"Heaven and Hell" - A Sermon on Luke 16:19-31
A sermon on Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), preached by LQ managing editor Virgil Thompson.
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I am not certain why exactly but for some reason people seem way more interested in hell than heaven. And I do not mean that in the way that a grizzled old pastor explained his decision to take early retirement: “Most people of my acquaintance,” he explained, “seem bound and determined to go to hell; I am tired of standing in the way.”
In any event that’s not what I am talking about. Rather, it’s like my friend recently asked, “How could anyone in heaven be happy knowing that some people are destined to suffer the torment of hell ever after?”
“Well, I guess,” I told my friend, “it is like Jesus said, ‘if there is any joy in heaven it is over the one sinner who repents.’”
People do seem to worry quite a bit about some of us ending up in hell. Of course a lot of people, now the majority of people according to recent polls, have decided that hell does not exist. Heaven, they say, is fine; they are all for that. But hell has no place in the modern religious imagination, which would be fine if the reality of heaven and hell were decided by majority vote. Unfortunately it is not. Just ask the rich man from our story this morning. The torment of hell is all too real to him. As he complains to Father Abraham off in the heavenly distance, “Do something; I am in agony in these flames.”
If you were to ask 100 people why this rich man ended up in hell, I suspect that 99 of the 100 would tell you that he ended up in hell because he failed in his duty to help poor Lazarus. However, as most things in Scripture, it is not quite so straightforward as that.
If the grammar of the story is anything to tell—and as my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Rinehart, kept impressing upon us, it is the only thing to tell—then it appears that in fact the rich man was helping poor Lazarus. After all, Lazarus, according to the story, showed up day after day at the rich man’s gate. It would be hard to explain why he’d be showing up day after day at the rich man’s gate if he weren’t getting, as the law required, his daily bread from the rich man’s table. Which only goes to show that doing your humanitarian duty toward the neighbor—whether near or far—is not going to get you into heaven.
A lot of people I know find that extremely upsetting. If good deeds don’t get you into heaven, they whine, why do good deeds at all? Which, if you think about it, sounds like the whining of the rich man in our story, and you can see where the whining got him.
There he cooks in the stew of his whining—the great chasm fixed, as Abraham explains, “so that no one can pass from here to there or from there to here.”
I don’t know what could be done for the rich man of the story. I wish I had some interpretive ace that I could shake out of my sleeve to rescue him but there is nothing there. Interpreters of the Bible did not put the rich man in hell and so it is not likely that we are going to succeed in interpreting his way out of hell. If the judgment of God puts the rich man in hell, it is a done deal, because it is God’s judgment, and God’s judgment is final.
So, if you should, quite unexpectedly, I am sure, wake up in hell one morning, I wouldn’t make the mistake of questioning God’s judgment, as the rich man did. God is a just God by his own standard. That is God’s prerogative as God, to decide what is just and what is not. That is the difference between us and God. Human protests against the judgment of God are no more likely to change the reality of hell than denying its existence.
To imagine the prospect of waking up in hell it is not necessary to call up the cartoon picture. You have only to imagine what you already know all too well. If you have ever suffered regret, anxiety, uncertainty, boredom, aimlessness, fear, should of, could of, too little, too late, then you know about the agony which the rich man of the story is suffering.
But here is the thing, should you ever again find yourself in that agony: You and I are justified to believe that finally our destiny does not lie ultimately in our hands. By baptism we have the promise that when it comes right down to it, we may ride the coattails of our Lord’s goodness right on into paradise. We are entitled to believe on the basis of God’s promise that regret, anxiety, uncertainty, fear, too little too late is not the end of us, not the last word. The last word remains to be spoken. In fact God has let it out ahead of time, in our baptism!
That’s the way we are taught by the Apostles’ Creed to pray. Whether we find ourselves on earth, or in hell below, or heaven above, we are taught to hold God to the final judgment which he has declared to us in our baptism. There he promised by the love of Christ that come heck or high water he will see that we make it home. He will raise us up to life here and now and forever more.
That’s the way Lazarus came into heaven. He had nothing of which to boast, no merit of his own, not a leg to stand on but the gracious promise of his Lord.
Remember how Luther has taught us to understand, like Lazarus, “ I believe that Jesus Christ . . . my Lord has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, delivered me and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil . . . in order that I may be his, today! Live under him in his kingdom, today! Serve him with all heart, mind, and soul, and the neighbor as the self, in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.” It is the promise of the Lord. And because it is the promise of the Lord, the last judgment let out ahead of time, to overrule ever other judgment, including every other judgment of God, it is a done deal, the word of the Lord to you.
Music to my ears. That’s the note I came in on and that’s the note I’m hoping to go out on!
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I am not certain why exactly but for some reason people seem way more interested in hell than heaven. And I do not mean that in the way that a grizzled old pastor explained his decision to take early retirement: “Most people of my acquaintance,” he explained, “seem bound and determined to go to hell; I am tired of standing in the way.”
In any event that’s not what I am talking about. Rather, it’s like my friend recently asked, “How could anyone in heaven be happy knowing that some people are destined to suffer the torment of hell ever after?”
“Well, I guess,” I told my friend, “it is like Jesus said, ‘if there is any joy in heaven it is over the one sinner who repents.’”
People do seem to worry quite a bit about some of us ending up in hell. Of course a lot of people, now the majority of people according to recent polls, have decided that hell does not exist. Heaven, they say, is fine; they are all for that. But hell has no place in the modern religious imagination, which would be fine if the reality of heaven and hell were decided by majority vote. Unfortunately it is not. Just ask the rich man from our story this morning. The torment of hell is all too real to him. As he complains to Father Abraham off in the heavenly distance, “Do something; I am in agony in these flames.”
If you were to ask 100 people why this rich man ended up in hell, I suspect that 99 of the 100 would tell you that he ended up in hell because he failed in his duty to help poor Lazarus. However, as most things in Scripture, it is not quite so straightforward as that.
If the grammar of the story is anything to tell—and as my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Rinehart, kept impressing upon us, it is the only thing to tell—then it appears that in fact the rich man was helping poor Lazarus. After all, Lazarus, according to the story, showed up day after day at the rich man’s gate. It would be hard to explain why he’d be showing up day after day at the rich man’s gate if he weren’t getting, as the law required, his daily bread from the rich man’s table. Which only goes to show that doing your humanitarian duty toward the neighbor—whether near or far—is not going to get you into heaven.
A lot of people I know find that extremely upsetting. If good deeds don’t get you into heaven, they whine, why do good deeds at all? Which, if you think about it, sounds like the whining of the rich man in our story, and you can see where the whining got him.
There he cooks in the stew of his whining—the great chasm fixed, as Abraham explains, “so that no one can pass from here to there or from there to here.”
I don’t know what could be done for the rich man of the story. I wish I had some interpretive ace that I could shake out of my sleeve to rescue him but there is nothing there. Interpreters of the Bible did not put the rich man in hell and so it is not likely that we are going to succeed in interpreting his way out of hell. If the judgment of God puts the rich man in hell, it is a done deal, because it is God’s judgment, and God’s judgment is final.
So, if you should, quite unexpectedly, I am sure, wake up in hell one morning, I wouldn’t make the mistake of questioning God’s judgment, as the rich man did. God is a just God by his own standard. That is God’s prerogative as God, to decide what is just and what is not. That is the difference between us and God. Human protests against the judgment of God are no more likely to change the reality of hell than denying its existence.
To imagine the prospect of waking up in hell it is not necessary to call up the cartoon picture. You have only to imagine what you already know all too well. If you have ever suffered regret, anxiety, uncertainty, boredom, aimlessness, fear, should of, could of, too little, too late, then you know about the agony which the rich man of the story is suffering.
But here is the thing, should you ever again find yourself in that agony: You and I are justified to believe that finally our destiny does not lie ultimately in our hands. By baptism we have the promise that when it comes right down to it, we may ride the coattails of our Lord’s goodness right on into paradise. We are entitled to believe on the basis of God’s promise that regret, anxiety, uncertainty, fear, too little too late is not the end of us, not the last word. The last word remains to be spoken. In fact God has let it out ahead of time, in our baptism!
That’s the way we are taught by the Apostles’ Creed to pray. Whether we find ourselves on earth, or in hell below, or heaven above, we are taught to hold God to the final judgment which he has declared to us in our baptism. There he promised by the love of Christ that come heck or high water he will see that we make it home. He will raise us up to life here and now and forever more.
That’s the way Lazarus came into heaven. He had nothing of which to boast, no merit of his own, not a leg to stand on but the gracious promise of his Lord.
Remember how Luther has taught us to understand, like Lazarus, “ I believe that Jesus Christ . . . my Lord has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, delivered me and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil . . . in order that I may be his, today! Live under him in his kingdom, today! Serve him with all heart, mind, and soul, and the neighbor as the self, in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.” It is the promise of the Lord. And because it is the promise of the Lord, the last judgment let out ahead of time, to overrule ever other judgment, including every other judgment of God, it is a done deal, the word of the Lord to you.
Music to my ears. That’s the note I came in on and that’s the note I’m hoping to go out on!
