Now or not yet?

Revelation 14:1New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.

Out of this short little line has come all kinds of pain, confusion, and divisiveness.

144,000 isn't a lot of people in the grand scheme of things, is it?  But for some, it's the magic number.  The number who will be saved and go to heaven to rule the rest of us down here on earth.

Now most interpreters instead take this number symbolically - as a number meaning completion or totality.

But the idea of it - as a number that divides rather than gathers is still out there.  And even without seeing the number itself as the literal amount of people who will be saved, it still has contributed to an overall sense of "us" vs. "them" in Christian culture.  There are those who cling to it, and those who push it away - but in the end, each group pushes each other away.

What would it be like if we took away the worry about who is or isn't going to heaven?  I've seen lots of heartache come out of it: people worried about a beloved non-beliving family member when they died; families torn apart by interfaith marriage; grandparents worried about grandchildren not being baptized.

I'm not saying there is no place for heaven in our lives.  And not saying we can't or shouldn't pray for God's place in the lives of our loved ones, or that we can't imagine what the life to come will be like.

But was getting us to heaven the primary reason Jesus came to this earth - incarnate, fully human, living a life where he physically touched and healed and taught?

What would it be like to imagine that God has more on God's mind then whether or not we end up in heaven?  What would the world be like if here and now became as important as not yet?

God of all time, you have called us into relationship with you both now and not yet.  Help us to live fully into the now.  Amen