Q & R: Weeping and gnashing of teeth?
Here’s the Q:
We have just had a sermon on . the reading Luke 13 vv 22-35. The semon was very mainstream in its approach and took Jesus’ words at face value signifying that many would be excluded and sent to ‘hell’.
Please can you shed some light on how other interpretation may be achieved?
Here’s the R:
First, here’s the passage in question:
22 Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
He said to them, 24 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25 Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
26 “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
27 “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
28 “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30 Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”
The place where I’ve written in most detail on this subject is The Last Word and the Word After That. Also key, in my understanding, is a better sense of the larger biblical narrative (which I wrote about in A New Kind of Christianity) and Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom of God (The Secret Message of Jesus).
Short answer: This passage isn’t about sending people to hell after death. The word “saved” here doesn’t mean “saved from eternal conscious torment in hell” as many of us were taught. It means something more like “set free from the present oppressive & suicidal system” or “rescued from the coming cataclysmic disruption.” The passage is about a window of opportunity being open for a while, and then closed … which requires not theorizing (will only a few be saved?) but earnest, urgent, and intense response. I think when people today warn us about the impacts of climate change and sea level rise, they are doing something similar: creating a dystopian vision of the future to motivate us to urgent action in the present. Verses 28-30 also warn people not to assume they’re immune from consequences of inaction because of their religious pedigree … a timely warning for people everywhere.