And that's it.

Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual word "h.e.l.l" in the Bible they got from those verses you just read.

For many in the modern world, the idea of h.e.l.l is a holdover from primitive, mythic religion that uses fear and punishment to control people for all sorts of devious reasons. And so the logical conclusion is that we've evolved beyond all of that outdated belief, right?

I get that. I understand that aversion, and I as well have a hard time believing that somewhere down below the earth's crust is a really crafty figure in red tights holding a three-pointed spear, playing Pink Floyd records backward, and enjoying the hidden messages.

So how should we think, or not think, about h.e.l.l?

___________________.

I remember arriving in Kigali, Rwanda, in December 2002 and driving from the airport to our hotel. Soon after leaving the airport I saw a kid, probably ten or eleven, with a missing hand standing by the side of the road. Then I saw another kid, just down the street, missing a leg. Then another in a wheelchair. Hands, arms, legs-I must have seen fifty or more teenagers with missing limbs in just those first several miles. My guide explained that during the genocide one of the ways to most degrade and humiliate your enemy was to remove an arm or a leg of his young child with a machete, so that years later he would have to live with the reminder of what you did to him.

Do I believe in a literal h.e.l.l?

Of course.

Those aren't metaphorical missing arms and legs.

Have you ever sat with a woman while she talked about what it was like to be raped? How does a person describe what it's like to hear a five-year-old boy whose father has just committed suicide ask: "When is daddy coming home?" How does a person describe that unique look, that ravaged, empty stare you find in the eyes of a cocaine addict?

I've seen what happens when people abandon all that is good and right and kind and humane.

Once I conducted a funeral for a man I'd never met. His children warned me when they asked me to do the service that I was getting into a mess and that the closer we got to the service itself, the uglier it was going to get.

This man was cruel and mean. To everybody around him. No one had anything positive to say about him. The pastor's job, among other things, is to help family and friends properly honor the dead. This man made my job quite difficult.

I eventually realized what they meant by "ugly." When he realized he was about to die, he had his will rewritten. He purposely left relatives out who were expecting something and gave that wealth to other family members he knew they despised. He had his will changed so that at his funeral there would be pain and anger. He wanted to make sure that he would be causing destruction in this life, even after he'd left it.

I tell these stories because it is absolutely vital that we acknowledge that love, grace, and humanity can be rejected. From the most subtle rolling of the eyes to the most violent degradation of another human, we are terrifyingly free to do as we please.

G.o.d gives us what we want, and if that's h.e.l.l, we can have it.

We have that kind of freedom, that kind of choice. We are that free.

We can use machetes if we want to.

So when people say they don't believe in h.e.l.l and they don't like the word "sin," my first response is to ask, "Have you sat and talked with a family who just found out their child has been molested? Repeatedly? Over a number of years? By a relative?"

Some words are strong for a reason. We need those words to be that intense, loaded, complex, and offensive, because they need to reflect the realities they describe.

And that's what we find in Jesus's teaching about h.e.l.l-a volatile mixture of images, pictures, and metaphors that describe the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting our G.o.d-given goodness and humanity. Something we are all free to do, anytime, anywhere, with anyone.

He uses hyperbole often-telling people to gouge out their eyes and maim themselves rather than commit certain sins. It can all sound a bit over-the-top at times, leading us to question just what he's so worked up about. Other times he sounds just plain violent.

But when you've sat with a wife who has just found out that her husband has been cheating on her for years, and you realize what it is going to do to their marriage and children and finances and friendships and future, and you see the concentric rings of pain that are going to emanate from this one man's choices-in that moment Jesus's warnings don't seem that over-the-top or drastic; they seem perfectly spot-on.

Gouging out his eye may actually have been a better choice.

Some agony needs agonizing language.

Some destruction does make you think of fire.

Some betrayal actually feels like you've been burned.

Some injustices do cause things to heat up.

But it isn't just the striking images that stand out in Jesus's teaching about h.e.l.l; it's the surreal nature of the stories he tells.

Jesus talks in Luke 16 about a rich man who ignored a poor beggar named Lazarus who was outside his gate. They both die, and the rich man goes to Hades, while Lazarus is "carried" by angels to "Abraham's side," a Jewish way of talking about what we would call heaven.

The rich man then asks Abraham to have Lazarus get him some water, because he is "in agony in this fire."

People in h.e.l.l can communicate with people in bliss? The rich man is in the fire, and he can talk? He's surviving?

Abraham tells him it's not possible for Lazarus to bring him water. The rich man then asks that Lazarus be sent to warn his family of what's in store for them. Abraham tells him that's not necessary, because they already have that message in the scriptures. The man continues to plead with Abraham, insisting that if they could just hear from someone who came back from the dead, they would change their ways, to which Abraham replies, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

And that's the story.

Notice that the story ends with a reference to resurrection, something that was going to happen very soon with Jesus himself. This is crucial for understanding the story, because the story is about Jesus's listeners at that moment. The story, for them, moves from then then to to now. now. Whatever the meaning was for Jesus's first listeners, it was directly related to what he was doing right there in their midst. Whatever the meaning was for Jesus's first listeners, it was directly related to what he was doing right there in their midst.

Second, note what it is the man wants in h.e.l.l: he wants Lazarus to get him water. When you get someone water, you're serving them.

The rich man wants Lazarus to serve him.

In their previous life, the rich man saw himself as better than Lazarus, and now, in h.e.l.l, the rich man still still sees himself as above Lazarus. It's no wonder Abraham says there's a chasm that can't be crossed. The chasm is the rich man's heart! It hasn't changed, even in death and torment and agony. He's still clinging to the old hierarchy. He still thinks he's better. sees himself as above Lazarus. It's no wonder Abraham says there's a chasm that can't be crossed. The chasm is the rich man's heart! It hasn't changed, even in death and torment and agony. He's still clinging to the old hierarchy. He still thinks he's better.

The gospel Jesus spreads in the book of Luke has as one of its main themes that Jesus brings a social revolution, in which the previous systems and hierarchies of clean and unclean, sinner and saved, and up and down don't mean what they used to. G.o.d is doing a new work through Jesus, calling all people to human solidarity. Everybody is a brother, a sister. Equals, children of the G.o.d who shows no favoritism.

To reject this new social order was to reject Jesus, the very movement of G.o.d in flesh and blood.

This story about the rich man and Lazarus was an incredibly sharp warning for Jesus's audience, particularly the religious leaders who Luke tells us were listening, to rethink how they viewed the world, because there would be serious consequences for ignoring the Lazaruses outside their gates. To reject those Lazaruses was to reject G.o.d.

What a brilliant, surreal, poignant, subversive, loaded story.

And there's more.

Jesus teaches again and again that the gospel is about a death that leads to life. It's a pattern, a truth, a reality that comes from losing your life and then finding it. This rich man Jesus tells us about hasn't yet figured that out. He's still clinging to his ego, his status, his pride-he's unable to let go of the world he's constructed, which puts him on the top and Lazarus on the bottom, the world in which Lazarus Lazarus is serving is serving him. him.

He's dead, but he hasn't died.

He's in Hades, but he still hasn't died died the kind of death that actually brings life. the kind of death that actually brings life.

He's alive in death, but in profound torment, because he's living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that's worth living.

A pause, to recover from that last sentence.

How do you communicate a truth that complex and multilayered? You tell a nuanced, shocking story about a rich man and a poor man, and you throw in gruesome details about dogs licking his sores, and then you tell about a ma.s.sive reversal in their deaths in which the rich man in h.e.l.l has the ability to converse with Abraham, the father of the faith. And then you end it all with a twist about resurrection, a twist that is actually a hint about something about to happen in real history soon after this parable is told.

Brilliant, just brilliant.

There's more. The plot of the story spins around the heart of the rich man, who is a stand-in for Jesus's original audience. Jesus shows them the heart of the rich man, because he wants them to ask probing questions about their own hearts. It's a story about an individual, but how does the darkness of that individual's heart display itself?

He fails to love his neighbor.

In fact, he ignores his neighbor, who spends each day outside his gate begging for food, of which the rich man has plenty. It's a story about individual sin, but that individual sin leads directly to very real suffering at a societal level. If enough rich men treated enough Lazaruses outside their gates like that, that could conceivably lead to a widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Imagine.

Some people are primarily concerned with systemic evils-corporations, nations, and inst.i.tutions that enslave people, exploit the earth, and disregard the welfare of the weak and disempowered. Others are primarily concerned with individual sins, and so they focus on personal morality, individual patterns, habits, and addictions that prevent human flourishing and cause profound suffering.

Some pa.s.s out pamphlets that explain how to have peace with G.o.d; some work in refugee camps in war zones. Some have radio shows that discuss particular interpretations of particular Bible verses; others work to liberate women and children from the s.e.x trade.

Often the people most concerned about others going to h.e.l.l when they die seem less concerned with the h.e.l.ls on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the h.e.l.ls on earth right now seem the least concerned about h.e.l.l after death.

What we see in Jesus's story about the rich man and Lazarus is an affirmation that there are all kinds of h.e.l.ls, because there are all kinds of ways to resist and reject all that is good and true and beautiful and human now, in this life, and so we can only a.s.sume we can do the same in the next.

There are individual h.e.l.ls, and communal, society-wide h.e.l.ls, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously.

There is h.e.l.l now, and there is h.e.l.l later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously.

___________________.

So what about the pa.s.sages in the Bible that don't specifically mention the word "h.e.l.l," but clearly talk about judgment and punishment?

First, a political answer, then a religious answer, and then we'll look at a few of those pa.s.sages.

Jesus lived in an incredibly volatile political climate. His native Israel had been conquered once again by another military superpower, this time the Roman Empire. Roman soldiers were everywhere, patrolling the streets, standing guard over the temple in Jerusalem, reminding everybody of their conquest and power. There were a number of Jesus's contemporaries who believed that the only proper response to this outrage was to pick up swords and declare war.

Many in the crowds that followed Jesus a.s.sumed that he at some point would become one of those leaders, driving the Romans out of their land. But Jesus wasn't interested. He was trying to bring Israel back to its roots, to its divine calling to be a light to the world, showing the nations just what the redeeming love of G.o.d looks like. And he was confident that this love doesn't wield a sword. To respond to violence with more violence, according to Jesus, is not the way of G.o.d. We find him in his teachings again and again inviting his people to see their role in the world in a whole new way. As he says at one point, those who "draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matt. 26).

And so he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, weeping because he realizes that they just don't get it. They're unable to see just what their insistence on violent revolt is going to cost them. He continually warns them how tragic the suffering will be if they actually try to fight Rome with the methods and mind-set of Rome.

When he warns of the "coming wrath," then, this is a very practical, political, heartfelt warning to his people to not go the way they're intent on going.

The Romans, he keeps insisting, will crush you.

The tragedy in all of this is that his warnings came true. In the great revolt that began in 66 CE CE, the Jews took up arms against the Romans-who eventually crushed them, grinding the stones of their temple into dust.

Because of this history, it's important that we don't take Jesus's very real and prescient warnings about judgment then then out of context, making them about someday, somewhere else. That wasn't what he was talking about. out of context, making them about someday, somewhere else. That wasn't what he was talking about.

Now, a religious answer that begins with a question: Who is Jesus talking to? In general, in the Gospels and the stories about what he did, where he went, and what he said, who is he talking to most of the time?

Other than interactions with a Roman centurion and a woman by the well in Samaria and a few others, he's talking to very devoted, religious Jews. He's talking to people who saw themselves as G.o.d's people. Light of the world, salt of the earth, all that. His audience was people who were "in." Believers, redeemed, devoted, pa.s.sionate, secure in their knowledge that they were G.o.d's chosen, saved, covenant people.

Many people in our world have only ever heard h.e.l.l talked about as the place reserved for those who are "out," who don't believe, who haven't "joined the church." Christians talking about people who aren't Christians going to h.e.l.l when they die because they aren't . . . Christians. People who don't believe the right things.

But in reading all of the pa.s.sages in which Jesus uses the word "h.e.l.l," what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn't his point. He's often not talking about "beliefs" as we think of them-he's talking about anger and l.u.s.t and indifference. He's talking about the state of his listeners' hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.

Jesus did not use h.e.l.l to try and compel "heathens" and "pagans" to believe in G.o.d, so they wouldn't burn when they die. He talked about h.e.l.l to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their G.o.d-given calling and ident.i.ty to show the world G.o.d's love.

This is not to say that h.e.l.l is not a pointed, urgent warning or that it isn't intimately connected with what we actually do believe, but simply to point out that Jesus talked about h.e.l.l to the people who considered themselves "in," warning them that their hard hearts were putting their "in-ness" at risk, reminding them that whatever "chosen-ness" or "election" meant, whatever special standing they believed they had with G.o.d was always, only, ever about their being the kind of transformed, generous, loving people through whom through whom G.o.d could show the world what G.o.d's love looks like in flesh and blood. G.o.d could show the world what G.o.d's love looks like in flesh and blood.

___________________.

Now, on to the pa.s.sages that seem to be talking about h.e.l.l, but don't mention it specifically. Let's start with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the poster cities for deviant sinfulness run amok. In Genesis 19 we read that the city of Sodom has so lost its way, "the outcry to the LORD against its people is so great," that burning sulfur rains down from the heavens, "destroying all those living in the cities-and also the vegetation in the land." against its people is so great," that burning sulfur rains down from the heavens, "destroying all those living in the cities-and also the vegetation in the land."

"Early the next morning Abraham . . . looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah . . . and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace."

And so for thousands of years the words "Sodom and Gomorrah" have served as a warning, an ominous sign of just what happens when G.o.d decides to judge swiftly and decisively.

But this isn't the last we read of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The prophet Ezekiel had a series of visions in which G.o.d shows him what's coming, including the promise that G.o.d will "restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters" and they will "return to what they were before" (chap. 16).

Restore the fortunes of Sodom?

The story isn't over for Sodom and Gomorrah?

What appeared to be a final, forever, forever, smoldering, smoking verdict regarding their destiny . . . wasn't? smoldering, smoking verdict regarding their destiny . . . wasn't?

What appeared to be over, isn't.

Ezekiel says that where there was destruction there will be restoration.

But that still isn't the last we hear of these two cities. As Jesus travels from village to village in Galilee, calling people to see things in a whole new way, he encounters great resistance in some areas, especially among the more religious and devout. In Matthew 10, he warns the people living in the village of Capernaum, "It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you."

More bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah?

He tells highly committed, pious, religious people that it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than them on judgment day?

There's still hope?

And if there's still hope for Sodom and Gomorrah, what does that say about all of the other Sodoms and Gomorrahs?

___________________.

This story, the one about Sodom and Gomorrah, isn't the only place we find this movement from judgment to restoration, from punishment to new life.

In Jeremiah 32, G.o.d says, "I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety."

Israel had been exiled, sent away, "banished" to a foreign land, the result of G.o.d's "furious anger and great wrath." But there's a point to what the prophet interprets and understands to be G.o.d's "anger and wrath." It's to teach the people, to correct them, to produce something new in them.

In Jeremiah 5, the prophet says, "You crushed them, but they refused correction." That's the point, according to the prophet, of the crushing. To bring about correction.

According to the prophets, G.o.d crushes, refines, tests, corrects, chastens, and rebukes- but always with a purpose.

No matter how painful, brutal, oppressive, no matter how far people find themselves from home because of their sin, indifference, and rejection, there's always the a.s.surance that it won't be this way forever. forever.