Inheritance

Ann Beaty
Fellowship Hall

Tarrytown United Methodist Church

May 5, 2011

Text: John 17:1-11

When we think about receiving an “inheritance” we are usually referring to something that is left to us by someone once they have died.   We most often think of an inheritance as a financial gift or an “inheritance” of meaningful items with sentimental value passed down to us by family or to friends such as jewelry, furniture, pictures - treasured items that help keep us connected to the life and memory of our loved ones.

I have a copy of the 1956 Methodist Church Discipline – the Methodist book of rules and policies that Jim Mayfield left me from his collection of books when he retired.  Now, Jim is still living, but I treasure this book as a gift of inheritance.

It is special because it is the book of Discipline that reflects the first year that the Methodist Church ordained women.  I treasure it – mostly, because Jim cared enough about me to give it to me – he knew it would have meaning for me as a United Methodist clergywoman.

I was also fortunate to receive an “inheritance” from my grandparents.  They had four grandchildren and they set up bank accounts as each one of us was born with the agreement that the money it earned would become ours when we turned 30. 

It was their hope that this fund would help each of us buy our first home – and that is exactly what I did with mine.  This gift – this sum of money - afforded me the possibility of a down payment on my first home.   No matter where I live, I will always treasure my “home” as a gift because of that inheritance.

Today is the day in the church year that we refer to as “Ascension Sunday”.  The scripture from John’s gospel gives us the final words of Jesus as he is preparing to leave the disciples.  He is preparing to ascend to heaven to be with God following his post-resurrection appearances and he has been trying to prepare them for what is to come so they will know they won’t be left alone. 

There’s a lot going on in what he says to them in this passage, but basically, it seems to me, it is all about our “inheritance” as his followers. 

Of course, it is an inheritance that goes far beyond any material inheritance we acquire in this life, but it points to the same thing when a gift of inheritance is left to us in love.  It is a gift. 

This particular gift of inheritance from God, however, has been ours since before we were born, is ours while we are here on this earth, and is experienced in fulfillment as we move on into life beyond death.  He is talking about the true meaning of “eternal life” – how we live life in the here and now and how we live beyond this life.

Some of you may be familiar with Rob Bell.  He is a preacher and author and some of our Sunday school classes have used his DVD series called NOOMA.  The word means breath or spirit of God.  

J’Nevelyn recently shared with me Rob’s book “Love Wins”.  In it, he talks about issues of eternal life, heaven and hell, life on earth and life beyond, and how we might understand these issues in our lives today.

Rob writes this:  In Matthew 19, a rich man asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus replies, “Why do you ask me what is good?  If you want to ENTER LIFE, keep the commandments.”

“Enter life?”  Jesus refers to the man’s intentions as “entering life”?  In that scripture, he tells him that you do THAT – enter life - by keeping the commandments.  The man, however, wants to know WHICH of the commandments.  There are 613 of them in the first five books of the Bible, so it’s a fair question.  In the culture Jesus lived in, an extraordinary amount of time was spent in serious discussion about these 613 commandments, and debating just how to interpret and obey them.

In that particular instance Jesus answers us quoting a portion of the 10 commandments.  We know that the 10 Commandments were central to Jesus understanding of what is important in life because he refers to them many times throughout the gospels.  The first 5 deal with our relationship with God.  The other 5 of them deal with our relationships with each other.

And of the many things Jesus says in his teachings, it is clear that “Heaven” for Jesus, seems to be deeply connected with what he called “this age” and “the age to come.”

Rob Bell says:  “We see through the stories of Jesus that God creates, because the endless joy and peace and shared life at the heart of this God knows no other way.  Jesus invites us into THAT relationship, the one at the center of the universe.  He insists that he’s one with God, that we can be one with him, and that life is a generous, abundant reality.  This God whom Jesus spoke of has always been looking for partners, people who are passionate about participating in the ongoing creation of the world.”

I believe that Jesus calls disciples to keep entering into this shared life of peace and joy as it transforms our hearts, until it’s the most natural way to live that we can imagine.  We live this way until it’s second nature.  We live this way until we naturally embody and practice the kind of attitudes and actions that will go on in the age to come.  This is eternal life here and now and in the future.

Rob Bell tells this story about himself:  “One night when I was in elementary school, I said a prayer kneeling beside my bed in my room in the farmhouse we lived in on Dobie Road in Okemos, Michigan.  With my parents on either side of me, I invited Jesus into my heart.  I told God that I believed that I was a sinner and that Jesus came to save me and I wanted to be a Christian.

I still remember that prayer.  It did something to me.  It did something IN me.  In an innocent grade school kind of way, I believed that God loved me and that Jesus came to show me that love and that I was being invited to accept that love.

Now I am well aware of how shaped I was by my environment, how young and naïve I was, and how easy it is to discount emotional religious experiences.  With very little effort a person can deconstruct an experience like that by pointing out all the other things going on in that prayer, like the desire to please one’s parents and the power of religion to shape a child.

But however helpful that may be, it can easily miss the one thing that can’t be denied.  What happened that night was real.  It meant something significant then and it continues to have profound significance for me.  That prayer was a defining moment in my life.

He concludes the story with these words:  “I tell you that story because I believe that the indestructible love of God is an unfolding, dynamic reality and that every single one of us is endlessly invited to trust, accept, believe, embrace, and experience it.  Whatever words you find helpful for describing this act of trust, Jesus invites us to say YES to this love of God, again and again and again.

            Jesus invites us to trust that the love we fear is too good to be true is actually good enough to be true.  It’s written in one of John’s letters that ‘what we will be has not yet been made known.’ ” 

Jesus invites us to become drawn into this love as it shapes us and forms us and takes over part of our lives.  Jesus calls us to repent, to have our minds and hearts transformed so that we can see everything differently – so we can ENTER LIFE.

Jesus urges us to live like the end is here, now, today and it’s all about love.  Love is what God is.  Love is why we are here.  Love is why Jesus came, and love is why he assures he in these scriptures that we will never be alone.

We’re at the very end of the Easter season.  As I mentioned earlier, this Sunday is called “Ascension Sunday”.  It’s the day we recognize that Jesus left earth after his post-resurrection appearances to ascend to be in heaven with God all all eternity. 

In John’s gospel, we have been reading the stories of Jesus limited time back on earth with the disciples assuring them of the ways his presence will remain with them always.  Last week our scripture told us that they were assured that the “Advocate” – the Holy Spirit – the truth – would live in them forever and bring them guidance and comfort. 

Today, Jesus assures the disciples that they are given an inheritance of eternal life and that they may know in life and in life beyond death that they are living in love with God.  It is the ultimate gift of inheritance for those of us who follow Christ.

It’s a signature “Rob Bell thing” to end his sermons or teachings with a benediction.  I share with you the one he uses in his book “Love Wins”.

“May you experience this vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love that has been yours all along.

May you discover that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart no one else knows about.

And may you know, deep in your bones, that love wins.”  Amen.