Our brother's words

Friends,

I want to post the first three paragraphs of Tom's sermon for Easter in Jamestown.

I love the clarity of expression and the deep wisdom of what Tom says here.

It strikes me that such clarity is a fringe position, the idea that this life is our one life and that we can simply trust in God and say that our sight reaches only to the horizon.
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One of the saddest and most diabolical distortions of religion occurs whenever it is used to distract us from living lovingly, justly, and faithfully in this life. Religion that redirects our focus from this life to some other life after this one has little in common, it seems to me, with the religion of Jesus. Easter is not primarily about transport from this life into another one just as eternal life is not about living forever, but living deeply in the present moment. Eternal life, properly understood, is not an expression of infinite time. It is about living our lives now in such a way that their effects for good radiate outward forever.

About what happens to us when we die at the end of our days on earth I do not have much to say today because I do not know. No one does. A lot of preachers say they know, but they are not at that point telling the truth. No one knows. That is why I simply trust God with my life and my death and my loved ones. I trust God. Period. Scripture says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death, and that is good enough for me.

Meanwhile, resurrection is for the living. I am utterly convinced of that. The Bible has almost nothing to say about what happens to us after this life because its writers did not know either. Rather, through the stories of our mothers and father in the faith, it tells of our human encounters with God, our engagements with the sacred, our experiences with the divine in this life. It exhorts us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly in this life. It encourages us to live toward and into our true and full humanity in this life. So it is a wonderment to me how and why so many parts of the church go to such great lengths to teach us to concern ourselves with heaven when Jesus was so deeply interested in earth.