Here’s what I said yesterday in the pulpit…
There’s no getting away from it. Sooner or later we do have to think about hell. That’s the message from this morning’s gospel reading and I don’t think that there is any choice but to deal with it head on and allow ourselves the chance to ask ourselves what we believe about it.
I must confess to groaning a little as I turned up the readings for today. Having just returned from a lovely holiday in what seemed like paradise (warm sun, clear sea, beautiful scenery, good food) I flicked through the lectionary to check out the gospel reading for this morning to see what I would be preaching about.
The rich man and lazarus stared me straight in the face. An uncompromising, difficult parable.
A rich man and a poor man (who has lain by the rich man’s gate) both die and the parable goes on to relate various discussions between Abraham and the rich man about their respective fates. Lazarus has gone to his reward which is represented as being with Abraham. Meanwhile, the rich man has gone to something altogether more fiery where he is tormented. A place which culturally we refer to as hell, though that’s not the word used in the story itself. We hear the rich man’s appeals for cooling water to refresh him. An act of mercy is requested. The answer is no.
We then hear him ask Abraham to send someone to warn his relatives so that they might not suffer the same fate as he has done. An act of compassion. The answer is no.
And there it ends.
I remember worshipping in a community once where the custom was to say, at the end of a reading from Scripture, “This is the word of the Lord†to which everyone replied, “Thanks be to Godâ€.
One day a friend of mine was reading a passage, I can’t remember whether it was this one or something quite like it. You could feel a sense of depression, misery and incredulity growing as he read it and then at the end simply looked around and asked instead, “is this the word of the Lord?â€
I find this passage a little depressing myself, so must dig a little harder than usual to find something to say about it which is encouraging and uplifting.
The first thing to say is that you can still find people, plenty of people, who believe that that if you die in sin you will go to hell and it will be fiery and nasty and horrid.
That’s not the kind of religion which does anything for me. If you want, I’ll happily point you towards churches which proclaim such grim teachings. However, even in the face of this morning’s gospel, I’m not remotely tempted to go down that path myself.
I don’t believe that it is in the character of the God I know to condemn people to a fiery hell. I believe that God loves us with a passion that burns away any of our own sins and leaves God relating to the person whom we long to be. Whole. Integrated. Free. Loved.
Hell just doesn’t come into it.
So let me just try to grasp hold of a few interesting things about this parable for us to latch onto.
The first thing to note is that this is not Jesus’s story. It exists in Egyptian stories and from other rabbis. Its a formula – a rich man and a poor man die and this is what happens in the afterlife.
Its a formula. You know how jokes have certain formulas. (Knock knock. Or A man walks into a bar. Or there was and Englishman, and Irishman and a Scotsman). Its that kind of story. The hearers would have known that it was a teaching story. They would have known the basics about the two men dying but htey would have listened out for Jesus’s own take on the story.
First thing to note is that the rich and the poor are divided only by their financial status. This is not a story about sin.
It is a story which seems to indicate that God is on the side of the poor rather than the rich.
Second thing to note is that they appear to have equal dignity and integrity. The rich man does not appear to oppress the poor man. Neither does Lazarus beg. They are simply rich and poor. And God seems to be on the side of the poor.
Third thing to note from Jesus is that we are supposed to work this truth out for ourselves. We won’t get messengers, angels or miracles. We simply have the world around us and the testimony of Moses, the prophets and so many religious figures from the ages saying simply – God is on the side of the poor, the disadvantaged, the underdog, the oppressed and the troubled.
It is these things that Jesus seems to be trying to convey to us through this parable, which only Luke reports – the gospel writer who emphasises God’s preference for the poor more than any other Biblical writer.
This parable is a storytelling way of proclaiming what Luke proclaimed in Mary’s song at the start of his gospel:
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
It just may be that Jesus is talking economics rather than theology. It just may be that he is subverting old stories about heaven and hell to speak about daily politics, politics which are still with us today.
I must confess myself to be not a little puzzled by current politics in the UK. I used to think that I understood which parties represented the values that I care about most.
I can’t say that I do now. The jury is out on who can bring about mainstream prosperity and wellbeing which I think most people of goodwill long for.
However, I do know that the questions raised by any political debate are spiritual ones as well as economic ones for politics is a spiritual discipline as well as an act of persuasion.
Politics, economics, theology and spirituality all seem to me to be interrelated questions. Many people seem surprised by that these days though that might be one of the things which was at the heart of what the Pope was talking about in his recent visit to this great city.
But whatever I think, or whatever the Pope thinks, there is some evidence for thinking that this wee parable which seemed at first a little on the depressing side and all about hell may in fact be about finding strategies for building God’s kingdom on earth. With a God who seems to be on the side of the poor and disadvantaged, it matters little whether the starting point for change is prayer or politics.
And when I think about that, I find myself not depressed at all by the gospel reading this morning but rather more uplifted.
Indeed, my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
In the name of God who made us, saves us and inspires us.
Amen.
Ryan, satire would do too.
though if our mis-reading moves us to satyrs then we’re terribly at risk of going full circle.
>>>Being fanciful and casting doubt is not the same as establishing/proposing a robust and consistent interpretation.
Indeed. That being so, perhaps you’d like to address Kelvin’s point about ‘tartarus’, or the fact that Gehenna – if we’re being literal – was a place were things were burned up i.e. destroyed , the frequent use of the term ‘destroyed’ in scripture passages referring to Hell (which I know more supports Annihalationism than Universalism, but it certainly doesn’t support the eternal-conscious-punishment-by-devils-with-pitchforks model) ? Nobody disputes that Hell is mentioned a lot in the Bible. They disagree with your (in fairness, Calvin’s and Mark Driscoll’s) view of it. Surely any evangelical can see the flaw in conflating the divine with the human? Perhaps you could argue for your interpretation rather than assuming it, or appearing to endevour to imbue it with an unearned validity by surrounding it with pseudo-piety? Of course I am not here casting down on your motivations, but accepting the purity of a particular Christian’s motivation in no way means that one should agree with what they said!
Giving an example of an implausible reading in no way proves that your own readings are intrinsically plausible, let alone Revealed Truth. We are, as yer man George W. Bush once said, all just sinners 🙂
Also, are you disputing that Luke, however God *inspired* is the ‘author’ of his book? That’s not very Orthodox.
The Protestant Church has never been big on taking Our Lord literally when He instititutes the Eucharist with the lines ‘this is my blood’; so I think you’d have to concede that evangelical/reformed churches, consciously or otherwise, have always had multiple reading strategies that were used to understand Scripture. It is possible that someone could say something like ‘Ah, but it’s *obvious* Jesus isn’t being literal when he talks about plucking out your eye if it causes you to sin, whereas it’s obvious that he’s being utterly literal about a literal lake of Fire!” . But mere stating of an ‘obvious’ opinion – however frequently reiterated – in no way makes it true. Doesn’t Scripture challenge us to break down (and rebuild) such assumptions?
Thanks for the welcome back! To paraphrase a fellow Irish man, I hadn’t gone away you know. I’m actually exploring vocation/ordination into the CofI at the moment so say a wee prayer for me. The priests/skulls comment was particularly helpful in that context.
Ryan, even though you are being obtuse… rather than citing Driscoll and Calvin who are constantly meeting with your disdain, I’ll go straight to St Paul, St Silas, St Timothy, and one example.
“All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.”
Now I know this verse doesn’t disprove annihilationism outright, but held together with other verses about the enduring nature of hell, spoken by Jesus and also St John make it more doubtful that hell did not exist. Perhaps, since hell seems so unreasonable to you, you are demanding unreasonable evidence before you would believe in it?
In Matthew 5/Mark 9 Jesus wasn’t telling to people to maim themselves in order to be saved, but he was telling them that the reality of hell was even more shocking than losing a hand or an eye. The reason we think he wasn’t telling people to maim themselves is because none of his other teaching suggested that parts of our bodies could actually cause us to sin. His teaching was designed to make us aware of those things in our lives, which, if we remain attached to them, will cause us to end up in hell.
I think I’m fairly confident that Paul and I would disagree about this and about some other things, were we to meet. I also think we would enjoy talking about it.
Of course, there are those who are not so confident that it was Paul’s own hand which wrote 2 Thessalonions. If not, it could well have been written by someone very keen on belief in eternal punishment who took the totalitarian view (ie that all Christians must believe in such a doctrine) and was determined to pass off this text as Paul’s own for that very purpose.
That’s both the trouble with scripture and also what makes it exciting to study – its so interesting.
BTW, if its hands and eyes that cause someone to lose Salvation, I presume you are now making a case, Beat, that Jesus himself believed that works are what salvation depends on rather than faith or relationship with God/Jesus. Its a case that can be made from scripture, and you are doing rather well at it. All the same, I remain unconvinced.
The point about Calvin isn’t obtuse. Calvinism and only Calvinism certainly doesn’t equal Orthodoxy, let alone the numerous poisonous absurdities of Driscoll. I cited them for a reason. If we’re identifying the ‘heretics’ from a position of ‘Orthodoxy’ then it’s important to ensure that, in fact, our foundations aren’t built on sand…
>>Perhaps, since hell seems so unreasonable to you, you are demanding unreasonable evidence before you would believe in it?
No. With all love and due respect Greg, only one person in this thread is leaving themselves open to the perception of being unreasonable – I note that, yet again, you’ve ignored Kelvin’s point about tartarus, just as
”Thanks for the clarification of what you think about the parable though. The rich man in your interpretation could have been saved by what? Works or thoughts?”
still awaits a response.
You’ll appreciate than anyone can cut and paste Holy Scripture or religiose boilerplate, but that’s not the same thing as offering a convincing argument. You’ll see where I sent that Hell is mentioned in Scripture but it might not accord with your firm and brimstone image? You haven’t addressed that point. I know from my experience in housegroups and the like that many evangelicals do not, in fact, believe in Hell in the sense of eternal conscious fiery punishment (and one could cite the conservative C of E’s ‘Mystery of Salvation’ document in this context). The passage you cite not alone does not ‘disprove annihalationism’ – it hardly ‘proves’ your model of Hell. I said myself that Hell is of course frequently mentioned in scripture. You reiterating this does nothing to support your particular image of Hellfire. Does ”
punished with everlasting DESTRUCTION” (emphasis mine) *really* suggest ‘eternal conscious punishment’ rather than actual, er, destruction?
>>The reason we think he wasn’t telling people to maim themselves is because none of his other teaching suggested that parts of our bodies could actually cause us to sin.
Really? The history of , say, self-mortification in the Church, especially in monasticism in the like, doesn’t owe much to seemingly commonsensical interpretations of Jesus’ words?
Kelvin, I’m not really sure how you’re inferring that I’m advocating the principle of salvation by works. People are saved by the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and by their willingness to put their faith in that for salvation. Faith itself cannot save us, only faith in the thing which has the power to save us, because that is faith which is vouchsafed by God.
So the question about “the rich man could have been saved by what? Works or thoughts?” is strange to me. He could have been saved by recognising and repenting of his own sin and recognising his utter dependence on God for his salvation. But were that to happen, he would only have *been* saved because God’s grace allows for repentant sinners to be forgiven and their sin atoned for by Christ. Therefore it would have been neither salvation by works or thoughts, but by Christ. Faith itself is not the thing which *achieves* salvation, merely the conduit through which righteousness is credited to the believer.
Therefore, if Christ taught that certain things could cause people to end up in hell, he was performing a similar function as the law: that is, to identify and condemn sin. People first needed to know their sin is what condemns them. To be unwilling to let go of sin is a sign that you put your faith in sin to provide what you need. Thus, Jesus’ call for us to repent of sin is a crucial part of our ability to have faith in him. Any other course is self-delusion.
I don’t know enough about gehenna and tartarus to offer any big insight. But I know that the translators of the bible are trustworthy and give us a fair starting point. My point was that this was not an issue of linguistics.
Ryan, the church’s understanding of the nature of the “flesh” has been subject to a number of extreme interpretations. In defending what I regard as orthodoxy I don’t intend to systematically counter every possible interpretation that I don’t think is the right one. You are clutching at straws here again.
Ah, I see. Of course. The rich man (who is a character in a story anyway) could only possibly be saved by believing exactly the things you believe, Beat.
Worth noting linguistically that the Evangelical translators of the NIV offer us “hell” as a translation of “Hades”. Other translators don’t.
>>Ryan, the church’s understanding of the nature of the “flesh†has been subject to a number of extreme interpretations. In defending what I regard as orthodoxy I don’t intend to systematically counter every possible interpretation that I don’t think is the right one. You are clutching at straws here again
No, you are overtly claiming (or at least proceeding from the assumption) that there is One True Obvious Interpretation and I’m pointing to actual historical fact that indicates that you are, characteristically, wrong. Perhaps , given that the H.C.F. is bigger than both of us,you could acknowledge the distinction between ‘Orthodoxy’ and your particular theological opinions that you assume to be true? One can imagine your reactionary verbosity if a ‘liberal’ on this thread had put great store by hardly-objective ‘what I regard as orthodoxy’.
Assuming, as I tend to do, that you’re genuinely interested in respectful dialogue, it might be worth going back and looking at the questions that you’ve ducked (again).
Anyone going to offer an opinion on how many angels can fit onto the head of a pin anytime soon?
Greg, I know that the Reformers weren’t fans of asceticism (what a worldly attitude!) but I’m genuinely curious whether you’ll concede that e.g. Col 1:24 and many words of Our Lord very much do literally point towards literal fasting and literal mortification of the flesh, that relates clearly to one of the (many) unanswered points above? I’m sure that John Piper or Mark Driscoll have some entertainingly dotty spins on-cum explanations of such verses, but that’s all they are.
As for trusting the translators (all of them? even when they come up with meanings at odd with other translations? how does that work?).., them using the word ‘Hell’ doesn’t prove that ‘Hell’ denotes what *you personally* regard it to be, surely? Your denunciation of ‘linguistics’ (the Bible isn’t written in language? Its language – despite being the Word of God – doesn’t warrrant the acknowledging of complexity that we’d give to any half decent play or novel?) – is curious. Assuming that words mean what you want them to mean is a bit weirdly ‘postmodern’. Someone in earlier centuries would have assumed that ‘Hell’ meant that picture of the faithful getting to enjoy looking at the tortured evildoers in the underworld – such a picture is hardly innate in the text. It’s amusing when Revelation is cited as a Hell-fire proof text. See how far you can get into the book treating (consistently) all its imagery as literal.
Perhaps, in the afterlife, there are opportunities for ‘guess how angels are on the head of this pin’ type japes? 🙂
I’m quite glad we have come back to angels on Michaelmas.