If it wasn't for social media, I think I would lose touch with what the wider world is thinking and talking about. Luckily for me, I maintain an eclectic group of friends that stretches outside the bounds of "navel-gazing" Christian perspectives. I am grateful for these friendships because they keep me honest and keep me thinking about Christianity and its role in society today.
In particular, how our message at times sounds to non-Christian ears.
Yesterday morning when I pulled up my Facebook newsfeed, I was greeted by a friend's posting that had a picture of a pamphlet she had received with the following comment: "A customer gave this pamphlet to me and told me to read it later. He said it had an important message. Turns out I am going to hell. :("
Naturally, what ensued was a barrage of postings talking about how annoying and irritating Christians can be when it comes to their evangelistic tactics. I had to agree. (I actually even googled the
pamphlet and found out what it said inside. And yup - there it was: "you are a sinner and punishment for your sin is death in hell.") Such Christian fear tactics strike a chord with me, because, to be honest, I stayed away from the church for ten years of my life precisely because of those same scare tactics.
Growing up, the message that came through loud and clear was "believe or burn." That never set well with me. Not because I didn't believe in Jesus, but because I always had in the back of my mind this fear of God's judgment because maybe I didn't believe quite the right thing or believe it the right way, so maybe I wasn't saved and maybe I was going to go to hell, and that ultimately drove me away from relationship with God rather than drawing me into it. That fear didn't make me love God more - just the opposite. It made me question what kind of God I was worshiping. It made me feel that my life was an effort in futility in the eyes of God, so why bother with faith and a life in relationship with Him if everything was going to be so scrutinized and judged found wanting anyway?
And I believe that message turned me off for good reason. Because individually avoiding hell/eternal damnation is not ultimately the point of the Gospel. Believing in Jesus simply for the purposes of saving my own skin - well that seems kind of... selfish, doesn't it?
If the Christian message is being reduced to "you need to believe in Jesus so that you can avoid the fires of hell," then I think we have failed miserably in conveying the heart and point of the Gospel. Because I think the Good News is better than that. If God's loving message to humanity is "you must believe exactly the right thing or suffer eternal damnation and torment," as a devoted Christian, I still question that being the heart of our message. Because my own relationship with God was only able to come about once I stopped fearing, and began hoping and believing in a specific and wondrous promise that was bigger and grander than just me and my "personal" relationship with Jesus (which wasn't all that great when it started).
You see, selfishness and self-preservation, putting ourselves as the number one priority, is the sin that emerges as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Everything becomes about "me" (I am naked, I am afraid) The concern switches from "we" to "me." The rest of the Bible from that point forward is about reconciling that problem of human selfishness.
Thus, ultimately, the scare tactic evangelistic method seems to be the epitome of selfishness. Believe so that you save yourself. Caring more about my "personal salvation" than the welfare and care for those around me.
Yet, the message contained in the Gospels is not about being selfish. It is about generosity. Loving God and loving one's neighbor. Caring for the poor, the widows, the outsider, and the marginalized. Salvation, forgiveness and redemption are indeed for us, individually, but it is so much more than that. It is a wider and grander message that transcends individualism. The redemption we teach and preach about is for the whole world, not JUST for me.
Maybe part of the problem in our message is where we start. In a culture that has become more global and diverse, perhaps the Christian message needs to start speaking initially into that global perspective - what God is doing for the world? Instead of asking if someone has a "personal relationship" with Jesus, maybe we start asking, "do you have any idea what God's vision is for our future?"
Perhaps instead of handing pamphlets that are designed to attempt to scare someone into faith (and really, is that how relationship with God should start out anyway? Being scared of him? Wasn't one of the reasons for the incarnation so that we would not have to be afraid of God anymore?) we should begin by asking questions about what they already know, they already see, and they already experience. While I'm not one for just randomly handing out pamphlets to people in general anyway, if I were to do so, it might contain something more like this:
Does world hunger bother you? Does genocide bother you? Does injustice bother you? Do you not like the way in which humans treat other humans on a pretty regular basis? Are you tired of living in a culture of fear? Are you tired of watching friends and loved ones suffer from disease and tragedy?
Does all of this seem wrong? If so, it should. Because that is not what is intended for our world. It's skewed. Relationships are all messed up. These are the realities of our world. The realities of what has gone wrong with the human heart.
Do you yearn for these things to be fixed? Do you hope for a better future and a better world, not just for yourself, but for everyone around you?
So what can be done? Is there a power in the universe that is strong enough to change the human heart? To renew our societies and our lives? To restore creation to everything we have a feeling it could be like?
The answer is yes. And you are invited to be part of it.
Throughout scripture, Jesus is always inviting people to come and see what He is up to. What He is about. What is important to Him. What being the Messiah and the Savior of the world means. What deliverance from sin and death means for people.
Release and deliverance in the Bible is always about release and deliverance from brokenness, sorrow, harmful behaviors, slavery, suffering, physical maladies, sin and death.
"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." (Isaiah 61; Luke 4) Redemption has always been about present, past and future earthly conditions and problems - and typically not about some potential otherworldly lake of fire that some people might be headed to because they don't have their theology quite right. In fact, Jesus never talks about hell to pagan gentiles or to anyone other than the religious leadership of his day. His ministry and message to the common people, to outsiders, to those who weren't part of the religious structure and Temple system involved proclamations of healing and hope.
So perhaps rather than worrying about who is going to hell or not, perhaps our concern should focus on the state of the human heart. Recognizing salvation from hell is not nearly as pressing a concern for most people in their everyday lives as needing salvation from our current lives. Salvation from the things that already torment us. Hell for many sounds like having to continue to live in a world that does not know these promises. That has no hope for something better. That has no sense of a future where sin does not reign supreme. That humanity will never change. That it will be an endless cycle of death and destruction. Indeed, that place, that world, sounds hellish. Eternal existence in THAT world would be torment.
When I think about the message that was preached to the world by the early disciples, the heart of the witness was not "believe or burn." The message was "look at what God has done throughout history to deliver his people." It was a message that was about hope in a world filled with despair. It was about radical love in a world of harsh taskmasters. It was a message where Paul would stand up in front of people and say "see - you worship an 'unknown god' - I'm here to tell you, God has become known in Jesus Christ and here's what he's done for you and for the world..." (paraphrased) It was about how God had acted and delivered in the past so people could know, God is
still active in our world and has acted in a very specific and new way through the incarnate Jesus Christ.
Some will accuse me of over-sentimentalizing the Gospel. Of watering it down and not taking the issue of sin seriously enough. Not talking enough about personal confession and forgiveness.
On the contrary. I take sin very seriously. I see it everywhere. It causes our death. It causes heartache. It causes grief. It causes sorrow. It separates us from God - separates us from each other. It makes us question our self-worth; it makes us hate when we should love. It drives us to despair, and to have no hope. It destroys relationships. I see these things in people's lives every single day. I see their struggles. I see their suffering. I feel my own struggles, my own suffering, my own consequences to sinful actions being played out in the lives of people I know and love. I see people desperate for forgiveness. I see people broken so badly, nothing in this world will ever put them back together.
I take all of that so seriously that I am able to believe and hope in a God who claims that He has a different vision for our future. That we have a promise so incredible and otherworldly that it has the power to change lives both here and now, and in the future. A word of amazing grace that picks up our broken, wretched, sinful selves and says "I make you new." A message that breaks in on our brokenness and says, "behold, I do a new thing."
Difficult to believe? Oh yes. Our world seems like it's going to hell in a hand-basket, spiraling toward a point of no return. No other time in human history have we possessed the ability to totally annihilate ourselves and our world with us. I'm not denying - these are frightening times. Global warming, nuclear capabilities, terrorism, epidemics, battles for resources... they're all real threats in our world. You think the four horseman haven't been galloping around for a while, think again. Conquest, war, violence, plague, pestilence, economic upheaval... death... yup, they're all there. Just turn on your nightly news. Of course, it's not the first time the horsemen have made the rounds - and it probably won't be the last.
So to believe in a promise that God is going to upend the way the world works and is going to usher in His Kingdom of peace and prosperity is a hard to pill to swallow at the moment. Because it's so difficult to see how we could ever get there. And indeed, on our own... we never will. Humans are, well, humans. To put it bluntly... we suck. We're selfish, violent creatures. To believe otherwise pretty much means you've got your head in the sand and aren't paying attention.
Which is what can make the Bible so difficult to hear at times. Because the Bible does this strange thing... it offers up words of promise in the middle of unlikely circumstances. It tells stories about people like Abraham, who at 75 years old is told he will have a son through his wife Sarah, who is equally up there in age. 20 years later... that promise still has not been fulfilled. Abraham and Sarah pretty much give up on the promise and take matters into their own hands to produce an heir (Hagar and Ishmael). Yet God is insistent that yes, he will STILL give that son to Abraham and Sarah, and eventually - it happens. Not only that, but the promise that is given is a promise that Abraham will never live to see. Those descendants who will be as numerous as the stars certainly are never going to be produced in Abraham's lifetime.
Or the Exodus. The Israelites toiled in slavery for 400 years before God did anything about it.
The point of these types of stories? Hope. That even though it seems God has forgotten us, seems to not be paying attention to what goes on in our world - these stories of faith are there to remind us that there IS hope, that God DOES have a vision that is different than the world we currently live in. God does not always act on our timetable, but he will always act. He has a vision for the future that he's been promising us since the Old Testament and is reiterated at the end of Revelation. It will be ushered in.
It's just hard to see it right now. After 2000 years of waiting... the Christian hope at times seems just as out of reach, just as pie-in-the-sky and fantasy-like. And even harder when you have some Christian pushing hell in your face as the end-all-be-all to what a life of faith is somehow about. Especially if you're threatening people with hell who already live there - it's just not much of a threat.
Some will argue that people's rejection of Christianity is in line with Jesus' prediction that "the world will hate you and despise you on account of me." This justifies for them the right to hurl "the truth of hell" at non-believers, then when that message is rejected they can go, "See, they just won't accept hell is real, so they won't accept Jesus."
But maybe we're looking at this whole "rejection" thing all wrong. The question I have begun asking is why exactly is it that Jesus was so sure that "the world" will hate us? Will it be because we talk about hell and damnation and that turns people off? Is that what Jesus intended? Or is the reason "the world" is supposed to hate us is because Christians are supposed to operate differently than the world does?
"The world" uses fear and coercion to control the masses. "The world" seeks vengeance for wrongs - an eye for an eye, rather than turning the other cheek. "The world" perpetuates a system that gives distinct advantages to the wealthy and powerful. "The world" is greedy and self-serving.
Is perhaps the reason Jesus sees His message being rejected by "the world" is because its promise is that the way this world works will not stand? That the comfortable will be made uncomfortable? That the powerful must yield their thrones to another? That empires and governments are temporary, and will not stand forever? How many Christians are now the powerful and rich that fear their own position of wealth and comfort might be threatened if God actually does what He promises to do? That God's power lies not in the strength of national borders and big business, but instead lies in the strength of a device that was utilized to execute political prisoners? What if that's how God views strength and power... through the cross and everything it stands for?
Is our important message to the world "believe or burn?" Is that the message? Is that "the Good News" Jesus wants delivered?
Or is Jesus' message about faith and belief in Him driven not to strike fear in people's hearts so that they fall down and worship him, but to deliver to us the promise that God is doing something in the world that is so amazing and so fantastic that He wants everyone to know and share in that promise and vision? To have faith that through Him, death and destruction will come to an end? To be participants in a future where pain, hunger, and suffering are things of the past? That salvation is redemption from everything that is bad, horrific and, well, "hellish" in our world? That Jesus' death and resurrection mean a changed reality, a changed future. A hopeful future.
I have to wonder... how would my friend have reacted had someone handed her a pamphlet that started out: "There is hope for the world."
The verse from Ash Wednesday is from Genesis 3:19, "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." It is that moment when God exiles humanity from His presence in the Garden. It is the beginning of how sin separated us from God. Throughout the next 40 days, Christians enter into a time of self-reflection, repentance, and prayer, culminating with Holy Week - which starts with Jesus entry into the city of Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), the last supper with his disciples (Maundy Thursday), his death on the cross (Good Friday) and finally, his triumphant resurrection on Easter Sunday. These 40 days represent the entire story of our relationship with God - our sinful nature, God's gracious acts of reconciliation that culminates with the death and resurrection of His Son in order to reconcile and redeem the world.
