Church of the Holy City

On Holiday Every Day

On Holiday Every Day
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
February 8, 2009

Exodus 16:11-30 Luke 22:24-30

As you know, I have just returned from holidays in Florida. The weather was beautiful, and my vacation was relaxing and fun. I saw old friends, swam with the dolphins, went to the beach for sunsets, and sunned by the pool and hot tub. But maybe most important, all the stresses and pressures of my work were forgotten. We woke up when we felt like it, and took each day however we felt.
Then I got home and had a power bill to pay, a Blue Cross payment, and auto repair bill, and a phone bill. My pension money came from the United States, so I had to open up a mutual fund account. I had to catch up on my phone messages and emails, and there was a wedding coming up the upcoming week end. And the February newsletter needed to be written up, as well as preparing the regular worship service. And sometime in all this I needed to unpack and get my laundry done.
Although there may have been a lot of things waiting for me upon my return, we wouldn’t want a life only made up of holiday time. King Henry the IV in the Shakespeare play says, “If all the year were playing holidays to sport would be as tedious as to work; but when they seldom come, they wished for come.” There is a spiritual side to this view of holidays that I would like to explore with you this morning.
I read from the New Testament a passage about heaven. Some people form their ideas about heaven from that passage. In it, Jesus says, “you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 22:30). From this passage, many think that the eternal life will be non-stop feasting or sitting on thrones judging everyone. Then there is the Old Testament passage that points directly to the issue of holidays. Moses calls the Sabbath day a day of rest. From this, and other passages, some get the idea that heaven will be a place of eternal rest—perhaps reclining forever in paradisiacal gardens. Holidays forever.
But common sense tells us that resting forever would soon come to boredom, maybe even misery. Don’t get me wrong—I wouldn’t have minded a few more weeks in Florida. But having lived there for 12 years, I am well aware that the fun in the sun becomes commonplace after a while. Believe it or not, you quit going to the beach. A friend of mine that I visited this holiday said he hadn’t been to the beach in a year. Yes, even the beautiful Florida beaches become commonplace after some time. So Swedenborg astutely observes,
Those who had the idea that heavenly joy consists in living a life of indolence, and of breathing eternal joy in idleness were suffered to perceive . . . what such a life is; and it was perceived that it was very sad, and that all joy thus perishing, after a short time they would loathe and nauseate it (HH 403).
In one of his visionary experiences, Swedenborg talks about those who think heaven is reclining forever in beautiful gardens. He meets these people who have been in a paradisiacal garden for seven days, and they already have become sick of it. I’ll let Swedenborg tell the story, which has a note of humor in it. The spirits he meets say,
It is now seven days since we came into this paradise. When we entered our minds seemed as if elevated into heaven, and admitted to the inmost happiness of its joys. But after three days this happiness began to grow dull and to decease in our minds and become imperceptible, and so it came to nothing. And when our imaginary joys thus ended we feared the loss of all the delight of our lives, and became doubtful about eternal happiness, even whether there is any heavenly happiness. . . . Here we have sat for a day and a half; and as we are without hope of finding the way out, we have been resting ourselves on this bed of roses and looking around us at the abundance of olives, grapes, oranges and lemons; but the more we look at them the more our eyes tire with looking, our smell with smelling, and our taste with tasting. This is the reason of the sadness, lamentation, and weeping in which you see us (CL 8).
Swedenborg’s visions of heaven and hell tell us that life there is much like life here—only inexpressible. When I’ve talked with some people about the traditional ideas of heavenly joy—ideas such as singing hymns forever, reclining in paradisiacal gardens, eternal rest, feasting with the Patriarchs and Apostles—I ask them if that wouldn’t become tiresome after a while. Then they come back with statements like, “everything will be different there and we will be totally transformed into something different.” In other words the laws that govern ordinary human life wouldn’t apply there. With ideas like that, any reasonable picture of heaven is thrown away and anything goes—rational or irrational. A poet once said, “What if heaven were more like earth than on earth is known?” And what gives us the greatest joy here, will give us the greatest joy there.
Holidays are fun and relaxing, and they even serve an important use in our lives. Holidays serve a purpose by refreshing our spirits, literally recreating us—so holidays are also called recreation—and rejuvenating us. They make us ready and fit to return to our vocational callings. In Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg observes, “it may be known to all that without an active life there can be no happiness of life, and that rest from this activity is only for the sake of recreation, that one may return more eager to the activity of his life” (HH 403).
Another use of holidays is to lift our consciousness above all those cares of the world. Holidays are carefree. This, again, can point to a spiritual use of holidays. They lift us out of worldly considerations. That is if you can forget about hotel bills, the cost of eating out, and the price of souvenirs. I am happy to say I did forget about all that. I had so much money to spend and I spent it freely and had a ball.
When I came home, all those worldly affairs came crashing down on my head. But it occurred to me that I don’t need to fill my head with all that. I paid my bills and got back to work, a vocation that I love. I’m not saying, though, that I wouldn’t have enjoyed another week in Florida. But when we got back to Edmonton, I said to Carol, “Why don’t we pretend that we’re still on holiday?” Why can’t a person keep that carefree mindset of holiday time? Sure we all have worldly affairs to deal with, but once we attend to them, do we need to dwell on them? Do we need to fill our minds with what I have to do next, or tomorrow? Do I need to worry now and today about what I have to do tomorrow or in the future? Do we have to pollute our minds with “things I have to do?” Do we need to calculate how much money we have in our bank accounts? Do we need to worry about bills that are coming due in the future?
This is what Eckhart Tolle has in mind when he talks about living in the now. Forgetting about worldly concerns can be very hard. Some people find that they need formal meditation practice to keep their heads clear. It isn’t as easy as I may be making it sound to live on holidays all through life. Yet there is a spiritual dimension to this issue as well.
To the extent that we are obsessed with material concerns we block spiritual concerns. We are citizens of two worlds—the material world and the spiritual world. Jesus says this plainly—“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s.” On this plane of existence, we do have material needs to fulfill; we can’t totally ignore the material world. But at the same time, we can’t ignore the spiritual world. After we render to Caesar his requirements, we can free our minds for God’s Spirit.
Our life in the material world, and our material concerns actually dampen our sensitivity to heavenly joys. During special moments—perhaps watching a sunset, or looking up at the starry sky, or while on holiday—we may feel a peace and tranquility that is truly heavenly. But all to often, and I don’t think this has to be the case, all too often we are filling our minds with worries about worldly concerns. This doesn’t mean we are bad—it just means we are covering over the joys of the spirit. Swedenborg tells us,
A man who is in love to God and in love toward the neighbor, as long as he lives in the body does not feel manifest enjoyment from these loves and from the good affections which are from them, but only a blessedness that is hardly perceptible, because it is stored up in his interiors, and veiled by the cares of the world (HH 401).
“The world is too much with us,” says the poet Wordsworth, we are obsessed with “getting and spending.” The composer Beethoven commented on the spirituality of his music, and what was required of his listeners. He said,
well I know that God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have no fear for my music;–it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them.
I think that this is what Swedenborg may be speaking about. Beethoven’s lofty tones require that we forget those miseries that pull us down from heavenly blessedness. Beethoven saw his work as truly a spiritual ministry. On another occasion, he exclaimed, “There is no loftier mission than to approach the Divinity nearer than other men, and to disseminate the divine rays among mankind.” There are times when his music doesn’t make much of an impression on me, and I find that I am usually stressed and worrying about those miseries we can carry with us. Then, sometimes Beethoven’s music can lift me up out of my worldly cares and into the joy and spirituality he himself felt when he wrote.
So it may take a holiday, or a regime of meditation, or maybe just a moment to pause and take in God’s handiwork all around us in order to lift us up and out of the cares of the world. Then, we may be able to feel that almost imperceptible heavenly joy stored deep within our personalities. As soon as I made that remark to Carol, I, myself, started to fill my mind with tomorrow and bills and cares about the future. But I still think that it is possible to keep my mind as if I were on holiday every day.