Heaven* (Some Assembly Required)
You have to make it.
This is embarrassing.
We had ordered some new dressers for our bedroom. We were very excited about them. It was time to upgrade the furniture in our primary bedroom space, and we picked out some nice stuff. We were eager to recreate our bedroom space into a peaceful, heavenly, dream area.
I don’t remember if it was actually from IKEA or not, but it came flat-packed in a big cardboard box just like everything we’ve ever bought from the Swedish furniture giant. Full of individual pieces, hex wrenches, hundreds of screws and bolts, and instructions written in the painfully foreign language of crude drawings and unintelligible step-by-step curse-word-inducing guidance.
The FedEx man didn’t seem thrilled about carrying these heavy, long, flat, cardboard boxes into our garage for us. But he helped us lay them down on the cement floor and we headed back inside until such time when we’d have the rare combination of three free hours, saintly patience, and enough motivation to actually assemble the dressers.
There they sat.
Fully boxed and full of potential to delight us.
On the garage floor.
Just waiting to be brought to life.
Collecting dust.
An idea unrealized.
A Shrödinger’s dresser. Both real and not.
In the garage.
For months.
And months.
When we initially ordered the dressers (in late October) we had a goal to put them together before the holidays arrived.
We celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Easter… and all the other holidays that year sans-dressers. Our garage floor held their boxes just fine.
How embarrassing. It wasn’t until the week before Christmas A FULL YEAR LATER that we finally got around to putting together the dressers.
And this, my friend, is perhaps an imperfect but passable metaphor for Heaven.
We have to put it together.
We have to make it.
That heaven on earth thing.
We have to actually assemble it. The instructions have been provided. The idea of it is nice. It’s been delivered.
Now it’s up to us.
We actually have to make it.
One ridiculously love-filled, uncomfortably grace-giving, preposterously welcoming, sacred interaction at a time.
In Luke’s gospel there is an account of Jesus teaching that “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
The Kingdom of God is sitting in your garage in a box. All the pieces are there. All the screws and bolts and boards. All the vague, frustrating, but effective instructions. All the smiles and caring questions and sweet gestures. All the sacred moments and holy conversations. All the invitations and open-minded dialogue. All the mercy and grace. All the humble posture. All the love.
It’s all in your garage right now. It’s been delivered. You just have to make it a priority to put the darn thing together.
Heaven is like IKEA furniture. I suppose that’s bad news and good news. I suppose it isn’t really what most of us want to hear. I suppose you were expecting expertly crafted Amish woodworking delivered shiny, perfect and fully realized. I suppose you would prefer the creator to to hand sculpt a solid heirloom piece that will be handed down for generations. I think that’s what a lot of theologians and preachers promise.
But it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. It seems like a much more likely truth is that Heaven on earth must be constructed with our own hands. It seems like it will probably be somewhat rickety and fragile once it’s realized. It seems like we’ll likely need to prepare our kids and grandkids to do the work of assembling their own versions too.
We have to make it.
It won’t arrive in a manner that makes people point to it and say, “There it is!” It is already among us.
We have to get it out of the dust-covered box and put it together one sacred conversation at a time.
A BLESSING FOR YOU
Loving God, remind us that some assembly is required, and it’s up to us to get to work. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR GROUP DISCUSSION
1. Can you relate to the work of "building heaven on earth" being like IKEA furniture?
2. What do your beliefs teach you about what it takes to create a better world?
3. In what ways does our larger society delay us in doing the work of creating a better world?
4. How will you actively assemble "heaven on earth" in the coming weeks?