Strive first for the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 6:33)

Not long before she died, Bev shared with me a childhood memory: On her way to Sunday School with her brother, they ran across the yard and down the street. But alas! Dressed in her Sunday best, she tripped right into a puddle of mud, splattering her pretty dress. She didn’t end up going to Sunday School that morning, but the reason I think she remembered this incident was because of what happened next …. (I’ll tell you at the conclusion of the sermon!)

In her mind Bev strived for the higher ideal. In that sense, her vision was skyward, upward. Bev’s standard was golden. Her thinking, sharp. Her ideals cut to the chase. And there was no arguing.

Striving is about looking up. Almost every time Bev came to worship recently, she would take my arm at the door on the way out, and look me in the eye and say, “Psalm 121”. This is the Psalm she wanted read at her funeral, I think to represent her ideals. There’s this energy about looking up for help, far and away, to that high, transcendent point just beyond reach.

This section from the Psalms in which we find Psalm 121 is called the “psalms of ascent” reflecting the inspiration of the song writers singing their way up the path toward the city of Jerusalem. Coming up the path you couldn’t help but look up at the magnificent gates entering the city. “I look to the hills from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth…”

Heaven and earth. Heaven is for striving and looking up. Heavenward represents our deeply felt longings and aspirations not yet fulfilled. Striving for the goal, the destination, where upon the mountaintop in that beautiful imagery from the prophet, the Lord will make a feast for all, and death will be no more (Isaiah 25).

But the Psalmist doesn’t stop at heaven. “My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

The downside of only looking upward is that we will trip and fall when things get messy on the ground. Looking downward from time to time is part of the journey of faith, maybe a part we want to avoid, deny and skip over all together. But looking downward is the only way forward in faith.

When my family first moved into our newly constructed house over eleven years ago, it was at the time only roughed in for central vacuum. During coffee after worship one Sunday I happened to mention I was on the lookout for what kind of central vac system to install. And Beverley Milton was first up to give her advice. “Go with Kanata Vacuum, it’s just around the corner from my place, and they’re good,” was all she said. All she needed to say.

You see, when she first moved into her house over thirty years ago, she installed floor-to-floor carpeting. Fast forward to a couple of months ago: When the new owners bought her house, that very same carpet was in such good shape they did not need nor intend to replace it. Bev’s advice was golden. Every time I vacuum at home, especially in the last couple of months, I think of Bev and give thanks.

The last time I was in Bev’s house was in the Fall last year when family gathered around her dining room table – Leslie and Bev, Susan, Scott and Marilyn, Lauren and Colin – for a delightful meal and spirited discussion. But in order to eat, to receive the good gifts of the earth, what do have to do? Well, we need to look down, from time to time.

Lord, you have put all things under their feet (Psalm 8), the Psalmist also says.

While heaven is for striving and looking up, earth is for looking down and gathering in the gifts of the moment in real time. One of Bev’s favourite sayings was: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift; that is why it is called the present. God is, after all, the maker of it all, of heaven and earth.

Your family gathered around that dining room every Sunday for decades. It’s a mealtime table memory I am sure you will cherish forever. Ever thankful, ever grateful, we look down to see where we are planted, where we find our place in this world. And being grateful, even if only in our memory, gives us peace, too.

That table sat on the carpet, don’t forget. Most of the time we don’t think about it, don’t notice where we are walking or sitting. We aren’t looking down at it but it’s there, holding us, grounding us, embracing us, literally. And when we do take the time to stop and look, we might notice the quality and durability of it. And give thanks.

It’s a matter of perspective, of course. I am captivated by a photo taken from a commercial airliner flying over Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. From on high, the mountaintop does not look as daunting. From on high, everything is seen from a larger perspective.

Today, Bev doesn’t need to strive in her mind anymore. Her perspective in communion with God holds it all, the big picture. She doesn’t need any more to toil on the ground reaching upward and yearning for some transcendent place far up and away. Now she can look down and smile at all the good gifts on earth each one of us can still enjoy. If we will but stop and take notice.

It’s appropriate we celebrate Bev’s life today, in the neighbourhood in which she spent many years as a child growing up, in “Little Germania”, I hear the New Edinburgh area was called. In this neighbourhood over 90 years later we gather to remember her life that started in this place where she went to Sunday School, played with friends and attended school. Close to the ground. It started here. She’s come full circle. But it doesn’t end here, for her and for us.

May God bless us on our journeys of striving, of yearning, of looking upward. May we also cherish those moments when we can look down and around, even if it’s sometimes messy and maybe not quite so perfect here, to see the gifts of the earth nourishing our souls every day.

By the way, that childhood memory didn’t end with her looking down at her spotted, mud-splattered Sunday dress. It ended with her turning around and running home straight into the loving arms and embrace of her mother, who told her, it was alright.

Amen.