Last week, I got this query:

Hello Anna,

As I walked to work this morning I saw posters for a “Hell-oween” event…I called the number on the poster and learned that it is going to be a haunted house similar to “Hell House”  which highlights “real-life” terror such as abortion, suicide, homosexuality, etc.

I am concerned, and frustrated. You can’t argue, you can’t call them out publicly, but at the same time I can’t just sit here.

What would your response be? As a human I fear for the teenagers that enter on Friday night and walk out with such intense, misguided understandings.

First, I apologize that I am only now getting to it: sick kids have dominated my thoughts this past week, and their yuck has been frightful enough!

I know of these houses.

Whenever I disagree with somebody, I try to get into their mindset.  It’s a trained habit, forcing me to move out of a reptilian, amygdala-fired reactionary frenzy and toward a thoughtful, perhaps even mindful, consideration of what is being presented and why.

It’s practiced caritas.

So, in the spirit of charity (which stems etymologically from the word caritas), people who create these houses of horror think that they are saving souls.  They think that if people would only “have eyes to see” the eternal consequences of their “immoral” choices, they would abstain and therefore regain their place in heaven.

While many of us find this “evangelism technique” distressing (to say the least) many of us would not hesitate, say, sending our children to a talk against drunk driving given by someone terribly maimed by their decision to do just that.  It’s not Schadenfreude, but rather cause-and-effect made manifest with the goal of averting disaster.

How much more, they figure, ought we literally scare the hell out of people?

We are doing it for their own good!

And let’s face it: it gets people’s attention.

Young people’s impressionable attention in particular.

But here’s the thing about young people: they are in the process of maturing.

And they are ripe (that’s the meaning of the word ‘mature’) for owning their own opinions, their own beliefs.

They are beginning the process of emancipation from the obligatory acceptance of Authority’s opinion, a move which frees them to learn not only that there are other ways of thinking about matters, but that it is acceptable to think!

And so I see these houses as an opportunity to empower them with the gift of some questions at exactly this fortuitous moment in their development into adults.

These questions, for example, aren’t a bad place to begin:

1. Where in Scripture does one see this notion of God’s desire to eternally damn people?

2. What is going on in those texts, and in the time in which those text were written?

3. Where do you see in Scripture contrary notions of God?

In other words, what does a teenager love to do as much as anything, but question authority?

And these houses try to gain authority by scaring the hell out of them.

So the teen has an opportunity to own what they believe, and why they believe it.

They also have the opportunity to learn how arguments are made.

Those who use this approach to make someone come to their understanding of God use coercion via fear as a primary tool.

“Believe or die” can be effective…though the integrity of the effect is questionable.

And so here are more questions:

1. Why use fear as a way to convince people to act or believe in a certain way?

2. How does fear as a catalyst for belief shape the nature of the end-result belief?

3. How does this method reflect the group’s/person’s understanding of God’s essence, or at least God’s way of engaging?

And then I wouldn’t hesitate asking yet another set of questions:

1. Why these terrors?

2. What do they seem to have in common?

3. What sort of terror might those who consider having abortions, or those who have suicidal thoughts, or those who fear coming out, be experiencing here and now?

4.How might we be complicit in their terror?

5. What of other terrors like starving children, the ill, the destitute?  Or of terrors such as greed, monopoly of power, of apathy, of ignorance?

6. Are we as ready to offer help and compassion as we are to condemn?

In short, it seems to me like these “Houses of Horror” are horrible indeed.

But for different reasons than they like to think.

And one can redeem them by inviting those who might be influenced by them to steer clear of the anxiety they produce, to remain calm, and to ask the questions.

One more thing:

Today is Reformation Day.

The key piece of the Reformation is that we are saved by grace and not by works.

That also suggests that we are also not damned by them either.

And it seems to me that that notion, the notion of grace for all, is more frightful to some then hell.

Maybe across the street from your friendly neighborhood “Hell-oween,” you could hold a Counter-Event , a “House of Heaven,” on All Saints’ Day, tomorrow.  You could call it, “Hello, even’ you?”

I’ll stick with my day job.

Dang.

There’s always gotta be one in the crowd who listens and then in their free time chases something that bugs them.

So this fine woman sent me this question because she participated in Family Camp at Outlaw Ranch, near Custer, South Dakota. (Insert shameless Outlaw Ranch plug.  ELCA bishop Dave Zellmer and I are leading camp again over the week of July 4th, 2012, aided by the musical talents of Paul Tietjan. It’s way fun, and so you should sign up.  Info is here.)

And I went off on my radical grace schtick.

And she went off and found her Bible.

It has been said that systematic theologians read more about the Bible than the Bible.

Perhaps.

But the Bible is always read with an interpretive bent: the question is whether that bent is manifest or latent.

I just happen to have a manifest bent because I get to be a systematic theologian.

And my bent is Easter.

That’s key to mention at the outset.

That means that my way of thinking through scripture is not to believe that it is literally true, for example.  (Why that is so is another question, but the blogs I’ve written here and here and here might give a hint). Instead, I believe that the defining event for Christians is that Jesus is no longer dead.  So everything is seen and read and thought about through that lens.

Death, in all its forms, doesn’t win.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the text. The part you’re most curious about is italicized at the tail end, but is informed by the beginning and middle of the really really long section below.

13That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.²Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. ³And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow.⁴And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. ⁵Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil.⁶But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. ⁷Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹Let anyone with ears listen!” ¹⁰Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” ¹¹He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. ¹²For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. ¹³The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ ¹⁴With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. ¹⁵For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’ ¹⁶But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. ¹⁷Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.¹⁸“Hear then the parable of the sower. ¹⁹When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. ²⁰As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. ²²As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. ²³But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

²⁴He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” ³¹He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³²it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” ³³He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” ³⁴Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. ³⁵This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.” ³⁶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.⁴⁰Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴²and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

I’m going to turn to two sources here: Robert Farrar Capon and Brian Stoffregen.

The first time I came across Capon was when I was a student at St. Olaf.

My English professor came into my classroom with a cookbook in hand.  He sat down, and said, “I must read to you from this cookbook.” And he proceeded to relay Capon’s essay “The Heavenly Onion” taken from The Supper of the Lamb. (Wish I could find a link to the text, but I can’t. Tons of references to it, but no actual text.  Please send one if you know of one!).  My professor had tears in his eyes, either because Capon’s writing was so moving, or because Capon’s writing was so vivid that the virtual onion caused his eyes to water!

Capon, an Episcopalian priest as well as gourmet, has written a three-volume series about the parables.  It’s brilliant. The Parables of the Kingdom, The Parables of Grace, and The Parables of Judgment have all shaped me and my way of thinking through Scripture.

In his text The Parables of the Kingdom (note, not the Parables of Judgment), Capon tackles the text.

He gets pleasantly hung up on the Greek word aphete, which can be translated as “let,” “permit,” “suffer,” (!).  In this context, the sense is that the wheat and the weeds ought to grow together.

But then he brings us on an etymological journey, and instructs us that not only does the word lend itself to that meaning, but is also translated as “forgive!” Poking around in the King James Version, Capon says that 47 of the 156 versions of aphienai find their way into some form of the word “forgive.” (106).

As far as Capon is concerned, this implies that (note the snarkines in his writing below–has anyone else noticed that word surfacing more and more as of late?  I like it. Capon’s snarky):

On the basis of the parable as told, the farmer has announced, publicly and in advance (do you seriously think the servants told nobody about his crazy plan to leave the weeds alone?) that his enemy is quite free to come back any night he chooses and sow any weeds he likes.  Not just more zizania [weeds], but purslane, dock, bindweed, pigweed, or even–when he finally runs out of seriously mischievous ideas–New Zealand spinach.

There is more.  On the basis of Jesus’ ministry as lived and died, God has announced the very same thing.  No enemy–not the devil, not you, not me, and not anybody else–is going to get it in the neck, in this life, for any evil he has done…

And then there’s the clincher.  On the basis of jesus’ ministry as risen, there is no change in that policy.  He comes forth from the tomb and ascends into heaven with nail prints in his hands and feet and a spear wound in his risen side–with eternal, glorious scars to remind God, angels, and us that he is not about to go back on his word from the cross.” (108-109)

Capon is not oblivious to that final verse: you know, that bit about the weeds being collected and burned.

He has a couple of things to say here:

1) Proportionately, the parable is about the aphesis of evil, “not about the avenging of it.”

2) God gave us what we want.  A little fear-inducing, behavior-shaping, yikes-y stuff.  But with it, he writes: “The human race is hooked on eschatology [notions about the endtimes]: give us one drag on it, and we proceed to party away our whole forgiven life in fantasies about a final score-settling session that none of us, except for forgiveness, could possibly survive” (109-110). And then:

When we dwell too simplistically on the Final Judgment, we almost always picture it as the day when God finally takes off the gloves of mystery with which he has so far handled with world and gives his enemies a decisive taste of eschatological bare knuckles.  That image, however, leaves one important truth out of account: the judgment occurs only after the general resurrection of the dead.  And since the resurrection of the dead (of the just and the unjust alike) is something that happens to them solely by virtue of  Jesus’ resurrection–about which we have very little unparadoxial information–we should be very slow to imagine scenarios for it that are based on simplistic extrapolations of our present experience.  Everything that happens after the second coming of Jesus–judgment, heaven, and even hell–happens within the triumphantly reconciling power of his death and resurrection.  We simply don’t know how or to what degree that power affects the eschatological situation.

Take, for example, the question of whether we are in a position to discuss the meaning or even the possibility of ultimate human rejection of the reconciliation.  To be sure, Scripture says clearly enough that the sovereign, healing power of Jesus can and will be refused by some.  I have no problem with that.  What I do object to, however, are the hell-enthusiasts who act as if God’s whole New Testament method of dealing with evil will, in the last day, simply go back to some Old Testament “square one”–as if Jesus hadn’t done a blessed or merciful thing in between, and as if we could, therefore skip all the paradoxes of mercy when we talk about hte Last Day and simply concentrate on plain old gun-barrel justice.” (113-114).

Let me be clear: I could quote Capon all day, but you would stop reading.  His lawyers might not, however, and I’d get in a mess of trouble for breaches of copyright.

But I’m sorely tempted to quote him ad nauseum because Capon understands mystery and he understands grace and he sees that Easter makes all the difference in the world.

So does Brian Stoffregen.  He’s a Lutheran pastor who writes illuminating textual notes on the weekly Gospel verses.  You can find his insight and honest, well-written prose here.  Here he writes on the parable-at-hand (I know it’s a long excerpt, but if you’re into grace and humility, here’s some good fodder for you):

I notice that the angels collect “out of his kingdom”. Earlier the field was defined as “the world” (kosmos, v. 38). Does Jesus/Matthew intend us to think that “his kingdom” is the same as “the world,” or, as I’ve discovered in other passages, there is a greater judgment for those on the inside, who don’t measure up in some way.

Those that are gathered for punishment are defined as “all causes of sin” and “all evildoers” (NRSV). These need further comments.

“causes of sin” is skandala. This word originally referred to a trap — most likely the type held up by a stick; then, metaphorically, to something that causes a person to be trapped, caught, be stuck where they don’t want to be — that is something that was offensive to them. Finally, came to refer to things that tempted others to stray or sin. The word is used three times in Matthew (once in Luke and no occurrences in Mark or John).

On one hand, especially with the verb, skandalizo, there is the sense that such things have to be removed, e.g., if a part of your body causes you to sin, remove it (5:29, 30; 18:6, 8, 9). The noun is used three times in 18:7 to refer to the dangers of being a cause of sin to others.

Besides seeing “causes of sin” as people within the community who are leading others astray, they could also be within each individual — parts of us that remain under the power of sin and continually tempt us to stray away from the faithful life. The parable suggests that the day will come will all of that will be destroyed. Then, we, as truly and fully righteous will shine like the sun. To use Luther’s terms, presently we are simultaneous sinner and saint; but the day will come with the “sinner” part will be removed and destroy. All that will be left is the saintly part.

The other use of the noun presents an interesting problem. In 16:23 Jesus turns and says to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Similarly, the verb is used of the disciples in 26:31: “Then Jesus said to them, “You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

Peter and the disciples are “causes of sin,” but will they be gathered and thrown into the blazing furnace?

Perhaps we can say that they deserve that kind of punishment, but by God’s grace they don’t receive it.

“all evildoers” is more literally “the ones doing lawlessness”. They are those living as though there were no law. Matthew has made it clear that Jesus came to fulfill the law (5:17-18) not to do away with it. (I might phrase it, “He came to restore the law to its proper uses.”) My hunch is that there may have been some within Matthew’s community who proclaimed that the law no longer applied to them, and lived without it. For Matthew, “lawlessness” is not just outward acts, but one can be “lawless” inwardly (23:28), perhaps not inwardly wanting to obey the law, but putting on an outward show of obedience.

The images of “furnace of fire” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” seem to be Matthian. Only Matthew uses “furnace” (kaminos) as a picture of punishment (13:42, 50). (Its other uses are Rev 1:15; 9:2).

It is used often in the OT as a picture of refinement (Is 48:10; Sir 2:5; 27:5; 31:26) — so this text could be interpreted as refining those who are in the kingdom. They are purged of all the sins and lawlessness that is within them through the fires of God’s judgment.

The phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth” occurs six times in Matthew (8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30) and once in Luke (13:28), and no where else in the NT. Thus, it seems to be a strong emphasis in Matthew.

What I find interesting about Matthew’s six uses is that those who will weep and gnash their teeth, all seem to have been “insiders”!

• 8:12 it is the “heirs of the kingdom” (probably Jews vs. many from east and west)
• 13:42 some from “out of his kingdom”
• 13:50 evil from righteous, but both are “caught in the same net”
• 22:13 someone at the wedding banquet, but not wearing the wedding robe
• 24:51 wicked slave (as a slave, he was part of the household)
• 25:30 worthless slave (as a slave, he was part of the household)

It seems to me that this harsh judgment is uttered against those within the community of faith, but who fail to bear the proper fruit of living in Christ. As was true in the OT, God’s harshest judgments were pronounced against his own people. So, too, Matthew does in his gospel.

So Capon and Stoffregen do not deny that there is judgment in this story.

They do deny that it need be ultimate.

And that’s where I’m at too.

I have never said that one can’t find texts that suggest the possibility/probability/assured existence of eternal damnation.

I have said that a) there are other texts that would dispute that assertion; and b) I think Easter trumps any text that trumpets eternal damnation.

I think God’s ultimate agenda is reconciliation.

It is aphete.

And aphete does not preclude judgement.

Instead, it comes before, during, and after it.

It’s precisely what makes judgement–with the aim of restoring, or refining–possible.

Even to those within the Christian community.

And that’s mysterious grace for sure.

I hope that that aided in your thinking about the text!

And I hope you sign up for our week next year again.

Pax.

So in the spirit of candor, this question really was intended to be a comment on this blog, “Reader Question: God of the OT Really Be God of the New?  Spin it for me.”

But it raises such good questions, that it demands a spin-off blog of its own.

I like that you are wanting a more “practical explanation” of what Christians believe was Jesus’ voluntary death for the sake of others.

Because whatever else you can say about Jesus, his message is not overtly practical.

The thought you have posed above also crossed the mind of the Apostle Paul.  Take a look below at the excerpt from Romans 5.  I know that it’s a large chunk of text.  Best to read through the whole thing, but if you don’t want to, just note the bolded part.

5Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.⁹Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.¹¹But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. ¹²Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— ¹³sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. ¹⁴Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. ¹⁵But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. ¹⁶And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. ¹⁷If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. ¹⁸Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. ¹⁹For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

That’s the text I’m going to use as a reference point for your question.

So let’s have at it.

These feminist theologian’s shoulders get a bit tight when you write that you can’t understand “the meaning of giving up your only son to save a bunch of sinners.”

You come by the idea honestly!  It’s everywhere in Christian theology.

I’m just not so sure that it’s accurate, at least insofar as it goes.

Feminist theologians worry–and let me be clear, male theologians are also feminist theologians!–that such language fosters the idea that God is an abusive father, a being who willingly had his son killed, and just passively and apathetically sat aside as Jesus suffered.

These theologians want to quickly point out that God didn’t stick Jesus up on the cross.

People did.

That is, Jesus’ dedication to God’s agenda of commitment to the poor, and hungry, and powerless, and outcasts, and (per your question) sinners, ticked people off, and got him in a mess of trouble.

So the way we tend to handle those who threaten our level of comfort and privilege and power is to get rid of them.

Which is precisely what happened to Jesus.  (Even if you don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah, you can agree that that’s why he got killed.)

He had friends in low places.

Why did he do it? Why did he live in a way that was sure to get him killed?

Well, lots of ways to consider that.

The Old and New Testaments are pretty darn consistent in telling of a God who strives for reconciliation over judgment, and forgiveness over condemnation.

On paper, this makes no sense, as you point out.

But have you ever loved anybody, in spite of yourself?

Have you ever been loved, in spite of yourself?

Love is not reasonable.

The thing about God is this: God covets wholeness; individual and collective wholeness.

God knows that we are not right unless we are all alright.

Part of our difficulty (because you are in good company: we US Americans have an especially hard time wrapping our minds around this) in imagining God “saving a bunch of sinners” is because we are used to people deserving what they get.

(As an aside, again, I think it fascinating that we here in the good old USA seem yet to believe that health insurance is a right tied to being employed rather than a right tied to being human.  That is, our policies implicitly make clear that those who have jobs–and especially well-paying ones at that–deserve to receive cancer treatments, surgeries, ER care more than those who do not have jobs and are not self-sufficient.)

By definition, grace, as I’ve said before, means that which is given precisely to those who don’t deserve it.  If someone deserved it, they’d be getting something, but it wouldn’t be grace.

A reward, perhaps.

Brownie points.

But not grace.

But this commitment to grace, or to wholeness and reconciliation, does not mean that one’s tragic choices, choices that cause pain to others and to one’s self, don’t matter.

They do matter.

Profoundly, they matter.

A loud and clear “NO,” and manifest (sometimes painful) consequences can also be manifest grace.  Saying, “This is not o.k.  And choices on your part lead to choices on the part of others, on the part of me” is difficult, risky, and can place one in positions of grave vulnerability, isolation, and may well lead to the severance of relationships.

The hope is that the NO is not the final word.

The NO is spoken within the bracket of YES, I love you.  YES, we are striving for wholeness.  YES, we know that you are more than these choices.

Sometimes it even works.

You see, grace does not mean that there is no comeuppance.

Forgiveness does not mean that what occurred was acceptable or forgettable.

And while there are several examples in Scripture where forgiveness is given when no repentance is extended, repentance, confession, humble offering of heart in hand, can be very cleansing.

It might not change the breach, but it can acknowledge it.

And that acknowledgement might even be more beneficial to the perpetrator than to the one harmed.

To boot, it is possible that the one harmed might even discover that what had once seemed so black and white, might not be.  Perhaps she or he even contributed to the grey.

(Makes me think of that Jewish observation that even God needs to be forgiven.  That is, what a set-up!  An imperfect world is created in which there is often no correct answer and we are held liable?  What’s up with that?)

I digress, but only a bit.

The point isn’t that the choice doesn’t matter, is inconsequential, is overlookable.

The point is that the choice is not ultimate.

It is not final.

It is not definitive.

So Christians identify themselves primarily by Easter, an event which makes it clear that God’s agenda is life.  Death is powerful, but is not more powerful than God’s promise of bringing life out of it.

It would be interesting to consider whether Easter is God’s confession and repentance.

Hmmm.  Typing out loud, which is generally a bad idea.

Anyway, let’s get back to Paul, who said in verse 18, “Just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.”

As my mentor Walt Bouman said in his last sermon, “I take it that when Paul said ‘all‘ he meant all!”

So where there is death, God rolls up the divine sleeves and gets to work to bring about life, and new beginnings.

So just as a physician does not treat the well, so God does not offer life to the alive.

In other words, it might be practical after all.

That is, who needs the grace but the sinner, the one who doesn’t deserve it?

Perhaps that’s why Paul writes that God proves God’s love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died, with the end gain being that although we will still die, we will not be ultimately killed.

And again, as Walt wrote, now that you know that death doesn’t win, there is more to do with your life than preserve it.  This in turn frees us to become something new: not out of fear, not out of a disingenuous desire to keep our kiesters out of hell, but because we are loved into a new way of being.

And that’s got some practical traction.

Turns out, nobody has.

Or at least, no one whom anybody has noticed is gone missing.

Which you have to grant would be discouraging even in absentia.

To some, this threatened doomsday of May 21 might be old news.  But I’m still thinking it’s of the newsy sort; even more so now that it appears that we have been given until October until the reckoning.

Be it for libraries or reckonings, I’m all for grace periods.

Look at how the notion that the world could end garnered astonishing media coverage.  Reputable and questionable outlets alike splashed the impending disaster, not to mention faces of those who believed it to be imminent, across their front pages and home pages.

And as a personal aside, the next time I hear REM’s The End of the World as We Know It I will wish for sure that Jesus had come on May 21st.

A lion’s share of the attention, it ought not be missed, made Christians out–implicitly even those of us who did not buy into the May 21 rapture hype–into being righteous doofuses:

Look at these crazy Christians believing in this crazy myth.

Can they even think?

Can we have their abandoned cars?

Let’s admit it: these barbs might not be nuanced, but they are also not always so undeserved.

One could say.

I worry that a fairly healthy number of Christians know that we say that Jesus is coming back, but not why we say that, what we mean when we say that, nor how such a claim is any less crazy than people waiting to hop on a comet.

The only difference between those of us who believe that Jesus will return and those who believe Jesus will return on a certain day is that one group simply makes one additional madcap claim.

One could say.

Not only that, but there are numerous thoughtful questions that could be posed about the validity of the rapture idea alone, even without going so far as to name a date.

Like, when we say, “Thy kingdom come,” what sort of kingdom do we mean?  Come when?

Or like, doesn’t both the Old and New Testament witness of a God who expects–and frees–us to love mercy, feed the poor, forgive our enemies, and, for Christians, the witness of a God who says that life is more powerful than any imaginable death….doesn’t that witness suggest that if Jesus and Jesus’ followers were to be anywhere, it would be precisely with those left behind…assuming any would be left behind at all?

Or like, why is there such fear, such anxiety associated with this promised End Time?  (I heard some time ago a quip: Jesus is coming!  Quick!  Look busy!)

I’m not naive: I know and respect that many religious traditions believe that we need to “accept Jesus” before he comes, or need to repent, need to be clean.  But there are many people who proclaim things such as “we cannot save ourselves” (yes, fellow Lutherans, that part is for you) who find themselves shaking in their shoes and pews at the thought of Jesus coming.

Why is that?  Do we believe in grace, or not, and/or under what circumstances?

And, looming judgment day or not, could it not be said that death is not exactly a particular surprise?  And given that, to use my mentor Walt Bouman’s words, is now there not more to do with our lives than preserve them?

Temporally or eternally?

That is, could it not be said that we really have nothing to lose?

And given that, we have everything to give?

So this one might sneak up on you a bit:

I think that the whole notion of picking a date upon which Jesus will come again–well-calibrated according to scripture and the stars even so–is unhelpful, misguided, and poorly intentioned–let alone the product of multiple grave and unfortunate misinterpretations (not least of all that of the Scripture which states that nobody knows of “that day” except “the Father.” My New Testament prof Mark Allen Powell asserted, whenever anybody says that on such-and-such a day Jesus will come again, you can darn well be sure its not gonna be that day).

However, I do respect the dedication to their faith displayed by those who are willing to live utterly in the trust of their interpretation of God’s action.

There’s much to be gleaned from that.

Many years ago, a friend of mine wrote a paper he shared with me, a deal about the movie Field of Dreams as a mirror for the craziness of claiming Christianity.  I can’t watch it even yet today without seeing it through his eyes.  Ray Kinsella gives up everything to quite publicly do the insane: plow under his field.  Even Patsy Cline makes an appearance, singing “Crazy” in the background.

It made no sense.

Ray Kinsella made no sense.

Until a person got caught up in his alternate reality.

And then they found it astonishing that anybody could not see what they saw, clear as day.

Now.

I’ve got troubles, pretty decent theological troubles, with what these adherents to doomsday predictions put out there, and why they put them out there, and on what bases they put them out there.  And there is dire risk if one believes myopically, with no interest in engaging the possibility that one might be wrong.

Lots of dictators, terrorists, and simply mean-spirited people are awfully passionate.

And one can’t pass over the fact that Harold Camping and many of his followers have caused full-blown panic to rise in easily-swayed, vulnerable people.

So that is not o.k.

But that said, there is something admirable about total commitment, total dedication, and total passion, even when the rest of the world looks at you and says, “You’re crazy.”

Like Terence Mann said to Ray in Field of Dreams: “I wish I had your passion, Ray… Misdirected though it might be, it is still a passion.”

And perhaps that’s another reason that we gawk at those who did the apparently crazy: we wish we had it in us to throw ourselves into our convictions with equal abandon.

Upshot is this: Perhaps rather than focusing on “being raptured” or “being left behind,” Christians could instead focus on what we do with our lives now that that there is more to do than preserve them.

Maybe we could even instead direct our focus toward those who already feel as if they are left behind.

Perhaps we could give some defined flesh and blood to those words, “thy kingdom come,” and do it with passionate abandon.

Crazy.

We’re approaching the end of the tale, and knowing what will happen in just a few page flips, I have my kleenex box at the ready.

Last night, we read the chapter “Easter.”  Leslie, the doomed girl who has no church background, was invited to go to church with Jess and his family on Easter.

After the service, while waiting for the rest of his family in the back of the pick-up, Jess, his six-year old sister May Belle, and Leslie debriefed the experience.  Leslie begins:

“That whole Jesus thing is really interesting, isn’t it?”

“What d’you mean?”

“All those people wanting to kill him when he hadn’t done anything to hurt them.”  She hesitated.  ”It’s really kind of beautiful story–like Abraham Lincoln or Socrates–or Aslan.”

“It ain’t beautiful,” May Belle broke in.  ”It’s scary.  Nailing holes right through somebody’s hand.”

“May Belle’s right.”  Jess reached down into the deepest pit of his mind.  ”It’s because we’re all vile sinners God made Jesus die.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

He was shocked.  ”It’s in the Bible, Leslie.”

She looked at him as if she were going to argue, then seemed to change her mind.  ”It’s crazy, isn’t it?”  She shook her head.  ”You have to believe it, but you hate it.  I don’t have to believe it, and I think it’s beautiful.”  She shook her head again.  ”It’s crazy.”

May Belle had her eyes all squinched as though Leslie was some strange creature in a zoo.  ”You gotta believe the Bible, Leslie.”

“Why?”   It was a genuine question.  Leslie wasn’t being smarty.

“Cause if you don’t believe the Bible”–May Belle’s eyes were huge–”God’ll damn you to hell when you die.”

“Where’d she ever hear a thing like that?”  Leslie turned on Jess as though she were about to accuse him of some wrong he had committed against his sister.  He felt hot and caught by her voice and words.

He dropped his gaze to the gunnysack and began to fiddle with the raveled edge.

“That’s right, ain’t it Jess?”  May Belle’s shrill voice demanded.  ”Don’t God damn you to hell if you don’t believe the Bible?”

Jess pushed his hair out of his face.  ”I reckon,” he muttered.

“I don’t believe it,” Leslie said.  ”I don’t even think you’ve read the Bible.”

“I read most of it.”  Jess said, still fingering the sack.  ”S’bout the only book we got around our place.”  He looked up at Leslie and half-grinned.

She smiled. “OK,” she said.  ”But I still don’t think God goes around damning people to hell.”

They smiled at each other trying to ignore May Belle’s anxious little voice.  ”But Leslie,” she insisted.  ”What if you die?  What’s going to happen to you if you die?”

And, of course, she does.  And, of course Jess fears that she will go to hell.

Hell has been in the news quite a lot in recent days, what with the conversation drumming around this “gadfly” or “heretic” or “new leader” or “fresh air” (depending on your theological flavor and fervor) Rob Bell.

I confess that hell is a theological hurdle for me, and let me assure you, I have always been terrible at athletics, especially sports that demand coordination, so hurdles are particularly daunting.  But I keep backing up and taking another run at it, and last week Bell and Bridge gave me another reason to give it another go.

So May Belle is right–at least in part–that the Bible does speak about hell.

And the next move made by this little six-year-old and her big brother Jess is not a surprise, though at the same time shocking: if you don’t “believe in the Bible” God will damn you there.

Leslie smells something a bit “off” here.  ”‘I don’t believe it,” Leslie said.  ”I don’t even think you’ve read the Bible.’”

With this swift rejection, Leslie raises some interesting points:

How many people who say that they believe the Bible have read it?  What about the people who haven’t ever or at all? And what to do with a) the parts in the Bible (that they have presumably then read) that suggest universal welcome; b) the parts in the Bible (that they have presumably then read) that speak about such things as concubines and giving away everything and forgiving; c) Easter?

Part of my role as a systematic theologian is help people discern whether what they say about God over here is what they say about God over there and what they believe to be true about God over here is what can be substantiated about God over there.

And I can’t wrap my head around what hell has to say about God, ultimately.   What sort of God condemns people to eternal punishment, on what basis, and to what end?

And is hell reconcilable at all with the God revealed on Easter?  Are the references to hell congruent with the story of Easter?  Is the promise of hell more powerful than the promise of Easter?

See, it is interesting to me that in the story Bridge to Terabithia the conversation about hell takes place on Easter.  If one believes in hell, wouldn’t Easter have some effect on it, or on who is slated for arrival there?  Does a preacher who believes in hell preach differently on Easter than one who doesn’t?  Why did May Belle leave the service terrified?  Why did the dialogue have more to do with sinfulness and death (as if they had just left a Good Friday service) than grace and life?

It’s a key question, it seems to me, since we who are Christian call ourselves such precisely because of Easter, because we believe that Jesus is risen from the dead we believe that he was the Christ.

Perhaps there’s more to believe than just the Bible.

At the very least, perhaps there’s more to it than just believing the Bible.

Today is the first day of the season of Lent, Ash Wednesday.  I have seen numerous facebook “status” updates with a simple +:-), and saw a man at the store today with a smeared cross between his widow’s peak and his eyes.

Many of us are familiar with the phrase “We are dust, and to dust we shall return,” a phrase echoing about in churches and behind smudged foreheads many times today.

Regardless of whether one is a Christian or not, these words are true.

The question, as it relates to hell, is whether we are burned to ashes into perpetuity.

It is absolutely possible to make such a case.

It is not enough just to state it, though.  It is worth raising questions, like, on what basis? for what purpose? and by what sort of God?

The same sort of questions can be asked, of course, of those who hold a more universalistic view.

But depending on how you answer these questions, you will read Bridge differently, you will read Bell differently, and you will look at the ashes on your forehead differently, as either threat or promise; smeared despair or spread hope; cause of condemnation or basis for redemption, separation (even from oneself) or reconciliation (ditto), end of story or beginning of the new beginning.

And so to May Belle’s frightened question, “What if you die?” perhaps Leslie’s onto something.

“But I still don’t think God goes around damning people to hell.”

Because perhaps there’s more to it than just believing the Bible.

I was brought up being told that God is everywhere, and all powerful, that those who seek shall find, and that it is quite possible to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, while fearing no evil.

But this kind of teaching seems incongruous with the idea of holy places, or places that God is close to, his power and presence more tangible; places which are the peaks to those shadowy valleys.

I am confident that these places exist.

But that seems at odds with the idea that God is always there, always dependable.

I suppose there’s no reason to expect that God has an even spread, or an even affection for all places or times… but I still feel like I’m missing something, and have never been able to understand this.

What do you think?

Fantastic question, eloquently written, and stimulating to boot.

I’m going to take it in two directions.

First, I once heard of a parent of many children who was asked, “Do you have a favorite?”

The mother said, “Yes.  The sick one.”

That resonates with this mama.

And I think God might appreciate the story too.  That is, I think that God cares for all of God’s children, but is most concerned about those who are suffering.

There are good reasons to make this case, the cross being one of them.  It’s been said by Robert Farrar Capon that the only prerequisite to being raised from the dead is to be dead.  That is, God is in the business of giving life, and so where there is death, there is God.

Many theologians have talked about God’s predisposition toward the forsaken as it concerns poverty: God demonstrates preferential treatment of the poor–and so too God’s people (should).  For example, not to be lost is Luke’s point that just as the poor should be redeemed from their poverty, so too should the rich be redeemed from their poverty.

The point is, then, not that there are places where God is not, but that there are “pet” concerns of God, places and events that most fully reveal what God intends for the world.

The second way of thinking through is concerns more specifically place.  I know that this is more the gist of your question.  Still, the two themes overlap.  More on that in a moment.

The other day I was asked where I found God most of all in my day-to-day life.  I answered that I experience God most profoundly when I am snuggling with my two children before bed, reading with them and warming their feet with my legs wrapped around and over them.  There is a saturation in the air of love and joy in these moments, and I feel here most blessed.

Secondly, if I may say so, my study at OMG seems to have something of God in it, with the wood and the stone and the light and the books and my knowledge of sacred conversations that have and that will take place between these walls.  Some of those who have been here have said that they too feel that this place has a bit of the holy to it.

But naming these two spots also names that I think God is present more clearly in places unique to people’s experiences and relationships.  While I have fondness for other children, nothing captures my heart and gives me peace and announces blessing and grace than snuggling up to these two particular children.  God’s activity is not generic, but relates to and is evidenced in the relationship between specific places and people.

It’s here that I reached up to grab Walter Brueggemann’s terrific book called The Land.  In this volume Brueggemann (an Old Testament scholar of extraordinary brilliance and prose) writes about God’s relationship with the people of Israel and the land.

It is not a simple relationship.

Brueggemann is fascinated by the repeated cycle of landless people being promised land which then becomes lost because the people fixate on the land rather than on justice.  ”When the people are landless, the promise comes; but when the land is secured, it seduces and the people are turned toward loss.”  (175)  Land equals power which becomes more important than the one who bestowed the land in the first place–and more important than that One’s intention for the stewardship of that very same land.

Promise and land are intertwined in the biblical tradition.  Brueggemann points to Ezekiel 36:28 “You shall dwell in the land…you shall be my people, and I will be your God,” and Ezekiel 36:33 “I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt…I, the Lord, have replanted that which was desolate….”  (141)  One can see similar references in Psalm 69:35 (“For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it,”) and Isaiah 61:4-6 (“They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations,”) and Jeremiah 31:23-24 (“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I restore their fortunes: “‘The Lord bless you, O habitation of righteousness, O holy hill!’ And Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together, and the farmers and those who wander with their flocks.”).

God’s promises occur in and are about place, because God’s interaction with Israel must take place somewhere, and that somewhere is land.  Land is where God’s shared history with Israel occurs.  (142).  And with his typical poetry, Brueggemann writes that this promised land “is the restoration of livable turf.  The land is redivided to prisoners and other outcasts.  The land is gift given by the One who has pity (Hos. 2:23), who leads and guides (cf. Ps. 23:1-3).  The outcasts are given places and comforted.” (150).

In this way, land becomes a symbol for sustainability and sufficiency (with, yes, a nod to my ELCA tradition in their statement on economic justice).  As Brueggemann states:

It is clear that the land emphasis, which concerns transmission of the inheritance from generation to generation, places the faithful believer in the flow of the generations.  A focus on “now” decisions of faith is untenable because land must be cared for in sustained ways.  It is equally the case that the land possessed or the land promised is by definition a communal concern.  It will not do to make the individual person the unit of decision-making because in both Testaments the land possessed or promised concerns the whole people.  Radical decisions in obedience are of course the stuff of biblical faith, but now it cannot be radical decisions in a private world without brothers and sisters, without pasts and futures, without turf to be managed and cherished as a partner in the decisions.  The unit of decision-making is the community and that always with reference to the land.

…The central problem is not emancipation but rootage, not meaning but belonging, not separation from community but location within it, not isolation from others but placement deliberately between the generation of promise and fulfillment. (186-187).

Do you see how Brueggemann ties land to community?

Do you see the implications for stewardship of land?

water?

resources?

creatures on it?

people on it?

justice?

And here is a fundamental difference between the Jewish tradition and the Christian.

Jews focus on present justice, not, to be clear, because they have to, but because they live out of their relationship with God which calls them into communal well-being.  So, relevant to your question, land issues concern justice issues: is there justice going on in the land?

Christians have tended to spiritualize land.  ”The promised land” is now heaven.  We have a habit of turning our hearts and minds toward that place, and simultaneously turning our hearts and minds away from the desolation of the land–in all its forms–here and now.  We figure if heaven must be God’s focus, it ought to be ours too…at the expense, all too often, of the land.

That is, land, the earth, has become a stage upon which the human drama is played.  That drama often is fairly individualistic, concerning the interplay of “me and Jesus.”

The Lord’s Prayer is awfully Jewish, and awfully helpful here.  Note that the pronouns are all plural (that is, not “My father in heaven….give me this day my daily bread, forgive me my sins…), and that there is this noteworthy petition: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  Land, community, justice, and promise.

So, back to that question of yours:

Both/and.  God does have particular concern for particular places, and God’s presence is everywhere, because God cares about the land and the creatures on it.

That’s my first run-through.  Contributions, anyone?

I am very sad.

Ellie was the secretary in the foreign language department at St. Olaf College, where I went to school.  For some reason or another the work study gods smiled down on my blonde head instead of all the others on the Hill (maybe because my name doesn’t begin with Kris-something I got their attention), and they assigned me to her.

It sure didn’t seem like work, and even less so once Liz, Ellie’s sister showed up to secretary alongside her.  The three of us did get work done, but had we not enjoyed each other so much, perhaps a few more copies would have been made and letters printed and books delivered.

No matter.

Other important business was going on.  Our lives were touched and changed by each other, and for the better.

Ellie embodied mischief, good-heartedness, orneriness, laughter, principle, incorporated grief, kindness, and safety.

And for the record, I was awfully thankful that I was on her good side.

She died four years ago, and so I’m obviously tardy to the news.  I am sure I must have talked to her near the time she decided life was too much, and as I recall the long phone call, we laughed, got caught up, and promised to stay in touch.

So back in the day, the first day of every month, she and I would race to say “Rabbit Rabbit.”

It’s supposed to give you good luck if you say it before anyone else.

I’d never heard of the idea before Ellie but once I did, the game was on.  We orchestrated ways to beat the other to the line: leaving post-it notes on chair seats on the last day of the month before the office closed, sending a card in the campus post, leaving a voice mail to be the first one to claim victorious good luck even in absentia.

So when I looked at the calendar on February 1, habit compelled me to say “Rabbit Rabbit” to her, even in absentia.

I just didn’t realize how in absentia it was until I tried to track her down later that day.

I finally got a hold of a mutual friend of ours who broke the news to me via email.  This led me to finding Liz again on Facebook.  I asked her if I could write about dear Ellie on my blog, and she said yes, and I am so glad she did.

So this is a piece in honor of Ellie M.

She was feisty.

At one level, her suicide seems terribly incongruent with her feisty spirit.

And so when I read that she had died, before I got to the “I believe she took her own life” line, I figured it was those damn cigarettes she smoked (a topic I broached with her tentatively but earnestly….once).

But suicide?

So I’m trying to figure out what the ratio in my reaction of disbelief is: how much of my shock is due to her death, and how much to how she died.

And let me be clear: it is not judgment.  Many believe that suicide is the one unforgivable sin, because one can’t request forgiveness afterwards.

That’s hard for me to buy.

Walt Bouman pointed out that if that were true, then someone wanting to do themselves in would be wiser to jump off a bridge rather than shoot themselves, because at least one could bank on the time between the bridge and the water to ask for forgiveness.

It’s an almost obscene analogy, but it does beg the question, doesn’t it?

And really, how many sins do we commit with no knowledge of them?  Systemic evil, unintentional slights, consequences of addictions or abusive behaviors that we do not acknowledge or perceive?  Can we ever confess and repent of all of our sins?

Again, there is a reason we have the word, “grace.” It means something bestowed when it is not deserved, not earned, not expected.  The moment that you earn it you receive something and it is not grace.  It is a reward.

So no, I am not angry with her, and I do not fear for her soul.

But I am perplexed.  I am aching for those who knew her and loved her more than I.  I am sorry that I didn’t know of her pain and sadnesses.  I am wishing that she had not died alone.

And I am reminded of Camus, who said that suicide is the only important philosophical question.  Something must say “YES” to you to choose to live, for otherwise a “NO” is more powerful than the “YES,” in which case there is no longer any reason to live.

And so of course I am so grieving that she felt compelled toward suicide as a solution.

That said, I don’t believe that it is always so very conscious, when it gets to the point of “choosing” suicide.  I know enough of depression and brain chemicals and of unspeakable pain to know that sometimes the line between choice and desperate instinct is blurry.

I do not know many details of what lead up to Ellie concluding that the NO was more powerful than the YES.  She clearly felt that the NO was a NO to pain, to suffering, to grief, and the YES would have been to the same.

(Maybe, I say wryly to myself, she took Rabbit Rabbit to the extreme, and wanted to say it first in heaven.  I would have preferred a rented billboard into perpetuity, and would have conceded.

Most months.

And anyway, Ellie, the last shall be first, so there.)

I wish I could have been there to say “YES” to her, knowing that I am not alone in my wish, and wondering if a chorus of YESes would have made the difference anyway.

And I am also led to acknowledge, albeit ruefully, that to one facing great pain, “YES” seems trite, seems to overlook the real suffering that one is enduring, seems as obnoxiously helpful as “Just say no” is to an addict.

So Ellie has morphed from friend into symbol of the persistent presence of pain in our world, and how sometimes, despite protestations and heads in the sand and repeating-after-me’s that life wins, sometimes it doesn’t.

And that is sad.

And so today for me, four years ago for others, Ellie died, and so did a bit of the life in the world.  I have to give a win to the reality of NO, dammit.

But enough life is left in this world of ours to say YES to Ellie’s memory: her feisty kind mischievous funny sad warm memory, and to the memory of all those others who found themselves in the same dark spot as she.

And in that memory, I intend to steward those yeses, strewing them about like seeds, even into frozen tundras, in hopes that a bit of YES can melt a bit of NO.

So, in honor of Ellie, YES YES YES.

I save my ironing for Masterpiece Mystery on Sunday nights, and my laundry folding for PBSkids’ Ruff Ruffman after school.

(Side note: Did you happen to catch Sherlock Holmes last night?  Almost makes me hope that Jesus won’t come before the series is done, it was so good).

Since there is only so much tv that one can watch, and are only so many things a person can multi-task when watching tv, during my self-allotted 3 hours/week of mystery and Ruff, Jon gets short shrift.

So when my trusted FBFs give me a link I watch it, knowing that they will weed out what I don’t need to see (which only serves as a perverse justification that facebook saves me time).

This is the Jon Stewart clip that I got sucked into recently.

And conveniently, it is found highlighted in this marvelous blog sent to me from the Huffington Post, entitled, Religious People Must Rally to Restore Sanity.  The context of Paul Raushenbush’s piece is the lack of sane conversation in political discourse these days.  But he’s wanting to point out that it’s wanting in the religious world as well.

Listen to Raushenbush:

So what is sane religion? The word “sane” comes from the Latin sanus, which means “health” or “healing.” Sane religion, then, is religion that, regardless of differences in understandings of the Divine or metaphysical beliefs, promotes a healthy personal life and creates positive relationships among the people of the world. Sane religion is productive and allows for clear thinking and a mind free from rage, suspicion and hatred.

I can’t begin to tell you how convenient that is for me to make a pet theological point.

The New Testament word in Greek that is translated ‘salvation’ is soteria.  Take a look at the admirable Brian Stroffregen’s consideration of the Zacchaeus story in Luke 19:1-10 here.

The word “salvation” and its relative “saved” bring to mind heaven and hell, right?  Folks tend to understand them exclusively concerning what happens to a person post-death, the (hopeful) benefits of croaking.

But when you take a look at that word in the Greek, it means health, healing, and wholeness.

So when Jesus said, “Today, salvation has come to this house,” he did not cryptically message everybody therein that they were going to up and die that day.

Makes me think of the time that I served as a chaplain in a hospital, and was asked to visit a sick, but not dying, man.  So I did, collar and all, and as this patient saw me walking into his room, he said, “Oh My God, it’s worse than I thought!

Instead, Jesus said, “Today, health, healing, and wholeness have come to this house.”  That is, that Jesus embodies health, healing, and wholeness, and chooses not to hoard it.  He shares it. He is an ambassador of it.

Now back to Raushenbush’s blog.  He points out that the root of the English word ‘sanity’ and ‘sane’ is sanus, namely (get this) health and healing.

So let’s think this through.

A political process ought to be sane: i.e., healing.  And religious people are also to be sane: i.e., healing.

Can it be that there is a cross-over here?  That neither the political process nor the religious agenda are about one’s private benefit (namely whether a politician will advance one’s own lot in life or that you yourself land in heaven)?  That perhaps both politics and religious concern the community, serving to usher in health, healing, and wholeness?

I like Jon Stewart’s placard, “I disagree with you….but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler!”

I imagine that the religious equivalent might be, “I disagree with you…but I’m not going to expect your eternal damnation because of your opinion.”

Sanity is underrated, I believe, as is individual and communal health, healing, and wholeness.

I hope sincerely that you and our political process are saved.

Peace,

Anna

This is why theologians get paid the big money [insert ironic chuckle here].

We are supposed to know what is going to happen when we die and why.

Let me be straight up and, on behalf of a whole bunch of us, say: We don’t. For sure. We have hunches, we have hopes, we have hints, but we don’t really, really know.

It’s tricky, right? There are texts that can really scare the dickens out of a person. Take a look at the one you mention: Hebrews 10:26-31.

And why stop there?

Matthew 7:13, Luke 16:26, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Revelation 20:13-15 all can be cause for deep fear and even despair….and there are a lot more where these came from.

Of course, other texts aren’t so frightening, and actually suggest a wider door.

1 Tim. 2:6, 1 Cor. 15:22, Romans 5:17, Col. 1:20, 1 John 2:2.

Of course, each of these texts are bound to the verses before and after it, and bound by the author’s historical context, and many can be interpreted a number of ways.

My point here is that the Bible (in the cases listed above, the New Testament) isn’t as monolithic as one might believe.

Not that it is a huge surprise for those who read my blogs carefully, but I am of the mind that the question of what happens after we die is largely a theological question, and that in the end, we have to humbly say that we don’t know…and that we will not be paralyzed by that notion.

The way in which you phrase your thoughts, however, raises some interesting questions. You begin by saying that “If we are saved by God’s grace….” and close by wondering if we can “fall short of God’s grace.”

My immediate thought is, saved from what?

My second thought is, what is grace?

And my first answer to the first thought is, sin.

And my first answer to the second thought is, the gift of something undeserved.

And so two theological questions:

If we really believe that God offers grace (an undeserved gift) to we who sin (namely we who reject God in favor of something else) then:

1. isn’t the demand to repent, to stop the sin, to pray, etc…..aren’t these all acts to make us deserving of grace? And along side of that (this doesn’t cut into my two questions, btw! ), then what is grace, really? Can we fall short of something we don’t deserve in the first place?

2. Who doesn’t sin, and (again, still part of the same question!) who is aware of all the ways in which one sins? Is it ever possible to confess and repent of all our sins?

These are just beginning questions. Then begins a whole run of ‘em.

Like,

Are all sins choices, or could there be sinful behaviors which are bound up in mental illness, in fatigue, in family systems?

Do we really want to say that only Christians are going to heaven…and does even Scripture make that case?

Is this a slippery slope to universalism?

And if “all people get into heaven,” then what’s the point of believing?

Ah, but then there are counter-questions:

Like, if a person believes to get into heaven, isn’t the integrity and authenticity of the belief self-serving, since it appears to be motivated by a protecting one’s own eternal hiney?

When does one believe “enough” to be in God’s good graces?

Is there anyone who is purely good? And even if not entirely good, are there parts of people which are fundamentally good, and then are those parts not in need of salvation….and what would that mean?

But don’t good deeds matter somehow?

And yet if we say that they do, then don’t we say that we in part can save ourselves?

And what happens if we’ve lived a pretty good life, and in the moment that we allow ourselves to wonder these sorts of things, get hit by a car? What is going to be God’s final answer?

Regardless of how one comes down on the question of heaven/hell, salvation/damnation, this much is safe to assert is true:

If one says that they believe in God, then there are implications for how they live their lives, for the choices that they make.

We all mess up, sometime quite gloriously, even those who say that they–and in fact really do–believe.

There’s a reason why we have the word “grace,” in other words. We need it.

But generally, if one says that something is core to who they are, then they live life consistent to that notion: not to get something, but because they can’t help but to live in such a fashion.

I tell my husband that I love him not to get him to love me, but because I love him. I play with my kidlets not to get them to respect me, but because I adore them.

Actions are an expression, in other words.

And let it not be missed that some of the most life-giving people are those who are not connected to any one particular religious tradition.

So the point is not to “diss” confessing and repenting and praying and discerning what is faithful and striving to live accordingly.

The point is to rather raise the question about whether these are pre-reqs for salvation…and if we answer that they are, well….who doesn’t fall short of that?

It’s all clear…as mud.

Peace,

Anna