Epiphany 5A – Ted Hackett
Today is the 6th Sunday after Epiphany…
Believe it or not, Lent comes in two weeks…
And of course, Lent is a penitential season…
40 days in which we are counseled to
calm things down in our lives…
To do some looking at ourselves…
And ask questions about our lives.
Lent is a little like Advent…
Except that over the years Advent has been a season of what you might call : “Joy Creep”….
The wonderful warmth of Christmas…
Aided and abetted by commercial interests
Have made Advent part of Christmas.
We become like kids …
All waiting for Santa …
Putting up decorations..
Going to parties….
And I for one love it!
We wear blue instead of somber purple or sackcloth
We anticipate with glowing expectation…
Messiah is coming!
Sing out! Go tell it on the mountain!
And I, for one, love it!
But it was not always that way….
When Advent came into the Christian Year in the fifth century, Christmas was getting cranked up in
the West…
And it was a penitential season….
A time for looking at yourself…preparing,
Because it looked not only to Christ’s
birth….but his 2nd coming in judgement!….
Somber stuff!
The early Church was very aware of the end of the world…
Jewish rabbis talked about it…and finally Christians
condensed the Last Things at the end of the world into four…
Heaven, Hell, Death and Judgement…
Thousands of Advent Sermons were preached on Heaven, Hell, Death and Judgement at Christ’s Second Coming… And those are important things to think about…
Now since Advent is no longer very penitential….
I think it good to take the Last Things up in Lent….which we still keep for somber reflection..
Heaven, Hell, Death and Judgement….the Last Things.
The Rector has taken the risk of letting me preach twice in a row …and so I will be trying to look at these four Last Things this week and next….getting ready for Lent….
And I want to look at them in what is…hopefully….a kind of different way…
First of all….Hell.
The Western Church has spent nearly two thousand years elaborating the landscape of Hell.
We all know the scene….
Devils and Imps…fire and brimstone and the foul scent of burning sulphur….
Souls writhing in the torment of fire
(Or sometimes in bitter cold)…. Suffering terrible pain and anguish….
Without ever perishing.
And….
This goes on without
end….
For eternity!
As the saying goes…. “that’l scare the Hell out of you!”
It’s as Comedian George Carlin said he was taught in Parochial School: “If you aren’t good…God will burn you in Hell forever and ever…because He loves you!”
There is a disconnect….
The God of love sending people He created…
To unspeakable torture…for Eternity!
Historically…the earliest Church did not much deal with Hell….
Non-Christians, it was assumed, did not get a good place in God’s coming Kingdom…
But what really happened to them wasn’t discussed…except for a passing reference to Gehenna…
A garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.
All they were worth maybe…
That was God’s business… As time went by, and the Church became an institution that was going to be around for a while….
This slowly changed….
Unsophisticated barbarians became Christians
The the Church felt it had to really get their attention.
Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century said that when preaching you should: “Scare them with Hell and then comfort them with Heaven”….
And lots of preachers still follow that advice!
But it’s not Christian.
George Carlin was right.
It is a contradiction. To say that the God of love would sentence any of His creatures to eternal torment….
Would in fact, diminish God’s Self…
Not to mention being unfair. Though when we get to Hitler and Stalin….and maybe Putin…finally getting out of Hell… we are offended…
We think they can’t repent enough… But….and here’s the tough news…
If…after they repent…whatever that takes…
If we can’t forgive them….
We also need to repent!
Because …as I will suggest….
Being fully in Communion with God… Means being overcome…Overcome… Overcome eternally…With love and forgiveness!
It means…loving as God loves!
Being loving and intimate with others…
With God…
And with yourself and your deepest feelings!
Hell is alienation…
Hell is not being able to trust others…
Finding fault with them
Ignoring their needs…
Fearfully rejecting their
offers of intimacy…
Finally..finally…
Finding yourself
alone….
All alone… And getting out of Hell takes repentance!
Which brings us to Heaven…
Probably needless to say….
Heaven is not reclining on clouds playing a small harp…..for eternity!
And it is not, as some medieval theologians suggested…
Looking down and watching the damned writhe in pain in Hell.
Think about it….
If that were how it is with sinners…
God would not love everything He made…
God’s purpose for His Creation…. would be incomplete and flawed…
And God would not be….God!
Which brings us to the second of the Last Things….Heaven.
As I said….Heaven is not playing a harp from a cloud-couch…
Or enjoying the sight of your enemies writhing in Hell….
If Hell is alienation from Oneself…
From other people…
From God’s creation…
From yourself….
If Hell is utter loneliness and self-hatred…
Abandonment…
Then Heaven is just the opposite! Heaven is overcoming alienation and distrust….
Heaven is the ability to be intimate…
Intimate and honest with yourself….
With others…including taking the risks!
And with God….
Who is, by the way…intimate with us…even we don’t know it!
Intimacy is knowing us better than we know ourselves.
C. S Lewis wrote that in Heaven…everything is more real than anywhere else.
The grass, for instance is greener and sharper
than the grass we know in this world…
When souls of the unready are taken in a bus to visit Heaven….they can’t stand it…
Even the grass is too real…too sharp…
It hurts their feet….
And they find themselves in the company of people they despised in this life….
And they still can’t stand them…
So they take the bus back to dismal Purgatory….or Hell….it’s not clear which…
Back to grow until they can stand the
utter reality of Heaven!
And on the bus back from Heaven…
They bicker with each other and make each other miserable.
It seems like for them, Jean-Paul-Sartre was right….
Hell is other people. Which…in passing…brings up Purgatory….
As Hell became more and more real to Medieval people….
It became clear to theologians that most
people were not bad enough to warrant eternal agony…
And so, people…like my Uncle Louie and probably most of us…were not quite ready for Heaven…. like the people on the bus…
And so they spent time in Purgatory..
Being purged from their sins.
The Orthodox Church and most Anglicans think of Purgatory not as searing torture…
But as yearning…
Like a kid looking in a candy store window…
Seeing the goodies….but not able go in.
It’s kind of torture…
But not the kind of pain that comes with burning…
We call it the “Intermediate
State”…
It’s a place to learn to love others..and to love ourselves!
And a place to learn
to learn to love God!
God is like the
candy in the store,
Only better!
A long time ago….in Buffalo …when I was newly ordained…
A colleague-priest who was serving as a chaplain to a small convent of Episcopal nuns asked me to fill in for him,,, I nervously agreed …
I celebrated Eucharist for them…we were to have lunch and then I was to hear their confessions.
I sat next to Mother Superior… A wise and gentle older lady who was very deferential to me because I was a Priest.
We chatted…pleasantly…
And somehow the subject of Hell came up…
I asked her if she believed in it.
She said very solemnly…
“Oh yes Father..we have to believe in Hell…it’s Catholic doctrine!”
Then….she got very quiet and
almost whispered to me: “
But I don’t have to believe anyone goes there!”
I think she got it right…
God will wait us out….
As we press our noses against the candy-store window…
Until we get the idea…
Love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves…
And that takes the grace of God…
The finally irresistible grace of God…
Which calls us…even pulls us…
To the kind of love with which God loves. Even to loving ourselves just as we are….
Self centered, selfish and angry..
Like the people on the bus…
But we will ultimately be called into the candy-store…
Into the presence of the Saints in Light…
Into the presence of God…
Into loving…and being loved…
In glory everlasting!
Where we can sing Alleluia…
Where we can embrace each other…
And sing Alleluia …
Forever!