Lent 3: Love Wins: Turn or Burn? Really?
A sermon preached at Journey United Church of Christ on Sunday, March 11, 2012.
Based on “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived” (Harper Collins 2011)
Reading for the Day: Luke 16:19-31 (TEV)
19 "There was once a rich man who dressed in the most expensive clothes and lived in great luxury every day.
20 There was also a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who used to be brought to the rich man's door,
21 hoping to eat the bits of food that fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the feast in heaven. The rich man died and was buried,
23 and in Hades, where he was in great pain, he looked up and saw Abraham, far away, with Lazarus at his side.
24 So he called out, 'Father Abraham! Take pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip his finger in some water and cool off my tongue, because I am in great pain in this fire!'
25 But Abraham said, 'Remember, my son, that in your lifetime you were given all the good things, while Lazarus got all the bad things. But now he is enjoying himself here, while you are in pain.
26 Besides all that, there is a deep pit lying between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, nor can anyone cross over to us from where you are.'
27 The rich man said, 'Then I beg you, father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father's house,
28 where I have five brothers. Let him go and warn them so that they, at least, will not come to this place of pain.'
29 Abraham said, 'Your brothers have Moses and the prophets to warn them; your brothers should listen to what they say.'
30 The rich man answered, 'That is not enough, father Abraham! But if someone were to rise from death and go to them, then they would turn from their sins.'
31 But Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone were to rise from death.' "
The scene goes something like this: Bart Simpson has just been hit by a car and completely knocked off his skateboard. Soon the “heavenly music” begins and we see him riding an escalator off into the heights. While riding, a voice plays over and over again in the background saying “please hold onto the handrail and do no spit over the side.” Well, if you know Bart, you know what happens next. He lets go – in both ways – and Bart is suddenly on a slide traveling down, down, down to a not so heavenly scene. He is met by the legendary man in red tights with a pitchfork who welcomes him and is impressed with his legendary evil deeds that led to his eternal damnation; but also adds that there must be some mistake because he didn’t expect him for many years. As he turns to leave, Bart asks, if perhaps there is anything he can do to avoid returning. He is given a list of things he can avoid – like lying, cheating, and listening to heavy metal music – to which Bart replies “I’ll see you again then later…”
That about sums it up doesn’t it? Hell is all about the fury, wrath, torment, judgment, eternal agony, and endless anguish. Most of us have been told that it’s something like this …Trust God, accept Jesus, confess, repent …and everything will go well for you. But if you don’t … If you sin, refuse to repent, harden your heart, reject Jesus, it’s over - Or actually, the torture and anguish and eternal torment will have just begun… (p. 35) It’s all about the “Fire and Brimstone”, “Wailing and Crying” and that guy in red tights with a pointed pitch-fork … What’s in your picture of hell? Is it a real place?
Is any of that biblical? In his book, “Love Wins”, Rob Bell literally goes through every scriptural reference to the hell. You can read them all for yourself; but here’s just a few summary thoughts.
First, the Hebrew scripture. There isn’t an exact work or concept in the Hebrew Scriptures for hell other than a few words that refer to death and the grave. (p. 35) One of them is the Hebrew word “Sheol” – a dark, mysterious, murky place people go when they die. There are references to “a pit”.
Then, the New Testament. The actual word “hell” is used roughly twelve times in the New Testament - almost exclusively by Jesus himself. The Greek word that gets translated as “hell” in English is the word “Gehenna” Ge means “valley” and henna means “hinnom. Gehenna, the Valley of Hinmon, was an actual valley on the south and west side of the city of Jerusalem. (p. 37) Gehenna, in Jesus’s day, was the city dump. People tossed their garbage and waste into this valley. There was a fire there, burning constantly to consume the trash. Wild animals fought over scraps of food along the edges of the heap. When they fought, their teeth would make a gnashing sound. Gehanna was the place with the gnashing of teeth, where the fire never went out. Gehenna was an actual place that Jesus’s listeners would have been familiar with. So here’s one option - the next time someone asks you if you believe in an actual hell, you can always say, “Yes, I do believe that my garbage goes somewhere…” (p. 37)
There are two other words that occasionally mean something similar to hell. One is the word “Tartarus” which we find once in chapter 2 of Peter’s second letter. It’s a term Peter borrowed from Green mythology, referring to the underworld, the place where the Greek demigods were judged in the “abyss” The other Greek word is “Hades” - an obscure, dark, murky – Hades is essentially the Greek version of the Hebrew word “Sheol”.
For many in the modern world, the idea of hell is holdover from the primitive, mythic religion that uses fear and punishment to control people for all sorts of devious reasons. And so the logical conclusion is that we’ve evolved beyond all of that outdated belief right? (p. 38)
So how should we think… or not thing … about hell? (p. 38)
Do I believe in a literal hell? Along with Rob Bell, I would answer “Yes” … but let me explain … with a parable … a parable of Jesus
Jesus talks in Luke 16 about a rich man who ignored a poor beggar named Lazarus who was outside his gate. They both die, and the rich man goes to Hades, while Lazarus is “carried” by the angels to “Abraham’s side” – a Jewish way of talking about what we would call heaven. The rich man then asks Abraham to have Lazarus get him some water, because he is “in agony in this fire.” People in hell can communicate with people in bliss? The rich man is in the fire, and he can talk? He’s surviving. Abraham tells him it’s not possible for Lazarus to bring him water. The rich man then asks that Lazarus be sent to warn him family of what’s in store for them. Abraham tells him that’s not necessary, because they already have that message in the scriptures. The man continues to please with Abraham, insisting that if they could just hear from someone who came back from the dead, they would change their ways, to which Abraham replies, “if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (p. 40 -41)…And that’s the story.
Note what it is the man wants in hell: he wants Lazarus to get him water. When you get some water, you’re serving them. THE RICH MAN WANTS LAZARUS TO SERVE HIM. In their previous life, the rich man saw himself as better than Lazarus, and now, in hell, the rich man STILL sees himself as above Lazarus. IT’S NO WONDER ABRAHAM SAYS THERE’S A CHASM THAT CAN’T BE CROSSED. THE CHASM IS THE RICH MANS’ HEART! IT HASN’T CHANGED, EVEN IN DEATH AND TORMENT AND AGONY. He’s still clinging to the old hierarchy. He still thinks he’s better. (p. 41)
The gospel Jesus spreads in the book of Luke has as one of it’s main themes that Jesus brings a social revolution, in which the previous systems and hierarchies of clean and unclean, sinner and saved, and up and down don’t mean what they used to. God is doing a new work through Jesus, calling all people to human solidarity. Everybody is a brother, a sister. Equals, children of God who shows no favoritism. To reject this new social order was to reject Jesus, the very movement of God in flesh and blood.
This story about the rich man and Lazarus was an incredibly sharp warning for Jesus’ audience; particularly the religious leaders who Luke tells us were listening… to rethink how they viewed the world, because there would serious consequences for ignoring the Lazaruses outside their gates. To reject those Lazaruses was to reject God.
And there’s more … Jesus teaches again and again that the gospel is about a death that leads to life. It’s a pattern, a truth, a reality that comes from losing your life and finding it. This rich man Jesus tells us about hasn’t yet figured that out. He’s still clinging to his ego, his status, his pride – he’s unable to let go of the world he’s constructed, which puts him on the top and Lazarus on the bottom, the world in which Lazarus is serving him.
He’s dead, but he hasn’t died.
He’s in Hades, but he still hasn’t died the kind of death that actually brings life.
He’s alive in death, but in profound torment because he’s living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that’s worth living. (p. 42)
What we see in Jesus’s story about the rich man and Lazarus is an affirmation that there are all kinds of hell, because there are all kinds of ways to resist and reject all that is good and true and beautiful and human now, in this life, and so we can assume we can do the same in the next. (p. 43)
There is hell now
And there is hell later
And we should take both seriously.
But it’s not a specific location … but it is REAL
Jesus did not use hell to try to compel “heathens” and “pagans” to believe in God, so they wouldn’t burn in when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love… it is absolutely vital that we acknowledge that love, grace and humanity can be rejected. From the most subtle rolling of the eyes to the most violent degradation of another human being, we are terrifyingly free to do as we please (p. 39)
God gives us what we want and if that’s hell, we can have it. We have that kind of freedom, that kind of choice. We are that free. (p. 39) And so we experience hell right here on earth. Every time a child is abused, every time a woman is raped, when war claims innocent victims, when cruel dictators misuse their own people. I’ve seen what happens when people abandon all that is good and right and kind and humane. Hell is something all of us have experienced to one degree or another at various points in our lives and because folks will continue to be free to turn away from God and the beauty of God’s kingdom, hell will continue to be option in the future. The only difference is that presently our experiences of hell can either be connected to our own actions, our own turning away from all that is good, or it can be due to the decision of another who turns, whose actions and turning have ripple effects, whose impact often times affects the innocents. In the future, our choices are our own. We can enter through the gate that we talked about the first week or we can choose to remain outside. Once we enter in, we enter into that heavenly redeemed, renewed place of perfection that God has brought to completion. A place where only goodness exists. But not everyone wants to be in a place like that. Rob Bell uses the illustration of a racist - a racist, he remarks would not want to enter into a place that freely welcomes all! They might have to sit next to someone they don’t like at the “banqueting table”. As we said the first week, the gate is open, people can come, people can go … but their decision to turn will no longer impact the innocents. Their decision to live in their own hell – a life apart from God and God’s love – will be their own.
So, yes, hell is real. It’s real now; It canl be real later. It has nothing to do with a big book of our records of rights and wrongs or whether we like heavy metal music. It won’t be about a fire or a man in red tights. It will be a matter of the heart and the turn.
