Luke 16:19-31

Today’s gospel lesson reminded me of the conversation that I had with my brother-in-law, John, during our family vacation several years ago.  He was raised in a dedicated Christian family.  His parents prayed for their two sons to become pastors and their two daughters to become pastor’s wives.   Interesting, right?  Boys to be pastors and daughters to be pastor’s wives.   Anyway, his brother, Peter, and one of his sister, Rachel, had become pastors.  According to my mother-in-law, John asked her one day many years ago, not to pray for him to be a pastor, because (he said), “I don’t think I can be a good pastor, mom, because I love fancy cars, fancy outfits, delicious food, and I like girls, too.”   To make a long story short, he became a lawyer.  In his big fancy house, that night, he asked many interesting questions.   One of them was: If we believe God is love and forgiving, how we understand Hell?  A lawyerly question, isn’t it? 

Would a loving God really let anyone go to Hell?  What do you think?  Our parable seems to indicate the answer is Yes.  The righteous will be rewarded with an eternity of comfort and peace and the sinners are going to burn.  Some of you would be content to leave it at that.  I am sure that is what you learned years ago.  Others of you will not be content with that because you cannot imagine God being unforgiving like this.  

Note one thing about the lesson here: the story does not say that Lazarus was particularly righteous, only that he was very poor.  And it does not say that the rich man was an evil sinner, either, only that he failed to notice and do anything about Lazarus’ need.  Jesus’ emphasis here is NOT on the fate of people after death, but the absolute imperative of caring for the needy while we are still alive.  If folks took THAT as seriously as they do the picture we get of the punishments of Hell, poverty would have long ago been wiped out.  

But poverty is not the focus of our attention this morning, even though that really IS the primary focus of the parable – more about that another time.  Rather, it is this picture we have of divine punishment.  This one story has done more to influence our long-held concept of eternal damnation than any other in scripture.  The question I raise is “How are we to understand it in light of what we have come to know about God?”  Would a loving God really let someone, anyone, go to a place of endless torment?

The tradition, of course, is clear.  The concept of hell is affirmed.  “Hell with its everlasting misery and separation from God is the final abode of those who neglect [God’s] great salvation.”

But these days, we do not hear that very often.  Quite frankly, many people believe Hell does not exist.  What do you think?  The tradition surely says that there is a literal, awful, fiery place where unsaved sinners will spend eternity.  But what about the Bible?  What does the Bible say?   To be honest, not a great deal.  In the Old Testament, there is nothing about a place of eternal torment for the damned, nothing.  Life after death for everyone – good or evil – is seen as some sort of shadowy existence in a place known as Sheol but not much more.  There are a number of Old Testament references like that but nothing about unending torture, even for the worst of this world.  

By the time we get to the New Testament, we find something new.  There are three different Greek words that are used to talk about the afterlife.  One is Hades which is basically the New Testament equivalent of Sheol – the place of the dead.  This is where the rich man and Lazarus of our parable are.  The only difference between the Old and New Testament concepts is that there is now a division there between the good and the bad.  

Another is Tartarus.  We run into that only once (in II Peter 2:4) in describing a place to which fallen angels are condemned.  

The third word is Gehenna.  Gehenna was the name of a canyon south of Jerusalem.  Children had been sacrificed to the god Moloch there during the days of Ahaz and Manasseh.  But when King Josiah ascended the throne, he ordered that it be desecrated.  It was turned into a trash pile where fire burned continuously.  Everything there had been dispatched for destruction.  Thus, the “city dump” came to be identified in the Jewish mind as the perfect symbol of God’s final rejection of wickedness.  This was Jesus’ description.  Of the twelve times in the New Testament that we run across the word Gehenna, eleven of them are on the lips of Jesus. 

In Matthew 8:12, Jesus calls it “outer darkness.”  In Matthew 13:42, he calls it “the furnace of fire [where] men will weep and gnash their teeth.”  In the ninth chapter of Mark, he describes it as a place “where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched (9:48).”  In Luke’s gospel, he tells the story that we read a few minutes ago.

The final description of Hell in the New Testament is found in Revelation 21.  Hell is pictured as “the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death (21:8).”  How much of these descriptions are meant to be taken literally is an open question.  After all, the pictures are self-contradictory – complete darkness and burning flame are mutually exclusive.  So, the language is symbolic, symbolic of a fate which no one would want.  

OK, then, what DOES the Bible make of Hell?  Scripture is simply not definitive.  There is an indication that there will be different degrees of punishment (Matthew 23:14), and of course, simple justice would demand that – the punishment has to fit the crime.  To be sure, there are times when punishment is helpful, and I am sure that every parent knows it.  But NO parent would say that punishment that does not have correction and finally restoration as its aim has any redeeming value.  

And it surely can have no value for the God whose very purpose for a fallen world has been the redemption of creation.  What I am leading up to should be obvious by now.  The more I study, the more I dig, the more I become convinced that the God of love whom we have come to know in Jesus would not condemn someone to the kind of Hell, our tradition has always described.  

Then what would God do?  Obviously, I cannot say for certain but I am rather drawn to the idea of punishment with a purpose, a concept of Hell that would allow for final restoration.  That would seem to make sense, not to mention justice.  Years ago, when Jonathan or Elizabeth misbehaved, they got time-out.  Or, they were grounded.  No computer, no video game, or anything fun for a week was, believe me, a Hell for them. Nowadays, just one day without phone would be like eternity in hell.

Would a loving God allow something like this to us?  It surely sounds more reasonable to me than the traditional concept.  How long will it last?  Again, the tradition says forever.  Well, I don’t know about you, but to me, no TV, no computer, no fun time forever is a serious Hell.

I checked every New Testament reference to Hell to see if ANY of them say it will last forever, but the best I could come up with are references in the English Bible to “everlasting punishment.” (Matthew 25:41, 46; I Thessalonians 1:9)   But something must be understood here: the Greek word rendered as “everlasting” –  aionios – literally means “belonging to the ages.”  There is only one entity to which aionios can be applied – God.  There is far more in aionios than simply a description of that which has no end.  Punishment which is aionios is punishment which ONLY God can give.  Aionios indicates quality, not quantity.  

In years past preachers used the concept of escaping from unending torture in Hell to motivate folks to accept Christ and do right.  I would suspect that we could have done it better.  After all, if the gospel is the good news we claim it is, we should have emphasized the LOVE of God and God’s desire that all humanity be saved.  Instead, we have tried to SCARE people into the kingdom.  And, let’s face it, that has not worked.  

If our witness is to include the reality of Hell at all, perhaps it would be better explained like this: God, in divine love, wants EVERYONE, but God will force no one.  And because that love is so great, God refuses to condemn someone to the Garden of Heaven who is allergic to flowers.  

But allergies can be cured, even spiritual allergies.  And THAT is our word of evangelism; THAT is our good news.  The medicine is there.  The remedy was carefully and lovingly prepared almost two thousand years ago. . . on a hill outside Jerusalem called Calvary.  All that is necessary now is to have enough faith in the doctor to come to Him.  His name?  Jesus Christ.  How much does it cost?  Nothing.  It is paid for by insurance. . . Wooden Cross, a subsidiary of Eternal Life.  And the premium has already been taken care of by the agent.  It is guaranteed non-cancellable and no preexisting conditions.

 The doctor even makes house calls.  He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in. . .”  Would a loving God really let anyone go to Hell?  I think the answer is the same one we came up with after we read our lesson – Yes, even though it might not be the kind of Hell we have tended to picture.  But even that is not necessary.  Why?  It’s not necessary, because God is with us.  Thanks be to God!  Amen!