I have often used the expression “sneak preview of hell” to describe activities I don’t like to do; frequently saying that I will be eternally condemned to be filing, ironing, and simultaneously teaching “For unto Us a Child Is Born” (Handel, “Messiah”) to a volunteer choir of non-music readers, all while wearing a tie. (Based on my experience, I highly doubt that any of those good non-music-reading volunteer choir folks will be languishing in the flames with me.)
For pretty much that same stretch of time I’ve been noting a growth in the terribly egocentric and earth-bound operating vision people have developed for heaven. This is quite often expressed in terms of being able to indulge in dietary behaviors without consequences, or perpetually partaking in favorite (often athletic) activities, and/or being reunited with family members. Music in my heaven is by Mozart, in yours by Dizzy Gillespie. I get to drink alfredo sauce by the bathtub-full while you devour a steak as thick as you are tall. While I’m taking piano lessons with Beethoven (who apparently has to spend eternity working, just to satisfy my desires), you’re on a golf course with infinite greens, and so on. I cannot possibly be the only one who has seen the impact and presence of this trend in funeral liturgies.
Heaven, certainly, has always been envisioned with sensate expressions—primarily food, music, and light—but most often in a corporate sense (choirs, banquets). The turn I’ve noted is toward heaven being a place of individual gratification, not participation in communal enjoyment. (Though the celestial family reunion, some people have observed, would not necessarily be “heavenly” for everyone!)
I’ve recently come to the realization that my flippant envisioning of hell is every bit as ego-centric as what I’ve decried in others’ vision of heaven. The surrounding culture, it seems, decreasingly views either place in terms of the presence or absence of God.
Is this because heaven and hell themselves are less “real” to the surrounding culture? Thanks in large part to the greeting card industry, everyone—in the manner of an Oprah give-away—passes immediately into eternal bliss. (“You get to go to heaven! And YOU go to heaven! And YOU…”). I see this phenomenon amplified on social media, wherein at the passing of any loved one (or the anniversary of their passing), certitude about them being in eternal glory, reunited with (fill in name), is regularly expressed. As with a good number of the Roman rite funeral liturgies I’ve experienced in the past decade, social media has increased the number of casual canonizations. In the week or so that I’ve been writing this piece, I’ve counted eleven such posts (and even more similar comments) on Facebook. I’m sure that this is an expression of confident faith, but it is also a manifestation of the values of the surrounding culture having adverse/unintended consequences. Those values seem to be flowing into church culture more than the church’s are flowing out. In the surrounding culture’s value system, heaven seems to be a super-duper participation award, given for merely playing along.
This isn’t the view of Christian liturgy, however. What’s missing is the hopeful but humble faith of the hymn In Paradisum: “May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs receive you at your coming, and lead you to the holy city, Jerusalem. May choirs of angels receive you and with Lazarus, no longer poor, may you have eternal rest.” The tone is humbly hopeful—an expression of what MAY happen, yet acknowledging that the final dispensation of our eternity lies with God.
In a church culture that is increasingly saturated with this severely diminished (in my opinion) view of heaven, and an over-confidence in our certain attainment of it, it is only natural that a correspondingly diminished—perhaps vanishing—belief in hell has accompanied it. It strikes me as something of a soteriological equation.
I am old enough to have learned, along with my Baltimore Catechism, the expression “by my hope for heaven and fear of hell.” As the Church hears increasing reports of the falling-away or non-joining of increasing portions of the population, I have found myself wondering if, for generations, that hope/fear-heaven/hell dynamic wasn’t largely what kept the sanctuaries filled. (By no means do I intend this observation as a way to look askance at the faith or discipleship of those generations—who were essential for the single human institution that did more to teach, heal, and feed the world than any other.)
One of the ways I’ve come to envision the Church is as a sphere, with Christ at its center. Part of what we’re experiencing in our time, I believe, is a disintegration of a hope/fear shell that kept everyone intact; a shell kept strong by ongoing indoctrination, and by the sense that it was also a protection from the external danger presented by “the world” and by other world religions (including, for Roman Catholics, other Christian denominations).
Part of the disintegration of that shell is an increasing inability to propose successfully to others that the Christ event is the sole/exclusive means by which salvation can be attained, especially as more and more people come to experience (whether first- or second-hand) the goodness that occurs in the world via other Christians, other religions, and even through those who profess no religious tradition or faith whatsoever. (The Pelagianist undertones of that view notwithstanding.)
So what is to keep that sphere—keep US—together now, and into the future? The Holy Spirit, of course—but the Spirit also utilizes our engagement, involvement, and cooperation. We certainly are held together by an attraction to Christ, who is at the center. That center, however, is found by others through the vibrant witness and joyful, fervent discipleship of those who have come to Christ, and have remained with him.
As we shift from external shell to internal attraction, I will confess that I—as a baptized disciple—have found the Christian enterprise much more demanding. Not because I am not attracted to Christ at the center, but because it demands more of me to express that attraction in ways that will attract others. For those who strive to bring (attract) others to Christ, we have to be able to witness to our faith, and back it up with the testimony of our lives. If we are no longer able to offer the Christ event as sole/exclusive, we at least have to be able to offer Christ as a normative and desirable guide for living.
I always get a bit of a neck-hairs-on-end thrill at the renewal of baptismal promises at the Easter Vigil—that intentional community, including the newly-baptized, resoundingly affirms “I do” to each article of faith. There have been a few years, though, when I’ve wondered what the response would be, or how boldly it would be affirmed, if the assembly were asked “do you believe that anyone who believes differently is not saved?” This has challenged me to re-focus my own life in a way that is less inwardly concerned with my personal salvation, but more concerned with having a firm foundation, centered in Christ, from which to launch an outward witness, filled with care and concern for others and the world around me.
At our entrance to Holy Week, I believe that these shifts we are undergoing can have a substantial impact on how we prepare, celebrate, experience, and live out our remembrances of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Though the rites, texts, and symbols remain the same, as a pilgrim people moving forward through these surrounding times of change we cannot help but be somehow different as we once again move through these days of grace.
As the Spirit leads us through the liturgies of Holy Week, we can also be lead back to the profound and intimate connection between this life and the life beyond this life that was constitutive of Christ’s teaching. Re-immersed into the Paschal Mystery—as we were at Baptism—we re-establish Christ as the center of the transformation of our own lives, are empowered to transform the lives and the world around us, and are prepared for our final transformation, that day of hope when angel choirs may welcome us to paradise.
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