The Walking Dead

August 24th, 2014
11th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year A
The Rev. David Kendrick

"Hell" in at least some circles is not a popular word.  When I was typing this sermon on my iPad, the autocorrect kept trying to change it to "He'll."  I've also noticed that the auto formatting in my iPad won't automatically uppercase "God."  I always have to use the shift key to refer to God as one person rather than a thing or as just one in a pantheon of mythological gods.  It is a bit annoying.  But others, I imagine, might attribute more sinister motives: a secular computer company which perhaps assumes that its users won't actually be referring to God as a person, or Hell as a place.  But before we get our Christian backs up, let's make sure we actually know what "Hell" is.  Our English word, "Hell" probably originated in the Germanic name Halija.  In Norse mythology, Halija was the daughter of the Norse god Loki.  And she ruled over that part of the underworld where the souls of the evil were banished.  The first English translators of the Bible picked "Hell" to translate those places of the dead that Jesus referred to.  But what did Jesus really mean by "Hell?"

If you go back to a more traditional translation, say the King James, where it puts the word, "Hell" in Jesus' mouth, in Matthew's Gospel at least, the Greek word being translated as Hell is something else.  Most of the time, the actual word is Gehena.  And Gehena was an actual place near Jerusalem that Jesus and the Jews of his time could actually see.  Hundreds of years earlier, it was thought to have been the site where Jewish leaders had reverted to the worship of pagan gods, and had even sacrificed children.  After the Jewish people had returned from their Babylonian exile, they began using the place as their garbage dump.  It was smelly, and occasionally fires would break out there.  So when Jesus talked about the judgment of Gehena, or the fire of Gehena, he was using an image that those hearing him would have understood as a metaphor for that place, or form of existence, in which one had completely separated themselves from the one and only God of the universe.

But in today's Gospel reading, Jesus uses another term, which we used to hear as "Hell" but which the NRSV correctly translates as "Hades," the Greek god of the dead, who like the Norse goddess Halija ruled in the Underworld, that place where it was assumed that the souls of those who had been buried underground went to spend eternity.  Whether it was what the Israelites of the Old Testament called Sheol, or what the Norse called Halija, or what the Romans called Pluto, or what the Greeks called Hades; human beings in the ancient world sensed that there had to be a place where the souls of the dead went after their bodies had died.  Even the Neanderthals understood that.  In the Museum of Natural History on the Washington Mall there used to be an exhibit of a Neanderthal burial, based in actual burial sites, in which the dead were buried fully clothed, tied up as if they would be carried somewhere, and left with a leg of meat, as if they might need to eat something on their continuing journey.

Today, of course, we know better than to think that the human soul goes to some underworld that we can locate on a geological map.  And with his knowledge of the divine, I would assume that Jesus knew it too.  So when he talked about Gehena or Hades, he was using the only metaphors that his hearers could understand.  How else could he express to human minds that which is completely unknowable to us until we experience it for ourselves?  That inability to know anything of death, I suppose, is what makes us fear it so.  But Jesus certainly doesn't seem to want us to be afraid.  "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."  Jesus may have been speaking directly to Peter, at least initially.  But Peter is the rock on which the Church will be built, the beginning of the Church, which today is us.  So today, Jesus says to you his Church that the gates of Hades, the powers of death, shall not conquer you.

So what?  The obituary pages testify to us that people die every day.  All of us know that at some point we’re going to die.  But of course, Jesus knows that too, very very well.  But there are many many people out there, and maybe even in here, who are dead and dying.  Jesus knew that too.  Just before today's reading, Jewish leaders had come to him demanding a sign from heaven.  And this demand came right after Jesus had fed thousands with just a few loaves of bread and some fish for the second time.  Theirs was the death of blindness, not of the eyes but of the heart and mind.  Jesus and his disciples are in Caesarea Philippi, where high Roman officials vacationed; and the Roman commander who destroyed Jerusalem some 30 years later would go to celebrate.  Theirs is the death of political and military power that is always fleeting.

There are many ways in which we can be dead and dying but still walking, the Walking Dead but much better looking than zombies.  We have our modern metaphors for death too.  And that may be the truest metaphor of all.  For there are many things that make us more fearful than trusting, or faithful.  And when we ruled by our fears, rather than our trust, we risk rejecting the God who asks us to trust that "nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen."  So it says in the Prayer Book Catechism.  That same Catechism defines "hell" as "eternal death in our rejection of God."  So if one is failing to trust God now, then that person is dying or dead, the walking dead.

But do not give in to the powers of death!  Look for those signs, however small, of resurrection, of new possibilities, of new life.  If that means turning off the TV for awhile, do it.  If that means fasting for awhile from the Internet, do it.  If it means spending more time with the people in your neighborhood, in your church, in your community, do it.  Come to the Outreach picnic this afternoon and see how Ambassadors for Children are spreading seeds of hope for the future.  Whatever it takes to keep the gates of Hades from creeping up on you and turning you into the walking dead, do it.  Each one of you is now the rock on which the Church is built.  And walking together, the powers of death shall never, never conquer.