Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C May 12, 2019
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” But, why bother? What is the reward of being such a follower? The book of Revelation promises “they will not hunger or thirst,” the “sun” and “heat” will not “strike” them, and “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Those are all great things, but you can buy food and drink, you can pay for air conditioning, and you can even get a dog to make you feel better when you’re sad. The book of Revelation says these people washed their robes in blood and survived great distress. Paul and Barnabas are literally run out of town and eventually are executed for following this way of life. Food and drink and a little comfort don’t quite seem to justify so much suffering.
That’s why the world mocks our belief in heaven. They compare it to Santa or the Boogeyman. They think we are going to an awful lot of trouble and missing out on an awful lot of fun for some imaginary rewards in some imaginary future. Why not enjoy life now? Because that’s not what heaven is. Heaven is not just some 5-star hotel. It’s not just food and drink and comfort, although those things are taken care of. No, the first mistake the world makes about our motivation is misunderstanding what the reward actually is.
So, what is heaven really? What is worth all that trial and tribulation stuff? Worship. The ability to “worship day and night in his temple.” In other words, the heaven we’re all striving for is like going to church forever. It is an eternal Mass.
If they’re honest with themselves, many people in this room are uneasy with that thought. Eternal Mass? Infinite Church? Sure, 1 hour a week isn’t so bad, but forever? Surely, heaven would get boring! Indeed, heaven is not only boring, it is downright horrific… if you are not one of the sheep of the shepherd Jesus Christ. For those who have rejected God, Hell is almost a mercy because Heaven would be even more unbearable.
How can that make any sense? Because heaven is just as much about who you are as it is about where you are. Jesus says that “no one can take” the sheep “out of [his] hand” or “out of the Father’s hand.” The promise of heaven is not an air-conditioned buffet, but an eternal experience of intimate, personal, perfect love. It is being wanted by someone, wanting them back, and having each other for eternity. When that someone is God, like it is in heaven, this intimate relationship takes the form of “worship.”
A comparison might help. Think of a time you got really, really into something. A movie or book, an in-depth project building or designing or writing something, a fantastic conversation with a close friend, a high-stakes moment in a game or sport, playing an instrument or singing. Psychologists will sometimes talk about a state of mind popularly called “flow.” It’s that in-the-zone feeling, that hyper-focus that blocks everything out and, for the moment, is almost completely satisfying. Usually, you can tell by the fact that, looking back, you had lost all self-consciousness. You didn’t think about yourself, rather just the thing on which you were focused. In a state of flow, there’s a kind of peace or completeness hard to find elsewhere.
And “flow” isn’t always a good thing. This kind of satisfied, hyper-focus can be sinful. It is often what motivates workaholics, adrenaline junkies, and high-stakes gamblers. But it’s also at work in geniuses like Einstein or Tesla and visionary businessmen like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. This “flow” or hyper-focus seems to tap into the fullest potential of the human being. But it doesn’t last. It can’t. Once the moment passes, the happiness it gives will depend not on the depth of the focus, but on the value of your chosen focus. If you get this fix through crime and sin, it will leave guilt. If you get there in pursuit of money and power, it will leave emptiness. Even when it’s from time with a close friend or lover, it will eventually leave a sense of distance.
In fact, there is really only one thing truly worthy of the flow of humanity’s full potential: God. I mean the “flow,” the hyper-focus of true worship. Mass is boring to us because we do not see it for what it really is. Mass is boring for us because we do not exert the willful focus on it that it deserves. But when we do enter that worship, when we do truly go outside of ourselves in the worship of God, it is glorious, satisfying, and achieves a happiness beyond the few moments it happens. Unlike any merely earthly project, it has a lasting reward.
Heaven is an eternal state of “flow,” of hyper-focus on the glorious, creative, redeeming love of God. It is full-throttle worship so pristine that it is simultaneously rest and labor, thrill and peace. What makes heaven so heavenly is not the stuff you get, but the kind of person it turns you into. It makes you the kind of person capable of this eternal “flow” of life-giving water. Compared to the ups and downs, the listlessness and boredom, the inconstancy and suffering of this world, it’s clear just how grand this reward truly is.
So, what’s it take to get this reward? Hear his voice and follow. In other words, obedience to the shepherd. You have free will so that you can freely choose to obey God. You have the freedom to love whatever you choose so that you can freely choose to love the right things… to love the right person. The whole possibility of “flow” comes from this whole-hearted surrender to what you’re focused on. It usually requires a difficult, deliberate act of the will first. To choose what doesn’t feel first like fun before gradually slipping into this new frame of mind and heart.
The Catholic Faith is like that. You have to make hard choices, deliberate acts of the will to do what seems unpleasant at first. Fasting, praying, saying no to sin, going to Mass. If you drag your feet and do it reluctantly, you’ll never enjoy it. But if you lean in, if you actively choose it, you’ll find more and better moments of flow, of satisfied full engagement. Usually, the harder the act of the will, the longer the struggle to really commit, the more rewarding that time period of hyper-focus will be. So, if Mass is boring, don’t zone out, try focusing more. Try singing more, responding more intentionally, thinking more deliberately about the words and symbols.
“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” This world is noisy. Do you recognize his voice? You have to listen, to focus really hard. But if you do, you’ll find he doesn’t just promise a reward at the end of time, you begin to taste that reward even now. The more you learn to willfully, whole-heartedly follow Christ, the more you’ll become that wholehearted, joyful saint in heaven you are meant to be become. And it is who you become, not what you receive that makes heaven so great. Why not start becoming that person now?