, many Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Pagans have come up with 101 detailed explanations for what happens when we die. In Christianity, for example, we talk of intermediate states, and resurrection and judgments, of New Earths coming down out of heaven and meeting Jesus in the sky. Who knows? Maybe one group of Christians or Pagans or Hindus actually got the post-life map exactly right. 

            But what is more interesting and alluring to me than the details different religions differ on is the near universal sense that most humans have always had that there is more to this life than just this life. That seems important to me—and mildly hopeful. Whatever the ultimate truth about death is, I like the title of Julian Barnes’ beautiful book, nothing to be frightened of.

            But when people try to put me on the spot about life after death, I answer, “I hope so. When I die, I hope that I will awake to a grand adventure. I really like that idea. But, if not, when I die, I will get my best night’s sleep ever.” 

            What strikes me as more important than “I’m not sure,” however, is that following Jesus is for the living and not the dead. Remember that story I told you a few minutes ago, about being tourists? The rabbi’s name was Hafez Hayyim, which means, “responsible caretaker of life.” In the spirit of that insight I offer two pieces of advice for anyone who has thought of death since the COVID-19 epidemic began.

            First, and most responsible of all, make sure your affairs are always in order enough so that in case you do die those who survive you know what to do next. As a minister I have too often seen family grief compounded when the persons who died refused to plan for that eventuality. Most importantly, have a will and an advanced care plan or directive. Married or not, make sure that your bank accounts and credit cards and mortgages and insurance are all in order. Leave a file behind, where it can be easily located, with your will and on your computer—a file entitled, “In case of death.” Fill that file with the practical information people will need to tie up your affairs in a gracious manner that does credit to you. 

            Doing these sort of things isn’t merely responsible; it is also spiritual, because doing them is kind and loving.

            But there is one more, more inspirational piece of advice I also have for those of us, who as Bruce Cockburn once sang, live in dangerous times.

            It is this. No matter what your age or risk category, though perhaps especially if you are elderly, remember: now is always the right time to do wonderful and beautiful things with your life. We are called to be responsible stewards of our lives; but not merely responsible. If we are tourists, it is because we wish to take delight in the journey and with our companions, just as Jesus did with his disciples. So, now is the right time to do wonderful and beautiful things with your life! Now is the time to say that you are sorry. To give a gift to someone who is beloved or to donate to a cause that matters to you. Now is always the time to embrace a child or grandchild or an elderly parent and to be truly present to them, even if it takes time and energy. The apostle John writes, "My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action." 

         In the end, before the end, be responsible and love no matter what what the flu season does or does not bring.

Heaven, Really?

            Two months after beginning my first pastoral charge, I found myself in an ambulance racing towards London’s University hospital. Beside me lay a ten-year-old girl, Janine, kept alive with machinery so that her organs could be transplanted to waiting donors. Janine and her mother had both died in a car accident that morning. I held Janine’s warm yet lifeless hand in mine the whole way. And I remembered wondering what really happens when we die.

Heaven?

            As a minister I’ve sat at the bedside of many people who breathed their last: an old sailor who kept his identity as a gay man secret once he retired; a known child molester; a man with leukemia who allowed his young daughter to visit only on days he had a blood transfusion, so she wouldn’t realize he was dying. And beside each bed, I wondered what happens when we die.

            The traditional answer is often sung as the last verse of Amazing Grace.

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we first began.” Sound good? This song actually plays up what is still popular culture’s image of life after death—harp and halos, clouds and choirs. Ironically, though I love listening to our choir, I don’t really enjoy singing myself. So this picture of heaven strikes me as pretty boring. What really happens when we die?

Before about 300 BC, Jews generally didn’t hold to a belief in anything we’d recognize as heaven. At best, there is some suggestion, in the Old Testament, that upon death people would go to Sheol, a place of shadows, spirits, and specters—but not real, vital life. Not a very nice place.

However, by Jesus’ day, many Jews had changed their minds. The idea of eternal reward or punishment probably entered Judaism from Zoroastrianism and other Middle Eastern religions that Jews encountered while living in exile, or who remained in the diaspora after. From there those same ideas made their way into Christianity. But what really happens when we die?

Most orthodox Christians now believe that even if we do go to heaven up above, it will only be for a short time. Heaven is a temporary resting place for the soul, until Jesus returns to earth and our bodies are resurrected. After that humans will live on a new earth, to which heaven has come down, as in the passage we read this morning. On this new earth, with mountains and lakes, cities and forests, we’ll pick up the task that Adam and Eve gave up when they sinned and were forced to leave paradise. A new Garden of Eden opportunity.

But in fact, this image of heaven on earth is actually constructed from the New Testament’s many conflicting images of heaven. In the Bible, sometimes heaven looks like choirs of strange creatures singing round God’s throne, as in Revelation 4. In the Gospel of John Jesus says we will receive mansions in heaven, with no mention of a new earth. He adds, in Mark, that there will be no marriage in heaven, but that we will be like angels—what ever that means, though they certainly don’t have bodies anything like ours.

And again, in today's scripture heaven is described as a New Jerusalem where there will be no more tears, no more death, no mourning, and no pain.

Further on in the same passage, beyond what we read this morning, we’re told that New Jerusalem has great, high walls with twelve gates where angels are posted. A river of life flows out of the city, bright as crystal. A tree of life grows there, with twelve kinds of fruit and leaves for the healing of the nations. “And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they—that’s us—will reign forever and ever.” It’s a fantastic picture, completely mythical, like the Garden of Eden is mythical. So I wonder what will really happen when we die.

            One of the most salient realities about heaven is that in popular culture it is mostly thought of as a reward for living a good life. This turns Christianity into a set of requirements or tests that you have to pass in order to be “good enough” to merit heaven. Heaven as reward turns life into a legalistic moral maze that you have to pass through to win. Though most Protestants are supposed to believe we are saved by grace, rather than good works, the truth is most people go through life thinking either, “I’ve lived a good life, so God will invite me to heaven,” or not. Heaven is a problematic belief in this respect, historically, because this picture divides the world into two camps, an “in group” and an “out group,” the saved and the damned, Christian and Muslim, or Christian and unbeliever. And, of course, if you’re not in my camp, you can go to hell. It is not a doctrine that, as popularly understood, has made for good neighbors; it is actually a doctrine that has fueled Christian crusades and pogroms for hundreds of years.

            Finally, a focus on heaven – especially among conservative Christians who think this planet will be destroyed to make way for the New Jerusalem when Jesus returns—a focus on heaven is problematic because these Christians don’t really care about this world, or care for today’s mountains and lakes, for this climate or our Lake Ontario. They think that we can use this world up and throw it away, exploit it mercilessly, because ultimately Jesus is going to make all things new. But I wonder what will really happen when we die.

Besides no more tears, no more death, no more mourning, our scripture reading also promises, in verse one, that there shall be “no more sea.” Why did the Jews and early Christians think that there would be no more sea in heaven? Well, this hope is rooted in the way that ancient Jews feared the sea. Water was hell to the Jews.

            For example, according to Psalm 74, God had to break the heads of the dragons in the waters under the earth—crush the heads of Leviathan—in order to make room on planet earth for the dry land on which we now live. Jews thought of the sea as a place where the monster Tiamat lived, Lord of dark and chaos. No wonder that when King Solomon built a fleet of ships to trade for far-away Ophir's gold, he hired foreign men to sail those boats. Jews feared the sea because it was the realm of evil.

Likewise, when Jonah fled from God, he ended up in the belly of a sea monster—he was swallowed up by hell. When Jesus cast demons out of the Gaderine demoniac, Jesus sent them into a herd of pigs who immediately went home, to hell, in the sea, taking the pigs with them into the dark. Heaven, according to today’s scripture, on the other hand, is a place where there is no more sea—no monsters, no demons, no evil left to fear.

In this context, the words “no more sea,” suggest to me, at the very least, that scripture doesn’t want Christians to fear death. In spite of the many conflicting images concerning what exactly happens when we die, one constant is present in scripture. For Christians death is not a place of chaos monsters and demons. In death, there is no more sea, and no worries of the sort that hell inspires in literalists. The one thing that unifies all of the New Testament’s many differing descriptions of life after death is a sense of hopefulness and promise. Unlike the depths of the sea, which are terrible—hell really—in life after death, there is no more sea.

Now, in such Biblical descriptions of heaven, I strongly resist the implicit idea that heaven is for Christians only and hell is its necessary complement. As I’ve said before, I just can’t buy the notion of hell. It seems ludicrous to me that a God who redeems the universe would not redeem those people who didn’t know about him, didn’t believe the right things about him, or people who messed up in average ways. We all mess up, after all.

I leave it to you to decide whether you agree with me on that. I understand that a complete rejection of hell requires a deeper study of our and other religious traditions. I’ve don that on other Sundays. But in this message, I don’t want to focus on that—I’d rather reflect on the larger picture of hopefulness and promise suggested by “no more sea” and other Biblical passages that describe the afterlife.

Why? Well, in part it is wistful, wishful thinking on my part. I admit it. The idea of heaven is—well—just appealing in a completely subjective way. I also cling to the notion of a life beyond death because I have read many books that describe near death experiences—you know, where people who almost die see tunnels of light, are met by a beautiful and kind figure at the end of the tunnel, and then are told that their time has not yet come. These accounts are very suggestive. Perhaps they fill you with hope too.

I also cling to the hope for some kind of life after death not just because of scripture’s evocative hints, but also on account of the near universal suggestion found in many religions that this life is not all there is.

But finally, the bottom line for me is that I’m not sure about heaven. I doubt that those who wrote scripture, and perhaps especially the book of Revelation, were authorities on the matter. It is the very nature of faith that there are no guarantees.

            Look. I’d love nothing more than to be able to stand here this morning and promise you endless delight in an amazing paradise. But I wouldn’t be honest with you if I did so promise. Personally, I’ve come to terms with the notion that if there is no heaven, at worst, death will add up to the deepest, most peaceful sleep I’ve ever had. On the other hand, I also choose to dream of an amazing surprise when I die. The great Protestant reformer Martin Luther once said of life after death that we can know as little about it as a baby knows of this life as it enters the birth canal. Touché. Who knows what lies beyond—but either way, I refuse to live in fear today. Instead, I choose to seize the gift of life, treasure it, and follow Jesus with it. Whatever may come to pass in the by and by, I choose to give others as much by way of life and love here and now as I can. In fact, I think of that path as a life to die for.