The Rev. Richard Kannwischer, senior pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, opens his sermon series last Sunday in the Amphitheater; he concluded his week of preaching at Chautauqua Friday in the Amp with his sermon “What I Got Wrong About Faith.”
“What is the one thing you are looking forward to?” the Rev. Richard Kannwischer asked the congregation in the Amphitheater. “A vacation, a get-together with family or a friend, a milestone like the birth of a grandchild? It is important to have things to look forward to.”
Kannwischer preached at the 9:15 a.m. Friday morning worship service in the Amp. His sermon title was “What I Got Wrong About Heaven,” and the scripture reading was Revelation 21: 1-5. His topic was “Because I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting, I will join Christ in the Restoration of all Things.”
There is a sense of doom in the world. Political, environmental and religious news is bleak. For some, there is personal doom.
Kannwischer told the story of his friend Ron, who was looking forward to a scuba diving trip. Ron took his 3-year old daughter Annie with him to the dive shop to get some of the equipment he needed.
Annie wandered through a door into the back of the shop where there was a pool for teaching people scuba safety. She drowned.
“What is Ron looking forward to now, in his own personal doom?” Kannwischer asked.
He continued: “There is hope. There is more to the story for us. There is more than the daily news cycle. When we say ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting,’ that is our hope. And that hope is a stimulant, not a sedative.”
Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present, Kannwischer said. “We are all creatures of hope; it is oxygen to our souls. We have to look forward into a vision that is good.”
What is heaven like? What did Kannwischer get wrong about heaven?
Randy Alcorn, author of Heaven, gave a talk once, now posted on YouTube, on what will and will not be in heaven. Among the things, from a very long list, that will not be in heaven are wars, bigotry, anguish, locks, boredom, rape, taxes, racism, cruelty to people or animals. What will be in heaven are joy, comfort and laughter.
“As Little Orphan Annie said, ‘I think I will like it here,’ ” Kannwischer said.
While everything may seem to be falling apart, God is making all things new.
“Heaven is real, not pie in the sky. Heaven is the restoration of all things,” Kannwischer told the congregation. “You will get the body you never had, the relationships you never had, the joy in your work you never had. There are so many things we have gotten wrong.”
Philosopher Dallas Willard, whom Kannwischer regards as a mentor, once said that “God is in the business of getting people into heaven, but God’s primary work is getting heaven into us.” According to Willard, heaven is a dimension of reality.
At a place like Chautauqua, Kannwischer said, people can experience the joy of what will come next.
“As Christians, who are we becoming as people?” he asked.
Willard said that one of the main questions in life was not “If you died today, where would you go forever?,” but rather “If you knew you would live forever, what kind of life would you have?” He said that God will let anyone into heaven who can stand it.
Kannwischer said the theological left and the theological right do not fully capture heaven.
“The gospel on the left is just social justice and the gospel on the right is sin management,” he said. “God is not keeping people out of heaven because there is a limited supply of heaven, but if you don’t want to be in God’s presence, heaven would be hell. God will let in anyone who can stand it.”
The gospel cannot be reduced to getting into heaven. “That is like asking my wife what is the bare minimum I need to do to stay married. Heaven is a festival with open doors that never shut,” Kannwischer said.
Kannwischer asked if our mistakes are ultimately fatal, or if there is grace. He described a driver getting stopped for speeding.
“If the cop gives you a warning, that is mercy. If the cop gives you a ticket, that is justice. If the cop gives you a donut, that is grace,” he said. “Grace is getting what we don’t know about; mercy is getting what we don’t deserve.”
At its beginning in 1925, the Iditarod in Alaska wasn’t a game or a race; it was a scramble to deliver the diphtheria vaccine from Anchorage to Nome. It is sometimes called the Great Race of Mercy or the Serum Run.
“The Iditarod race uses much of the same path as the 1925 run, but today it is just a sporting contest,” Kannwischer said. “One of my biggest discontents in the church is that it is one more sport, just a game, when it used to be a race of mercy.”
He continued, “This is not a game and we need to get it right. Annie’s father, Ron, always tells me before I preach, ‘Rich, give them heaven.’ You did not come here today to hear me preach, you came to know if there is hope. Here’s heaven.”
The Rev. Mary Lee Talbot, Ph.D., who will be hosting her second AFS exchange daughter beginning in August, presided. Linda Thompson Bennett, a choir member and Chautauqua bride, read the scripture. The prelude was “Adoration,” by Florence Price, played on the Massey Memorial Organ by Rees Taylor Roberts, 2024 organ scholar. The Motet Choir sang “Were you there?” an African American spiritual arranged by James Whitbourn. The choir was under the direction of Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist, and accompanied by Roberts on the Massey Organ with Owen Reyda, 2024 organ scholar, assisting. The postlude, as always, was “Toccata,” from Symphony No. 5, by Charles-Marie Widor, played by Stafford on the Massey Organ. Support for this week’s services and chaplaincy was provided by the Robert D. Campbell Memorial Chaplaincy and the Mr. and Mrs. William Uhler Follansbee Memorial Chaplaincy.
