Sept. 13, 2026 - Heaven Is…

When I was a young seminary student, I belonged to a half-underground student group. We had a seminar about a book called God's Kingdom by George Pixley. During that seminar, I got into a heated debate with a senior student. We were not debating deep theological questions about what heaven looks like or how to understand it. We were debating a much more basic question: “Does heaven even exist?”

At that time, I thought, “Heaven has to exist somehow, right?” I believed there had to be something beyond this life. But my senior looked at me and said, “There is no heaven! I wish there were, just like you. But there is no heaven.”

I could not understand him. I knew how he lived and what he was doing. He was deeply involved in the student democracy movement against the military dictatorship. He was risking his life every single day. He could have been thrown into jail or disappeared at any moment. So I could not just ignore his words. Inside my heart, a question kept rising up like resistance: “If there is no heaven, then why are you fighting so desperately? Why are you doing such dangerous work if you have no hope of heaven?”

Let me ask you the same question. Could you live a life of sacrifice, practicing the selflessness and social justice that the Bible talks about, if you had no hope of going to heaven? Could you pour yourself out for others if there was no reward waiting for you after death?

After that debate, I struggled with another question for a very long time: “If heaven does not exist, if I fight like this and die with nowhere to go…, could I still keep fighting like I do now?” That question led me to a painful realization. I saw that part of my passion for justice and peace was not completely pure. Deep in a corner of my heart, there was a hidden thought about reward. I was doing good work, but part of me expected something back. When I realized that, I made a declaration to myself. I said, “Heaven or no heaven, it does not matter to me anymore. I wish it existed, but even if it does not, it has no power over me now. I will still do what I am called to do. Why? Because this is my calling. This is my mission for this exact time.” The meaning of my life is not something someone else gives me. Because I believed it was God’s will for me, I chose this path for myself. After that decision, I moved forward again.

Here is the thing. In the Bible, when Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, most of the time he is not talking about the afterlife. Jesus usually talks about the kingdom of God as a state, a moment, a specific time when something amazing happens. Today’s reading from Matthew 18 is exactly like that. Forgiveness is when God’s kingdom comes.

The parable in today’s passage tells us about a servant who owed ten thousand talents. In today’s money, that would be about 12 billion dollars. Not 12 million. 12 billion dollars. Ten thousand talents. It was not simply a large debt. It was an impossible debt. Can you imagine his life? Every day, he probably lived in absolute fear. Every time he walked down the street, he prayed he would not run into his master. His life was hell. Every single day was full of crushing stress and anxiety.

Then one day, heaven came to him. When? When his master forgave a debt that he could never repay. That exact moment, when the impossible debt was cancelled, the kingdom of God entered his life. Can you feel that? The problem that had been crushing him his whole life disappeared in an instant. He received forgiveness when he deserved absolutely nothing. At that moment, God’s kingdom arrived. (Then what should we do?) We should shout “Hallelujah!” and clap our hands. That is what we should do.

But here is the important part. The story does not end there. It would be great if it ended with “Hallelujah” and applause. But it doesn’t. Actually, most people are just like that servant whose debt was forgiven. They stop right there. They are just happy and joyful about this amazing grace that came to them. They think to themselves, “I must be someone special.” Or “I am so lucky.” And then… they stop. They do not think about how precious the kingdom of God is, or how to protect it. They just think they caught some huge, unexpected stroke of luck, and they go right back to their old life. But the story does not end there. What happens next?

He did not protect the kingdom of God that came to him. In fact, he lost it and ended up in an even worse state. What was the problem? He experienced the presence of God’s kingdom, but his life did not change. He was like the people who experienced the grace of the Exodus; They stood at the starting point of change, but then wandered in the wilderness and did nothing but complain. He forgot too easily that the kingdom of God was amazing grace.

So when he met a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii, which is about twenty thousand dollars, he did not extend the same forgiveness he had just received. He did not expand the kingdom of God. And that was the end for him. The grace of forgiveness he had received vanished, and he lost the kingdom of God that had come to him. His life became worse than before. He ended up trapped in prison for a debt he could never repay.

The Bible makes it simple. The way for him not to lose the grace he received, the kingdom of God that came to him, was to forgive the person who begged him, just as he had been forgiven. It does not matter what kind of debt it is. It does not matter if it is big or small.

But forgiveness is not easy. The reason we can forgive the people who come to us asking for mercy is not because we are naturally generous or kind. It is incredibly hard to forgive people who hurt us, who spread rumors about us, who pushed us out and discriminated against us.

Still, we can forgive them because we remember that we were also forgiven. We know that we were once the ones with the huge debt. We know how much we have been released from. We live in this world knowing the grace and gratitude of someone who had a debt we could never repay, but was completely cleared. That is why knowing that we are forgiven people is the very core of being a Christian.

And here is what is even more important. When we forgive, the kingdom of God comes to those who are forgiven, but it also grows stronger and expands within us. Not just for the ones we forgive! But the kingdom of grace that has come to us gains more power, grows, and is completed inside our own hearts.

God is like the master in today’s story. God had deep compassion on us. God forgave us. From God’s side, we are the ones who had a ten thousand talent debt, a debt we could never repay. And God cleared it. How amazing is that?

Now, as people who have received that grace, as people who live in the heaven of forgiveness, we live in this world with radical gratitude and joy. If today we meet someone we have not been able to forgive, now we can forgive them. Because we have received a forgiveness that is so much bigger and so much deeper than that. And so, to keep and to expand this kingdom of forgiveness that has come to me, we now live day by day.

So let me ask you one last time: Will you go out with me to extend the kingdom of God in this world? Will you go with joy? Will you go with happiness on your face? Together?