July 1, 2018 – “Dear God…Is Christianity Too Narrow?” by Rev. Cody Sandahl

Lay Reader = 1 Peter 4:1-11
4Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), 2so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. 3You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.
4They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. 5But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.6For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.
7The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. 8Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. 11Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
Introduction
We are still in our series looking at some of the most common questions people ask about our faith. Last week we asked why God allows pain and suffering, and I spent twenty minutes basically saying “I don’t know.” But we have the fantastic promise that Jesus will be with us always, even as we suffer, even when we are in pain, through everything.
This week we are asking if Christianity is too narrow. There are some religions that are fairly broad, and some religions that make some eternal and exclusive claims. For instance, I had a friend who was a Buddhist, and he said it was more like a moral code than a religion. No exclusive claims in his approach. But for Christians and Muslims, especially, our respective faiths say that everyone should believe what we believe.
And they’re not exactly compatible. Did you know Jesus is a part of the Quran? It’s true. But in the Quran he is an important prophet, not the Son of God. If you know someone who says Jesus was a good teacher, that’s kind of how Jesus is viewed in Islam. A good teacher, but not as important as Muhammad. Only one religion can be right about that – is Jesus God, or a good teacher and a prophet? One’s right and one’s wrong.
And it seems like every religion has its weird spots, right? I knew someone who was Wiccan, and he was always a little worried about being pulled over in his car on his way to their gatherings, because part of his religious practice requires a sword. Not to mention sometimes worshiping sky-clad. As in clad in nothing but the sky. Naked for those who still haven’t connected the dots. The Worship Committee didn’t approve that proposal – don’t worry.
Or for us Christians, have you ever told a new convert that you pray in the car? It’s a priceless look before they realize that means you can pray without closing your eyes. Try it sometime. It’s fun.
The biggest difference, though, between Christianity and just about every other religion, is the direction of the action. It has been said that religion is humanity’s attempt to reach God, but Christianity is God’s attempt to reach humanity.
Knowing that every religion sounds weird to those who aren’t a part of it, the Apostle Paul was very clever when he spread the good news of Jesus in the city of Athens. Listen to how he approaches the topic with the Athenians. Notice how he doesn’t want them to add a little idol to Jesus to their existing and voluminous collections of idols to pray to. He knows our faith asks for much more than a little token of affection.
Acts 17:16-31
16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
22Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ 29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Respectful
As a student at the University of Texas, you must learn a critical skill. It is imperative. You must learn how to walk by people without making eye contact. Some say waiting in line is the most important skill at UT, but I say ignoring people is #1. Because the path you walk between your classes and the student union, where all the good food is on campus, is clogged with every student group under the sun trying desperately to get your attention despite being with fourteen hundred other student groups doing the same thing. If you stopped and talked to everyone, it would take seventeen days to reach the student union. So you must learn to ignore people. Lunch awaits at the union!
But in the midst of all those attempts to get your attention, one group stood head and shoulders above the rest. They got everyone’s attention – even those who opposed them. It’s pretty impressive. It was a Christian group. And once a year they trotted out their over-sized burning flame banners proclaiming that everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus – by which they mean everyone who doesn’t follow their exact set of beliefs about Jesus – all of those other people are going to hell. Where they’ll burn. It’s a good attention-getter.
But you know who didn’t come to talk to them? Anyone who was curious about Jesus. They gathered quite the crowd, but it was a crowd of people trying to shout them down, not listen to what they had to say.
By contrast, did you hear how Paul approached the Athenians? The text says he was “deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” He cared deeply. He was bothered. He was borderline angry. But that’s not how he approached them.
He actually started by praising them for their religiosity. He decides to embrace their curiosity about religion rather than tell them they’re going to hell if they don’t agree with him. But he still makes the big claims of Christianity. He proclaims not just a little god, but “the God who made the world and everything in it.” He proclaims not just a God of one ethnicity, but “we are all God’s offspring.” He proclaims not just a God who wants five minutes of your time once a week to burn some incense, but “he commands people everywhere to repent” because everyone “will be judged in righteousness.”
So if we take our cues from Paul, when we interact with people of other religions or someone who doesn’t believe in religion, Paul started from a place of commonality. He started where the people were. He found a way to respect and affirm where they were. And then he still made his message and the good news of Jesus Christ very clear. And good news is a key word. Do you know where we get the English word “evangelism?” It’s from the Biblical Greek word “euangelion,” which literally means “good news.” Flaming banners at the University of Texas doesn’t seem like “good news” to me.
Does Hell Exist?
But their flaming banners do raise a good question as we wonder if Christianity is too narrow. Does hell exist? Is there some kind of eternal separation from God that is a punishment of sorts? Well, if you’re going to believe the near-death experiences we talked about after Easter – where people experienced heaven before being brought back to life – then you might want to believe in something a bit less pleasant as well. About 85% of people who have a near-death experience have a positive experience. But about 15% have what are called distressing near-death experiences. Many report seeing rapid-fire replays of their life moments and feeling judged or condemned because of it.
And the Bible sure seems to be consistent on the fact that not everyone will enjoy the eternal joy of the Father in heaven. The lovely summary of God’s love in John 3:16? Let’s keep reading through verse 18 shall we?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
I haven’t seen any John 3:18 banners, have you? That part about being condemned if you don’t believe in Jesus – that sounds a bit scarier than John 3:16’s talk about God loving the whole world.
Or in Matthew 25 when Jesus is talking about the sheep and the goats. To the sheep he has wonderful things to say. But to the goats, who didn’t feed or clothe or visit or care for the least of these, he says, “depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Or in Luke 16 Jesus tells a parable about Lazarus and the rich man who die at the same time. Lazarus suffered in life but now he’s at Abraham’s side in the afterlife. But the rich man who ignored Lazarus on earth cries out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” That doesn’t sound good, does it?
If you’re still not convinced, go read Revelation and then tell me that hell doesn’t exist. Go ahead. I’ll wait. I’m not sure exactly what hell is, I’m not sure exactly what the experience is for those who are in it, but the Bible seems very clear on the idea that some people aren’t going to have a pleasant eternal experience. How many? What percentage? How unpleasant? We don’t know. I’ll let you know when I hopefully don’t get there.
As a side note, I don’t know if you know this, but when you become a pastor you are issued three “Get Out of Hell Free” cards. It’s true. And when we have another major fund raiser I’ll have one of those available for auction. It’s going to be a hot item if you catch my drift. Just kidding! That’s not true! Or is it?
While it would be nice if our faith could say, “don’t worry everyone, we’ll see everyone in heaven,” that’s really not in the Bible. I don’t know what the breakdown will be, but it’s not going to be 100% of the people on the planet. That seems pretty clear.
I heard a story once about what heaven and hell are like. This is not in the Bible – it’s just interesting. Someone is taken by an angel to see what hell is like. And it’s a glorious mansion. And the angel takes the observer to the great dining hall where a sumptuous feast is laid out. Everyone is seated at the table, but they have their arms clamped away from their bodies so they can’t feed themselves. And everyone is furious with their hunger and their futility.
The angel then takes the observer to heaven, where an identical mansion is serving an identical feast to a group identically clamped so they can’t feed themselves. But everyone is happy in heaven, because they are feeding the person next to them instead and being fed by their neighbor as well. I don’t think that’s what heaven and hell really look like, but I think it captures the attitudes of the inhabitants of each realm very well.
How Do We Get Into Heaven?
So other than my auction for the “Get Out of Hell Free” card, how do we know we’ll be on the positive side of the eternal destination equation?
Well in our text today, Paul tells the Athenians, “he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” In other words, follow Jesus.
And what did Jesus himself say? “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And elsewhere Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”
Jesus is the way to a positive eternal destination. In fact, he says that he is the only path.
Now with that said, we heard a couple of weeks ago when we were asking if God exists that every person has the ability to instinctively live their lives in a Gospel-honoring way, because God has written it on their hearts. So perhaps people who don’t follow Jesus specifically but live in a way that pleases Jesus are good. Maybe. It’s possible.
And in our first text today it says that Jesus himself preaches to the dead. Now, the context seems to suggest that this might be a one-time fix to deal with the problem of people who died before Jesus was born. But it’s possible that everyone gets one last shot after they die because Jesus himself will present the Gospel. Maybe. It’s possible.
But rather than counting on those “maybe”s, on those “it’s possible”s, Jesus commanded us to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and remember I am with you always to the end of the age.” Jesus doesn’t say, “sit back and relax – I’m a way better preacher than you and I’ll get them on the way out.” No, he sends us now. Today.
But we should be very, very circumspect about saying “this person will be in heaven but this other person will be in hell.” Remember the thieves on the cross hanging next to Jesus? One mocks him, but the other asks Jesus to remember him when Jesus comes into his kingdom? And Jesus says to that one, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” No one would have guessed that the thief would get a positive eternal experience, and yet there at the end he finds it in Jesus. We don’t know who is living the life of the thief today but will find Jesus later. We can’t write anyone off as a lost cause. There’s always a chance. Unless you’re a Raiders or Chiefs fan in football – then it’s hopeless right? Just kidding!
So it’s possible that Jesus will tell everyone the Good News when they die. And maybe people who instinctively live in a God-honoring way will be counted among the good sheep instead of the bad goats.
But the only sure path is the one Jesus himself layed out – “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is the only path that is sure instead of a “maybe” or “it’s possible.” So we are called to share the Good News about Jesus in a respectful way to those who do not follow Jesus already.
Too Narrow?
So is Christianity too narrow? It offers a clear path to a positive eternal experience to every human on the planet, so I think that’s pretty inclusive actually. And it doesn’t require you to radically change your customs – Christianity presents itself differently around the globe. But Jesus is the one commonality. All we require is faith in one who died for us, rose for us, and reigns for us.
As Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Ephesus, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” That’s pretty inclusive if you ask me. It’s not universal – not everyone is going to get it – but it’s universally available.
So now for the tough question to ponder this week – is God calling you to respectfully share the Good News with someone? Is God calling you to let someone know you’re praying for them, even if they don’t believe in prayer? Some people think Christianity is too narrow. I don’t think so. In fact, I think the Holy Spirit wants to use the people in this room to expand the reach of Christ this week. What’s your part to play? Amen.