Four Annoying Things about God:
Why does God Need Hell? Why not Just Save Everybody?ⁱ
John 21.15-25
Rev. Matthew M. Fry

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Great and Gracious One, whose righteousness requires judgment, whose judgment is love, open our minds and our hearts to receive the Word Proclaimed, that you would move within us and through us, for the reconciliation of the world. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in John. Listen for God’s Word for you today. John 21.15-25:

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." 16 A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." 17 He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."

20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, "Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?" 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about him?" 22 Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!" 23 So the rumor spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?"

24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. 25 But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

As much as I want to be a nice guy, I cannot say that all religions are the same, or that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. Tragic events in our recent history make it clear: it matters a great deal what you believe. The God we follow shapes the life we live. Listen to these words from an Islamic website, I presume from a Muslim extremist: “Non-Muslims are forever subject to the fury and wrath of Allah. They consciously suffer shame and contempt and the assaults of an accusing conscience – along with the fiery wrath of an offended deity. Theirs is a place of torment and punishment, and they will know that their punishment is just and that they alone are to blame.” Easy to see how those beliefs could lead to the bombing of innocent children and civilians, because there are no innocent civilians. Unbelieving infidels rightly deserve a horrible fate.

Wait. I’m sorry. I confused the source of my quote. I was not reading from an Islamic website, but from a Christian website, words written by people who claim to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. “Non-Christians are forever subject to the fury and wrath of God…Theirs is a place of torment and punishment, and they will know that their punishment is just and that they alone are to blame.” These tender thoughts come from right here in the Bible belt, as I like to call our neck of it, the buckle of the Bible belt.ⁱⁱ

“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life…and God will fry you hiney in hell forever unless you believe the right thing.” “God is a loving parent,” Christians say, “but God will treat you with a cruelty that no human parent has ever been guilty of – eternal conscious torture – unless you bear the right brand name.” No wonder most of our neighbors don’t come to church! No wonder some places in the world don’t accept Christians with open, trusting welcome.

And yet…these following words come straight from the Bible, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14.6) And in Acts 4.12, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” Those are words of Jesus himself, and of Peter, the leader of the church.

But I’m not convinced that those words were meant to lead us where we’ve gone with them these past 2000 years. Neither Jesus nor Peter were discussing world-wide religious philosophy, or debating encompassing religious theology. Jesus was speaking to his closest disciples on the night he was betrayed. He was telling them things to address their fear: “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he assures them. He was soon to be arrested, tortured, and killed – I don’t believe that he was taking that particular moment to say, “quickly now, we haven’t much time left, let’s discuss whether New Guinea tribes will go to heaven.” Jesus was comforting them, assuring them that no matter what was going to happen, they had not made the greatest mistake of their lives. In spite of what the religious leaders were about to do, by following Jesus, his disciples were following God.

Likewise, Peter was not lecturing at the Jerusalem School of Comparative Religions. He was in court, arguing for his life before the Sanhedrin. Peter was testifying that, far from being an enemy of God, Jesus, whom they had executed, was the pathway to God. Both passages dramatically attest to Jesus’ teaching and ministry; nobody in the room has asked, “But what about devout Buddhists?”

The way you follow God matters; who you believe in and trust and put your faith in makes a difference – take it seriously. They way of the chief priests and Pharisees and religious elite was different from the way of Jesus and his followers; the difference mattered then and it matters now. The priests and Pharisees had taken the word of God and used it to create an exclusive elite, an ‘in-crowd’ who alone received God’s favor. (And guess who got to define the membership of that ‘in-crowd.’ It looked surprisingly like those who were on the list of said ‘in-crowd.’) The Pharisees threatened outsiders with hell unless they submitted to their religious and economical dominance.

Jesus turned it right back at them; he threatened the religious establishment with hell unless they showed compassion for outsiders. Jesus didn’t get crucified for being exclusive; he was hated and crucified for the reverse – for opening the windows of God’s grace and the doors of heaven to tax collectors and prostitutes and half-breeds.

When we draw a line separating “us” from “them”, we would render ourselves innocent and pure. We are saved; they are condemned. We are found; they are lost. We are of God and bound for heaven; they are bound for eternal punishment.

Look at the story of Jesus. Don’t extract a verse here and a sentence there. Look at the story of Jesus: no one is more likely to commit injustice than those who are certain that God is on their side, and that they alone are right. Until one can give that certainty up, that God is on my side, and I am right, then they won’t be following Jesus, whether or not they go to church, hang out with the right people, or call themselves Christians.

But it sounds hard. Maybe too hard? Jesus was demanding. He called people to whole-hearted commitment, and he saw the differences as important. Following Jesus we don’t lower our standards of authentic discipleship; rather, we raise our standards of Christ-like acceptance. So, in a minute, we will affirm our faith, and we will say, “I believe in…the holy, catholic church…” – with a lower case “c” – meaning the accepting, welcoming church for everyone, not just an exclusive, elite few.

Do followers of other religions go to heaven or to hell? Don’t spend your spiritual energy answering questions that aren’t your domain. You can’t give the definitive answer to that anymore than you can decide to grow a third thumb and just do it. These questions do energize our curiosity, but they aren’t the good questions to ask, they are the spiritual counterpart of steroids – they bulk up your doctrine with impressive arguments, not to mention graphic websites, but they don’t produce graceful discipleship.

Look at the story of Jesus. In their final conversation, Jesus offers Peter reconciliation after the 3 betrayals, and says to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Peter asks him, “What about John? What about him – is he one of your sheep? Is he saved? What about him and everybody else?” Jesus looks Peter in the eye, and, in refined biblical language, tells him, “that ain’t your business brother.” Or, if you prefer the NRSV, “What is that to you? Follow me.” (v.22)

Perhaps the scene of this story will help: Jesus and Peter are walking along the beach of the Sea of Galilee. Maybe we shouldn’t think of ‘being saved’ as a line in the sand, and the issue is which side of the line are people on. ‘Being saved’ is walking with God, following God’s way of love. It isn’t a way to get into heaven; it’s a way to get into life.

Let’s obey Jesus’ word to Peter. It is improper and disobedient to try to speculate on the eternal destiny of others. That’s God’s work, let’s leave that to God. Our task is to focus on strengthening our believing, our serving and following the will of God. Whenever we make God’s love too small, we run the risk of not only becoming mean, but also of blasphemy, placing ourselves in God’s role and therefore making ourselves God. Whenever I draw a circle around God’s love, I always draw the circle too small. I do not wish for my own faith to grow strong by excluding others. I am trying not to ask if the person I meet is Muslim, or Hindu, or an atheist, or homosexual, or even, the worst of all, a Yankees fan. I simply ask myself, “What is that to me? Follow Christ.”

Christ has not called us to make a list of who’s saved and who isn’t. Christ has called us to join in the adventure of bringing God’s love into the world, the way Jesus did. Amen.