"To Infinity and Beyond"
Luke 20:27-38
Rev. Dr. Bruce Epperly, Westmoreland UCC
Nov. 9, 2025
I want to frame my reflections on the afterlife with two challenging words of counsel:
From Jewish mysticism: Everyone should have two notes, one in each pocket. The first says, “for you the universe was made” and in the second pocket, “you are dust and to dust you will return.”
And then the immortal challenge of Buzz Lightyear from “Toy Story” – “to infinity and beyond.”
We are cosmic stardust and can range the universe in our imagination. God has planted immortality in the human spirit, and yet we have bodies that grow, tire, age, and die. As Martin Luther said, “in the midst of life, we are surrounded by death.” Our hope is that “in the midst of death, we are surrounded by life.”
Today’s reflections on the afterlife begin with a “gotcha question,” addressed to Jesus. In over forty-five years of ministry and teaching, I’ve been asked on many occasions what can be described as “gotcha questions.” No matter how you respond, your answer will be insufficient for the questioner and leads them to believe that you fall short of the one true faith or right political perspective.
I recall being interviewed on a radio talk show from Los Angeles, that after a few minutes of polite conversation, the host revealed his true intent, “Do you believe homosexuality is a sin and that churches who accept gay people can call themselves Christian?” I knew that no answer would satisfy him or his conservative audience, so I simply told the truth I’ve learned from Jesus, “God loves the gay community, and if they’re sinners, so are you and so am I. We’re all standing in the need of grace. And God loves us all.”
In today’s reading, the Sadducees, privileged Jewish intellectuals, influenced by Greek thinking, and agnostics about the resurrection, ask Jesus a “gotcha question”: if a woman outlives seven husbands, in the afterlife, which one is her husband?
Jesus doesn’t answer their question directly. In fact, his response dismisses the question as unimportant: he doesn’t describe the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell, or pontificate about the road to salvation, and who gets there and who doesn’t. He gives a simple but profound answer, “God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living, for to God all of them are alive.” Don’t worry about how many husbands this woman has in the afterlife. Trust that God is alive and you are part of God’s life to come. If you trust the living God, all will be well and you can live fully today, as compassionate and loving people not worrying because you know that God holds the future in God’s hands, and that future is Love.
The early church theologian Augustine once said, “If you claim to know God fully, it isn’t God.” We might add, “If you claim to know have full awareness of the afterlife, then it is likely the projection of your hopes and fears.” Nevertheless, we can live by faith that nothing can separate us from the love of God, that God loves us, and there’s nothing we can do about it now and forevermore.
We don’t talk much about the afterlife in the United Church of Christ. Our primary concern is, as it should be, with this lifetime, in bringing God’s realm “to earth as it is in heaven.” And, we are also suspicious about self-proclaimed orthodox views of the afterlife, which turn our attention from earth to heaven, disregard suffering on this planet, and divide the world into saved and unsaved based on muttering a few words in a church service.
We are suspicious of those who see belief in Jesus as some form of fire insurance: as a young man once told me, “I accepted Jesus as savior to escape hell, the rest is a bonus.” Or we see a disconnect between believers in the afterlife, who are sure of their salvation but have little concern for justice and peace, and support the most divisive and destructive politicians, or see their saved status as some form of Christian superiority. As a college student once shared, “My parents are good people, but since they don’t believe in Jesus, they will be going to hell, just like Gandhi and Buddha.” Now that’s adolescent rebellion!
Let me tell you: When we talk about the afterlife, there is a virtue in vagueness. I know many Christians who are more certain about who’s going to hell than who’s going to heaven, and they base our heavenly future on a few words said at a church service, or receiving the sacraments, or last rights at the hour of death.
All these are transactional: I give God something and I get rewarded or avoid punishment. That’s simply the art of the deal and that sort of morality does not reflect well on God or us.
Heaven, my friends, is not about saying the right things or even going to the right church; it is about God’s love poured out in our hearts, whether or not we deserve it. Grace that overwhelms any sin. Taking any quid pro quo off the table, or any individualistic effort to put God in our debt, the Apostle Paul asserts, “Just as all have died in Adam, all will be made alive in Christ.” God’s way of salvation is offered to everyone and even the most tragic sin can be overcome by God’s joyful and suffering love.
Now many of us have received consolation from reports about Near Death Experiences, which suggest that God’s love embraces both the best and worst of us. In these experiences, people report meeting friends and family, reviewing their life in its joys and sorrows without judgment, and encountering Jesus, who bathes them in love and tells that despite their brokenness, they are loved by God. They are told that they still have work to do in this lifetime: to love the people around them and to push forward God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. Told to return to this life, they are given the task of telling people, “Be not afraid, God loves you, the heaven you seek is already here, and its fulfillment awaits you in the afterlife.”
My mother Loretta used to say, “wherever Jesus is, you’re in heaven.” I believe that Jesus is here and that our planet can be heaven, and so can our time in worship today. Jesus is here with us in the medical appointment, at the graveside, at the picket line, and even in the White House.
And in all the toils and snares of life, and in our hopes for the future, we can affirm: “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so,” and as the story of the lost coin and lost sheep says, God searches for the lost UNTIL it is found. That one preposition is at the heart of good theology: UNTIL has no end ... UNTIL has no boundary ... God’s love cannot be defeated by our sin and God’s love cannot be defeated by death. God is not going to quit UNTIL everyone knows that they are God’s beloved child regardless how far they have wondered from God’s path.
There is judgement, we all need healing, and we all leave a trail of tears as well as joy, but the Great Physician judges only to heal and reconcile. The Celestial Surgeon prunes away our sin and like surgery that can be painful, but God loves you and will do anything – even suffer on the Cross – to bring you home.
You are beloved and blessed, even in your failures and struggles, and God wants you on the front lines of healing the soul of the nation and the earth.
There is an ethic of the afterlife. Dorothy Day, the social activist, said “I speak to people as if they are angels.” I would add, “speak to people as if they are God’s beloved children, with eternal souls.” Treat every child, every stranger, and every enemy, even if it’s difficult, as God’s child, loved infinitely by God, bound for heaven by the grace of God – and ensure that you treat everyone you meet whether in the White House or the picket line as an everlasting spirit, worthy and loved by the Parent of us all.
If there is a hell, it is of our own creating – in dropping bombs, terrorizing undocumented families, demeaning your kin, or believing you are unworthy of love.
I can’t describe the furniture of heaven, but I do know that heaven is where Jesus is, where God’s love abounds, and that’s right here as well as in Infinity and Beyond. God loves you, and God loves the ICE agent and God loves the undocumented resident , God loves the Gazan and God loves the Israeli, God loves the certain and God loves the agnostic. And nothing now and forevermore – and not even sickness and death – can separate any of us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Healer and Companion.
Glory Hallelujah! Thanks be to God!
