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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost

September 2, 2022

Feast of the Martyrs of New Guinea, 1942

Invitatory

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.

Reading: Luke 12:4-7

“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that can do nothing more. But I will show you whom to fear: fear the one who, after killing, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear that one! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

In my former parish there were a group of men who met nearly every Saturday morning to discuss matters of faith. Most of them were old enough to have vivid memories of the time of the Second World War. Some of them served in the armed forces. And it didn’t take long for me to discover that every conversation was a variation on just one theme. No matter where the discussion began – whether it was sparked by a recent news story or a short text from Scripture or some aspect of Christian doctrine or someone’s sharing of a personal experience – it inevitably ended in the same place. The men wanted to know – they wanted to be repeatedly assured – that Adolf Hitler is indeed and everlastingly suffering the torments of hell.

This was their great litmus test. If he is, then God warrants our praise and thanks. If Hitler is not – and no lesser form of judgment would do – then God could not be God in any proper sense. These men, generationally marked by what was understood to be a vast and horrific battle between good and evil, could trust in God only if God would see to it that justice was done. And how can justice be imagined for someone whose actions led to the deaths of tens of millions of people? For this group of men, there was only one answer: all that is right and good demands that hell be upheld. If Hitler is not resident there, then there is no justice anywhere. Hell served as a balm to this group. If one had asked them directly whether this was so, they would have immediately said, “No.” But they were always happier when, at the end of the meeting, they had once more clearly settled Hitler’s fate.

A quick reading of today’s appointed text from Luke might lead to the conclusion that Jesus was warning his listeners that God could, just so, condemn them eternally: something about the evil that we can actually do is so deep and so wounding that only hell can make things right. So, of course, we should fear the possibility that we ourselves might become subject to this judgment.

The problem, however, is that the rest of the text doesn’t seem to bear this out. For as soon as the warning is delivered it is, inexplicably, withdrawn. We are told that God’s care for us has no bounds – God loves in such a way that even the hairs on our heads are counted. Jesus didn’t say that we should fear being cast into hell. He said, instead, that we should fear the one who has the authority to do this and then chooses not to do so. We should fear this lack of justice. We should fear the loss of this balm. We should fear God’s freedom to turn his infinite power away from the judgment that puts us at ease toward something completely unacceptable, like forgiveness. Because if Hitler’s not in hell, then everything collapses.

Forgiveness is so much less acceptable than judgment. Unlike judgment, forgiveness has definite limits. Small things can be forgiven; but actions with lasting consequences cannot. We need judgment to keep order. Judgment organizes us. It clarifies. And thus, Jesus warns us that the very one who can impose the severest judgment can frighten us most by granting what we would consider an intolerable forgiveness.

This is, we may be reminded, a dramatic instance of God’s declaration in Isaiah: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” And this, then, dramatically reframes Jesus’ statement that we ought not be afraid. It’s not that we’ll be judged right or good (as people of faith). Jesus said that we need not be afraid because God’s response to us overwhelms even the deepest divisions we experience. And without division, fear has no basis.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

    hallowed be thy Name,

    thy kingdom come,

    thy will be done,

        on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

    as we forgive those

        who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

    but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

    and the power, and the glory

    for ever and ever. Amen.