Edgework

I have attended a number of funerals again recently. It seems that is becoming more of a staple in my life as I get older. While there are some welcome exceptions from time to time, I find that much of what happens at funerals in the Bible belt in which I live has more to do with show-casing a pernicious Gnostic heresy than offering a truly biblical reflection on death, dying and hope.

It all starts innocently enough it seems at the viewing service normally held the night before the actual funeral. Almost without exception, friends and family speak of the departed loved one having gone to heaven, there to remain in that far-off city of splendor for the rest of eternity. The body lying before the congregation is of little significance since the soul has flown away to glory. And, furthermore, the rest of us who love Jesus will soon be flying away too – our souls, that is – to join the departed loved one; there to pick up our relationships where death has temporarily interrupted them. Together forever. The family reunited. So keep the coffee hot; I am on my way to join you!

And the songs that are sung support this view of things. “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through…,” “I’ll fly away, O glory; I’ll fly away…,” “When the roll is called up yonder I’ll be there…,” or “Shall we gather at the river, where bright angel’s feet have trod…” The conundrum of which spouse will join the family circle for those married more than once is shuffled off to the side in spite of the fact that Jesus clearly told his detractors that in the resurrection there is no such a thing as marriage.

If one hopes for the minister in charge of the service to balance off such views with a more biblical perspective, in more cases than not, he simply affirms what has already been said. And, of course, uses his captive audience to attempt evangelism of unbelieving relatives of the deceased person.

Strangely enough, at the committal service at the graveside, invariably I Thessalonians 4:13-18 is read which speaks of the resurrection of the body at the end of time. Until this point the concept of the resurrection has been expunged from the funeral rhetoric, or it has morphed into the notion that at the moment of death the deceased person was resurrected and received a body fit for heaven – end of story. It seems that many persons don’t pick up on this disconnect. But increasingly I do and I notice that I am not the only one.

In his book, Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels, Rodney Clapp asserts that the ultimate Christian vision as portrayed in the Bible is not for disembodied souls to be inhabiting a city of wonder for eternity together with their loved ones “In the sweet by and by.” He states that, “Biblically, the soul’s state in the interim between death and resurrection is not terribly clear and receives little attention. The focus instead rests on the ultimate hope of the body’s resurrection and reintegration with the soul, and the renewal of all creation in a new heaven and a new earth, as in I Corinthians 15 and Revelation 21” (36).

But it is N. T. Wright, more than any other contemporary writer, who is helping us to rethink the folk religion so endemic to our evangelical circles with respect to what happens after death. In his book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection and the Mission of the Church, Wright contends that the classic biblical perspective is that the Christian’s ultimate hope lies in “the restoration of all things” at the time of the resurrection (Acts 3:21, I Corinthians 15). Leaving out this vision, he states, feeds the notion that since we are all leaving anyway there is really no Christian imperative to participate in making this world a better place.

Wright places blame for this kind of an escapist theology on the influence of Gnosticism, a Platonic heresy that flourished in the latter part of the second century A.D. So he agrees with Karl Marx that religion is an “opium” for people but “…only when the religion in question includes the Platonic downgrading of bodies and of the created order in general, regarding them as ‘vain shadows’ of the earth, which we happily leave behind at death. Why try to improve the present prison if release is at hand” (26).

Wright goes on to say, “The classic Christian doctrine is actually far more powerful and revolutionary than the Platonic one. It was people who believed robustly in the resurrection, not people who compromised and went in for a mere spiritualized survival, who stood up against Caesar in the first centuries of the Christian era. A piety that sees death as the moment of ‘going home at last,’ the time when we are ‘called to God’s eternal peace,’ has no quarrel with power-mongers who want to carve up the world to suit their own ends. Resurrection, by contrast, has always gone with a strong view of God’s justice and of God as the good creator” (26-27).

There is some biblical basis for suggesting that upon death the believer is ushered into the presence of God. Paul says that his desire is “…to depart and be with Christ which is far better” (Philippians 1:23). And Jesus told the thief on the cross, “…today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). But such statements, says Wright, seem to imply a “temporary lodging” such as Jesus referred to in John 14.

I believe it is time that the evangelical community proclaims that this world, and the world of the new heaven and the renewed earth following the resurrection, is in fact our home. And then participate with God in making our present home a foretaste of what is to come.