Haddon Willmer

God is the key to a workable idea of heaven.
We are not looking for a place in the universe, for some special planet somewhere. We cannot place God in that way. And heaven is the place where God is, because heaven is the place God makes around God wherever God is. It is not that heaven is a place, and then God comes and lives in it. Heaven is not like a hutch, which you build, and then put the rabbit in it. Nor is it like a great house, which God comes along and buys, or takes over as a squatter. No: heaven as place is nowhere and anywhere. It is wherever God is or comes, because God makes heaven around him as he goes and comes.

Heaven is not located somewhere out of this world, out of our reach. It is also not simply future, out of reach while we live in this present. There is much about heaven we do not know – so we can think of coming to know it in the future. There is much about heaven we do not enjoy and are not fit for – so we can hope that we will come to the full joy one day and be fit to enjoy and not spoil the beauty of heaven by our being in it. Heaven is future in significant ways, and so it is hidden from us, as the future always is.

But it is not just future, because it is wherever and whenever God is. God makes and brings and shares heaven wherever God is. And God is not locked in the future alone.

God comes. Into the present. Into our present. And brings heaven. But does pointing us to God like that help us? Is it not answering a question about one mystery – heaven – by pointing us to another mystery – God? There is no doubt a great deal of mystery here, but it is not all obscurity. God comes and shows God. Not that God lets us know everything about God – could we take it in if God did? But God gives us plenty to go on and to hold on to about God.

Talking of God in the Bible way
We talk of God as though it is obvious what ‘God’ means, as though we know just by growing up in our mixed up society or in the repetitions of our religion. But do we? The Bible, this collection of texts we listen to to hear God, is the abiding outcome of God’s speaking to people in various ways over a long time, in Israel and in early Christianity. The Bible’s way of letting us hear and get to know God rests on some strange assumptions.

First, the Bible assumes that we human beings do not know God well enough to be able to talk confidently of God. We do well to keep silence a lot of the time, keep our eyes open, and to practise speaking tentatively as children do.
So, secondly, it assumes that it is essential to our knowing God truly that we always respect the secrets God keeps to God-self – we are on the path of knowing God truly when we are humble about how little we know.
Thirdly, it sees that human beings, in their energetic ignorance and desperate desire for God, tend to make gods for themselves, idols and religions in some form. So the Bible aims to expose our mistakes about God, get us to confess and turn from this tendency to false gods, and be open to God’s showing us true God in God’s own chosen way.
Fourthly, God’s own way of showing God to us is not short and simple and clear cut, but long and bewildering and not yet finished. God chose Abraham and his descendants and set about living and working with them through many generations, wandering towards a promise which is open-ended (it may be that heaven symbolises God’s open-ended promise of life and love). God does not show God in a moment, a twinkling of an eye. We see God by living in and learning from the long history of God with God’s people. Lessons with God take longer than 35 minutes. God works with people by choosing and affirming them, by calling and disciplining them, by renewing and challenging them. All this happens to people as they live with God, and slowly, with many mistakes down dead ends, and detours, come to see
• who the God is who is with them,
• how God is with them,
• how therefore they can be with God.
And coming to see something of all this is to be with God in the heaven God brings wherever he is.

We use the name God very glibly but the story the Bible gives it more substance and mystery.

These are important questions. Not easy. There is not an obvious or simple answer – heaven is not a visible place. It is not a tourist destination, so that you could get a last minute offer and go and see. And it will get you no nearer to book a seat for millions of dollars on a tourist flight in space. If people ever get to living on the moon – or Mars? – they will not think they have got to heaven. Indeed they may come back to the old truth, that heaven has always been nearer to home but sometimes we have to take long journeys to get there.

But like many questions of life, the questions about heaven are important and worth living with, even when we cannot answer them fully. If they gnaw away at you, you will turn them over and over in your mind and you will look out for heaven or clues to heaven every day in the world.*

I am reminded of Francis Thompson’s poem, “In No Strange Land”. Thompson was a gifted poet who had big problems with opium addiction and poverty as well as a profound faith. His problems drove him to live on the streets and to attempt suicide. Some friends helped him and that is how his first poems got published. When he died in 1907 the manuscript of this poem was in his pocket.

In No Strange Land

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry–clinging to Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

Thompson is saying to himself and to us that heaven is close to us even in this world, even this world that is made of hard material surfaces, where it seems there is no free way for angels, the representatives of heaven. In truth, he says, heaven is not merely close to us, it is in some way, all around us, like the water is around the fish, but we do not see it or know it. It is all around us but we do not see it. But if we looked, if we were open to it, we would see: move but a stone and start a wing. That means…

And so: heaven comes to us when we are at our saddest, sad because we are shut out from heaven and do not see it and maybe cannot care. Then, into our saddest, there appears a ladder, pitched between heaven and Charing Cross, with the angels going up and coming down. The point is not just that heaven is open when we are sad, weak, broken, going wrong, but that it comes and is there, not because of anything we do or can do but because it is given by God, opened by God.

Before we get on to thinking more about God and heaven, let us remind ourselves where Thompson got his picture of the ladder pitched between heaven and Charing Cross. It is the story of Jacob in Genesis 28. He tricked his brother Esau and his father Isaac, and they were angry when they found out, so he fled for his life. His first night away from home, by himself in the desert, tired out, he lay down with his head on a stone for a pillow. Was he frightened? Ashamed? Uncertain about what would happen to him? However sad, he had a dream of a ladder between God’s high presence and where he was on earth, and angels going up and down, two-way communication. When he woke up, he said, Surely God is in this place and I did not know it. He made a memorial there, called the place Bethel and went on his journey in life.

Parts two and three of this series has now been published

Praying Psalm 67 on 8 May 2010

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us

Lift up the light of his countenance and give us peace. (Numbers 6.24-26)

A volcano erupts and a cloud spreads upon the earth;
planes are grounded and people are stuck

Debts threaten national bankruptcy, and
another financial meltdown;
people suffer drastic cuts
react in fear and anger
a bank burns: people die

A free sovereign people goes to the polls
and gets a harvest of confusion
the hung parliament
business does not like:
will we come through this unscathed?

Thick darkness covers the peoples (Isaiah 60.2)

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us
that your way may be known upon earth,
your saving health among all nations.

Show us your way
Go your way in the world
Open your way for the peoples
Lead us in your way
When we turn to the right or the left,
Let our ears hear the word behind us:
This is the way: walk in it (Isaiah 30 18-22)

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us
even in the darkness, shine
even through the confusion, lead
even in the pain, help
even in the anger and fear, courageous peace

May God bless us,
let all the ends of the earth revere him.
Let all the peoples praise you
        by living with wisdom and courage,
                with love and hope

God, do not hide from us now
The light of Father, Son, Holy Spirit is shining: it is not hidden
God, walking in your light is difficult
Repent, turn, believe the good news, the kingdom of God comes near
God, walking in your light is still difficult, the way is narrow and hard
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are already on that way:
you will find God with you if you step on to the path

My advice is that there should be prayers offered for everyone – petitions, intercessiona and thanksgiving – especially for kings and other in authority, so that we may be able to live quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all. (I Timothy 2.1-6)

When Nathaniel was very young, I often went to Oxford by train. So I had weary hours at Birmingham New Street. I browsed in the shops to ease the pain. One day I bought a book written and illustrated by James Stevenson called Don’t Make Me Laugh (Andersen Press, 1999; ISBN 0-374-41843-8 pbk – you can find a lot of his work on Amazon).

It begins:

It is not hard to guess what kind of book it turns out to be. It is quite funny for a four-year old looking at it three times, so he has to go back to the beginning a few times, but soon learns self- control and keeps a straight face.

This well-worn book, still on the shelf, gives me an idea.
I have been given this blog-space on the church website.
I am aware of the privilege. Serious about the responsibility.
I ask myself: What shall I do with it?
I am tempted by the power. I could call it Mr Frimdimpny’s Blog and say,

But that would not do, for several reasons. I would guess Mr Frimdimpny has copyrighted his name; if he won’t let me smile, he won’t let me usurp his claim. Furthermore, this is a church website, and it is here to serve God in the way of Jesus Christ. So I cannot call it mine.

I don’t want to run it as mine because I fear the fate of the unforgettable Max, the night he wore his wolf-suit: I might make mischief of one kind or another and the church might call me Wild thing and I would have to sail away over a night and a day to where the Wild Things are, and while I might have wild fun gnashing my terrible teeth with them, I would get weary with them and their nonsense and long to be where someone loved me best of all. So I would have to get into my boat and sail home – where I would find my supper waiting for me (wouldn’t I?) still warm, and be left asking myself why I ever bothered to go away to a land I could think my own.
[From the well-loved children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak 1963]

This blog is not mine: that reminds me of an old house in the Austrian mountains which Hilary and I came across years ago. Inscribed on its white wall, in what seems to me somewhat unusual German, it says:

In a civilization whose God is Property, including Intellectual Property and the Owning of one’s own Body, there is a word of wisdom tucked away on that wall.

So whose is this blog?

It is like the web, belonging to everybody because it belongs to nobody. It is like a true Baptist church, which belongs to everybody who cares to be a member, because they have to share in the making of it. That is very different from churches that belong to a bishop, or to a celebratory preacher, or to a rich sponsor. Belonging to everybody by belonging to nobody might be a clue to what the kingdom of God is like and why it is radically different from the way we manage to do things on earth.

I would like this blog to belong to anyone who wants to join in making it a worthwhile meeting place. It is not quite a free for all, say anything you like, gossip shop. Who wants to put a lot of work into producing triviality? There are many important things in the world and we cannot talk about them all at once. I want to dedicate this place to Thinking about God as God is in Jesus. It is not so easy to find places where you can do that with other people who also want it. So it’s worth working to make this one of the too rare places where there are Springs in the Desert (Isaiah 43.19)

The title, Thinking about God as God is in Jesus, is just a first ranging shot at what this blog will be. What it will be is something to work out together. Is there a better way to describe what it is about? Suggestions about names and guidelines are welcome. But we might make best progress if we try to do something worthy and then choose a name when we can see what is going on.

You are invited to contribute the sort of thinking that you judge fits the bill. I shall edit this blog with a light hand but enough to help us to keep going in the right direction. In this blog we are all coming into the light, to be open to one another, to learn from one another and to help one another. This means judging what we read – rather than whom we read. It means judging, caring about truth and wisdom and goodness and faithfulness, but judging only as we are willing to be judged: not to be condemned but to be called to be better. I think this kind of living together in the light is involved in being Christian together. What God wants to do in the world requires it. God made us thinking beings and his work cannot be done if we withhold our thinking power from his service. Jesus’ story about the unfaithful servant who hid his talent in the ground and got a negative bonus from his Master is relevant to our thinking and our blogging.

What happens in this blog is very serious, no doubt, but it does not have to be dull or boring. Good thinking means good talking, good writing, and good here means interesting, lively, clear, forceful, informed. Good thinking and good writing takes many forms. We shall even have poetry sometimes.

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