A couple weeks back there was the Gospel parable of about the rich guy who goes to hell and sees the poor guy, Lazarus, living the life of Reilly. I was thinking about this and wondering a) if we haven’t seriously gone astray b) whether anyone really dwells on the notion of hell any more. With this parable and many other ways in the Gospel, Jesus makes it pretty clear that rich guys might have a little bit of a surprise come judgment day. I would contend that many, many American folk would fall into the rich guy category (relative to the rest of the world’s population) and so Christians are either rationalizing to justify our accumulation of wealth or we believe that God grades on a very easy curve.
The other possibility of course is a) we don’t buy into the notion of extremes in the afterlife or b) we don’t really believe. Do we really believe in the notion that hell is this fiery place where our soul will spend eternity? I guess I don’t think many of us think about too long or too often. I also wonder if this is unfortunate in a way. On the one hand you want to use a carrot to help people live lives of virtue but on the other hand, if more people dwelt on spending every day for eternity in the worst imaginable manner possible, I wonder if our behavior wouldn’t improve.
I am advocating that we all think about the worst possible scenario in our lives and having that scenario be our reality for eternity. What if hell is living with the knowledge you harmed/killed a loved one? Or maybe it’s based on your fear and you have to spend every day in a pit of snakes always afraid of being bit. One thought occurred to me about hell that maybe should be reconsidered by Minnesotans – hell is always portrayed as firing hot, but what if it’s cold instead. Imagine you are stuck out in the cold naked and helpless looking into your home as someone is about to kill your family. You live this scenario out all day, every day for all of time. It would seem to me if we take our faith seriously and think hell is going to be, well, hell, then we might be motivated to fly right.
Some commentaries on this Gospel also use it to differentiate Christian expectations from those prominent at the time. Many then and even today would regard being morally sound as obeying the law and being fair. However, one might interpret that parable to mean that if you are Christian, you have to differentiate your behavior by helping the poor and least fortunate.
Maybe we all should contemplate the reality of hell and use our imaginations a little to assess how bad hell could be. Once we wrap our head around this reality and our obvious desire to avoid this fate, we might find giving a little time and money to those in need a much more rewarding endeavor.
