Which stories do we take to Heaven?

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110817.cfm
Romans 13:8-10
Luke 14:25-33

When Jesus speaks to us through scripture, liturgy, prayer and fellowship, which has been available to the entire entire world for most of the last 500 years, how do his words land upon the ears of each of us? What do each of us hear when he teaches us? Especially the really hard stuff. Like these two things by Luke in Chapter 14:

ONE: If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 

TWO: So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. 

Severe words. Too severe, in fact. Even though we all hear these same words, lots of us want to find a more acceptable word than "hate" coming out of the mouth of Jesus. (Consequently, I used the NIV translation to make sure "by comparison" gets shoved in there.) After that struggle with hate we're then challenged with how we can keep some of our stuff. Jesus says give up everything. How do we satisfy Jesus without alienating our spouses, children, and the sales staff at work?

Practically every actively baptized Christian has heard these harsh statements and then painfully pondered their devotion and commitment to Jesus Christ. Jesus' description of discipleship reaches deep into our ideas of priorities and focus. So deep, I think, that our periphery of possessions, the material goods at our disposal, fools us from turning our heads much farther to our left and right, then behind, above and below. The "all" in what we possess includes every facet of our life's focus. 

Spiritual and physical discipleship, specifically to Jesus, should trump all relationships and all possessions.  

If you go to the library, or search the web, finding a detailed history of the spiritual and physical discipleship of human beings, how God operates in our lives, fits perfectly into the needle and haystack analogy. Histories are largely about the followers and disciples of economies, governments, militaries, and politics. Even religious studies seem to primarily discuss the institutional economics, power and politics of religions in terms of belief systems and faith expressions. Religious history rarely factors God's participation with humans as the shepherd, the teacher, the healer, and the comforter.

Since such a study is so hard to find, I'll use myself as a guinea pig. If I review the history of a single nation over the last 100 years what will I come up with? What will be my historical contexts? How does my brain and my heart work out an outline of a country's recent history. I'm not a historian. To make we work a bit, I chose to look at Germany’s toils and troubles from 1917 to 2017. I have some familiarity with it, but it's not too close to home. 

After a cursory review, this is what I jotted down. I wrote it as it came to me. Remember, I planned to write about God's involvement in Germany's history for the past 100 years. Here it is.

From 1917 to 1945, Germany went through two World Wars. They shifted a failed nation of princes and chancellors into a failed fascist state under Hitler. Eventually these shifts reduced the entire nation to ashes and rubble. In 1945, Germany was torn in half. It remained so from 1946 to 1989. The nation was ruled by Socialist/Communists in the East, and Capitalist Democrats in the West. Finally, from 1990 to the present, Germany has rather quickly evolved into a single federally controlled democracy faced with a host of new problems. 

From about 40 million people in 1917 the nation has grown to 80 million people today. During this time, tens of millions of Germans died in wars. Concurrently, German progeny has populated every other nation on the earth into the 100's of millions.

The West Germans of 1945 rebuilt their country after Hitler’s fall with constitutional democratic principles, forced upon them by their U.S. victors with the support of America's global allies. Germans appear to have a lengthy history of political rancor that has adopted and adapted most major "isms" and changed through almost every subsequent generation. 

In 1989 heavy-handed occupation of the crumbling Soviet Union ended in East Germany. Half of Germany's population, which had relied upon a safety net for housing, employment, and monies, lost everything. Their infrastructure disappeared overnight. It has taken over 25 years to re-incorporate the forlorn, disconnected East Germans back into one nation. 

The people of Germany went through at least four nation resets in just 100 years — Aristocracy, Fascism, Communism, and Democracy. Under the German Aristocracy, Russian Communism, and Hitler’s Third Reich, the population lived like prisoners, herded about by wards of the state. Eventually, under communism, the neglect of East German cities and lands took their toll. Forty years of neglect left the communist portions of the country's infrastructure in disrepair. An oppressive bureaucracy halted much needed technological advances. The west, struggling with a fledgling democracy, next inherited the dusty, gray east of their long lost citizenry.

Germany, though, remarkably rebounded and regained their independence. Europe and the U.S. allowed the population to take back control of their own nation, gingerly releasing every aspect of government into a freely elected leadership. Today, virtually all economic and governing shackles have been removed from Germany. The German people look at themselves today as a unified nation, with a bustling economy and a population free to choose the future direction of their lives. They can come and go from their own borders as they wish. 

Yet, angst still gnaws at Germany, even in prosperity. The nation's people wring their hands over immigration crises, Euro-nation partnerships, environmental stewardship, and competitive superiority. The fickle realms of wealth and power fill their days with worry and frantic effort.

After I wrote all that, I was shocked.

Nowhere in this story of Germany did I visit or recount the tales of Christianity, or any religion's impact. Through every shift and turn, I knew already Christians met and prayed and called out to God, but I didn't have a way to explain that. Nor did I find a way to include the radical voice of the Gospel, the impact of believers on the history, nor did I find anything to reveal the healing hand of God. 

Few people would call me out for not noting what I set out to do. It might not have entered your own mind that such could be mentioned within an historical review. (Unless you are one of those special few!!)

Nonetheless, beneath this dramatic history lived many followers of Jesus. Their discipleship pulled and prayed families and friends through unimaginable crises, and probably turned the tide of history at every juncture. The impact of German Christians and Jews martyred and sacrificing and inspiring each other in the face of difficulties certainly saved the souls of an incredible number of people, not only within this one nation but all over the globe. Stories abound about the power of God's revelatory and sustaining grace through German disciples of God.

Where are those stories in a historical review? I then quickly found my own stories. 

Seventy-five years ago my Uncle Terry lost his life in the war that subsequently conquered fascism in Germany. His faith and belief in God formed his voluntary sacrifice. It was at the root of his patriotism, moral thinking, and devotion. My mom’s family were sustained by a fervent prayer life and trust in God when word came that they lost Terry. The seven subsequent decades of reflection on God allowing his sacrifice has influenced personal discussions with God for hundreds of people. 

My father was nearly killed in that same war. His prayer life was sealed by what he saw and experienced. Sixty-five years later, when dad died, God's repeated healing hand on him (he survived two end-of-life WWII casualties) represented the life-giving purpose of God's staying hand on one man while tens of millions of other soldiers died in that German-centered portion of the world at war. Two very tragic human events, yet both very holy and divine responses.

In the middle of this place -- Berlin -- almost 50 years ago, my adult faith in Jesus took root. German Christians, enlivened by God working in their lives, preached to me as I traveled there with my beloved, Joanne. The two of us were there for several months. My discipleship began there. In the middle of a cacophony of politics, philosophies, and power my confusion reached epic proportions. For a 21 year-old confusion comes quickly, but God comforted and held me, and ultimately convinced me of his presence. Joanne and I have been side by side since then. Glory be to God.

Those "back stories" of mine -- since the front page story of history is almost always one of governments, militaries and economies -- reflect a personal insight into Germany's spiritual history; the short notes of a one man's few connections.

Most of history fails to record the presence of God for this reason. The incredible, yet over-simplified, secular history of one nation shifts to a far more meaningful one only when we speak about the spiritual influence of God upon our lives, like it has upon my mom’s family, my dad’s family, and for both Joanne and myself. 

A discipled life, as Jesus tells us, will look at life's history differently, and even more severely than we can imagine. While wars, financial calamities, political rifts, and even religious wrangling occupy us, or rather we "possess" them, Jesus insists that we focus upon him. While I may consider being a disciple to Jesus important, I am actually more focused upon a dedicated discipleship to my government, my political party, and even my sports teams. Unconsciously, I run as a disciple to everything else, postponing or ignoring God's call to join with those that Jesus gathers. Yet, Jesus welcomes me at every return.

I am also more moved and transformed personally by the back story of the Body of Christ. The Christ-centered affiliations with Terry, my Father, and Joanne fill the blank pages of history with an eternal purpose for discipleship. All other discipleships are temporary.

To further the significance of discipleship's pull, take this 100 year story, and the underlying discipleship of believing Christians all over the world, and multiply it times the rest of the world's nations. Two hundred nations of peoples on this earth probably begin their nation's story much as I did with the German story. A secular review. The Deutschland tale may be unique in some respects, but in every single nation a similar sectarian history can be written. Each nation records a litany of dramatic changes like that of the governments and politics of the German people. Plus, the global influence of other nations mirrors the long and sustaining reach as that of Germany. 

Consider the matrix of such a hefty collection of nation stories, intermingled nation to nation throughout the past 100 years. Then, imagine the billions of discipleship back stories like the ones I offered. If you calculate the host of discipleship distractions taking place by the folks just like me, the dismissive consideration of God's involvement is a stunning error. 

Jesus urges us not to dismiss him. He leaves no other focal point for our attention. Hate everyone else in order to reach him. Why? Who else can monitor and influence the people's of 200 nations at the spiritual level of every single person's intersection at the same time? Who and what else deserves our focus? What force could deal with Germany’s ups and downs other than through the one by one human and Body of Christ relationships than the Trinity? 

For wild guess purposes, let’s assume that around half a trillion people have lived in 200 nations over the past 2000 years. How many of them have been disciples of Jesus and have met the two requirements at the beginning of this reflection?

Well, it must be quite a few. That force of discipleship, one person at a time, and just within the first 300 years of Christianity, reached more than half the civilized globe. By the middle of the second millennia, circa 1500 A.D., the entire earth had received missionaries and found many of its populations eagerly converted. 

Through none of these missionary travels, conversions, and grace-filled disciples, have the economies, politics, governments and even religions been converted to nations under God’s control. God does not yet have full influence over the world. Nations have nodded to Christianity, and some other religions, but none have handed God the reigns. 

The back stories are there, though. None of the world's nations have been fully peaceful, or permanently protected. All nations seem to waffle between the rise and fall of their governments, economies, and cultures. They do not focus on forming disciples for the highest power and the source of all authority. It's not their charter. They defer and periodically cater to God, but with less and less interest.

Jesus followers live in these nations. God has faithfully been with each one of his disciples, regardless of their nationality. No government or military or economy or political movement is going to tell us to put Jesus Christ before them. Likewise, Jesus never preached to a nation’s government, to a commercial venture, or to a political party. He speaks to us individually, and gathers us as a community of believers where he presides as our God. We follow Jesus among a body of many gifted believers — priests, prophets, teachers, and so on. Our anointed leaders speak with authority from God, but leaders of the military, and the government, have other tasks. 

Based upon 2,000 years of nation-making and managing, we must admit that any peaceful, comfortable and sane countries of the world will probably fall into inevitable times of chaos. The continual and drastic resets of government control, political competition, military wrangling, economic yo-yos and cultural expectations should be expected until Jesus stands fully in power and glory.

Though other powers appear to prevail through our pervasive secular discipleships, God remains steadfast, consistent, blunt, loving, and present. The other powers will not last, and we cannot possess them even now like we can possess the Holy Spirit. Though we struggle to admit it, there is no comparison.

Our back stories are the front page attractions in heaven. "Which gold stocks are the best?" won't be an investment strategy question. Climate change, gun control, immigration rules, and military responses won't come up. Our history books don't tell the story that heads into the eternal record.

The angels and communion of saints watch us and wait for our arrival. The stories of our discipleship and God's sharing with us in every aspect of our lives are what we will carry in our hearts across the threshold of eternity. The memories of grace and mercy is all that will be on our lips as we follow Jesus into heaven.