First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Revelation 21 (selected portions)
The Text: the Book of Revelation contains some of the most sublime, yet frightening images to be found anywhere in Holy Scripture. Let me read two such images, contained within the same passage:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:1-8.
The Sermon
My friends, I’ve been to Hell and I’ve been to Paradise….and I’m here to tell you that neither of ‘em is much to write home about. Hell is a Livingston County burg….out Pinckney way….which neither the developers nor the Methodists have yet discovered, and whose chief claim to fame is a post office, so that you can send your friends greetings from Hell or invitations to it. As you would expect, it’s warmer in Hell than in Paradise, given that Hell is located in Michigan’s banana belt, while Paradise sits up there in Michigan’s ice box.
Paradise is on Whitefish Bay, located in the general vicinity of places like Newberry, St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie. I once spent one of the least memorable weeks of my life in Paradise. Having just been ordained (with a wife, a child, and no money), they said: “Come preach in Paradise on Sunday morning and you can have a vacation cottage, free for the week.” Well, the cottage was an old farm house with next-to-no furniture. The TV (if you jostled the coat hanger against the window screen just right) got one channel’s worth of snow. The fish flies hit the beach the week we arrived. And my wife got strep throat. But I preached on Sunday. We grilled a couple of decent whitefish. And, three nights out of six, we went with 20 other carloads of gawkers, to the rim of the dump at nightfall, our purpose being to watch a bunch of emaciated bears come out of the woods and paw through the garbage. Which was crazy. But which was the stellar attraction in Paradise. Maybe the only attraction in Paradise.
So much for my knowledge of Hell and Paradise. And so much for your lesson in Michigan geography. For more than that, you’ll have to wait until you die. Although there was, just a few weeks back, that word from Pope John Paul II….now 21 years into his reign….about heaven and hell not being as locatable as some might have previously thought. It seems that John Paul, in his papal wisdom, doesn’t think of either heaven or hell as places, so much as he thinks of them as relationships. To be precise, what he said was this. “More than a physical place, hell is the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.” Then he went on to describe hell as “the pain, frustration and emptiness of life without God,” adding that “eternal damnation is not so much God’s work, as our own doing.” Concerning heaven, the Holy Father suggested that “it was not a physical place in the clouds, but a living and personal relationship of union with the Holy Trinity….of which a foretaste could be had here on earth.”
Well, a lot of folk reacted to that….both positively and negatively. Among them were some of you, who rushed to ask me: “Is he right?” To which I answered: “Sure, I think he’s right.” But what do I know? What do any of us know? We all open our Bibles and claim our passages. But, concerning the specifics of eternal life, scripture is longer on theology than geography….longer on promise than description. For wherever you go in its pages, I think you have to start and end with Paul (whose understanding of the faith defined the earliest proclamation of the church). Concerning death, Paul said: “Behold, I hand you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” While concerning eternal life, Paul wrote: “Our eyes have not seen….our ears have not heard….our minds have not begun to imagine, let alone comprehend, the things that God has prepared for those who love him.”
I have spent the better part of the last week, retracing the development of heaven and hell (as concepts) in the literature of the Old and New Testaments, along with related materials from the annals of Buddhism and Islam. And while it would provide fascinating seminar material (which I’ll offer if there’s a market for it), there is nothing resembling a thread of consistency that could lead one to say (with any degree of certainty): “Lo here. Lo there.”
It is probably important to know that in early near-eastern thought, both heaven and hell were thought of as parts of the observable universe, rather than distinct from the observable universe….either as mountains that towered above the earth, or subterranean pits that lie buried beneath it. Other theories visualized heaven as being the firmament-like canopy that encircled the earth, or the space directly above it.
The Old Testament refers to heaven as “God’s abode” (I Kings 8:30), from which God exercises sovereign rule (Psalm 29:20) and to which God will welcome the faithful righteous (Psalm 73:24). Ironically, when the beloved 23rd Psalm suggests that “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” the Psalmist is almost certainly referring to the Temple in Jerusalem, rather than the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
In the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark suggests that heaven is God’s creation (13:33), in which God resides (Hebrews 4:24), to which Jesus ascends (Acts 1:9), and from which he will return (I Thessalonians 4:16).
Hell, meanwhile, is alternately described as a “watery pit” (Psalm 28:1), “a ditch” (Job 33:18), a subterranean dwelling place known as “Sheol” (referenced 66 times) or a smoldering ravine (Matthew 18:9). The latter sometimes carries the name “Gehenna” which is taken from a garbage dump to the south of the Dung Gate in Jerusalem, in a valley known as “Hinnom” (hence, “Gehenna”)….where the city’s refuse was said to burn day and night. Which may very well be the source of the “Lake of Fire” which appears (albeit unnamed) in some of the more dire prophecies of Revelation.
Suffice it to say “that nowhere in the Old Testament is the abode of the dead regarded as a place of punishment and torment.” The concept of an “inferno”….or a fiery hell….developed in Israel only when Greek and Iranian influences began to invade the culture. Ironically, the Islamic word for “hell” (“Jahannam”) is derived from the very same garbage dump outside the very same gate in Jerusalem (“Gehenna”….“the Valley of Hinnom”) which Moslems believed to be the entrance to the underworld. Eventually, Islamic thought enhanced this picture to include seven gates…. and (subsequently) seven layers….which then gave birth, over time, to the multiple levels of Dante’s Inferno, and the relative degrees of suffering, floor by floor.
Ironically, the Koran is not all that clear as to whether Moslems are to believe that punishment is eternal. Sura 23:106 reads: “In Jahannam, dwelling forever.” While Sura 11:108-9 attributes to Muhammad the possibility of a post-death pardon. Apparently, the people of Islam are as split as we are, as to how long God can stay mad at whom….and to what degree.
I notice your eyes starting to glaze over. This is probably more than you wanted to know….or have been able to digest. Suffice it to say that where heaven and hell are concerned, the literature is rich….but remarkably non-specific. And the images to which you and I turn….when asked to recount our favorite visualizations of heaven….are clearly metaphorical. We talk about “the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”…. “the many mansions” where Jesus goes to prepare a place for us….the “great bridal feast of the lamb”….the “wedding banquet,” to which everyone is invited, but not everyone RSVPs….the “new Jerusalem” (a reconstituted metropolis), where the glory of the Lord is sufficient to replace the street lamps (not to mention the sun and the moon), and where God himself will take folded Kleenex to the corners of each and every eye, wiping away each and every tear, until there are no more tears. But, if pressed, I would have to say that my favorite metaphor is that of “the holy mountain,” to which everyone streams, and up which everyone climbs (from north, south, east, west, land of slave, land of brave, you name it, they’re from it)….and where “no one shall hurt or destroy, in my holy mountain,” even as “the hills are alive with music” (you didn’t know it was biblical, did you?).
Images. Of course they’re images. But not images of location, so much as images of relationship. Relationships restored. Relationships redeemed. Relationships that once were so very wrong, but now are so very right. Which is why the Pope says that heaven and hell are far more relational than they are spatial….and that we shall know them, not by what we see, but by how we feel.
I can see why his Holiness bothered some folk with all this talk about heaven and hell “not being places.” You and I are creatures of space and time. We want to know where things are….what they are going to look like….and how we will know we’ve arrived, once we get there. Jesus tells Thomas: “I’m going where you cannot follow….but you know the way.” And what does Thomas ask for? Directions, that’s what he asks for. Does he get ‘em? No….not in so many words. Neither does he get any maps, charts, graphs, or printouts from the computer.
But we shouldn’t be too hard on Thomas….or on the Pope’s detractors. We want directions too….along with maps and pictures. We want someone to say: “Heaven is here. It looks like this. Hell is there. It looks like that.” Spatial identification. That’s what we want. How does the old story go? A man comes home early from the office, only to find his wife under the bedspread and his best friend in the closet. Says the man to his friend: “Fred, what are you doing here?” Says Fred: “Everybody’s gotta be someplace.” And there’s a certain attractiveness to knowing where that place is. I understand that.
But instinctively we know….don’t we….that the truest descriptions of heaven and hell have more of a “feeling tone” than they do a “spatial tone.” Somebody goes through a rough patch on a job….in a marriage….or with one of their kids. To anyone who will listen, they say: “I feel like I’ve been to hell and back.” But what does that mean? Are they talking about where they went? Or are they talking about how they felt? You know darned well what they’re talking about. They are talking about something that happened to a very important relationship….and how they felt about it. They are talking about separation, not location. They are talking about how it feels to be out of sorts….out of sync….out of touch….out of trust. They are talking about being disconnected….not belonging….cut off and set apart….when every fiber of body, mind and spirit is crying: “This is not the way it should be.”
Contrast this with a song that will date me.
Just Molly and me
And baby makes three,
We’re living in my blue heaven.
No they aren’t. They’re living at 236 Elm Street. But 236 Elm Street is not heavenly language. “Molly, me and baby” is heavenly language.
If you can understand that on the lyrical level, perhaps you can translate it to the spiritual level. To be “one with God,” says the Pope, “is heaven.” To be “cut off from God,” says the Pope, “is hell.” Think about it this way. People are free in this world to live solely for themselves and let the rest go hang. What the Doctrine of Hell proclaims is that they are free to do it in the next world, too. Meaning that the possibility of making a damned fool of yourself is virtually limitless. You can play it out forever. It’s your choice.
Sure, hell exists. I’ve visited there. Didn’t much like it. But some people seem not to mind. Still, the question arises: “Who put ‘em there?” They did. It is not God’s will that any should perish. Which means that the hell-bent among us aren’t being pushed, sent, consigned or abandoned….but are motoring along quite nicely on their own, thank you. If I look at your behavior….your choices….your deviations and addictions, and say (in all compassionate candor): “Friend, you’re a damned fool”….am I talking about something God is doing, or something you are doing? I’m talking about you, and the fact that damnation is a self-started journey down a self-chosen road. Which is also what the Pope said last month.
Ah, but is it eternal? I suppose it could be. But I doubt it is. Not that any of us are going to be able to avoid “paying the piper.” Sooner or later, it all catches up with us. Or God catches up with us. And then there’s “hell to pay.” You probably don’t like hearing me say that. But let me explain what I mean. I think hell is coming face-to-face with the consequences of our sin. The essence of divine judgment is not God telling us what we did….screaming at us for what we did….berating, beating or burning us for what we did….but just letting us see what we did. And when that happens, all the lies we told ourselves….all the crap we fed ourselves….all the rationalizations we concocted….all the justifications we offered….all the silly, sickly, self-serving spins we put on our sins….not to mention all the various forms of Maalox we swallowed to quiet the rumbling in our gut….none of it works. None of it works. Meaning that we are forced to face it….forced to own it….forced to taste and feel it. Until it hurts like what? Well….like hell.
Studdart Kennedy tells (in one of his books) of a father who, in fits of drunkenness, used to beat his son. In his sober moments, he loved the lad dearly. Now, however, the boy is dying and his suddenly sobered father is keeping a vigil beside his bed. In his fevered delirium, the child sees the father reach out to stroke his sweating brow. Instinctively, the boy flinches, brushes his father’s hand away and cries: “Don’t let him hit me, Mother. Don’t let him hit me.” Hell is seeing, for the first time, the results of what we do. The book is open and the judgment is self applied.
But will God leave us that way eternally? The house, as you know, divides on that one. There are those who say: “If you die before you get it right….get it reconciled….get it redeemed….too late for you.” But I am not one of them. I have this suspicion that God will hound us, haunt us, claw and search for us, not only unto death, but into death. “If I make my bed in Sheol,” says the Psalmist, “even there shalt thou find me.”
I do not believe that God wills our death…..either as to the way we die….or as to the day we die. If I leave the pulpit this morning, only to perish beneath the wheels of an out-of-control tractortrailer on Telegraph (or an out-of-control semi on Six Mile), I do not believe either the choice or the timing of my demise to be divine. So it leads me to wonder: “Why should such circumstances….not of God’s making….set an outer limit as to how far God will go for me, assuming that I die in an out-of-sorts relationship with Him? Should such a thing happen, isn’t it possible that God might be saying (at that very moment), “Rats, I almost had Ritter,” rather than: “Oh well, to hell with him.”
Truck or no truck….stroke or no stroke….death or no death….I believe that God will have us. I believe that God will be as relentless as He is restless. And I believe that no fool….however self-damned….will remain hell-bent (or hell-bound) eternally. I simply can’t imagine that the God who went to the cross for me, will not go to the grave for me.
Last week I watched, along with most of you, the video clips from Turkey.…when the earth opened up its jaws and buried several thousand of its children alive. And the pictures I couldn’t get out of my head were of family members….with no more chance of success than a snowball’s chance in hell….pulling, pushing, tugging at the rocks and the rubble, hoping against hope that the lost might be found and the swallowed, reclaimed.
Then, yesterday morning, I talked with an adoptive parent who has been to hell and back….over and over again….year after heart-wrenching year….with both a daughter and a son who never call unless it’s for money and who never return unless it’s for rescue. “Why can’t I let them go?” she said. “Why can’t I let them go?”
How did Mendelssohn address that?
(singing) “He watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps.”
What’s that all about? Is God an insomniac? Darned if I know. But ask yourself (especially if you’ve ever been a parent), how soundly did you ever sleep until your last remaining child was home?
