Heaven or Hell?

My fever finally broke on Tuesday and I started to feel human again. I watched both services from Sunday and marveled at how wonderfully the last minute volunteers were as they led you in worship. It was such a relief to know such excellent people could step up when I had an emergency. I came back to work yesterday and tried to cram a week’s worth of work into one day. It was such a blessing to go to the hospital (wearing a mask) last night and see how great Greg Leslie is recovering. He and Kay wanted me to pass on how thankful that they are for all the love and support and prayers. They have felt it all. They have also started the conversation about him going home which seems miraculous to me.

This Sunday we are tackling and wrestling with the subject of who gets to go to heaven. I think it is interesting that this takes up so much space in Christian conversations when that is a decision that is completely out of our control. We can’t change it and we don’t get to decide. I already confessed to you in the first sermon for this series that I have had moments in my life where I have proclaimed “not my God!” I struggle with a creator and redeemer whose overarching story with humanity is forgiveness and love being the same God who so frequently sends everyone to hell.

One of the most profound conversations about our relationship with other religions happened to me in seminary. My professor explained that there are basically two ways to consider religions. The first way is to consider that each religion is pursuing God on a path on their own mountain. But in this model all the paths are futile because God only inhabits, at the peak, one of those mountains. We like to think that this is Christianity. The other model is that there is only one mountain and all the religions are paths on that mountain where people are trying to reach the God who inhabits the peak of that mountain. As Christians we believe that you can not fully know or reach God without encountering Jesus.

I am a one mountain believer. I find people to be pretty basic and I think that our longing for a relationship with the Holy is one that people from every background have. I also believe that most of our human wants and needs are similar. We all want our loved ones to be happy and healthy. We all need a sense of purpose in our lives. We all need connections to other people that lift us and love us. I love Jesus and the Way that he teaches us to be people of God.

I also need you to know that I have no idea who gets to go to heaven and who ends up in hell. That is above my pay grade. I think we need to talk about what exactly do those words mean-heaven and hell. What do we believe about those places and where did those beliefs come from? But that is a conversation for next week.

With love,