Sinners in the Hands of a Gracious God
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15; Luke 16:19-31
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung is the one who made us aware of archetypes and the powerful sway they have in our world and in our lives. An archetype is a universal idea, a form, a norm. The word archetype literally means “original pattern” and refers to the universal patterns we all experience. For example, a well-known archetype is the Wise Old Man. Think Yoda from Star Wars or Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series. Another well-known archetype is the Outlaw. Think Robinhood or William Wallace from Braveheart. Maybe the easiest way for me to describe this is with the typical western movie. All westerns have a bad guy, right? The bad guy is an archetype we all experience. You may have a bad guy in your office or your class at school. If you’re watching The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, like Kelly and I are, it’s easy to identify who the bad guys are.
Western movies also have a good guy. Sometimes you can tell the good guys from the bad guys by how they dress. What color hat does the bad guy tend to wear? Black. And the good guy? White. You know your western movies! We all experience the good guys of the world too.
Most western movies also have a damsel in distress. Throughout the movie she is in danger, somehow threatened by the bad guy. But we all know how these movie ends, right? No matter how dangerous it gets for the damsel in distress, we don’t worry because we know the good guy always arrives in time to rescue her.
That’s the way archetypes work. Mother and father are archetypes. So are soldier and magician and trickster and sage and lover and hero and many others. They are universal patterns we all experience. They influence our world, and they influence us personally whether we are aware of it or not.
Today I want to challenge a very powerful religious archetype. It has done great damage to the human race. Children drink in this archetype in their Vacation Bible School Cool-Aid. Adults breathe it in from sermons and Sunday school lessons and the hymns we sing. It makes people fearful. It contributes to psychosis and paranoia. It is its worst on deathbeds, where we should be enveloped by peace, where we should gently slip from the arms of this life into the next. But that’s not the experience for some. As some people lay dying, they are consumed with dread and fear about their eternal fate, all because of this archetype. Arguably the most powerful and destructive archetype known to us is the Angry and Vengeful God.
This archetype has been immortalized in some of the most famous and valuable artwork known to the human race. Michaelangelo’s The Last Judgment adorns the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. I hope to see it some day. It depicts the Second Coming of Christ and the final, eternal, and foreboding judgment of all humanity by God. On one side of the painting, the saved ascend into heavenly bliss. Oh, what joy! On the other side, the damned descend into unceasing torture. Eternal, unrelenting, fiery torture. When you look at this painting, you are supposed to ask yourself this question: Which group are you in, those ascending to eternal bliss or those descending to eternal damnation?
Are you sure of your answer? Are you absolutely sure?
Now do you see how powerful this archetype is?
Likely nothing fortified the Angry and Vengeful God archetype more than a sermon preached in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1741. The preacher was the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and the title of the sermon was “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It prompted what historians now call the First Great Awakening, a spiritual revival that swept across this country. Rev. Edwards described in fiery, horrific detail God’s wrath upon unbelievers after their death. His listeners, he said, were like a spider dangling by a web over the leaping flames of hell. Here is one section of the sermon:
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.
It was a long sermon, as they all were back then. It ended this way:
Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: “Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.”
Historians tell us that people cried out in fear during the sermon. Some wept uncontrollably. Others gripped the backs of pews or wrapped their arms around the columns in the sanctuary out of fear that they might fall into the flames of eternal damnation.
I have some harsh words to say now. The Wise Old Man archetype is real. I’ve known many Wise Old Men. The Outlaw archetype is real too. I’ve known a few Outlaws. The archetype of the Angry and Vengeful God is a myth created in the minds of manipulative, domineering men and perpetrated by a power hungry Church that was afraid it would lose its power. This myth has done untold damage to the human psyche. It is a sanctified blasphemy. The Church should repent for the spiritual and psychological trauma it has inflicted on the world. Unfortunately, you can still hear it preached from pulpits across this land.
Let us try to imagine how different the world would be today if we had told them instead about sinners in the hands of a gracious God, the God who was embodied in life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who took little children into his arms and blessed them, who ate meals with sinners and gave them hope, who fed the hungry and healed the sick, and who told a story about a loving father who sought two lost sons. He didn’t just let the sons descend into unceasing torture. No, he sought until he found them. Jesus of Nazareth spoke no words of judgment, except to the manipulative, domineering men of his own age who were trying to perpetuate their religious institution.
He also told the story I read earlier about a rich man and a poor man. This is where the Angry and Vengeful God archetype was born, from a misinterpretation of this story. The rich man is not named. The poor man’s name was Lazarus, which means “God helps.” He was covered in sores, Jesus said. Dogs licked his sores. He was hungry and longed to have the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. The late Fred Craddock describes Lazarus this way, “The poor man, clothed in running sores, squats (lies) among the dogs, gaunt, hollow-eyed, and famished, his face turned toward the rich man’s house in the museum stare of the dying.” (Interpretation, Luke, p. 195).
Lazarus died. Jesus said the angels carried him away to the bosom of Abraham, where he was an honored guest at the messianic banquet.
The rich man died too, and this is where this story has been misinterpreted. Jesus did not say he went to hell. He said he went to hades, the Jewish concept of sheol, simply meaning the place of the dead. This parable does not create a theology of hell and an Angry and Vengeful God who puts people there. It is an indictment of the religious leaders, who did not care for the poor and needy of the land.
Here’s what I hope you can believe in the deepest places of your being. God does not abhor you. God loves you. That is the most basic message of the Bible. You are not a loathsome spider dangled over hell by an Angry and Vengeful God. God gave the Son for you. We’re not hapless sinners in the hands of an angry God. We’re sons and daughters of God, beloved, blessed, in the hands of a gracious God.
Closing Prayer
How could we have gotten it so wrong, Lord? Forgive us. And thank you for being the gracious one you are. Amen.
