Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Ever since I was in high school I’ve been fascinated with something called near “death experiences.”Some of you know what these are either because you took our adult education class with John Sloat in April, where he talked about them at length, or you know someone who had one of these, or you’ve had one of these experiences yourself. I became fascinated with them in the late 1970s when I read a book called Life After Life, by Raymond Moody.
Back then I thought about death all the time, although not in some sort of suicidal way. I thought a lot about it in terms of what happens to us when we die. I hated the mystery of it, not knowing what lies beyond. It bothered me tremendously not to know, and I was consumed with doubts as a result—doubts about the reality of life after death, doubts about the Christian view of the afterlife versus the Buddhist view, and other similar doubts.
What I loved about Moody’s book was that it answered those questions in a way that didn’t deny different beliefs, but added to them. So what was the book about? Raymond Moody, from what I remember, was a philosophy professor at East Carolina University who decided to go to medical school to become a doctor. He was doing a psychiatric residency at the University of Virginia, and as part of it he was asked to work with people who had recovered from surgeries and traumatic accidents. In the process of talking with these patients, he began to hear similarities. Some of the patients had been pronounced clinically dead either at the scene of an accident or in the operating room, but had been brought back to life either through resuscitation efforts by the doctors or spontaneously.
Moody noticed that their stories were remarkably alike. Most reported floating above their bodies, and being able to see their lifeless bodies as well as the efforts of doctors and medical personnel (often relaying with precision just what had happened). Then they found themselves in some sort of wonderful, peaceful, loving place where they met a being of light who reviewed their lives with them. This review was not a critical, angry, judgmental review, but one in which the being of light simply watched with them. They reported that the review was extremely uncomfortable because they not only re-experienced everything from their own perspective, but also from others, feeling what they felt and especially feeling the pain they had caused others. It was uncomfortable to be standing next to a being of love and to see and feel their own lack of love. Each and every one of them said that they came back wanting to change their lives, to base their lives on love rather than on whatever else they based their lives on.
Moody’s book was a collection of his interviews with these patients, along with some of his thoughts in reaction to them. These “near death experiences” fascinated me, yet I wasn’t sure what to make of them. Were they true? Were they made up? Then I told my girlfriend at the time about them, and she told me that her mother had had one of these experiences. I then spoke with her mother, who told me that at the birth of her fourth child something terrible happened with the delivery, and she had some sort of stroke. She died. She said that after floating above her body, she felt as though she was in a place of incredible love and peace, as though the most gentle and comfortable velvet she had ever felt surrounded her. She sensed some sort of being there who gave her a choice to come back to life or to die. It was a hard decision because she knew that coming back meant going through a painful rehabilitation, and that she would never quite recover. Still, she knew that she had to come back for her children. She made the decision at that point to try to be a person of love.
The book, and my girlfriend’s mother’s experience, taught me a lot about God’s judgment. Before reading Life after Life, I worried that God would be an angry judge when we died, possibly consigning some of us to hell. I feared God. What I learned through Moody was that God judged us with love by letting us understand what life is meant to be based upon, and by allowing us to judge ourselves in light of God’s love. That’s what the review does. It causes us to experience God’s full love, and to judge our own lives through that lens.
Let me give you some examples of the people Moody wrote about and how their expereinces impacted their lives. In his book, The Light Beyond, a follow-up to his book, Life after Life, Moody talked about a man named Nick. Nick was a con artist and thief for most of his life. He was tremendously successful at it, to the point where he lived a very comfortable and wealthy life. One day he was golfing with some friends as the clouds darkened overhead. The rain started to fall, and he ran toward the clubhouse. A bolt of lightning seared through him, killing him on the spot. The next thing he knew, he was floating above his body looking down at his lifeless self. He then passed through a tunnel of light, and at the end came before a being of light who radiated perfect love. Nick said that he felt small and insignificant because he knew that his life had never been about love. They reviewed his life together, and when he was told he was to return to life, Nick knew that he had to change. Today he works in a field that contributes to others. He told Moody that he never wanted to come face-to-face with God again the way he was. He knew that his life now had to be about love.
Another man, Mark, lived life for himself. He was in sales, and all that mattered was making the sale and making money. He didn’t care about people unless they could help him make a profit. He died of a heart attack at age 45. Like Nick, he floated above his body and eventually came face-to-face with a being of light. He also did a life-review, and was embarrassed in the face of such love to have lived such a self-focused life. When he returned to life, he vowed to change and become a person of love and compassion. And in the process he noticed something unexpected. He actually made more money because people liked him and wanted to buy his products. But now he was more generous with his money, contributing it to others.
Finally, Moody talked about a preacher he met who had died. This was a man who constantly preached a message of harsh judgment, hell, and damnation to his congregation, constantly listing their sins and consigning them to hell on God’s behalf. When he died and came face-to-face with God, he was also embarrassed. He heard God telling him to stop preaching a message of anger and retribution. God didn’t tell him to stop in a condemning way, but in a way that conveyed this man’s message had hurt God, but that God still loved him deeply and completely. The man returned to life, and after recovering came back into the pulpit and changed his message to one of love.
In all cases, they changed their lives because of their experiences. And what they all had in common was that they realized the importance of love. As another man said, reflecting on his experiences, “You know, this experience has a hold on your everyday life, from then on. Walking down the street is a different experience entirely, believe you me. I used to walk down the street in my own little world, with my mind on a dozen different little problems. Now I walk down the street and I feel I am in an ocean of humanity. Each person I see, I want to get to know, and I am certain that if I really knew them I would love them.
A man who works in the office with me asked why I always had a smile on my face. He didn’t know about my experience, so I told him that because I had almost died I was happy to be alive and let it pass. Someday he’ll find out for himself” (The Light Beyond, pp. 41-42)
So what’s the connection between Moody’s research, near death experiences, and Isaiah?
Our passage for this morning is also about love and judgment, even if it wasn’t about near death experiences. Close to 2600 years ago Isaiah was telling the people of Israel that God had judged them and was tired of their obsession with sacrifices of animals rather than sacrifices of love. The practice of the time was for people to go to the temple in Jerusalem and make sacrifices to appease their sins. They would sacrifice bulls, goats, sheep, and all sorts of other critters. These sacrifices were all part of a great ritual of life in which people would sin, make a sacrifice, be declared clean, and then sin again only to repeat the cycle the following year. Isaiah, like many of the other prophets, continually told the people that God didn’t want sacrifices of animals. God wanted sacrifices of the heart and soul.
Telling the people to make sacrifices of love, Isaiah said in our passage, “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.... Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
Isaiah was telling them, and us, that God doesn’t just want rituals that make them feel absolved of sin. God wants love that wipes away sin. God wants us to overcome sin through love of God and of others. Isaiah was giving them God’s judgment, and it was a judgment of love, saying, “Stop focusing on doing meaningless religious rituals, making them the goal of your faith. Start making love the focus of your faith.” He was making the point that a quote I heard recently makes: Religion is for those who are afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who have already been there. The point of this quote, which comes from the addiction recovery field, is that people can get so focused on doing the right religious things that they forget about love. I still think this quote sort of misses an even deeper point, which is that while religion is for those who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for those who have already been there, real church moves us from religion to spirituality to healing and hope. I hope that’s our focus here at Calvin Church.
When I look at what Moody found in people’s experiences of death, and Jesus’ teachings, I hear a clear message that at some point God will judge us. God will review our lives and ask us where the love was. It’s a judgment of God’s love as God looks for love. So here’s my question for you to reflect upon. When God reviews your life, will God find love? How will you be judged?
Amen.
