May 28, 2000

Douglas S. Long

North Raleigh United Church

A favorite story of mine I picked up from Collins Kilburn a decade or more ago involves a young minister who was fired by his congregation. I don't remember the circumstances, but the minister was given 10 days to leave his post… which meant that he had one more opportunity to preach. He chose for his text that final Sunday the story of the rich man and Lazarus that Mark read earlier… and when the time came to explain the Gospel for the day, the angry minister railed to the congregation that they were indeed the rich man, that they were the ones who would be thirsting and in torment, that they would be the ones begging to the heavens for a drop of water to cool their tongues

"…and you will cry" the outgoing minister railed "…but Lord, Lord, we did not know the consequences of our actions. We did not see the ineptitude of our ways… We did not realize the gravity of our decisions…"

"And Jesus," he continued, "is going to peak over the side of heaven and see you and say… 'Well you sure as hell do now.' "

A brief look at eternal damnation…

I wouldn't want someone, some of you visitors or less frequent attendees to get the wrong idea, to think that this is what we normally talk about… So I'll tell about the seeds that began to germinate into this sermon one more time.

It was the youth groups fault. A few months ago, by invitation, they were asking questions, buckets full of them, and every third one had to do with hell in some way. Here are some;
-Explain life and death.
-What about heaven and hell?
-Why is there evil?
-What about the afterlife and the importance of material goods?
-What's up with this eternal bliss stuff?
-…and reincarnation?
-Is there a Devil?
-Is there an anti Christ?
-What's the ticket to hell?
-God forgives no matter what… Is there a limit?
-If there is a devil, how was she created? (perceptive use of pronouns there.)
-Purgatory? Is heaven and hell permanent?
-If God's love is endless, how can hell exist?
-Can heaven be full?

I finally had to call a moratorium on such hellish questions. …and I promised them that, sometime in the not so distant future, I'd preach on 'hell.'  Obviously I can't answer all of these questions. Nor do I intend to begin a series that will do so. …and I may end up generating only more questions. That's OK. This morning I suppose we can only scratch the surface of hell.

Hell, and references to it, permeate our culture.

Remember Flip Wilson (those of you that are 40 or so…)? '… the Devil made me do it.'
And movies like … Rosemary's Baby, The Omen? There are scores of similar scripts.
Hell is constantly in the popular mindset.
Did I tell you that our church phone number has concerned a few potential visitors?
844-6661. I help people remember it by referring to it as 844- the Devil-1.
When it rings at my home office Denise says… "Hell's bells." (Just kidding.)

What is all this 'hell' talk? …or as an email I got this week from someone phrased it… " Believe it or not, I've begun to read the Bible. What is with this weeping and gnashing of teeth stuff?"
Indeed, what is with it?

I confess to you that I don't think I have anything terribly profound to say this morning… but I've learned in the past that sometimes just saying aloud what we all, or many of us have been thinking all along, is sometimes profoundly important in its own right.

When you think of hell, several different ideas and images begin to jumble together. What do you think of?
    -Someplace under ground?
    -Molten lava?
    -A lake of fire?
    -A red pitch-forked, horned Halloween devil?
    -Something from Dante… some image from the Inferno…what was the saying at the entrance? …Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…Abandon all hope…
Where do all these images come from?

The evolution and explanation of hell and its henchmen have been evolving for as long as we can find written records.

In the Hebrew scriptures you find most references to Sheol…a shady, nether world after death…and Satan in Hebrew scriptures, Satan is, almost always, Yahweh's henchman.  God sends Satan to confront someone. There is no clear understanding or consensus in Hebrew texts of who this Satan figure is. Another Hebrew name: Helel ben Sahar- Bright Son of the Morning (in Greek, Lucifer). Interestingly, scholars believe the character of Satan was sometimes added to earlier manuscripts to save the reputation of Yahweh. An obvious example of this is when the same event is recorded twice is scriptures. See the story in 2 Samuel 24:1-25 which reads ' The LORD incited David' as opposed to the later version recorded in I Chronicles 21:1-30 which says 'Satan incited David.'

By NT times, Satan had become the Prince of this world, the personification of all that is evil. What about Jesus and the subject of hell? Says Hans Kung, renowned Swiss scholar:

"Hell in any case is not to be understood mythologically as a place in the upper or underworld, but theologically as an exclusion from the fellowship of the living God, described in a variety of images but nevertheless unimaginable, as the absolutely final possibility of distance from God… [We] can miss the meaning of … life, [we] can shut [ourselves] out of God's fellowship."

Ideas about Satan and hell continued to evolve beyond NT times.

In October of last year, in anticipation of the turn of the millennium, The Smithsonian published an article entitled… Who the devil Is the Devil?  They compared the turn of this millennium to the last time it happened and put into perspective the view of the Devil in and around the year 999. From the article:

"In the tenth century and for at least a half millennium after, the Devil was everywhere. He leered out of every church door, he capered through castle and church and cottage, and his plots and pranks and tempting of humans were spelled out in sermons, on the stage, in paintings, in pious books, and in stories told in taverns or in homes at bedtime.

No corner or cranny of daily life escaped him. He lurked outside every orifice of the human body, waiting for the chance to get at the human soul inside- one reason why to this day we say "God bless you" when we hear someone sneeze.

The devil fathered children on sleeping women, he stirred up conspiracies and treason, he led travelers astray. He caused boils, plagues, tempests, shipwrecks, heresies, and barbarian invasions."

…and he tormented the poorly lived, now dead, eternally.

Throughout the history of the Church there have occurred debates over the place of eternal damnation. Early on, Origin, for example, argued that for hell to persist beyond time would signal a final victory for sin and Satan. Therefore, he concluded, hell must be temporary. His argument however did not convince Augustine and his contemporaries who decreed:

"If anyone shall say or think that there is a time limit to the torment of demons and ungodly persons, or that there will ever be an end to it, or that they will ever be pardoned or made whole again, then let him be excommunicated."

And they proceeded to excommunicate the 300 year dead Origin on 15 separate charges. Just to be safe, subsequent synods damned Origin to eternal flames in the year 553, 680, 787, and 869.

Want to hear a few other excerpts from church history as images of hell were explored and expounded.

John Calvin (…who had some of his theological enemies burned to death in slow-burning green wood.). Calvin describes hell as:

"Forever harassed with a dreadful tempest, they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God, and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of his hand, so that to sink into any gulf would be More tolerable than to stand for a moment in these terrors."

Jonathan Edwards (…of the "Great Awakening" fame. Newspapers reported people leaving his sermons and committing suicide from the fear he instilled in them.):

"The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day and night, vast waves and billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their vitals, shall forever be full of a flowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements; and also, they shall eternally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, not for one day, not for one age, not for two ages, not for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousand millions of ages, one after another, but forever and ever, without any end at all, and never to be delivered."

Get the picture?

Or Reverend J. Furniss, C.S.S.R in his book The Sight of Hell (A Catholic book for children):

"Little child, if you go to hell there will be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on striking you every minute for ever and ever without stopping. The first stroke will make your body as bad as the body of Job, covered, from head to foot, with sores and ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice as bad as the body of job. The third stroke will make your body three times as bad as the body of Job. The fourth stroke will make your body four times as bad as the body of Job. How, then, will your body be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred million of years without stopping? Perhaps at this moment, seven o'clock in the evening, a child is just going into hell. To-morrow evening, at seven o'clock, go and knock at the gates of hell and ask what the child doing.

The devils will go and look. They will come back again and say, the child is burning. Go in week and ask what the child is doing; you will get the same answer, it is burning; Go in a year and asks the same answer --it is burning. Go in a million of years and ask the same question, the answer is just the same--it is burning. So, if you go for ever and ever, you will always get the same answer--it is burning in the fire."

-- (Quoted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin)

Eternal damnation? I do not know this God.

I was visiting a 94 year old woman, receiving Hospice care in the home of her daughter. I had never before met her and had come at the request of a friend. She was one of the most peaceful spirits I had encountered in quite a while, too frail to get out of her bed, but lying very beautifully and restful in the makeshift bedroom. She asked me a question:

"Rev. Long, do you have children."

"Yes," I replied… Jessica and Jordan were about 10 and 8 at the time.

"Would you ever, when they did something that disturbed you, take a match, strike it, blow it out and then immediately place the hot end on their skin."

I was a little taken aback by her question.

"Why, of course not, "I answered.

"Why is it then, the preachers of my childhood talked incessantly about a heavenly Father who, when disappointed with his children, will throw his children eternally into the flames of fire."

She was smiling.

I shook my head. "I do not know that God," I said.

"Good," she replied. "Neither do I. …but in truth, it has long kept me from knowing any God."

Unfortunately, the god preached in her childhood is still being espoused today.

I looked up an web site last night that I had heard about… but even having been warned about the venomous spew from this increasingly well known Baptist church didn't prepare me for what I was to see. The web address itself for Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas is too repulsive to repeat in this context. 

On the home page is a picture of Matthew Shepherd's face. Matthew Shepherd, for those of you who may not immediately recall the name, was the young gay man beaten and left to die in Colorado in 1998. Why is there a picture of Matthew Shepherd on this site?

There are flames surrounding Matthew's face. If you click on this horrid icon, you read:

"Matthew Shepard died on October 12, 1998, as a result of being brutally beaten by two demon-possessed hooligans. WBC does not support this murder: They broke God's commandment that 'thou shalt not kill.' But, another of God's commandments is 'thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.' Matthew Shepard lived his life breaking this commandment. Unless he repented in his dying hours (and we hope he did), he is in hell - the same fate that his killers will receive unless they repent." [ Excerpt from www.godhatesfags.com ]

Westboro Baptist Church (of Fred Phelps fame) claims it speaks for God? What shall we say in response?

In the early 70's a song came out that was so controversial area radio stations refused to play it. It was one of the strongest condemnations of the persons who profit from illegal drug sales… pushers… that I've ever heard. Any of you remember it? Essentially the song said…

"Damn the pusher man, God. Condemn the pusher."

But it said it this way…

God, damn the pusher man.

Goddamn the pusher man.

It was a good song. I liked the lyrics… and if God were to condemn anyone, I'd want it to be those who exploited others for their own profit.

I was riding with a good friend a year ago. One of the most gifted and hardworking, thoughtful and conscientious people I've ever met. She happens to be a lesbian. "They told me," she said, " that god will send me to hell."

"God damn that kind of god," I replied.

She smiled through her tears.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Some would glibly claim we can't know the mind of God and shouldn't second guess the realities of hell. I say the hell with such mindless babble. If God is abhorrent enough to torch people eternally, then throw me in the fire as an eternal and happy protester of such a infantile and shallow god. If that's who God is, I want no part.

The Good News is… that's not who God is, of course. Jesus made it so clear… 'I love you so much I'll die to prove my love'…. That's a God worth proclaiming. The eternal truth about that God is that we are forever loved.

…and I have only one final word to say about that this morning…

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