Dear Friends,

So this week we take up a story about a rich man in hell and a poor man in heaven and “never the twain shall meet.” Kinda like last week the text includes some head-scratchers, but clarity comes at the very last when Father Abraham says to the man stuck in hell, “If your kin folks won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Of course, the one telling the story is none other than the soon-to-be-crucified-and-risen One.

As Jesus tells the story, hell is a place of torment for a man whose life was spent serving his own needs while heaven is a place of respite for the sufferer who wasn’t served by the man who’s landed himself in hell. “And there’s a chasm between the two places,” Jesus says. Most interestingly, the chasm prevents the hell-ions from leaving; same chasm prevents any who “might want to pass” from heaven to hell from doing so. Somebody might want to leave heaven?

I suppose if heaven is heaven at all, anyone who’d deserve to be there would be longing to leap the chasm in order to show compassion - even to the very ones who never helped them while they both yet drew breath.

That brought to mind the oft-told “parable of the long spoons.” (I’ll leave you to Google that one for yourself.) Which then sent me on a photo-chase. Above is a road sign from Hell, Norway; “Light rain and 44 degrees” when curiosity led me to map the place.

Upshot: except for the temperature and how you landed there (and maybe the length of the spoon handles), heaven and hell might not be all that different after all. It’s the residents who are rather distinctive in each place. Distinctive from each other to the point that inhabitants in both eternal destinations are longing to leap the chasm to the other side, even if for starkly opposite purposes.

Should be another interesting Sunday! See you then.

Peace, 

Lisa

Photo by Peter Leong on Unsplash