Secret Siblings

Sermon manuscript for Sabbath, April 29, 2017, for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Genesis 16:1-11, Matthew 2:1-11.

Synopsis:

The Bible reports that Abraham, the “father of the faithful,” had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael quickly recedes into the background (along with six other sons born in his old age to a concubine) and the Bible becomes the story of the Isaac branch of the family of Abraham. The Hebrew people (grandchildren of Isaac) emigrate to Egypt, are enslaved, then rescued by God. The Hebrew people become a kingdom with David as its most illustrious monarch. Among Hebrews prophets arise—Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel. And from the Hebrew royal line comes the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, father of the Christians. This is the story that features in our worship. It is the story we rehearse and claim as our own. But what about the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael? God had promised Abraham that Ishmael, too, would father a great nation. God would honor his friendship with Abraham by showing kindness to Abraham's “other son.” Did God forget his promise? Skip forward in time to one of the greatest Hebrew prophets, Isaiah. In one of his visions of the New Earth, the prophet writes regarding the descendants of Ishmael, “They shall ascend with acceptance on My altar,

And I will glorify the house of My glory.” When the vision of God reaches its glorious climax, the hidden siblings of Israel are publicly welcomed and honored. God keeps his promises, even to the second class family members, even to those who appear lost beyond recall, distant to the point of invisibility. As children of God we are invited to partner with God in welcoming our secret siblings.

Sermon:

As Karin and I were planning our move to Green Lake Church, we knew one thing would be different from every other church we had pastored. We would have relatives in the church. Erik and Katrina and Brian and Naomi. Never before had any one in our churches had connections with our families or even with our pasts.

Shortly after we arrived I was greeting people at the door and I met a woman named Edith Burden. I did a double take. Burden? Are you related to H. O. Burden? She was. Another relative.

Then I met with a woman whose husband was in a Seattle hospital with a scary diagnosis. I had heard about her because some people were critical of a specialized ministry she was involved in. I visited her at the hospital. We talked for a long time. I was fascinated by the potential of her ministry. At some point she said, “You do know we are related right?”

I felt like an idiot. We had been talking for an hour. I did not recall we had ever met, much less that we were cousins. I try to say nice things about everybody I meet because who knows—they might be relatives!

Family is special. We carry a special sense of responsibility for our relatives. If one of our nieces or nephews flies into town, they know they have free airport shuttle service and a free hotel room at our place. Some people in this congregation have taken this family responsibility to great extremes. You have literally saved the lives of relatives. If I ask why you do it, you shrug your shoulders and say, “What else could we do.” Help was needed. Help was provided. That's part of the way family works—when it works the way it's supposed to.

Family connection is central to the Bible story. The book of Genesis features genealogies, family histories. And the most important genealogy is the record of the ancestors of Abraham and the record of the descendants of Abraham's grandson Jacob. You are in the story if you are part of that family. You are peripheral to the story if you are not in that family.

This story of the family of Abraham's grandson plays out through the rest of the Old Testament. The descendants of Jacob split into two nations. The Bible keeps track of both nations until the northern kingdom goes extinct.

The story continues and sets up the story of Jesus. Jesus is the descendant of David, and Abraham and Adam . . . who is the Son of God.

This is the story that stands at the center of our worship. We claim the Bible story as our story. We claim the promises to the Jewish people as promises to us. We imagine ourselves as part of the beloved family. When God talks of never forgetting Israel, we read those words as applying to us: God will never forget me. When God promises to forgive Israel, we apply those promises to ourselves. We are “spiritual Israel.” we say. We claim this connection because of the Apostle Paul.

Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. Rom 4:13 NLT

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. Rom 4:16

Abraham is the father of all who believe—the spiritual father. We are spiritual children of Abraham. This is nice. It allows us to apply to ourselves all the good promises of mercy and protection God gave to the ancient Jewish people. We are in the family.

This is wonderful. It also carries a risk. Sometimes we who have been taken into the family appoint ourselves as custodians and guardians of the purity of the family. We imagine there is only one family of God and we are it. And the only way for anyone to be part of the family of God is to submit to the name and identity of our particular family.

I remember reading an encyclical by Pope John Paul II in which he carefully explained that while the Catholic Church had charitable feelings toward other Christian bodies, those other Christian bodies were not really churches. Because there was only one church and the church of Rome was it. It reminded me of Adventist literature which makes exactly the same claim. We—our denomination—we are the one true church, the one actual, visible church of God, and everyone else is a spiritual outsider.

We base these notions of “one true people of God” on the Bible story of the Jewish people. The Jews were the people of God. Jerusalem was the city of God. Now we—Adventists or Catholics or Missouri Synod Lutherans or Jehovah's Witnesses or Church of Christ—we are the new people of God. Our denomination is the New Jerusalem.

But let's look a little closer at the Bible story.

Abraham had no children and he was getting old. Sarah, his wife, suggested he take her maid, Hagar, as a concubine so he would have an heir. Abraham agreed and Hagar got pregnant. But things didn't go so well. Hagar got uppity and Sarah got mad. The abuse from Sarah was so bad, Hagar ran away. An angel found her out in the desert and sent her back home with this promise: Your son will be great. His descendants will become an uncountable multitude.

When Ishmael was a teenager, God appeared to Abraham and announced that Sarah was going to have a son, and this son was going to be the one to inherit the promises God had made to Abraham. Abraham protested: What about my son Ishmael?

“I will bless him to,” God said. “I will make his descendants into a great nation.” With that Ishmael pretty much disappears from the Bible story. He reappears when Abraham dies, participating in the funeral honoring his father. Then silence. Decades, centuries of story roll on with no record of Ishmael and his descendants. Until we come to the prophet Isaiah. In chapter 60, this great gospel prophet is describing how it will be in the New Earth and he writes:

“They shall ascend with acceptance on My altar,

And I will glorify the house of My glory.”

Ishmael is the secret sibling, the unknown relative. When God's vision reaches it grand fulfillment, the entire family will be gathered including the secret siblings, the brothers and sisters we did not know we had, the cousins that were completely invisible to us.

This idea of secret children of God pops up all through the Bible story and features especially in the stories of Jesus.

When Jesus is born the royalty that shows up to pay homage are strangers from the East. We have no idea who they were. We don't know their fathers. We don't know their religion. We don't know their nationality. These mysterious royal figures echo the person Melchesideck whom Abraham honored as his spiritual superior. Both the Kings from the East who honored Jesus and Melchesidek who received tithes from Abraham highlight the fact that there is a spiritual reality completely independent of the “people of God,” the corporate body that is the focus of any particular holy story.

Jesus repeatedly made a point of “expanding” the holy family.

The Centurion who had more faith than any Jewish person Jesus had met.

Jesus made the most unveiled assertion of his identity as the Messiah to a Samaritan woman.

Jesus pointed to the Good Samaritan as a premier example of what it meant to be obedient to God.

Out of a group of ten men healed of leprosy only the Samaritan returned to give thanks.

Jesus challenged his Jewish audience: Many will come from the east and west and sit down at the heavenly banquet, but you will be left out.

It was a crippled woman, someone who bore the external marks of divine disapproval that Jesus called “a daughter of Abraham.

Zacchaeus had divided loyalties. He collaborated with the Roman occupiers and was dishonest to boot. Upon his repentance, Jesus announced this man, too, was a son of Abraham.

Luke 4, Jesus preached a sermon in his home town. The audience loved it until Jesus pointedly highlighted God's favor to a couple of foreigners, the Widow of Nain and Naaman. The audience got so mad they tried to kill him.

So what? What does all this have to do with our lives?

First, we think of ourselves as special. We find a special place in the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. That's us, we say, pointing to certain passages. This is a good thing. If we are special, it will help us act like special people. We are the Jesus people. We can count on the special favor of God

Then what? Part of being Jesus people is learning to see our secret siblings, learning to recognize our family connection with all sorts of people.

The Bible centers its story on the family of Jacob, more specifically, the part of that family which is connected with the lineage of Jesus. Those people are supposed to remember they are family and show each other the kinds of mutual respect and support that is appropriate in a family.

Then the Bible points us outward. The circle of family gets wider and wider. We discover more and more secret siblings until we come to the Gospel of Luke.

Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus back to King David and to Abraham—the greatest heroes of the Jewish story. Then Luke keeps going. According to the Gospel of Luke Jesus' family is not only the family of Abraham and David. Luke traces the genealogy all the way to Adam the Son of God.

Our family is the family of humanity. Every human is part of our clan.

We are special. And we are called to extend the benefits and privileges we enjoy as widely as possible.

Our house is a house of prayer for all nations.

Echoes of Fathers Day

Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists
June 25, 2016
A sermon manuscript


A psalm of David. Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle's!
The LORD gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
The LORD is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever.
He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.
Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone--as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children's children
of those who are faithful to his covenant, of those who obey his commandments!
Psalm 103


"You parents--if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?
Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not!
So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.
"Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:9-12


I walked into a jeweler's store near my house to get batteries replaced in a couple of Karin's watches.  The woman behind the counter took my watches and looked them over. headed toward the work bench. The last time they replaced batteries it had taken a little while, so I  asked if I could leave them and pick them up later in the morning. I said I was just around the corner working at Starbucks . She asked what I was doing at Starbucks.

 “Writing,” I said.

 “What are you writing?”

“I'm working on a novel about a preacher and his son. The preacher is a man of great integrity. Kind. Generous. Devout. Honest. Now, in his old age he is facing an excruciating dilemma. His son has died in a car accident. Tomorrow, Jim is going to preach his son's funeral, and Jim, the preacher has to choose between the gospel he has preached for forty years and his son.

The son, Keith, was a good man, but not a believer. Because of his integrity, Jim cannot even hint that his son will be saved, not unless he also admits the gospel he has been preaching for forty years is inadequate.  If it were a funeral for anyone else, Jim could hide behind the idea that judgment is up to God and leave it at that. He could say that only God knows the heart. But this was his son. And Jim did know his heart.  And Keith did not believe. They had talked and talked. Keith knew the gospel and had decided it did not ring true. He understood Romans and refused to believe it was the word of God. If Jim preached hope of eternal life in the face of what he knew about his son it would be a denial of the gospel he had preached through four decades.

So Jim faces the terrible choice of saving his religion or saving his son, a terrible, awful dilemma.

 “I know people like that,” she said. “One of my friends has been devout all her life. Now her son has come out as gay. She doesn't know what to do.”

I left the watches and headed back to Starbucks where I lived with Jim's agony.

Working on this sermon, I replayed that conversation in my head. As a dad, if I were faced with the choice of saving my kids or my theology, which would I choose? Which do we love more, our religion or our kids?

This past Sunday was Father's day. One of my girls gave me a card, the sweetest possible card. According to her card I was the perfect dad. She did not mention the time I swatted her across the room when she bit my leg. She overlooked the times I was an hour late picking her up from school. She graciously neglected to mention other failings and imperfections. For the moment, and in that beautiful card, I was the perfect father. That's what we do on Father's Day and Mother's Day, right? We celebrate the good stuff. We omit reference to failures and inadequacies. We recall the best. We practice selective attention.

The Bible builds its vision of God on similar selective vision.

In Psalm our Old Testament reading this morning we heard these words

The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust. Psalm 103

Not all fathers are tender and compassionate. And even tender and compassionate fathers are not unfailingly tender and compassionate. But we build on the goodness we have observed in fathers we know and imagine a God who is even better.”

Karin talks of the special relationship she had with her father. Her mother was strong, smart, and good. But when Karin needed some tender compression, when she needed empathy, she went to papa. When she had messed up, she knew she could find sanctuary in papa's presence. An embrace. Understanding. Shelter.

God is like that. God is the perfect father, the daddy we who are older wish had been, the kind of dad younger men aspire to be, the kind of father some of us wish we had.

The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate

Throughout the Bible, the most frequent metaphor for God is Father. Old Testament and New Testament. Moses and the Psalms. Jesus. All repeatedly invoke"father" as a word picture of God. Which raises the question, what kind of father? Answer: God is the Father's Day dad. The sum of the best we can imagine a dad to be.

Regrettably, I acknowledge there are other kinds of dads.

My friend John Benedetto used to tell me  stories of abuse he received at the hands of his father. I still shake my head in disbelief and horror when I recall John's stories.

My friend Russell endured unspeakable abuse from his mother and beatings from his father throughout his entire childhood. I don't know how he functions as a human being. It is difficult. He has fractious relationships. No wonder.

I tell these stories just to make it clear that I am aware of the dark side of fathering. if we are going to understand God as father we must decide what kind of father we mean. Not every version of father is worthy of serving as an illustration of the character of God.

Rooted deep in humanity is a conviction that fathers are supposed to be protectors and sustainers. As the Psalm states, the natural, good character of a father is tenderness and compassion. It is when fathers are like that that they serve as reliable illustrations of God.

This human knowledge is endorsed in the Gospel. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus frequently pictures God as a father. In every instance, Jesus assumes that "father"means the Hallmark version of father. Every time Jesus mentions God as father, Jesus is offering reassurance, confidence, and hope. Jesus does sometimes speak of God's authority, but when he does, uses other metaphors like kings and  judges. “Father,” for Jesus is not an "authority figure." Father is an attentive provider.

 When we drink deeply from this vision of God, we view some traditional religious concerns in new light.

The question: what do I have to do to be saved, gets turned on its head and becomes what could I possibly do to be lost? Can I be forgiven changes into "richly forgiven I am!

In the most famous “father” story in the Bible, there is a father and two sons. One, the younger son, son is a total jerk. He asks his father for his share of the inheritance. He can't wait for dad to die. He the wants the money now. Dad gives him the money. And this younger son goes off to a foreign land where he blows all his money on parties, drugs, and women. When his money is gone, he ends up working for a farmer feeding a pigs—the ultimate come down for a Jewish young man. He is so destitute he envies the pigs their slop.

He suddenly thinks, “Wait. Even the servants in my father's house eat better than I do. I'll go home and ask for a job as a servant.”

He heads home. Entering the neighborhood, while he's a long way off up the road, his father spies him. Dad races down the driveway to meet him. Embraces him and welcomes him. Dad orders a calf to be slaughtered and preparations for a feast started.

Meanwhile the older brother is out taking care of the farm. He comes back to the house, sees all the preparations for the feast, and learns it is a welcome-home party for his ne-er-do-well brother. The older brother is ticked off. He refuses to come into the house.

At this point, we realize the prime villain in the story is not the younger son. He has already been redeemed. He has seen the light and come home. The villain is the older brother, the responsible one.

Noticing his son's absence, dad goes out and begs the older brother to join the party. The older son huffs, “All these years I have slaved for you and did you ever give me a calf or even a goat for a feast with my friends?”

The story ends with one of the most magnificent speeches in all literature. The father says, “Son, everything I have is yours.” --the rest of the inheritance, the entire farm, the whole operation. It's all yours.--  Son, you're being a jerk. Still, everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate. Your brother who was dead is returned to me alive.”

Everything I have is yours.

In this story who is saved? In the end, who is at home in the father's house? Everyone. The only question is, will the older son join the party.

The Father's Day dad is perfect. A paragon of strength and virtue, compassion and hope, faithfulness and understanding. And this kind of dad is successful. He saves his family. He saves his kids. All of them. This is the best picture of God.

 After last week's sermon, someone asked me in the lobby. “Are you a closet universalist?” I said, No, I'm not a closet universalist. I'm a very public “for all practical purposes universalist.” If someone genuinely, with informed consent, preferred damnation, I'm sure God would honor the request. But who, I wonder, would actually make such a choice?

In Corinthians 15 we read that all will be changed. At the last trump. No one is ready—as we are—for eternal life. So, at the Second Coming all must be fixed in preparation for their life in paradise. Everyone who enters Paradise will be changed to prepare them for happy citizenship there. How many people, given the option of repair, would decline it?

When we view God as father, the divine, perfect, Hallmark father, it is natural to ask who is God unable or unwilling to fix? Who is so messed up that God cannot heal them and create for them a welcome place in his house?

After writing this sermon I was back at campmeeting Friday evening. Pastor Mika and I were standing together talking when a young woman walked up. “You guys are from Green Lake Church, right?”

We did introductions. Then she jumped straight to it. Her uncle had told about a sermon I had preached. The uncle said she should hear it. She hadn't gotten around to watching it, but she wanted to know how Green Lake Church treated gay people. We talked for a few minutes. Her family had connections with our congregation a generation or two in the past. She talked about several non-Adventist congregations she had investigated in her search for a church home. But she was Adventist. No other church would do. Initially, I had thought her question was theoretical. I imagined her as a young person putting her church under the microscope of youthful idealism. But as she talked I realized she was asking a personal question: is there room in the Father's house for me?

What would you tell her? What would you have me tell her? Do we love our religion more than our kids?

The minister I described earlier, Jim, has preached Paul's gospel for forty years. That Gospel rescued his soul from darkness and gave him hope and purpose. Like the majority of Christian theologians through the centuries he had imagined the machinery of salvation that worked for him was the only apparatus available to God for the salvation of his children. If you did not believe and confess just the way it is described in Romans 10, there can be no salvation for you.

So Jim's son who could not believe Paul's theories was necessarily damned. Anyone like the young woman at campmeeting who could not embrace Paul's sexual ethic was damned.

I imagine traditional expressions of the gospel to be like a lifeboat discovered by floundering, shipwrecked sailors. As they clamber into the boat, they give thanks for their salvation and immediately fret that everyone who did not make it into the lifeboat must necessarily drown. But what those inside the boat cannot see is that God has an entire armada of whales swallowing people and spitting them up on the beach while the good folk in the life boat are still waiting to be picked up.

The preacher's son, Kieth, is outside the lifeboat of the church. That is true. He is outside the historic Christian formulas for salvation. He is not beyond the reach of God's whales.

The young woman at campmeeting is outside Paul's sexual ethic. Like nearly all of us she disagrees with some of what Paul wrote about sexuality. (Remember, according to Paul the highest spiritual life requires celibacy. Marriage was allowed only to hormone-driven people incapable of sustaining celibacy.)

Neither Keith nor the woman fit inside our understanding of good and wholesome religion. So what do we do?

Will we guard the door against the unworthy or will we join the father in scanning the distant road for the slightest hint someone is heading home? Will we, when we notice an absence in the party--will we leave the party, leave the comfort of our secure religion and go looking. And when we find a son or daughter outside will we remind them and ourselves, all that we have is theirs.

Still Our Son

I was called to the hospital by the chaplain's office. An Adventist family from far away was requesting an Adventist pastor. At the hospital, the chaplain gave me some details, and I headed to the ICU.

I met Dad and Mom and some friends of the patient. Dad gave me the barest details. Son had arrested five days earlier. The prognosis was grim. A miracle was the only hope. Would I be able to call an elder and perform an anointing. Yes, of course, I could.

Naturally, I asked questions. And learned almost nothing that I couldn't already see. The patient on life support was too young to die and too far gone not to. I searched for more, looking to add humanity to the body at the center of the machines. But Dad couldn't bring himself to say the story out loud. He did manage to tell me his son's profession. But even that was offered reluctantly. Was it because the son's profession was somehow linked with the other details? His departure from church years ago. The irreligious identities of the young people gathered in the room keeping vigil. None of this could be spoken because it seemed to lead directly to the darkest, most horrific truth : suicide. The patient had deliberately overdosed. 

Dad's religion had a category for "former Adventists" and suicides: Lost. Damned. "Not my people." I imagined Dad worrying how would this strange clergy respond to the horrible truth. Better to just leave it as a medical emergency. Standing there I longed to assure Dad that this young man was still "our son." Dad's son, yes, of course. And God's son. And therefore, the church's son. My son. The tragedy that brought us together did not break the family. Could not break the family. He's still our son.

We casually develop our theories of damnation by imagining people we don't know, human monsters--Hitler, Stalin, Jeffry Dahmer, Jezebel. We imagine humanity neatly divided into two groups: those who choose God and goodness and those who choose evil. We see people standing in the judgment as autonomous individuals. I think our opinions might change if we saw that every person remains forever a son or daughter. If we have not yet figured out which of our kids or grandkids we would burn, why do we so easily (and sometimes glibly) imagine God burning his kids.

Sweetly Ignoring What You Say

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church

Sabbath, January 31, 2015

Psalm 1

Luke 4:31-37

Trilly Bean might as well have died and gone to heaven. She landed at the McLarty house and was claimed by our eldest daughter, Bonnie. There is no higher bliss available to an animal than to live at the McLarty house. Trilly's good fortune came about like this:

It was a dark and stormy night. Bonnie out in the back pasture checking on her cows. The dogs bean barking over in the neighbor's woods. Their barking was purposeful, focused. She went to investigate. What were they after?

She found them clustered at the base of a tree. Looking up, she could see a kitten. She called the dogs off. Ordered them to sit at some distance from the tree, then coaxed the little cat down to within reach. She wrapped it in her coat and brought it to the house. I was not pleased. I did not want another animal at our house (not that that has ever mattered much!).

Bonnie went through the usual routine of checking with the neighbors and posting signs around the neighborhood in pursuit of the owner of the lost kitten. No luck.

We named the cat, Trilly Bean. She was Bonnie's cat. Bonnie fed her. Paid her vet bills. Let Trilly sleep in her room.

In a typical display of cat integrity and loyalty, Trilly began hanging out at the neighbor's place—the neighbor on the other side from the woods—because the neighbor fed her any time she showed up. Eventually Trilly lived full time next door, except when she was sick or needed shots. Then she is Bonnie's cat.

Bonnie forgave Trilly for her ingratitude and fickleness because Louise, the neighbor, had been recently widowed and Trilly was her only friend.

Another story.

Rexie is an Australian shepherd. She was born at our house. Her mother, Gypsy, has been my wife's dog for thirteen years. Even before Gypsy got pregnant, our daughter-in-law had made noises about wanting a dog, specifically a puppy from Gypsy. I had quietly protested to my wife. I love my daughter-in-law, but she was married to my son. I knew he had dreams of adventure. I figured that if we gave our daughter-in-law a puppy, sooner or later we get stuck with the dog when they headed off on some exotic adventure. My wife failed to see the wisdom of my counsel. She protested that Katrina loved dogs. No make that, Katrina LOVED dogs. And Katrina would LOVE to have one of Gypsy's puppies.

Katrina picked out Rexie. This raised my protest level. I figured that if Katrina was going to get a puppy, she should pick the dog I would pick, that way when it ended up living with us, life would still be manageable. But no. Katrina picked Rexie. Katrina was absolutely certain that Rexie was the perfect dog. Alas!

Rexie headed off with my son and his wife to Lincoln, Nebraska, for their final year of college. Life was good.

Then they finished school and announced they were moving to India.

I announced they needed to find a home for Rexie.

Karin and Bonnie emphatically overruled me. Rexie already had a fall-back home. Bonnie figured Rexie would become Karin's second dog. I didn't even bother arguing. What would be the point? I did grumble.

After Rexie moved in, I sat her down and explained that I didn't really want her in our house. We had plenty of dogs already. More than enough. We had two other Australian shepherds, her mother and her sister. Both of them were cuter than she was. Every other dog in the house had a better personality. I thought she should move to India.

She looked up at me with very sad, uncomprehending eyes. She could not understand why everyone did not love her. She tried really hard to be good. She tried really hard to get everyone to like her. She did more tricks than any of the other dogs. She could dance and bow. She liked to play tug-of-war.

Her most intense efforts at winning affection were aimed at Bonnie. But Bonnie had two dogs of her own. Bonnie was nice to Rexie, paid her more attention than anyone else in the house. But there was no way Rexie was going displace Bonnie's own dogs from their favored positions in Bonnie's heart. Watching this, it appeared that Rexie figured third place in Bonnie's affections was better than any other option. She knew she couldn't take first dog place in Karin's heart. And I wasn't even worth considering.

Then this past Fall, Bonnie left. She took with her, her two dogs. The house suddenly changed. Now there were only two humans and two dogs in the house. Rexie studied the situation. It didn't a genius to figure out an appropriate strategy. One of the humans was my wife. Gypsy already owned her. other human was me. I did not have a dog. I did not have a horse. I did not have any cows. I did not own a cat. None of the chickens belonged to me. For several years I had even been without a goldfish.

Rexie decided I was going to become her person.

I tried explaining to her that I did not need a dog, did not want a dog, was not in the market for a dog. Besides her sister who had gone to Wyoming was cuter than she was. I think that just made her more determined.

Every time I sat at the table to eat, Rexie was with 12 inches of my chair. When I went outside in the morning, Rexie followed me everywhere I went. When I went to get in my car, Rexie asked to come along. Rexie slept beside my bed until I banished her. Whereupon she camped just outside the door in the hall. When I took a shower, she lay just outside the bathroom door.

When she could get my attention she would give me these pleading, beseeching looks. Please, love me. P-L-E-A-S-E LOVE ME!

I kept explaining my lack of interest. She kept following me around, greeting me when I came home. Wiggling her entire body to prove her delight in my presence.

Bonnie came home for Christmas. Rexie was glad to see her, but made it clear that Bonnie was not an acceptable substitute. I was her person.

Bonnie left. The house was back to two dogs and two humans. Rexie pressed on with her single-minded devotion. So finally I capitulated. Rexie is my dog. I proved it the other evening. I got home late. Rexie had rolled in something. She stank. I figured we'd have to give her a bath before we could let her in the house for the night. Karin got home after I did. I told her that Rexie needed a bath. Karin announced, “I'm tired. I'm going to bed.”

So what did I do? I gave Rexie a bath. She's my dog.

Now a Bible story.

Jesus had just arrived back in the town of Capernaum. He had been traveling around the region of Galilee preaching and healing everywhere he went. This particular Sabbath he was back in Capernaum, which functioned as his headquarters for ministry in the region.

As usual Jesus read the scripture, then sat and began preaching. Without warning a man near the back of the synagogue, stood up and began shouting.

“Go away! Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

The man exuded hostility. If you were making a movie you would cut back and forth from close ups of Jesus' face and the man's face. Jesus is handsome, attractive, full of dignity and compassion. The man's face is contorted, scrunched. Ugly.

Likely his body exhibited some kind of tic or twitching. His words were accusing. “What are you doing here? I know you have it in for people like me. You hate us. Well, the feeling is mutual. Leave us alone. Who invited you here to mess up our lives?”

Luke writes that he was demon possessed.

Jesus ignored the actual content of the man's words.

“Be quiet!” Jesus demanded. “Come out of the man!” At that, the demon threw the man to the floor as the crowd watched; then it came out of him without hurting him further.

The people were astonished. “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!”

In the Gospels there are several stories of Jesus' interaction with people who were possessed by demons or spirits. Two features show up in every story. First, none of these people ever ask for help or express the slightest warmth toward Jesus. If they do speak, their words express hostility and fear. They do not like Jesus. They don't trust Jesus.

The second feature common to every account of Jesus interacting with people troubled by demonsis this: Jesus delivers them. Jesus ignores the actual content of their speech which expresses fear and antipathy and gives them the help they obviously need.

Because we are Christians, we regard Jesus as the number one earthly model of God. The way Jesus treated people is the way God treats people. Jesus showed us God.

In light of this story, what do we have to do to get God to help us? To save us?

It is very common among Christians to imagine our relationship with God is like Rexies relationship with me. If we are persistent, if we do just the right thing, we can finally win God over. If we beg and plead. If we stubbornly exhibit our choice of God, eventually God will claim us as his own. Sometimes theologians develop clear statements of just how a person can secure the favor of God.

Some theologians will quote the Book of Romans.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

If you are going to be saved, you have to express your faith, you have to have a correct understanding of the atonement. This is great news for some people. They say the right words. They believe what they are supposed to believe. They have it made. They know that God will have to claim them because they have followed the right formula.

Other theologians will quote Matthew 25 and the story of the sheep and goats. Jesus declared that if we show kindness to needy people that will earn us the approval of God and a place in the eternal kingdom of heaven. If you want to be saved, you have to show compassion and respond to the needs of people around you. This is great news for people with large hearts and practical temperaments. They consistently show kindness to people in need. They can be sure of the favor of God and salvation.

Still other theologians quote Jesus words about the kingdom of heaven being made up of children and people who have hearts like children. So make your heart like that of a child and you can be sure God will have to claim you.

Then there is the passage in Revelation that links salvation with keeping the commandments.

What links all of these ideas together is a common vision of God. They all imagine God is like me. And people are like Rexie.

My default position in regard to animals is, we already have enough. We do NOT need another animal. Not another cat, not another dog, not another horse, not another cow. I have even given up on goldfish. They are all too much trouble.

But God is not like me. God does not have enough. God is not working to keep heaven from being overrun with too many or with the unworthy. God does not have to be cajoled or manipulated into opening the doors of the kingdom of heaven. In fact, the very definition of the kingdom of heaven is its welcome. The doors stand open. Always.

God is like Bonnie. Ever on the look out for another possible denizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. What does an animal have to do to get Bonnie's favor? Exist in her universe. That's it.

Even cats with fickle loyalty. Cats whose only claim on our hospitality is that our dogs barked at her in the neighbor's woods.

In Rexie's story, Rexie's determined work in gaining my attention and winning my affection is the centerpiece of the story. Rexie is the hero. She figured it out. She stuck it out. She had the drive and sticktuitiveness to win me over.

In the cat story, Trilly is not the hero. The cat did not beg to welcomed. The cat showed no special appreciation for Bonnie's climbing a tree to rescue her from the dark and stormy night and the dangerous dogs circled at the bottom of the tree. The story of the rescue of Trilly Bean is the story of the goodness and compassion of Bonnie, not the worthiness or even the unworthiness of Trilly Bean.

So with God. The gospel is the story of God's quest for people. It is not a manual on how we can pursue God. God is not a schmuck who can be persuaded if you use the right formula and are persistent enough.

Turning our attention again to the Gospel story: Can we imagine any people less deserving of the attention of the Holy Rabbi Jesus than people who have allowed themselves to become possessed by demons? Can we imagine any behavior less likely to recommend a person to Jesus than a person interrupting Jesus' preaching to shout hostility and slander? Still Jesus rescued the demoniacs. Jesus provided what they needed. Jesus saved them.

May I summarize this story like this: Jesus sweetly ignored what the people said and gave them life and a future. As we think of God's response to all kinds of people, let's be confident that God will not allow people's inability to mouth the right words to keep him from giving them life and a future, from giving us life and a future.

As we allow this vision of God to shape our minds and hearts, we will be sweeter in our interactions with each other. We will be more rapturous and joyous in our worship. We will do a better job representing Jesus in the world.

A True Picture of God

Sermon Manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

For June 21, 2014

Texts

Exodus 34:4-8

John 1:14-18

1 John 4:8

Twenty years ago I gave a series of lectures at the Adventist Church in Boulder, Colorado. I stayed at the home of a geologist who worked for U.S.G.S. (U. S. Geological Survey) and I was eager to talk rocks with him. How did he connect what he saw in the rocks with what he heard in church?

We must have talked rocks, but I don't remember much of what he said. Instead my sharpest memories are of Gary's care for his son.

I got in late Friday night and didn't see the son until Sabbath morning. Gary served his son breakfast, then wheeled him out to the car in his wheel chair. He helped his son into the front seat and secured him with a special harness. Gary's tenderness with his son had all the marks I associate with maternal care. Competent, gentle, attentive. And—dare I say it—sweet.

We put me and the wheel chair in the back seat and drove off to church. There I was caught up in my official duties and meeting people. I didn't see Gary with his son again until that evening when we were back at the house.

I don't remember the diagnosis. Maybe there wasn't some a tidy neurological or medical label for his constellation of physical and psychological difficulties. I do know that the tenderness and care I observed had been going on for thirty years and would continue for decades more.

Given Gary's credentials and career as a geologist it would be easy to think the significant theological questions in his neighborhood concerned radiometric dates and fossil sequences. Watching Gary care for his son it was obvious the most significant theological question was, is God really a father like that?

The Bible does not mention fossils or zircons or radioactive decay. It does speak of God as father, mother, lover, friend. Is God really a father like Gary? In later years, Gary's wife was diagnosis with Alzheimer's. Gary added her care to the care of his son. Is God a lover like Gary?

Is God as good as Gary?

Another story. Another picture of God.

My friend Karolyn has a son who is severely disabled. There is no simple medical label for Orin. He can walk. He can feed himself. And even those abilities are seen as miracles by his mother. They were giant leaps forward in development that followed an anointing service and prayer for healing more than three decades ago. “God,” Karolyn had prayed. “I think I can do this if he can just feed himself.” And it happened.

What jumps out at me when I listen to Karolyn speak about Orin is her affection. As Orin turns 40, his problems are getting worse, not better. He requires continuous, etenal care. Sometimes Karolyn talks about how wearing that is. But far more often she expresses concerns about his comfort. How do you provide adequate care for a person who cannot tell you if he has a toothache or an ear ache? What would happen to him if Karolyn could no longer care for him?

Occasionally she talks about the greatest mystery of all. She wonders what would happen to her if he died. Given his disabilities it is likely she will out live him. And then what? Where will her heart ever find ease and solace? She loves Orin.

She has devoted 40 years to Orin, 40 years of love, 40 years of service to a child who will never grow up, a child who will never provide the kind of bragging rights parents dream of.

Is God like that?

I have watched for almost 20 years. I have admired her, and wondered at the grandeur of her mother's heart. It remains a mystery, way beyond my comprehension, beckoning me to contemplate an astonishing love.

This is a picture of God. This is the truth about God.

Some of us need to take down the pictures of God that were painted by preachers, Bible teachers, parents, friends.

Of course, God dreams of human children who are beautiful, strong, holy, skinny, virtuous, shining, gracious, disciplined, honest, kind, smart, musical, artistic, etc., etc.

Jesus said that we are to be perfect like God.

Paul wrote that we should forgive like God, love like God, be patient like God.

James challenges us to practice divine generosity.

But what if you are not beautiful, strong, holy, skinny, virtuous, shining, gracious, disciplined, honest, kind, smart, musical and artistic?

What if you are bumbling, fickle, dishonest, addicted, criminal? What then? Where do you stand in the eyes of God?

We can see the answer in Gary and Karolyn. The primary locus of value in a child is found in the heart of mom and dad, not in the achievements or character of the child.

This is the grandest, deepest truth. It is the most difficult to grasp. Those of us who do not have a special needs child can know this truth only by paying deep, respectful attention to parents who have lived it. And even then we will always be outsiders, looking in wonder at a mystery that is beyond us.

When the Bible pictures God as a father or mother, it intends us to imagine these family connections in their richest, sweetest ideal. Some of us have experienced great pain because our parents did not exhibit this radical affection. For some of us, the words father or mother connect us with images of rejection, alienation, or even abuse. Our parents may have beat us or neglected us, belittled us or scorned us. The Bible offers us another vision. And we come to church to celebrate this alternative truth:

God takes delight in God's children. God prizes God's children without regard to our successes or failures, our accomplishments or deficiencies.

This is the truth. This is the way God is.

I was visiting with an old friend this week, someone I've known for decades. Kirk's son is not easy. Every story about the son is a story of struggle. Often it's a story of disappointment. But this time I heard a different story. The new pastor of their church had taken the son out for coffee a couple of times. Later the pastor remarked to Kirk, “Your son is cool. He's interesting.” Kirk then said, “No one says that about my son. He is a difficult person. He's bi-polar. Opinionated. Outspoken. Edgy. I can't believe our pastor said, 'He's cool.'”

You are the son, the daughter, God treasures. Other people wonder what on earth God sees in you. Let them wonder. Let them be bewildered. God adores you.

As we come to know this more and more deeply, we will then be able to do for one another what that pastor did for my friend, Kirk. We can brighten God's heart by saying good things about his children, especially the difficult ones.

You are precious. We are precious. God is love.  

Heavenly Vision

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church for June 14, 2014.

Psalm 87, NLT

Luke 7:36-50

Synopsis: Sometimes it takes keen vision to discern the glory residing in human beings. That glory can be obscured by mental and physical disabilities, by addictions or social dysfunction. God sees through all this obscuring fog. God sees the glory created in every human. God invites us to participate in the divine vision. Central to the mission of the church is practicing looking at people through godly eyes.

Children's Story

Some years ago, I was weeding the vegetable garden. I was working around a huge zucchini plant, scarcely looking at the little bits of green I was yanking from the ground. I reached under the spreading leaves for the few weeds that had managed to sprout there in the shade. I noticed one last weed way under the zucchini. As I reached for it, I hesitated. The weed looked like a tiny orange tree. It was no more than two inches high. I don't think I would have given it the slightest through, but we lived in Thousand Oaks, California, for a few years and had orange trees in our yard. And even at a mere two inches and three leaves, this plant reminded me of those trees.

I looked closer. The leaves had the peculiar widened stem characteristic of citrus trees. It didn't look like any other weed I had seen in Washington, so I left. I would let it grow a little longer. If it really was an orange tree, that would be really cool. It was too close to the zucchini to dig up without disturbing the zucchini's roots. So I figured I'd leave it for now. If it survived until the fall when the zucchini was finished, I'd transplant it.

Periodically, I'd check on my "weed." I didn't know how it would handle the dense shade there underneath the zucchini plant. But it survived quite nicely, adding a few more leaves. It looked more and more like an orange tree.

That fall, when the zucchini was finished, I dug up the little tree, put it in a pot and brought it inside. Over the next few years, it kept growing, eventually it was over four feet tall. It never produced flowers or fruit, but it made a lovely addition to my plant collection in the living room.

Eventually, the “weed” grew too large for the living room, and I gave it to a friend who had a large green house.

Orange trees don't sprout in Washington. I hadn't planted the tree. It was impossible that an orange tree could be growing under my zucchini plant. But it was. I figured it must have been a seed that got tossed in the compost and somehow managed to retain its viability. I'm glad for the momentary pause, that instant of hesitation, that allowed me to see the weed under the zucchini for what it really was.

Sermon

I was driving in the hinterlands of Nevada. I came to a highway junction where I turned left, headed north. Standing there beside the highway, a man I guessed to be in his fifties or sixties, his thumb raised. Driving past, I noted the ragged bag at his side. His hair sticking out at all angles from under a beat-up hat and his sign, Spokane. A loser. I didn't feel like keeping company with an ex-con or shyster. I had stuff piled in the front passengers seat. The back of my car was jammed with camping gear for a month. I didn't have room without rearranging things.

A half mile down the road, I pulled over, checked for traffic and did a U-turn. I could rearrange things. I wouldn't cost me anything to let a loser ride along.

I drove back past the hitchhiker, did another U-turn and pulled over. He came up to the car and opened the door. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Let me get stuff moved.” A minute later, he climbed in, settled his bag between his feet and buckled up. We headed north. Up close he did not look cleaner or any sharper than he did in my first quick glance when I had driven past.

He said his name was Wade. He had a car in Bishop, California, he said, but it was broken, so he was hitchhiking around. He had just spent a few days in Death Valley, told me of some of the places he had explored there. Now he was headed north to Spokane, which he did every spring. I asked what was in Spokane, but could never quite make sense of what he said.

He asked what I was doing and I was equally evasive. I mentioned I had spent a week hanging out with a geologist. He asked some very specific questions about what we were doing, and I began revising my opinion of this unkempt stranger.

He made a rather light-hearted remark that he was lazy. That's why he didn't have a regular job. But I was suspicious. Most lazy people I know don't thing of themselves as lazy.

So I asked, “What do you do to keep from being bored while you're being lazy?”

He laughed off my question, but I asked it again.

“This winter I created a computer-based celestial navigation program. Using this program, if you the exact height of stars above the horizon and have precise chronometry, you could determine your position on the earth's surface with a few feet. All you would need is precise measurements of the elevations for three stars. For each of those stars' positions, there is a corresponding circle on the earth's surface. Your position is the intersection of those circles.

I was impressed, but who needs such a program in today's world when we have GPS.

Wade explained his program could provide the precision of a GPS without using satellites. In some doomsday scenario where the satellites are out of commission or out of communication, you could still determine very precise coordinates. Or maybe you would want to avoid detection by the GPS system.

This did not sound exactly like my image of a lazy person.

I mentioned a curious-looking mountain we were passing. He launched into a detailed discussion of the geology of the area. Then mentioned that another project he had been working on beside his celestial navigation computer program. Traditional classification systems group mining environments according to the familiar categories of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. He was reworking those traditional classifications in light of more recent work which identified many significant mineral deposits as deep sea hot spring deposits. He was almost finished creating a new guide to mineral locales in the state of Nevada.

It turned out that he had been a geology professor back east. Had met and married a beautiful woman who was also a geologist. He followed her to the west coast when she got a good job offer. It didn't work out so well for him. Eventually she divorced him. He had received an inheritance from his grandfather that gave him enough money to feed himself. So he didn't have to work, at least not in the conventional sense.

He mentioned his ex-wife a number of times. Never a hint of animus. Life had gone well for her. He was glad for her. She had been his light, his world. Without her, he could not muster the motivation to plug into regular life.

Near the end of our time together he said to me, “You want to become a billionaire?”

“Sure, of course.”

He outlined his theory about the distribution of gold. It made geological sense. “Map those deposits.” he said. “Buy the mineral rights and dig for gold.”

All I would need was a few hundred million in capital.

About this time, we reached Austin, Nevada. He was continuing on north. I was headed east. We had lunch together, his treat (his thank you for the ride) and parted company.

People are not always obvious.

Jesus and his entourage were invited to a feast by a devout religious leader. During the feast, a woman sneaked in the back door. Luke writes that she was a “sinner.” Most commentators assume this is a euphemism for prostitute or slut.

This woman had heard Jesus was in town. She had heard about the feast. She came in through the back door, found her way around to Jesus' feet and began kissing them. She was crying. Her tears fell on Jesus' feet. She then let down her hair and wiped his feet with her hair. Then she pulled out a little stone container of fabulously expensive perfume, dabbed it on his feet.

By this time Jesus was famous. He had performed miracles and changed lives and everywhere he went, he created a stir. In response to his ministry and his fame people did weird things. This was just another of those weird displays of admiration and affection that Jesus evoked. Still, it was over the top. The most scandalous thing was that Jesus did nothing to stop it. He didn't scold the woman. He didn't pull his feet away. He accepted it.

The host, someone who took religion with great seriousness was incensed. “Surely,” he muttered to people around him, “if Jesus knew who this woman was he would not tolerate any touch from her, much less, this gushing, emotional kissing and hair-wiping.”

“Simon,” Jesus said, “I have something to tell you.”

“I'm listening,” Simon said.

“A pay day lender had two customers. One owed five hundred bucks. The other owed five thousand. Both faced a payment deadline on the same day, and neither had a dime in his pockets. In gesture of grand generosity, the lender forgave the debt for both of them. Now, which of these guys do you think would have the most appreciation?”

“Well,” Simon said, “I suppose the one who had the most debt.”

“Yes, of course,” Jesus said.

Then Jesus turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?”

I love this question. “Do you see this woman?” For the last fifteen minutes, Simon had been fuming about the woman, muttering about her, fretting about her. But Jesus challenges him. “Simon, do you see her? Look! No not at me. Not at the people sitting next to you. Look at her! Do you see her?

Jesus wasn't asking if Simon was aware that a female was in the room. He was asking something far deeper.

“Simon, when I came into your house, you gave me no water for my feet (a failure in courtesy), but she has washed my feet with her tears. You gave me no ointment. She has perfumed my feet. You gave me no kiss (a really serious breach of etiquette), but she has not stopped kissing my feet.

“Her sins which were many are forgiven. Her lavish love is proof she has been forgiven. But someone who has received little forgiveness, loves little.”

Jesus saw something Simon missed. Note, in this story, Jesus did not read dark secrets. He said the woman was a sinner. But that was no secret. Simon knew all about that. Everyone in the room knew all about that. What was the special seeing Jesus demonstrated?

Jesus saw her goodness. Jesus saw she had experienced forgiveness. She had been transformed into a great lover.

Why didn't Simon see that? He wasn't looking for it.

Jesus turned to the woman and said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

She left blessed, celebrated, elevated.

Objectively, the woman's behavior was socially gauche. She was misbehaving by all social norms. She violated multiple dicta of etiquette. But by the time Jesus has finished his interaction with the woman, her behavior had been transformed from faux pas into sublime theater. Her awkwardness had been recast as one of the most artful moments in all Scripture.

That's the power of the vision of Jesus.

Some of you are wasting your lives in extravagant love. Over the past few weeks, a whole group of Green Lake members practiced seeing with the eyes of Jesus. They were made aware of a mother whose son had received a hopeless diagnosis in Peru. From somewhere she managed to scrape together enough money to buy plane tickets for herself and her children and brought her son to Children's Hospital. An Adventist friend called the church and Holly and Ellen and Veronica and Darchelle and Ken spent hours taking care of the siblings, providing spiritual and social support for the mother.

The best medicine eventually proved insufficient. John died.

So now, in the face of this heart-breaking failure to obtain healing how do we regard all the extravagant attention to this sick boy and his family? Seen through the eyes of Jesus, it was a demonstration of the very essence of heaven. John's mother's relentless drive to pursue even the most remote possibility of healing for her son perfectly mirrors the intentions of God. The service given by the care team also expresses God's purposes.

When we see through the eyes of Jesus, we see the goodness resident in people, the beauty, the value inherent in every human being.

People are certainly capable of doing evil. This month's newsletter includes an article warning against the dangers of various scams that target especially senior citizens. I beg our senior citizens, if someone calls your or emails you about a great investment opportunity or about an urgent need for financial assistance, please talk to one of the elders or one of the pastors before you give anybody, and information or any money.

It takes no special spiritual insight to spot evil. The special vision of Jesus was not insight into evil. It was insight into hidden goodness. This woman who was publicly known as a great sinner was een by Jesus as a great lover who had been transformed by forgiveness. Would you have seen that? Can we practice that kind of vision among the people we live with or associate with at school or work?

Here in our congregation we have a couple of very public, dramatic demonstrations of the vision of Kingdom of Heaven. I think of Claire's care for her son Alex and Carrie's and her girl's care for Quinn. If we looked at Alex or Quinn through the standard eyes of capitalism, they are worthless. They have no potential of producing goods and services with a significant monetary worth.

If we measure them using academic yardsticks, we will never find their value. They are not going to help any school district improve their aggregate standardized scores.

If we measure them using the common language of revivalist religion, we will never see their value. There is no realistic expectation that they will become missionaries or philanthropists or health reformers.

Alex and Quinn and their caregivers help us understand the unspeakable beauty of the vision of Jesus. Jesus sees value in people because they are people.

This applies to you. We are at the end of a school term. Some people will get their grades and experience a rich sense of validation. Others will get their grades and experience a sinking feeling. They will feel like failures. Maybe they will feel shame. If that is you, let Jesus look at you. Then watch his face as he watches you. In his smile you will see your real value.

Some of us here today struggle with a nearly crushing sense of moral inferiority or unworthiness. Watch Jesus watching you. Jesus sees what even you may not be able to see. You are forgiven. Let Jesus persuade you of that fact. Let the joy of forgiveness flow through you.

You may look like a weed. You might be famous as a sinner. You might be demonstrably incapable of contributing to the wealth or pride of society. Still, seen through eyes of the kingdom of heaven, you are priceless. And all of us are called to help one other know this. We are called to practice looking at each other and the whole world through the lenses of the kingdom of heaven.