One sunny day in January of 1999, Mary Neal died. As she tells it, she was kayaking down the Fuy River in a remote region in southern Chile when her kayak veered off course and she and it were plunged down a steep waterfall.
Worse still, she got wedged under a rock. This combined with the tremendous force of the waterfall rendered her helpless. For a whole 30 minutes she was submerged in 8-10 feet of water. Once her companions finally were able to extricate her, she was long gone.
As you may have guessed, Neal is among the millions of individuals worldwide who claim to have undergone “near-death” or “after-death” experiences.
Curiously, Neal describes her experience underwater as remarkably peaceful, unlike what she had always imagined drowning would be like. There was no room for fear, she says. There she found herself uttering the simple phrase, “Lord, thy will be done,” words she had said many times before, only now she really meant it. Whatever God had in store for her, she was completely open to. Then, she says, her spirit was released to the heavens.
Unlike those who report seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, Neal instead says she found herself held by Jesus, talking to him. In this moment she said he comforted her and assured her everything would be fine. (Incidentally, she claims that 75% of “avowed atheists” who report near-death experiences also claim to have seen Jesus.)
As with many, she also experienced a life review, but one notably characterized by an overwhelming sense of love, compassion, and profound understanding. During this review it was revealed to her countless chains of events stretching back in time, and in all directions, explaining everything that had ever happened to her. All of life was interconnected. And it all made sense.
She then found herself in a place filled with flowers, flowers exploding with color – color, she says, she not only could see and smell, but feel, as odd as that sounds. The beauty, as she puts it, was “intense.”
In the midst of this glorious place, she encountered a crowd of “spirit-beings” who somehow knew her at her core and loved her unreservedly. This sensation of being fully known and fully loved left her feeling “jubilant.”
These human-looking spirit-beings then guided her down a path toward a domed structure with an arch, which she interpreted as the end of the line; that once entered. there would be no going back.
Meanwhile, as so many have reported, she could see her lifeless body on the riverbank as her companions desperately sought to resuscitate her. There was one 18-year-old man in particular who kept pleading with her to come back to life.
And yet, she says, she had no desire to return – this despite the fact that she had a wonderful, fulfilling life. Not only did she have a very happy marriage and four beloved children, but she was a highly successful orthopedic surgeon. Yet even with that, she didn’t want to return. Her only desire, she says, was to reach the domed structure before her.
But because she felt sorry for the young man calling out to her, she would return to her body and breathe – just once – and then go back to heaven. This happened, she says, maybe 15 or 20 times.
Back in heaven, as she approached the archway, she was granted a “complete understanding of the divine order,” of how all of life is interconnected. This revelation included, to her immense surprise, an awareness that God somehow knows each and every one of us – personally, individually.
This was something she’d always struggled with – the idea that given the billions of people on the planet, God could actually love each of us individually. And yet, she remains absolutely convinced that, yes, each of us is loved by God fully and completely, as if we were the only ones in the world.
Finally, upon reaching the threshold of the archway, the point of no return, she was told it was not her time. She objected, for every part of her being wanted to enter that place.
Instead, she was given a “laundry list” of things to do when she returned to earth, things that would challenge her, things that she had absolutely no desire to do. She was even told that her oldest son would die (which he did 10 years later).
In any event, in short order she returned to her body where, she says, the miracles continued. In the middle of nowhere, with absolutely no medical facilities anywhere, and set against a rugged and imposing landscape, people suddenly and altogether improbably appeared, as if angels, who brought her to safety.
In the ensuing weeks she says her contact with this spiritual realm continued but eventually was replaced by a veil, effectively separating her from any direct, experiential contact with this world.
As a scientist, she went about investigating all possible earthly explanations for what had happened. She studied extensively the brain and its functions, as well as the physiology of the human body. Nothing made sense. All conventional explanations proved inadequate.
In the years following, she has had time to reflect. Her near-death experience, she says, taught her, primarily, about trust – total and complete trust. Knowing this, life would never be the same.
After all, her transformation came from firsthand knowledge of God’s total forgiveness, the surefire confidence that God has nothing but love for us. Given this, she came to believe that we truly can let go of all guilt and remorse, that the past does not define us, and that we can live a life free from anger and resentment.
Perhaps of even greater importance, she learned that our future with God is fully assured, that death is but the doorway to our real home. And knowing this basic spiritual truth reorders our lives in the here-and-now, freeing us to live fully in the moment. It enables us to accept what God wants us to do, willingly and joyfully, even in those moments when life gets tough (as she later discovered with the death of her son).
In all this there’s one phrase that stands out for me. As she puts it, she had experienced “an absolute state of gratitude.”
In today’s gospel reading from Matthew 25, we encounter Jesus’ Parable of the Talents. And every year around stewardship time, the lectionary readings present something like this for our consideration.
Despite the parable’s obvious merits, I have always had a problem with it as it relates to stewardship. In addition to seeming a bit heavy-handed, it almost makes it seem as if the whole point of stewardship is the wise use of our this-worldly, material blessings.
Connecting this to Thanksgiving, it also might lead us to believe that it is our material blessings alone for which we should be grateful.
Obviously, being blessed with adequate food, shelter, and the financial wherewithal to take care of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors is nothing to sniff at, especially when we consider how many in our world go without such necessities.
Yet this focus on material goods runs the risk of equating those same goods with happiness and security. While it is true that, in many respects, material goods can make life easier, they do not guarantee happiness or security.
For instance, we are told in I Timothy that the love of money is the root of all evil. That’s because money can easily become an idol. And an idol, as I generally define it, is some earthly good that promises that which only God can provide.
Money can buy us a false sense of security and a cheap sort of grace. But it’s brittle and unreliable. Tragically, I have known any number of wealthy people who have been utterly bereft of happiness, as no doubt you have as well.
Furthermore, money, and the power it can purchase, can serve as a substitute for love. We don’t feel loved, so we use money to impress others in the hopes that they will admire us and treat us as special. But that’s hardly love.
In a similar vein, we may use money as a means of distinguishing ourselves from others, of placing ourselves above the crowd. Money can buy status, and status, as I see it, just may be the most common sin of all, if largely unconscious, and maybe even the very worst sin of all.
In our reading from I Thessalonians, however, we are reminded that this life, and our material world, is not all there is. And if we connect this to the testimony of Mary Neal, we see plainly the truth of the gospel – that all genuine love, security, and happiness begins and ends with the things of God.
After all, Neal’s story, though remarkable, is really not anything we haven’t heard before. Instead, it’s but a firsthand account of a reality the gospel proclaims to us over and over again: that we are fully loved by God as beloved children, that we are forgiven, that death is not the end of life, and that therefore we can live freely, as those who are saved. And knowing this is to know incomparable joy.
So, in the end, it is not what we do, it is not our “works,” not our material blessings or how we steward them that ultimately matters, though we are indeed called upon to be charitable and gracious. It is instead about what God has done and is doing, without, I might add, our help. (Our only job is to trust.)
Genuine thanksgiving and stewardship are solely about the heavenly blessings born of God’s saving power over life and death, including God’s unshakeable and unfathomable love for each and every one of us, to which Mary Neal’s story justly testifies.
Only with this awareness, this “absolute state of gratitude,” is the true meaning of Stewardship Sunday and Thanksgiving Sunday to be found and celebrated. For in truth, we are but mere recipients of God’s ongoing love and providential care. For which we can only offer our heartfelt thanks and praise. Amen.