Hell, the theologians say, is total aloneness; not being connected to anything; totally unconnected.

We hardly ever hear about hell anymore. I believe hell is the direct opposite of community. Sometimes opposites are the only way to express realities. This definition places the idea of community as the opposite of this idea of hell.

Both – hell and community - are based on the reality that we are created as social beings. It is in our very nature to be social, to be in community. We are created in God’s image and likeness. God’s nature is relational in the Trinity, so we are relational in our lives.
Hell is a condition that happens as a result of putting oneself so consistently ahead of others in one’s life that the capacity for empathy is lost. Empathy, that bridge to others, completely and totally breaks down: no empathy, no connection, no life.

Community was important to Israel in the 7th century BC when the core of the book of Deuteronomy was developed. Israel was an agricultural society then and was slowly emerging into a commercial society by the time of the exile in the 5th century BC when the book was edited and amplified.

Deuteronomy brought together the internalizing of religious commitment, the emphasis on action and attitude, obedience and gratitude, based on love of God. The community through prophets and sages called upon the individual, not just the priests and cultic leaders, to respond to God in obedience arising out of deep heart-searching and self-examination. The teachings contained in this book were a major influence on the New Testament writers in their search to connect Jesus’ life and teachings to the Law and the Prophets.
Jesus’ life was totally one of obedience to his Father, even to dying on the cross. Jesus’ teaching of the first and most important command-ment found in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke is a quotation from this book.

From Mark Chapter 12: “Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’"

Deuteronomy speaks of the “year of remission,” occurring every seven years. The original legislation was for an agricultural society that all farmland remains uncultivated for a year. The natural cycle of the land as God’s gift would be honored and the earth’s vitality renewed. In the society of tribes and clans, farmland and herds were held in trust within the group.

In the later urban society, commerce and property ownership gave rise to individuals amassing great wealth and acquiring influence and power. There developed a wide separation between the “haves” and the “have nots.” The year of remission was calculated to alleviate conditions of economic poverty by releasing debts incurred by a member of the community. So, within the evolving commercial society, there was concern with protecting the weaker and less fortunate members.

Throughout the Book of Deuteronomy, we hear the voice of compassion for the less fortunate, and respect for all in the community. And we hear that voice today. The Deuteronomist cries out to us, "Open your hand to the poor.”

We can assume with some certainty that Paul studied Deuteronomy; that he was raised in this tradition of compassion for the less fortunate in his community.  He organizes a collection to help the Church in Jerusalem. Now, Paul writes to his Corinthians about the collection. He praises the efforts of the Macedonians “in rich generosity” in spite of “severe trials and extreme poverty.” He exhorts the Corinthians with flattery to “excel in this grace of giving, in this generous undertaking.” Just, he tells them, as you excel in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us.” Paul is onto some-thing. Believers give because God has given to them. The first letter of John says, “We love because God first loved us.”

Jesus is our model of compassion for those vulnerable in our community whatever their social status. Mark illustrates this in the story of Jairus’ dying daughter. Just before this scene, Mark tells of the curing of the woman who suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had spent all she had for cures but was getting worse. This woman is at the opposite end of the economic scale to Jairus. He is a leader of the synagogue, responsible for worship, teaching and discipline. He was probably wealthy and influential, used to sending others to do his bidding. Yet, he is as desperate as that woman. The fact that he comes himself instead of sending a servant to ask Jesus to heal his child shows how desperate he is. He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and begs him repeatedly. And just as the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage was so dramatic and immediate, Jesus raises the little girl to life.

Jesus tells the woman that her faith has cured her. He responds to the faith of this desperate father telling him, “Do not fear, only believe.”

The lesson here is that we who receive God’s grace must pass it on, must direct God’s love, overflowing in us, to someone else. This is awesome. Think what it says about us in our daily routine.

It says that every encounter with another person is an opportunity to be a channel of God’s grace, God’s love. Not to think of God’s grace in this way is to regard it as a possession whose only effect is for us as individuals and not for us as a community.

We become like a deep well fed by underground streams of water.  The well will continue to be replenished only if water is regularly drawn out. When the water is not drawn from it, the well will eventually dry up from disuse. We are like that well. The water feeding us is God’s grace. If we don’t draw up that grace and pass it on to others, we dry up. We think that God’s grace is just for us alone. We become self-absorbed, eventually disconnected and alone.
No empathy, no connection, no life!

Grace comes into the world finding expression through people. God’s grace becomes what it is meant to be only as it reaches more and more and more people. That can only happen through us – through you and me, as individuals and in community.

Prophets, in Jeremiah’s time and in ours, who have nothing else to say but “peace my friends, all is well with us” may be doing nothing but reinforcing the desire for the status quo. Because many in the community are enjoying the good things in life, we hear what we want to hear.  So, we respond, “Don’t change anything. We’re doing fine just the way it is.” Therein is the danger. Such complacency ignores the obvious ills and sickness of our larger society. The point in Jeremiah is that prophets do bring good news when they proclaim a time for change from that complacency, when they bring the good news of God’s favor to those who are the poor, the downtrodden, those who think all is lost.

But that voice usually turns out to be the minority voice. That whisper of a voice that calls us all to account and judgment. That voice is a counter point against the norms and criteria of the community with a status quo attitude. And it’s calling for justice and righteousness, to do no wrong or violence to the stranger, the orphan or widow, to respect the dignity of every human being; words often not welcome to our ears, much less to our hearts and minds. Yet this is exactly what we commit ourselves to in our Baptismal promises

We hear the psalmist’s cries to God: “Arise O God, and rule the earth. Rescue the weak and the poor; defend the humble and the needy.”

God’s Word illuminates. It also consumes like fire. God’s word can shatter what it addresses.

“Am I a God when near and not a God when far away? Can anyone hide somewhere secret without my seeing him?  Do not I fill heaven and earth? Is my word not like fire; is it not like a hammer shattering a rock?

So much so that, prophets who proclaim change for the sake of justice and God’s kingdom, as Jesus reminds us, are killed and their words rejected. The example in our own time is the life and death of that latter day prophet, Martin Luther king. His proclamation for justice and dignity brought division, violence and death in our own lifetime here in our own country.

As Jesus leads his disciples toward Jerusalem, with somber warnings, Jesus tells them, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth. Do you think I came to give peace in the earth? Not that, I tell you, but division.”
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In the beginning, Jesus’ disciples were amazed at his teachings, full of joy, celebrating the Good News that the kingdom of God is at hand. But they became fearful because Jesus was overturning all that they had been taught.  And, they became transformed into new persons just as we are in our Baptism. For the disciples then, and us as believers now, transformation means change and division: a separation from the old ways, the old attitudes, from injustice. We have the same free gift of faith as they did. We have the same hope of resurrection. We continue the work of Jesus in our own life and times.

And as a resurrection people, the Body of Christ, the gathering of believers, we are called to justice and righteousness. We are called to do no wrong or violence, to respect the dignity of every human being, but even more, to help the stranger, the orphan and the widow, the oppressed, the hungry, and the vulnerable among us.
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In other words, to become more and more like Jesus.

My last reflection was about Judas, the betrayer of Jesus. It is appropriate now to speak of Nicodemus the Defender of Jesus.
Nicodemus appears only in John’s Gospel and only three times. He is a Pharisee, a member the Council of chief priests, elders, and scribes. During Jesus’ three years of public ministry, Nicodemus is there among the crowds. He hears Jesus proclaiming the coming of God’s kingdom. Nicodemus sees many of Jesus’ healings and deeds of power.

The Pharisees condemn Jesus when he heals on the Sabbath. They continually contest and argue against his teaching on the Torah. Jesus calls them hypocrites! “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: ‘This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”

Yet, Nicodemus, a righteous Jew, is drawn to this young Rabbi from Nazareth.

It is Passover. Nicodemus is in the Temple Court when Jesus is teaching there. Nicodemus sees Jesus chase out the moneychangers, overturn their tables; scatter their coins; drive cattle and sheep out of the temple precincts. He hears from the crowd many believe that Jesus could be the Messiah.

On the last day of the festival, at night, in secret, Nicodemus comes to talk to Jesus. He makes reference to what Jesus said and did in the temple. I have seen signs of God’s power in you. I have heard you’re teaching. “I believe you are the Messiah, The Son of God.”

Jesus tells Nicodemus: “You have not yet seen because you have not yet been born from above. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

Nicodemus sees now only dimly. Soon he will with clear vision and burgeoning faith see in Jesus the kingdom of God in its fullness.
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.” (old evangelical hymn)

It is the time of The Festival of Booths, the great annual pilgrimage when the Jewish people gather together in Jerusalem to remember God's provision in the Wilderness and to look ahead to the promised Messianic age. Nicodemus, of course, is here as a member of the Great Council.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem secretly on the last day of the festival because the Chief priest and members of the Council are seeking to arrest him. Jesus knows they are plotting to kill him.

Jesus goes to the temple court and begins to teach. The crowd’s reaction is astonishment.: “How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?” “Isn’t this the one they are trying to kill, yet, he speaks openly.” “Do the authorities really know he is the Messiah?”  “We know where this man comes from. No one knows where the Messiah will come from.”

Jesus tells them my teaching comes from God, my Father. “So, if my teaching is from God, why are you trying to kill me? “You know me, and you know where I am from.” Many in the crowd believed him but some wanted to arrest him.

Nicodemus and the Council convening in the temple hear Jesus. They hear the crowd’s muttering. The High Priest sends the temple police to arrest Jesus. The police confused by divisions in the crowd, return without arresting him.

Nicodemus, secretly a disciple of Jesus, reminds the Council there must be a hearing according to Jewish law. Jesus must be brought before the Council, charges of blasphemy made supported by three witnesses before a decision to arrest Jesus and judgement made against him.

Friday evening at Golgotha, Jesus is crucified and dead. Nicodemus is there with Joseph of Arimathea. Both members of the Sanhedrin have come to believe righteousness comes not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Messiah. Joseph boldly goes to Pilot, asks and gets permission to take Jesus’ body away for burial.

Nicodemus brings spices for anointing. He and Joseph take Jesus down from the cross. The women who were there at the foot of the cross prepare Jesus’ body for burial. They bring Jesus’ body to a man-made burial cave in a nearby garden. The burial was undertaken quickly, "for the Sabbath was drawing on."

Nicodemus made a long journey to believing Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, The Son of God. “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

So different from Paul’s explosive, singular flash of blinding light; “Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?”

Yet so similar! For both, a journey from bitter enmity and persecution to love and faith; for Nicodemus, a slow walk of longing and inspiration; for Paul, an immediate flash of light, of faith!

I wonder how and when did I come to believe Jesus Messiah, Son of God and my brother. Hard to pin down! Certainly not a flash of light; but a slow longing, I think; a life full of fits and starts, falling and rising, falling and rising, again and again. Thank God for the grace of faith! I know Jesus turned and continues turning my life “upside down.”

Is this typical of what we all go through on our journey of faith? Longing for the Holy Spirit to uphold us, fill our hearts with faith, hope and agape love? The ways we express our longing are so diverse. But they have one thing in common: they are a direct response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, who “searches our depths” and “searches the depths of God.” It is the depths our hearts long for most.

We cannot see the depths of God in the dimming light of the world, we need another light. We need Jesus. In His Light, we see God.

“Wise Nicodemus saw such light.  As made him know his God by night.
Most blest believer he! Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see, When Thou didst rise!
And, what can never more be done, did at midnight speak with the Sun!”
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From “The Night” BY HENRY VAUGHAN   1621–1695