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| Jesus grasps Adam and Eve's wrists and liberates them from Sheol |
Ray and I have committed to preaching about Genesis this summer as a way to provide consistency, and also to explore some really fascinating stories. But when you get a Gospel reading like the one appointed for July 17, it’s hard to stay focused on Jacob and Esau. The parable of “the weeds among the wheat” ends with this statement of Jesus in Matthew 13:
Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Great.
If you read all of Matthew 13, you’ll find that Jesus’ explanation of his parable (above) comes at his disciples’ request – after he’s already moved on and told a few less “colorful” parables. They are dying to know what this one means, just as the servants in the parable are dying to rip up the weeds, and just as we are dying to figure out what to do with these uncomfortable words and images.
Nobody really gets what they want here. The servants are told to wait and let the reapers sort things out. Jesus’ disciples hear his explanation, but are then treated to another parable that includes fiery furnaces and gnashing teeth. We’re left with the two hard conclusions, plus a cultural context of our own that doesn’t deal well with either of them: first, sorting out the good from the bad isn’t our problem, just like it wasn’t the servants’; second, God will do the sorting and it ain’t gonna end well for everybody.
Again, great.
A lot of the scholarship I read wants to make only these points, that God is in control of this situation and you and I shouldn’t be wandering around worrying about who’s wheat and who’s a weed. When left to our own devices, we do a pretty bad job at that. God’s judgments are about hearts – not skin color, social status, sexual orientation, how well one is able to meet a variety of expectations, etc – so there’s comfort in knowing that God is in charge. I totally agree.
But frankly, that reading of these parables is skewed toward comfort – true, authentic comfort, but comfort none-the-less. It avoids the part where a sorting actually occurs. It avoids the part about hell. And as a Christian and a preacher, I feel called to handle those things … but preferably at arm’s length. With tongs. Wearing a hazmat suit. Is that an option?
So the sermon this week will have to deal with punishment – more specifically, a place of punishment called “hell” in older translations of the Bible. And we’ll also need to talk about a place of refreshment called “heaven,” which is where Jacob’s ladder reaches up to in the reading from Genesis. I honestly don’t know how far I’ll get or how deep I’ll be able to go in 10-12 minutes. But this is a part of our inheritance that we have to engage, and a sermon is one way to do that creatively, honestly, and – this is important – communally.
(See the posting below for some background on terms used for “hell” in the Bible.)
