Heaven and Hell: Who, Where and Why? (Luke 16:19-31)

Our gospel lesson today is another of those lectionary passages I would just as soon have skipped over. First of all, I realized that if I were going to preach on it, I was first going to have explain what it is not about. It is not about heaven and hell, at least insofar as they are popularly understood or misunderstood.
In the first place, there are no coherent doctrines of either heaven or hell in the Bible. I will repeat that: there are no coherent doctrines of either heaven or hell in the Bible. Show me a “proof text” about either, and in five minutes or less I will produce two or three more that say something else. One verse, or even some verses here and there, do not make a clear-cut case, Christians--about anything, I might add.
In the second place, most popular understandings of heaven and hell are drawn not so much from the Bible, as from mythology, hymnology (particularly spirituals), John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante Aligheri’s Inferno. Much of what those who dwell on the matter of Hell believe is drawn from isolated symbolic references that do not by any means constitute a coherent doctrine, and the rest of what they believe is drawn from mythology and literature that was developed long after the writing of the Scriptures.
And in the third place, Jesus did not mention either heaven or hell in this story. He spoke of the poor man being taken into the bosom of Abraham, which is to say, united with his spiritual ancestors. These Jews, you see, thought of themselves as the children of Abraham.
In what he said about the fate of the rich man, he did not use the word “hell,” although the translators of the King James Version of the Bible rendered it that way, and a lot of readers today want to interpret it that way. In its original Greek, Luke’s Gospel uses the word “Hades,” the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Sheol,” which was simply the abode of the dead--all the dead. In all its uses in the Bible except this one, Hades has little if any relation to afterlife rewards or punishments. Biblically speaking, Hades is simply the Greek successor word to Sheol and means simply the grave. In fact, in the KJV version of I Corinthians 15: 55, which states, “O death, where is thy sting” O grave, where is thy victory?” the Greek word translated “grave” is “Hades.” I could go on, but that would be pointless.
The real point is that those who were listening to Jesus on the spot understood these references to the bosom of Abraham and Hades in ways that we cannot.
I.
Do I, your old preacher, believe in a heaven? I want to believe--and I do--in a state in which my identity is preserved, where God calls me by my name, and I can be in that complete and full communion with God that eludes me in this life and I can enumerate to Paul the points at which I think he got it wrong. How and where I do I think this will be, and what will the circumstances be like? I have no idea. I can’t even find a point at which to begin speculating.
I even consulted Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary. Oddly, he did not offer a definition of hell, but he defined heaven this way: “A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.”
I love astronomy and the exploration of God’s starry universe just enough to want it to have something to do with my future state, and I would like to think of myself as somehow flitting about among the stars in an afterlife. In fact, I would like for my grandchildren to think that granddad has gone to be among the stars. And I hope that God will not be offended if, as I slip away from this world, he hears me sing to him my wish contained in that popular song, “Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.”
Do I believe in a hell? I do not--most emphatically do not--believe in a hell of fire and everlasting pain, because I do not believe in a God who would do that, even to those who hate him. And yet, because God gave me free will, I must believe that I have the option of choosing eternal separation from God rather than eternal unity with God.
And still yet, I believe in a God whose mercy and capacity for forgiveness extends right up to that moment of final choice. And I must say, with Roman Catholic theologians, that we do not know that there is a single soul in hell--to which I must add, “whatever that condition may be.”
But whatever may be the case about an afterlife, I do insist that pondering the pavements of heaven or the temperature of hell is simply to waste time and mental energy speculating about the unknowable.
II.
In the day in which Jesus told this parable, there was no unanimous opinion about an afterlife--and Jesus knew that. But both men in his story died. That happens, doesn’t it? Sooner or later, rich or poor, man or woman--we all die. A rich person may get a fancier casket and a larger tombstone, but that’s about it. At the moment of death, we all fall into God’s hands to receive whatever God has waiting for us.
The Pharisees believed in an afterlife. And so they sought to earn the blessings of God and the reward of a heavenly afterlife. They thought to do it through their scrupulous adherence to the Law. By being holy, by being good--according to their own estimation of what constituted holiness and goodness--they would build up religious brownie points and be rewarded by being comfortably nestled in the bosom of Abraham. Conversely, this performance would save them from the punishment that awaited those who did not conform to their standards.
The Sadducees, the other powerful religious group, did not believe in an afterlife. They maintained that we live out our personal heavens and hells in this life, on this earth. Through the way we live our lives, we earn God’s favor, or disfavor, not by and by, but now. Thus, what comes our way in this life is what we deserve, here and now, and God leaves our day-to-day operations up to us. Unfortunately, living for today resulted in some of them living it up today.
In the story he told to his disciples, and to the Pharisees and Sadducees who were listening in, Jesus was recalling an Egyptian myth of a rich man who was punished in his afterlife for his selfishness and a poor man who found comfort in his afterlife. The Pharisees and Sadducees would have been familiar with this story, because it was discussed in several rabbinic writings they surely had studied.
Generally, to those who believed in an afterlife, Sheol was regarded in Jewish theology as simply a shadowy sort of underworld that was nothing more than a warehouse for departed souls. In later Jewish thought, Sheol was divided into two parts--one for the reward of the righteous and the other for the punishment of the unrighteous. It is within this later thought that Jesus framed his parable.
The Greek writers of the Apostles’ Creed, in the fourth century, used the word “Hades” that has been translated--mistranslated, in terms of modern English--as the “hell” into which Jesus descended. Jesus did not go to any kind of hell! He died and his body was buried in a tomb. That is the Hades, not the hell, from which Jesus arose. I prefer to say only that he descended into death; that he was dead but he lives.
III.
This one is the only parable in which any of the characters is given a name. Lazarus, the name of the poor man, is a derivative of Eleazar, which means “God is my help.” The name Dives is not a name given by Jesus; it is simply a Latin word meaning “rich man,” a word lifted from the Latin Vulgate bible and used by the later translators of this gospel story. But it is in these two characters in the story, one rich, one poor, that we can find the point that Jesus was trying to make.
Jesus was attacking the lifestyles of the Sadducees, who dressed in fine clothing and ate gourmet foods, but who neglected the poor. They didn’t even see the poor, so preoccupied were they with living well and acting correctly.
They could do this because they were part of the temple hierarchy and came from wealthy families. They also had access to temple funds to provide themselves with a few niceties befitting their station. Their modern counterparts are the religious figures who head up mega churches, preach to cult followings, and wear Brioni suits and Rolex watches.
Jesus was also attacking the Pharisees, who Luke describes in verse 14 as lovers of money, who ridiculed Jesus’ teaching about money. Their theology drawn from the book of Deuteronomy persuaded them that wealth is a sign of God’s blessings and poverty is a sign of God’s displeasure. They would consider that a person like Lazarus deserved his suffering
It is a terribly, terribly unfortunate aspect of our own society that wealth is often seen as a reward and poverty is too often seen as a punishment. But it is simply not true that all people get what they deserve--either good or bad--in our society. Many people get misfortune that they do not deserve. Witness the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, who cannot find new jobs because there are none, and the many people who are now facing foreclosure on their homes through no fault of their own.
While this parable might seem to be about money or the lack of it, it is really about values. Its question is not whether we have money, but whether we love money--whether we share God’s concern for the poor and vulnerable--whether we are too preoccupied with personal concerns to notice the Lazaruses in our midst. In a country where the common people were fortunate if they ate a small piece of meat or fish once a week, Dives is a figure of indolent self-indulgence. Today, we don’t need to be wealthy to engage in this kind of self-indulgence, for by world standards, we Americans feast sumptuously every day and all-you-can-eat buffets and super-sized portions have most of us either gaining weight or struggling--like me--to take it off.
Our danger is that we will fail to understand that by world standards, we are rich. I live in a comfortable house with running water, electric lights, flush toilets, a big refrigerator, washing and drying machines, and central heating and air conditioning. I have a closet full of clothes, some of them very nice but hardly ever worn. We have two good cars, a few years old but still very serviceable. I also have some moderately expensive toys to play with. By the standards of most--that is, most--of the world’s people, I am fabulously wealthy. And so are you.
Money is not dangerous or an evil in and of itself--but its uses can be both. The danger is in what people do with money, and in what money can do to us. One commentator observed that it gave Dives “I” trouble. He could not see beyond his “Is”: I want…I need…I desire…I deserve…I like. His sin was not that he was rich, for that is not a sin. His sin was in what he allowed money to do to him. He allowed his self-concern to blind him to the needs of others who were
less fortunate than he.
Dives represents all people who spend their money on themselves, with never a concern for the fact that money--even a little money--imposes duty on us.
It is our duty to consider carefully how we use our money--not only what we have, but what we shall have. Our planning must go beyond planning for the possessions we want to acquire next. God must be our partner in our financial planning.
We have a duty to the Lazaruses in our community and in other lands on the other side of the world. We have a duty to the people, both near to us and far away from us, who live with little comfort or hope and who could use our help. Some of those people might possibly be as near to you as the next pew: people who could use a friend, people who are sick or lonely or depressed, people who could use a helping hand.
St. Teresa of Avila said it: “Though we do not have our Lord with us in bodily presence, we have our neighbor, who, for the ends of love and loving service, is as good as our Lord himself.”
Jesus intended that the hearers of his parable--and today, we the readers of it--should ask ourselves some questions.
Where do find our identities in this parable? The rich man in the story was identified only by his wealth, and that proved to be empty.
In what ways, and to what extent, do we pursue things that ultimately fail to satisfy?
Does our struggle for income and accumulation blind us to the needs of others?
How can we use our financial resources faithfully and justly?
Jesus calls us to examine our lives. Jesus would have concurred with Socrates, the Greek philosopher, who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
There is nothing wrong with working hard and making some money and saving some of it. There is nothing wrong with using some money to buy some comfort and some enjoyment. There is something wrong with never being able to help someone else because we haven’t enough for ourselves.
It is the generosity and unconditional love and grace of God that gives life and identity--not our bank balances, houses, cars or clothes. And it is only the generosity and unconditional love and grace of God that will ultimately satisfy us--not things.
It is as Blaise Pascal said, there is a God-shaped blank space in our hearts. We feel its emptiness and we try to fill it with many pleasures and possessions--but only God will fit in that blank, and only God can fill it.



Sermon preached by Chuck Swann, Faith Presbyterian Church, September 26, 2010