Gates of Hell

So obviously when people find out I’m going to Sudan, they are often curious about why I want to do such a thing. And usually I refrain from mentioning anything spiritual… since 1) a lot of people are leery about the idea of “missionary” work, and 2) given my own hesitations about evangelism, I’m not exactly leading the pack on “reaching the nations for Jesus” zeal. However, the truth is, a lot of my motivations are spiritually grounded – though I could spend hours writing on why that is and how my religious convictions have developed and been re-shaped over the past years. No time for that now, but I did want to share some thoughts that are relevant to answering the questions of “Why Sudan?” and “Why go some place so dangerous and broken?” The following is an excerpt from “Jesus for President” by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw – two guys who grew up in a similar religious culture as I did, and who are now bringing some valuable perspective to re-thinking some of those truths we learned as kids in the Bible Belt. (Sorry if the train of thought is kinda fractured.. but I’m gonna skip around some for the sake of brevity.)

“There’s a lot of bad theology out there. Some folks tell us we shouldn’t worry about caring for creation since it’s all going to burn soon anyway. Other folks have a fatalistic view that the world stinks, so we just need to prepare people to die. But we are convinced that Jesus came not to prepare us to die but to teach us how to live. The kingdom of God is not just something we hope for when we die but something we live ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’ And we’re not willing simply to promise the world that there is life after death when the world is asking, ‘Is there life before death?’ We are thankful for heaven, but we are not willing to stand by and watch people live through hell to get there…

We remember as children hearing hellfire and damnation sermons… we all went forward to repent of all the evil things we had done over the first decade of our lives, motivated by the fear of being ‘left behind.’ The preacher literally scared the hell out of us… But have you ever noticed that Jesus didn’t spend much time on hell? Really there are only a couple of times when he spoke of weeping and gnashing of teeth, of hell and God’s judgment, and both had to do with the walls we create between ourselves and our suffering neighbors. [Commentary on the passage in Matthew 25, and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man]… God is in the business of rescuing people from the hells they experience on earth. And God is asking us to love people out of those hells. Hell is not just something that comes after death, but it is something many are living in this very moment: 1.2 billion people groan for a drop of water each day; more than thirty thousand kids starve to death each day; and thirty-eight million folks are dying of AIDS. It seems ludicrous to think of preaching to them about hell when we would do better sitting at the well asking them for a little water. We see Jesus spending far more energy loving the hell out of people, and lifting people out of the hells in which they are trapped, than trying to scare them into heaven. And one of the most beautiful things we get to see in community here in Kensington is people who have been loved out of the hells they find themselves in – domestic violence, addiction, sex trafficking, loneliness.

C.S. Lewis understood hell not as a place where God locks people out of heaven but as a dungeon that we lock ourselves into… With this new perspective, we gain new insight when we look at the parable of Lazarus or hear the brilliant words with which Jesus reassured Peter that ‘the gates of hell will not prevail against you.’ As adolescents, we understood that to mean that the demons and fiery darts of the Devil will not hit us. But lately we’ve done a little more thinking and praying, and we have a bit more insight on gates. Gates are not offensive weapons. Gates are defensive – walls and fences we build to keep people out. God is not saying the gates of hell will not prevail as they come at us. God is saying that we are in the business of storming the gates of hell, and the gates will not prevail as we crash through them with grace.

People sometimes ask if we are scared of the inner city. We say that we are more scared of the suburbs. Jesus warns that we can fear those things which can hurt our bodies or those things which can destroy our souls, but we should be far more fearful of the latter. Those are the subtle demons of suburbia. As Shane’s mother says, ‘Perhaps there is no more dangerous place for a Christian to be than in safety and comfort, detached from the suffering of others.’ We’re scared of apathy and complacency, of detaching ourselves from the suffering. Just as we are building walls to keep people out of our comfortable, insulated existence, we are trapping ourselves in a hell of isolation, loneliness, and fear… Let’s pray that God would give us the strength to storm the gates of hell and tear down the walls we have created between us and those whose suffering would disrupt our comfort.”

There’s no question that the people of Sudan have already lived through hell on earth. After 50 years of civil war, of death and fear and sorrow and hate – there is no doubt that many of the Sudanese have been trapped in a cycle of horror that would rival any nightmare we could imagine of fire and brimstone. And so if I believe that Christ calls us to love our neighbors and to pursue His Kingdom, there’s no way I can believe He merely wills us to share with the Sudanese about some promise of heaven-after-you-die. Would I hope that they would want to pursue a relationship with Jesus? Of course – because I don’t think anyone can ever truly experience Life Abundant apart from Grace. But surely loving our neighbors also means joining the fight against all the things that would steal life from them – including war, poverty, hatred and fear. And I think it’s hard, if not impossible, to fight against those things from a distance. Obviously not everyone is called to go to the front-lines of tragedies – to the war-zones or hospitals or inner-cities or nursing homes. But I DO think we are called to do our part to join in what God is doing to bring love and healing and hope and grace to those places. I think it’s a gift the Lord gives us actually – an invitation to play some small part in seeing redemption happen, in seeing restoration take place. And in fact I think it’s impossible for us to ever experience grace and healing in our own lives if we refuse to find commonality in the suffering of others.

And so am I going to Sudan to “share God with people”? Yes. But that’s because I think God isn’t just in the business of “life after death” – I’m pretty convinced He’s in the business of bringing life before death too. And Sudan could definitely use more folks striving to see more life there. More peace there. More joy there. To me, it’d be totally worth risking a little danger, if in the end we get to conquer some of death’s grip on a weary land and replace it with life and hope.