Heaven is an Acquired Taste

by the Reverend Scott Homer

In the name of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.

I want to begin with a quote from St Bernard of Clairveaux because it gives us a good grounding in the meaning of Advent. He said,
"We know that there are three comings of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible while the other two are visible. In the first coming He was seen on earth, dwelling among men; … in the final coming "all flesh will see the salvation of our God and they will look upon Him whom they have pierced". The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only the elect see the Lord within their own selves, and they are saved. In His first coming our Lord came in our flesh and our weakness; in this middle coming He comes in Spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and in majesty. Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last."

Welcome to the first Sunday of Advent. The old church year is over. The new church year has begun. Last week we celebrated the end of the story, Christ the King, triumphant and glorious reigning forever and forevermore. This week we begin at the beginning, a people living in darkness, awaiting the coming of the Savior. That is what the word “advent” means: the coming or arrival of something of great importance. And so the Christian season of Advent anticipates the anniversary of the coming of Christ into the world, but not just that. Advent looks forward to the Christ’s coming again in glory. But there is more. Advent also recognizes the third coming of the Lord—the coming of the lord into our lives, here and now, to do the work of restoring God’s people—restoring you and me—to our original glory—to the way God intended us to be. Did you know that we are not currently the way God intended us to be?

This morning we prayed, “Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and to put on the armor of light…” That is very nearly a direct quote from the 13th chapter of Romans. St. Paul has just gone through a very long laundry list of the ways that the Romans ought to submit to authority and the ways in which they ought to be displaying holiness and now he wants them to know that this is a matter of some urgency. He says, “The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Our Lord is coming! The time to prepare is now! The day of Christ’s triumphant return draws near! We will see him coming on the clouds soon! Prepare now! Jettison your bad behavior! Trust in the power of the Spirit and do right, right now! Do it now while you still have the chance. If we are not earnestly preparing for him now, we will not be ready for him when he arrives.

In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is describing his second coming that will occur at some time in the future, and in the middle of that description he gives some advice. Jesus says, “34…Take heed…lest your hearts be weighed down in dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life and that day (of the second coming) come upon you suddenly like a snare…Watch at all times…” We have to be prepared for heaven. And St Paul says the same thing to the people in Thessalonica in verse 13. “Pray that God would establish your hearts unblamable in holiness…at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Our hearts need to be established. We have to be prepared for heaven.

Sometimes I think we Christians are a little naïve. We act as if one day the Lord will wave a magic wand over us and somehow, suddenly and without any effort on our parts, we will be transformed into angelic, sinless beings whose only desire is to do the right thing and to live in heaven praising Christ eternally. We act as if we can behave any way we please, do whatever we like, and nevertheless on that fateful day when we are called home we will be ready and willing to enter heaven as full fledged citizens of Christ’s kingdom. But that is not the message that the Bible gives us. Paul is clear. Jesus is too. If we hope to live in heaven eternally we are going to have to learn to like heavenly things. We are going to have to become righteous, virtuous people if we expect to live like righteous virtuous people. We have work to do. We are saved by God’s unmerited grace. We are given the power to change through God’s free gift of grace but we are not required to change. We need to be willing to change. We have to be willing to cooperate with God’s redeeming work in our lives, willing to be transformed, willing to cast off the works of darkness and willing to put on the armor of light.

We have to actually want to be like Christ and be willing to prepare to meet him. The great C. S. Lewis quipped, "the joys of heaven are for most of us, in our present condition, an acquired taste." I think what he meant is that, for most of us, the prospect of being in a perfect, eternal paradise is a bit disconcerting. The prospect of being eternally surrounded by unconditional love, of being in a place where there is no semblance of darkness, no opportunity to be the least bit naughty, causes us to recoil a bit. Are we really ready to caste off all the works of darkness? Are we really excited about the idea of goodness, virtue, honesty and truth telling being not just one of the options but the only option? Are we ready to give up our right to choose the wrong thing? Will we be content with the cardinal virtues? Or will we find all this virtue, goodness, light and love to be uncomfortable?

If we are honest with ourselves, if we really look into the mirror and examine our motives, I think most of us would have to agree that we find comfort in the occasional sin; and we take delight in our secret transgressions; and we rather like having the option of being dishonest when it serves our purposes. We certainly are not jumping at the chance to love our enemies. In fact, day to day, we show little interest in mimicking heaven on earth and we depend upon vice—the works of darkness—in some rather habitual ways. Behind closed doors we engage in activities we would never want people to know about. We take joy in seeing the people we don’t like suffering.

We like getting what we want, even when it costs others. I was listening to a Christian businessman describe an employee who was dishonest, manipulative and aggressively self-serving—not a very pretty picture. A pretty nasty character in many ways and yet the man concluded that although this is was not a person he liked, and he certainly did not admire, and certainly could not trust, still she made him money…and so she was a valuable employee. She possessed the only truly essential character trait. She could produce wealth.

It seems that C. S. Lewis was right, the joys of heaven for most of us, are an acquired taste—and in addition, a taste that has not yet been acquired, at least in some respects. The very things that define heaven are simply too rich for our tastes. And so this Advent season, represents another opportunity to recommit to the process of sanctification—of volunteering ourselves to the redeeming work of the Holy Spirit—it is an opportunity to gain more sophisticated tastes—those that will serve us not just today but in the kingdom to come. In this period in between Christ’s first coming, and that last great day when he comes in power and glory, we walk the road towards heaven, a journey from darkness to light; and our job on that road is to acquire a taste for heavenly things.

I have a nephew. When he was a teenager, for about a year, he ate nothing but Goldfish crackers and hotdogs. He claimed that he didn’t like anything else. Needless to say, he was not exactly the picture of health. He went to a wedding reception with a huge banquet table, full of wonderful foods but he could not bring himself to try any of it. He just kept munching on his crackers. And in spite of what he said, the problem wasn’t so much about what tasted good. He wouldn’t try anything else! How would he know how anything else tasted? The real problem was his unwillingness to try anything different. He was unwilling to stop eating the crackers and the hotdogs and to try something new.

That is a pretty good picture of most of our spiritual lives. We have lived with the same behaviors and the same attitudes for years. We go about doing the same things week after week. Things around us change. Some people we know get involved in new ministries. Some people we know are getting involved in prayer groups. Some folks are asking us about helping with outreach ministries. The pastor is telling us we need to be involved in adult education and bible study…but that all seems a little too uncomfortable to us. We don’t like anything different in our lives. We are content with our Goldfish and hotdogs. Needless to say, many of us are not the picture of spiritual health.

The Christ is coming! He is coming to restore the world. He is coming to take us home to our Father’s House and in house we will find a great banquet table. It will be filled with good things, exotic things, all for our enjoyment. When Jesus comes to take us home we can go to the party insisting that we are content with the limited diet we have been surviving on, or we can begin to open our minds to the possibility that there is more for us, much more than we have been willing to embrace up until now. This Advent season, I invite you to take a risk. Commit to casting away some dark behavior that has been dogging you. Make a confession with your priest. Seek help if you need it. It may seem risky. It may seem deadly but it is in fact, new life. Take on some spiritual discipline. Read a book about the Christian life. Join a bible study even though you don’t know all the answers. (Why would anyone study the bible if they already knew the answers?) Volunteer. Give to a noble cause. Commit to a regular time of prayer. Whatever you do, whether it be casting off works of darkness or putting on the armor of light, do it with the full assurance that you are not acting alone and in your own strength. Do it with the knowledge that God is with you—that the Lord has come into your life—that it is he who has inspired you to broaden your horizons—that he will give you the strength to accomplish the work.

Jesus Christ is not just a historical oddity. This Advent we are not just engaging in some long standing tradition of remembering Jesus’ birth. And Jesus is not just the hope of the future. We are not just anticipating the Last and Great Day when Jesus returns to set us free. Jesus has come. God is with us—right here and right now. We can’t see him. Most of the time we can’t feel his present either. He is with us none the less. And he is leading us and guiding us into the banquet hall. He is inviting us to share in all the blessing of the spiritual life. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.