Sunday Sermon: Damned to Hell

We know how it is - everyone ends up in Heaven or Hell for eternity. Heaven is beautiful, safe, everything good and right. Hell is eternal punishment - pain and burning and freezing and loneliness.

The trouble is, our visions of Heaven and Hell are substantially drawn from The Divine Comedy by Dante. Jesus actually offered life versus death. There is no eternal suffering in Jesus's ministry - the references to "unquenchable fire" are just that - a consuming fire that can't be stopped, not a fire in which things are burned but not consumed.

Jesus talks about those parts of humanity which are not desirable fruit being consumed in the fire. Whether those are individuals or aspects of individuals is less clear. However, I prefer to think of it as aspects.

In the parable of the wheat and the chaff, Jesus talks about the harvest and how the wheat will be threshed and the chaff is separated and burned. Chaff is the outside casing of wheat - the part that's not used.

So are we like wheat? Do we have good inside of us that would remain if the useless part is stripped away? I'd like to believe so. And I'd like to believe that what Jesus taught was how to maximize the grain - the seed of that which will live on after the useless chaff is gone.

Honestly, if the useless, undesirable parts of me are damned to the trashpile, or dungheap, or the unquenchable fire, that's fine with me. I'll be working on the seed to which Jesus promises eternal life.

If you prefer to believe in a God who punishes people with eternal suffering, that is your choice. I prefer to believe in a God who created us, loves us, and will help us to achieve  the best.