I could be wrong, but the only time Jesus directly talks about Hell is in Matthew 5:22, “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.” Jesus keeps going in Matthew 5 to talk about cutting hands off and gouging out eyes to avoid Hell, but that feels like it will take more than 700 words in a column to process. But whenever people tell me they take all the Bible literally and they still have their hands and eyes, I say “nuh-uh.”<\/p>\n
Anyway if you are super interested in the history of Hell, then a little pamphlet “History of Hell” by the Christian History Institute is a great resource. I simply want to focus on the gravity of calling a brother or sister a fool.<\/p>\n
Holy guacamole. If this is to be taken literally, then I’m doomed because I’ve called my brother a fool more than once. My grandma used to pay us to stop trash talking. If this is to be taken metaphorically about our brothers and sisters across Christianity, then I’m still toast. There are times it feels like Christian denominations are coming from different planets not just perspectives. And if this is meant to be about humanity, then I’m good because I’ve never insulted anyone or called them an idiot. (Do I have to write I’m joking after such an absurd statement?)<\/p>\n
I have found the best way to curb the temptation to insult someone is to:<\/p>\n
• Not play ping pong or cribbage with them.<\/p>\n
• Be in meaningful relationship with them.<\/p>\n
I am most tempted to call someone names when I play my favorite games, which is completely acceptable, and when I make assumptions about what motivates them, which is not. I find I repeatedly fall in love with people when we are at a table together and I get to know them as people instead of ideas. So here is what I’m working on for this next year.<\/p>\n
I’m not calling my brother bad names. He lives in Florida and there are still times we get a little ornery with each other, but I try to text regularly and remind him that I love him even if he is a turkey butt. I’m pretty sure turkey butt is a term of endearment.<\/p>\n
A crew of church leaders are working on gathering with other Christians so we can know and understand each other better. This year is the 1700th Anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. I’m sure you all have started gathering party supplies, but 325 AD was a pretty big year for Christianity. This ecumenical council was the first time the universal church gathered and agreed on some basics, including the trinity, divine\/human nature of Christ, and the canon of scripture. That’s simplified, but good enough to motivate us to gather again for meaningful relationships instead of name calling.<\/p>\n
As part of the 1700th Anniversary, we hope to have some worships and meals in each other’s spaces during the season of Lent leading up to Easter, and host some other events together. Shepherd of the Valley currently works with six other churches in our neighborhood to provide hot meals on Tuesday nights in the Salvation Army food truck in the Aldersgate Methodist parking lot on Cinema Drive. There is also the hope of coordinating with other faith communities for disaster preparedness. Through the Local Emergency Planning Committee and Red Cross, the various faith communities have been brought together to talk about our role in mitigating disasters. The churches really should be leading the way in bridging the divide and learning how to love each other, or at least how to stop calling names.<\/p>\n
And humanity? My nephew made me a thumb rub that says, “Be kind.” I’ll hold that in my pocket when I listen to the news or drive on Egan.<\/p>\n
I want to give proper gravity to not calling names and dismissing others, whether it is biological siblings, faith siblings, or humanity as a whole, but I also lean heavily on my Lutheran roots where we trust grace. We are freed to live boldly in God’s love and confess when we fail to be the people God calls us to be. I’ll still probably call people names, but I won’t put Jesus’ stamp of approval on it.<\/p>\n
• “Living and Growing” is a weekly column written by different authors and submitted by local clergy and spiritual leaders. It appears every Saturday on the Juneau Empire’s Faith page.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I could be wrong, but the only time Jesus directly talks about Hell is in Matthew 5:22, “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.” Jesus keeps going in Matthew 5 to talk about cutting hands off and gouging out eyes to avoid Hell, but that feels like it will take more than 700 words in a column to process. But whenever people tell me they take all the Bible literally and they still have their hands and eyes, I say “nuh-uh.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":115424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[568,131],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-115423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-life","tag-column","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115423"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=115423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}