a vision of Heaven

     What is the kingdom of heaven?  I know a common belief is  that Heaven is a place where everything is good. Perhaps all our indulgences are met without any of the earthly concerns. Drive any car you want, no need for money. Eat all the foods you love, you'll never get fat. In Islam it's the notion that you will be granted 72 virgins if you do the will of Allah. 

     Jesus seemed to always use parables to describe the unknown or some lesson he wished to impart. In our passage from Matthew today, Jesus makes comparisons as to what Heaven is like, all earthly examples. 

       As humans I don't think we are fully capable of knowing or understanding the full truth embodied in Christ as to what Heaven is really like. I do believe we can catch large glimpses of it here on earth. It is not the gorging banquet, it is not 72 virgins and it is not instant gratification of all our earthly wants and desires.

        It does though have a great deal to do with our desires. Specifically, our need to love and be loved.  Perhaps that's where that notion, how’re very misguided, about the 72 virgins comes into play. How many people equate sex with love? Since the two are so closely related, you can understand the confusion. Sex speaks to the core of our beings. Offering and sharing one our most intimate aspects of being. It is not merely about procreation, it is about a relationship. It is all about sharing the magnificent gifts we have as sexual beings with another or others, plural. I am not speaking of indiscriminate, mindless sex. I am speaking of the totality of our beings, spiritual and sexual, being shared to give us a clearer vision of God's creative and redemptive power.  A real vision of Heaven on earth. It has nothing to do with money or toys or power. It has to do with offering, sharing, being and allowing yourself to give and feel the joy of our gifted sexuality. 

        This cannot be confined to merely male and female. It cannot be contained by a simple biological act such as procreation. This preview of Heaven is all about who we are created to be and the totality of our essence. In this way, all of God's innumerable creations, the spectrum of the LGBTQ community, full of God's diversity is not only capable of our unique window into Heaven but it is required of us to fulfill our creative and redemptive purpose.

     Wow! Can you imagine the joy, the beauty, the power of humanity accepting, offering and sharing love on infinite levels?  Every handshake, every hug, every look, every act of physical, sexual love a vision and foretaste of our wholeness, holiness and Heaven.

     In my view of the world and heaven, we must fully accept whom God made us to be for the world to be a happy, heavenly and cooperative creation of our Creator.  There is no limit to the variety God has created. Wider even than any LGBT labels we may create. In this way we are all queer, all differently created in our own unique ways. We all have gifts to offer and share and we are called to embrace whatever that is, to the full. Only in this way will the redemptive power of God's love be fully engaged in the world and then, perhaps then, our vision of Heaven on earth will be clearer than ever before.

Matthew 13:44-52

‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’