Proof of Heaven 2 Corinthians 12: 1-7a Sid Batts First Presbyterian Church Greensboro North Carolina August 4, 2013 Well, it has been an extraordinary three months in my life since starting my sabbatical on May 1 st. To call it a blessing is just not strong enough and I hope to tell you about it in the August Clergy Corner, but more, I hope that you will see in me the fruits of a sabbatical that gave me time To learn, study, think and pray, To play, work on my golf swing, read, cook, grill, eat, To get reacquainted with some old friends I haven t seen in years, To travel and worship in other churches, And to spend time with my family. In short, it has been a renewal of my spirit. And a lot has happened in three months: I walked into the sanctuary this week for the first time since April and I was amazed at what I saw. So I posted a picture of the inside of the sanctuary and scaffolding on my Facebook page... and if you are part of the social media world, I would love to be your Friend on Facebook. You had some fine outside preachers, our renovation is going gang busters, Big John received great press and a hearty thank you, our youth have been across the country on mission trips and to Montreat, and vacation Bible school this week saw two hundred young and growing disciples abuzz with learning, music and play. And, I can t say enough about my colleagues in my absence, who I am blessed to work with, with a special thanks to Debby Foster, my administrative assistant who keeps my church life decent and in order, and to Neil Dunnavant, whose steady leadership as executive pastor is a continued blessing. So indeed in three months a lot has happened in the world... the Zimmerman Trial, Phil winning the British Open, Egypt s President being removed by the military, Eric Snowden releasing thousands of classified documents, baseball s best being suspended for drug use, an outbreak of protests called Moral Mondays citizens concerned, as I am,
2 about the direction this moderate southern state is taking and its effect on our poor and public education, and a royal baby Prince George! Some good news in Greensboro: Habitat for Humanity has hired a new executive director, First Baptist has called a new preacher, and sister church, Westminster Presbyterian, has called a new minister, whom I know because he is from Mobile, Alabama, where I sojourned before coming to Greensboro. I look forward to all of these relationships. One of the great privileges of a sabbatical is the time to read. And one of the books that someone put on my sabbatical pile was the now, very popular, Proof of Heaven, written by Tar Heel native, Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who grew up in Winston-Salem, went to undergraduate at Chapel Hill, medical school at Duke, interned in Great Britain, and practiced neurosurgery at Harvard. He left Boston a decade or so ago and returned to the South, practicing in Lynchburg, Virginia. One of the connections we have with Dr. Alexander is that he was adopted through Greensboro s Children s Home Society, an organization that has been close to the heart of this congregation since its beginning. Proof of Heaven is a New York Times Best Seller, with two million copies being sold in less than a year. It is the story of Alexander s journey into the afterlife after he was near death, in a coma for a week, having contracted the very rare bacterial meningitis. Stories of near death, or traveling through the celestial heavens, or meeting Jesus or angels have been really popular in the last twenty-five years. Last year another best seller was Heaven Is for Real, written by an elementary aged boy who was four when he slipped into unconsciousness while undergoing emergency surgery. He tells vividly of meeting Jesus. Other stories are out there and popular... and oddly enough, the stories about heaven or afterlife coming from near death experiences are not coming from preachers, but from laypeople. In fact, in most churches, you will not hear too much about heaven, unless you are at a funeral, when we are reminded of the great promises of scripture concerning the world that is to come, and Jesus words that I go and prepare a place for you, and My father s house has many rooms. which I think says something about the diversity of the place, and how traditional orthodoxy may be surprised by the many rooms and who is there. But truth is, many in my generation of church were put off by the emphasis on heaven from a previous generation that seemed to outweigh the need for a fuller, authentic, lifewith-god now, and not merely a life that looked forward to what some called pie in the sky, by and by.
3 Plus, in our rational world of enlightenment thinking, we did not want to focus too much on the spiritual world, or a heavenly cosmos, because it felt like we were not taking the real world seriously, or that we were too sophisticated to be singing When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder. So in spite of my generation of preacher s hesitancy to talk about afterlife, laypeople have told their own stories. What resonates with me about Alexander s story and why do I find it appealing? Well, for one thing, he is my age, graduated in Cathy s class at UNC, he grew up in the Piedmont, and he is a respected neurosurgeon. And, though he is an Episcopalian, he was a Christer, the name given to lukewarm Christians who only show up at Christmas and Easter. He didn t believe much in God and he was also highly skeptical of the stories of near death experiences, even those his patients shared with him. So in the fall of 2008, Dr. Alexander woke up with a pain in the back of his neck, and several hours later was in the emergency room, convulsing and going south. His condition kept deteriorating with the very serious bacterial meningitis, he went into a coma and by the end of the week his family was being told that he would not recover and that he was functionally brain dead. They were instructed to call in the rest of the family. While his brain was dead, Alexander experienced a series of remarkable visions. He says, They were the most staggering experience of my life, my consciousness traveling to another level, or dimension, or world. Listen to just a little: Toward the beginning of my adventure, I was in a place of clouds. Big, puffy, pink, white ones that showed up sharply against the deep blue-black sky. Higher than the clouds immeasurably higher flocks of transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamer like lines behind them. Birds? Angels? These words registered later, when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms. I continued moving forward and found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black it was also brimming over with light; a light that seemed to come from a brilliant orb that I now sensed near me. The orb was a kind of interpreter between me and this vast presence surrounding me. It was as
4 if I were being born into a larger world, and the universe itself was like a giant cosmic womb, and the orb was guiding me through it. In the vision, Alexander is introduced to a spiritual being who communicates a very significantly important message... without using words. Alexander writes: The message had three parts and if I had to translate them into earthly language, I d say they ran something like this: You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong. There is more to the story but you ll have to read it. Why do I think this is an important story? Because it is written by a neuroscientist and in the book he talks about the science of what happened to his brain. And he feels like he s on a mission to have a conversation with the scientific and medical community, a community that he believes pooh-poohs and invalidates the spiritual world. Why do I think that is important? I mean, one man s experience does not prove anything about God, the afterlife or the spiritual world. As most of us know, we cannot prove God or things about God in a lab set up for experiments. But what I like about Dr. Alexander s experience is that, as a member of the scientific/medical community, he s in a position to have an important conversation about spiritual things with his colleagues. Now many of our friends and church members are doctors, or in the medical field, or people of science, who are people of faith... and they don t see the conflict between faith and science. But some do. And for those who somehow believe they have to choose between science and faith, or find that science is somehow a barrier between themselves and God, then Alexander s perspective can be an important bridge. Are you with me? A distinction that is important to Alexander, that he says distinguishes his experience from other Near Death Experiences, is that his brain was actually shut down at the time of his experience. He writes: During my coma, my brain wasn t working improperly. It wasn t working at all. This is important medical information for Alexander and because of it, he says that science cannot explain his experience. And, he knows brain science as well as anyone which puts him in a unique position.
5 Of course, as we would imagine, skeptics are challenging Alexander s story, his facts, his credentials, his science, and his character. One story suggests that Alexander needed a way to reinvent himself after a difficult period in his life. This finally brings me to Paul the Apostle whose letter to the Corinthians is scattered with a defense of his credentials and his character as an apostle. And in the twelfth chapter, where he is trying to walk the fine line between defending his position as an Apostle and boasting about his credentials, he starts telling of his unique experience in the spiritual world. He writes: I was caught up to the third heaven whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know; God knows...was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told. These were revelations of exceptional character, says Paul. Paul does not speak much in his letters about this kind of spiritual journey into the cosmic celestial world... but it is apparent that Paul has had his feet in another realm world, a spiritual world. So maybe all of us wonder about heaven. I have wondered about it a lot because of being a pastor who has dealt with death, grieving and funerals for thirty plus years. And I think for most of us, our questions concerning afterlife center around reuniting with our loved ones... and mothers and fathers, friends, children, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands. What I believe about heaven is that God is good, and God is great and whatever heavens turns out to be, it will express God s goodness and greatness and beyond what I, we can imagine. So I am thankful for Dr. Alexander s added perspective. i i Sources Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon s Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander, Simon and Schuster, 2012 Proof of Heaven popular, except with the church by John Blake, CNN Readers Join Doctor s Journey to the Afterworld s Gates by Leslie Kaufman, New York Times, November 25, 2012