I
was recently asked if I believed in hell.
Like a good Episcopalian (or politician), I circled around the question
for about 5 minutes. I focused on the
truth of God’s infinite goodness and mercy.
When I finally finished, he asked again, “So, do you believe in hell or
not?” I answered plainly this time, “I
don’t want to believe there is a hell but can’t say that hell doesn’t exist.”
The
purpose of this encounter is not to give you a treatise on the existence of
hell. Rather, I want to explore with you
my answer to his next question. The
person followed up to my answer on hell by asking, “How do you motivate your
congregation if you don’t hold up the possibility of hell?”
Now, I am not completely
sold that Jesus doesn’t sometimes motivate us by fear of hell. As we see later in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus
does talk a lot about the weeping and gnashing of teeth and the outer darkness
which I perceive to be a place on earth rather than a place of eternal
damnation chaperoned by a devil with a pitchfork.
But
today’s gospel lesson suggests that Jesus is primarily motivated out of a place
of compassion. Scripture says, “When Jesus
saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and
helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
After Jesus instructs the disciples to proclaim the kingdom to the
nation of Israel through acts of healing, he says, “You received without
payment; you give without payment.”
Ultimately,
the life that we are given through Christ, the life of the kingdom of God is a
gift. This new life in Christ is not
given as an ultimatum – do this or else.
The new life of Christ is not given because we earned it.
As Paul says to the Romans, we are justified by faith. More
specifically, we are justified by the faith of Christ – the One who loves the
ungodly. And this justification by faith
is what allows us to see ourselves as living members of Christ’s kingdom, as
beloved children of God. Our justification through the one who shows compassion
to the nth degree is our motivation to put our faith into action – not the fear
of hell.
One
of the big problems I have with motivating people by hanging the possibility of
hell over their heads is that this fear tactic seems to suggest that the goal
of our faith is an escape from hell. The
Lord’s Prayer says, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven.” It doesn’t say, “beam me up to
thy kingdom in heaven so I can escape the fiery flames of hell.” The movement of Jesus is all about
transforming the kingdoms of this world with the kingdom of heaven.
Unlike the kingdoms of
this world, your place in the kingdom of heaven has nothing to do with what
you’ve done, your place in the kingdom of heaven has nothing to do with who
your ancestors are, your place in the kingdom of heaven has nothing to do with
you, period.
Rather, your place, our
place in the kingdom of heaven has everything to do with what Christ has
done. Your place, our place in the
kingdom of heaven rests on the mystery of faith – Christ has died, Christ is
risen, Christ will come again.
Our in the kingdom of
heaven is gift given through the compassion of Christ in God. And I can say for sure that if not for the compassion
of God, we’d all end up in the outer darkness where there is weeping and
gnashing of teeth.
If you are a church
history geek, then you know that most of the church reformers in the 16th
and 17th century spilled a lot of ink (and blood) on this notion of
justification by faith alone. And if you
are an even bigger church history geek, then you know this year marks 500 years
since the Protestant Reformation began when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses. While I firmly believe this reformation was a
part of God’s ongoing plan of salvation, I sometimes wonder if we haven’t taken
it a little too far.
Like I suggested earlier,
our justification by faith is not the end of our conversion experience. Rather, our being made right in God’s eyes
through the blood of Jesus is only the beginning of our conversion, it is the
beginning of our new life with Christ, it is the beginning of our vocation as
living members of Christ’s kingdom on earth.
We wouldn’t know anything
about St. Paul if his conversion on the road to Damascus didn’t result in his
tireless proclamation of the gospel. But
even then, Paul’s conversion was essential in his ministry in proclaiming the
good news of the kingdom. And perhaps
this is why we, the Church, focus so much on justification, on the truth that
God makes us right by giving his Son up to death so that we might have life.
But again, justification
is only the beginning of our story of life with Christ in God. Paul goes on to say that the knowledge of our
justification is what gives us peace and hope.
Our right standing before God through the gift of grace given in Christ
Jesus is what gives us the courage to be at peace even in times of violence and
war, grace is what gives us the conviction to hope for glory even in the
darkest hours of human history. It is
often said that while Jesus meets us where we are, he will not leave us there.
And as followers of
Jesus, as people of The Way, we are equipped to bring peace and hope into a
world that is ravaged by violence and war and hatred and intolerance and
bigotry and perhaps worst of all – indifference and apathy to the state of
humanity. We are called to bring peace
and hope into a world that is content on justifying itself by putting ‘the
other’ down.
As I continue to mature
in Christ, I am less motivated by the fear of hell and more motivated by the
sight of so many who live in hell on earth – the orphaned, the persecuted, the
refugee, the widowed, the orphaned, the poor, the prisoner, the hungry, the
diseased, the forgotten, the outcast, the bullied, the ridiculed and anyone
else who is held down so a select few can go on living their lives with as few
inconveniences as possible.
By the gift of Christ
crucified, I guess this means I am learning how to be more compassionate – a
gift that opens my eyes to God’s kingdom on earth, a gift that I am sometimes
scared to accept because it is a gift that breaks my heart when I am present to
the pain and suffering of this world, a gift that humbles me because it is a
gift that reminds me that I am no better than anyone else no matter my standing
in society, a gift that reminds me of God’s infinite goodness and mercy when
the life of Christ is poured out on the cross for the sake of a sinful and
broken world.
The question for me and
for you and for the Church today asks, “How is the compassion of Jesus moving
you today?” “Where is the compassion of
Jesus taking you?” If you need a hint,
think about those in this community who are like a sheep without a
shepherd.
Perhaps he is a child in
this community who is in need of a mentor – someone who cares about his
successes and failures. Perhaps she is
one of the homeless people walking around the streets talking to herself. Perhaps he is killing himself with an
addiction to alcohol or drugs. Perhaps
she is lonely and has no family to visit her.
“The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.”
If you are like me, responding to these people
sounds awful intimidating. If you are
like me, then you might not think you are the one who can help. If you are like me, then fear might convince
you to stay where you are. If you are
like me, then you might think that nothing ever changes. And if you hear the thought, “they don’t
deserve it” creep into your heard remember the words of St. Paul – “But God
proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
In a manner of speaking,
I do believe in hell but I don’t believe it is a place that we should spend our
life trying to avoid. Rather, hell is a
place where Jesus himself went to minister to the lost and lift them to
life. And as followers of Jesus our
Lord, we have been given the authority to do the work of Jesus, we too are
called to visit the hells of this world, reach out our hands in love so that
our lives and the life of the Church are living proof that God saves us sinners
through the compassion of Christ.
In the end, Christ doesn’t
motivate us to do his work by dangling the fear of hell over our heads saying do
this our else. Instead, God moves us to
complete his work in the world by giving us the gift of compassion, a gift
claimed when we too realize that Christ came to love me, a sinner. Amen.
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