First, a little note: the Gospel lectionary reading for Sunday September 29, 2013,  was about the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus.

I spoke mostly without notes. That’s because the topic is so huge, and I only had 25 minutes max. But I always, as a preacher, have notes handy. I don’t trust my nearly-76-year-old brain not to have an attack of the forgettories… So pardon the CAPITALS: they help my nearly 76-year-old eyes to read.

I didn’t use all of this. And some other stuff I found myself saying isn’t here. I’ll add more when I (a) get time and (b) have a little respite from caring for a sick wife.

Shalom! Rowland Croucher

~~

HELL: ROUGH NOTES FOR A SERMON ON LUKE 16:14-15, 19-31

LIFE AFTER DEATH …. WHAT DO PEOPLE BELIEVE TODAY?

(Probably in Britain):

+ Nothing happens we come to the end of life  29%
+ Our soul passes to another world 34%
+ Our bodies await resurrection 8%
+ We come back as someone else (reincarnation) 12%
+ Trust God, we are all in God’s hands 22%
(Peter Jupp and Tony Rogers, Interpreting Death: Christian Death and Pastoral Practice, London: Cassell, 1997, ch 11 )

AS A TEENAGER IN A FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH I COUNTED THE FORTUNATE ONES – CHRISTIANS WHO’D ‘RECEIVED JESUS AS THEIR PERSONAL SAVIOUR’ TOGETHER WITH ABORTED FOETUSES, THE HUGE NUMBER OF BABIES WHO DIED BEFORE/AT/SOON AFTER BIRTH, CHILDREN ‘BEFORE THE AGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY’ (IE. UNDER 12s), MILLIONS OF ‘HEATHENS’ (AS WE CALLED THEM),  THOSE WHO HAD INTELLECTUAL DEFICIENCIES… THE LIST GOES ON AND ON…

His main problems with Billy Graham’s sermon on Hell:

# Does the PUNISHMENT fit the CRIME: torment forever for one wrong decision (not to ‘accept Jesus as your personal savior’) in this life)?

# Why no ‘COOLING OFF’ period? ‘We’ve just brought in legislation to allow people time to think about stuff after being harangued by a salesman’.

# YOU CHRISTIANS ARE GOING TO ENJOY HEAVEN, WITH YOUR COSMIC ETERNAL PARTY, WHILE MANY OF YOUR LOVED ONES ARE SUFFERING TORMENT IN HELL – AND YOU CAN SEE THEM SUFFERING!!!. IF THAT’S THE BEST YOU/GOD CAN OFFER I DON’T WANT TO GO THERE.’

# Evangelicals like CSLewis:  RATIONAL /  FREE WILL: ‘WHAT ARE YOU ASKING GOD TO DO? YANK PEOPLE INTO HEAVEN IF THEY DON’T WANT TO GO THERE?’

# Many LIBERAL CATHOLICS – ‘YES HELL IS REAL BUT DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE ANY HUMAN IS ACTUALLY THERE’

# COGNITIVE DISSONANCE — A GOOD GOD WON’T TORTURE CREATURES FOREVER

#  ‘TO HELL WITH HELL’ (Progessive Christian scholar)

# LITERAL? We are all SELECTIVE: Who’s CUT OFF A BODY PART LATELY IF IT LED THEM TO SIN? (Remember the ‘Church Father’ ORIGEN who cut off his penis?)

# HELL AS METAPHOR? eg. WHO’S LITERALLY EXPERIENCED MOUNTAINS MOVING RECENTLY? (WHY DID NOONE IN THE EARLY – NT – CHURCH, SO FAR AS WE KNOW) MOVE A MOUNTAIN OR CUT OFF A BODY PART?

# CAN’T WE TRUST GOD THE JUDGE OF ALL THE EARTH TO DO RIGHT? (ABRAHAM. GEN 18:16-32). PROVERBS 24:12:  WILL GOD NOT RENDER TO EVERYONE ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS?

# ANNIHILATION ?   (eg.JOHN STOTT)

UNIVERSALISM (‘all will be saved’)? Universalists are not usually literalists, but they take these texts literally: 

#  ‘IF I AM LIFTED ABOVE THE EARTH I WILL DRAW EVERYONE TO MYSELF…’
# ‘GOD IS NOT WILLING THAT ANYONE SHOULD PERISH…’
# ‘AS IN ADAM ALL DIE SO IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE…’

SO WILL ALL WILL BE SAVED? I DON’T KNOW: NO HUMAN CAN BE A UNIVERSALIST (BUT I WOULDN’T BE SURPRISED IF GOD IS…)

WHAT CAN WE SAY FOR CERTAIN?

(IF JESUS IS SON OF GOD) :: THESE REALITIES –

A. WE CONTINUE CONSCIOUS  EXISTENCE BEYOND DEATH

B. WE’RE ACCOUNTABLE FOR HOW WE TREAT OTHERS

C. PAIN AND PLEASURE /// PUNISHMENT AND REWARD

**** 

RICH MAN & LAZARUS

ONLY PARABLE EXPLICITLY AFTER-LIFE.  + MT 25 (BOTH FULL OF SURPRISES).

NOT PRIMARILY ABOUT AFTERLIFE: IT’S AIMED AT ‘PHARISEES WHO WERE LOVERS OF MONEY’ (Lk. 16: 14,15). 

ALL JESUS’ PARABLES/TEACHING ON HELL WERE AIMED AT ‘BIBLE  BELIEVERS’. (THESE DAYS BIBLE BELIEVERS BROWBEAT UNBELIEVERS WITH THE TERRORS OF HELL). 

GREEKS    EGYPTIANS    JEWS all had theories about an after-life, where we ‘reap what we sow’. 

But Paradise/Hades are simply the settings for a more important reality. IT’S NOT MAINLY ABOUT ‘THE FURNITURE OF HEAVEN OR TEMPERATURE OF HELL’

JESUS’ RELIGIOUS CONTEMPORARIES TENDED TO BELIEVE THAT MATERIAL WEALTH IS A SIGN OF GOD’S BLESSING = IT’S A SIGN OF ONE’S RIGHTEOUSNESS TO BE WEALTHY

IF YOU’RE POOR ::YOU AND/OR PARENTS SINNED

THE ‘PHARISEES WHO LOVED MONEY’ DESPISED JESUS’ POVERTY – NO HOME OF HIS OWN, NO VISIBLE MEANS OF SUPPORT, NO PURSE… HOW COULD SOMEONE LIKE THAT LAY CLAIM TO BE A HERALD OF GOD’S KINDOM?

RICH MAN NOT UNFRIENDLY – DIDN’T DRIVE THE BEGGAR AWAY – JUST IGNORED HIM (but allowed a servant to throw food scraps for him).

BUT IN HELL THE ROLES ARE REVERSED, AND THE RICH MAN BECOMES A BEGGAR.

IN A BRILLIANT SERMON ON THIS PARABLE HELMUT THIELICKE (The Waiting Father, HARPER,  1959, PP. 41 ff.) SAYS ‘IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER EVERY ONE OF US IS RICH AND SO EACH ONE OF US MUST FACE THE QUESTION ABOUT DESPISING OUR BROTHER LAZARUS, AND BANISHING HIM TO THE BACK DOOR.’ 

(More from Thielicke… PARAPHRASING…)

THE RICH MAN WAS BURIED AND GOES TO HELL, AND FROM THERE WATCHES HIS OWN FUNERAL… AND HEARS THE EULOGIES ABOUT WHAT A FINE UPSTANDING PERSON HE IS…

BUT IN HELL HE REALIZES IT’S NOT SIMPLY RICHES THAT SENT HIM THERE  – AND HE BEGINS TO PRAY…

THE PAIN IN HELL IS THIS: TO BE FORCED TO SEE THE GLORY OF GOD AND HAVE NO ACCESS TO IT.

NOR WAS IT POVERTY THAT TOOK THE POOR MAN TO HEAVEN.

WHEN THE BIBLE SPEAKS OF THE ‘POOR’ IT ALWAYS MEANS A SPECIAL KIND OF POVERTY WHICH DOESN’T NECESSARILY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH LACK OF MONEY. PEOPLE LIKE THE TAX COLLECTORS AND HARLOTS MIGHT HAVE HAD PLENTY OF MONEY, BUT MANY OF THEM RESPONDED TO JESUS’ INVITATION TO PUT THEIR TRUST AND SECURITY IN GOD’S WILL FOR THEIR LIVES.

LAZARUS HAD ONLY ONE THING GOING FOR HIM: HE HAD NO IMPEDIMENTS TO TRUSTING IN GOD AND COUNTING ON GOD’S MERCY…

IN HEAVEN LAZARUS IS PERMITTED TO SEE WHAT HE BELIEVED, BUT THE RICH MAN IS COMPELLED TO SEE WHAT HE DID NOT BELIEVE. BUT IT’S TOO LATE. LAZARUS CAN’T COME TO HIM.

THIS PARABLE IS CONCERNED ABOUT THE GRAVITY OF ETERNITY AND THAT ONE DAY OUR LIFE-IN-PREPARATION FOR THE HEREAFTER WILL RUN OUT. 

‘DO NOT IMAGINE THAT A MESSENGER WILL COME FROM BEYOND AND CONFIRM WHAT IS SAID IN MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. JESUS WON’T NECESSARILY GIVE YOU A SIGN: THERE WILL BE NO APPEARING FROM THE DEAD; NO VOICE FROM HEAVEN; NO MIRACLE IN THE CLOUDS. NONE OF THESE WILL COME TO YOU – YOU WHO ARE ONE OF THE RICH MAN’S FIVE SIBLINGS. WE HAVE ONLY THE WORD, THE WORD MADE FLESH AND CRUCIFIED, THAT NAMELESSLY QUIET WORD WHICH CAME TO US IN ONE WHO WAS AS POOR AND DESPISED .. AND LIKE HIS BROTHER LAZARUS, JESUS TOO LAY AT THE WORLD’S BACK DOOR WHEN HE WAS BORN IN A STABLE IN BETHLEHEM…’

JESUS TRIED OFTEN TO AVOID PUBLIC MIRACLES AND THAT’S WHY THE FIVE SIBLINGS, REPRESENTATIVES OF HUMANKIND, ARE NOT GRANTED, EVEN TODAY, THE MIRACULOUS SPECTACLE OF A MESSENGER FROM THE DEAD.

THAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED. THE SIGN WAS A CROSS.

SO IF THE SIGN OF A RISEN CHRIST, AND THE TEACHING OF MOSES AND THE PROPHETS (AND THE APOSTLES) CAN’T PERSUADE US TO CARE FOR JESUS TODAY WHO IS POOR, WHAT ELSE WILL…??? 

Rowland Croucher