Consider Life Without God

Homily for Sunday, November 16, 2025
The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Malachi 4:1-2a

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

Today, taking a cue from this morning’s reading from Malachi, I will preach “fire and brimstone.”   But I want to begin with an example of how not to preach fire and brimstone.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce tells how one Fr. Arnall gave a retreat for the students of Belvedere College, a Jesuit school for boys in Dublin that Joyce himself had attended.  The occasion for the retreat was the feast day of Francis Xavier, the school’s patron saint.  Over the course of three days, Fr. Arnall spoke to the boys about 1) death, 2) judgment, and 3) heaven and hell.  Here follows a brief extract from Fr. Arnall’s talk on judgment:

Lo,the supreme judge is coming!  No longer the lowly Lamb of God, no longer the meek Jesus of Nazareth, no longer the Man of Sorrows, no longer the Good Shepherd, He is seen now coming upon the clouds,in great power and majesty…  [the] Supreme Judge, from whose sentence there will be and can be no appeal.  The just He calls to His side… The unjust He casts from Him… “into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.”

And here, from Fr. Arnall’s address to the boys about hell:

The sulphurous brimstone which burns in hell… is specifically designed to burn forever and forever with unspeakable fury…. The lake of fire in hell is boundless, shoreless and bottomless… And this terrible fire will not afflict the bodies of the damned from without, but each lost soul will be a hell unto itself, the boundless fire raging in his very vitals…  The blood seethes and boils in the veins, the brains boil in the skulls, the heart in the breast glowing and bursting… the tender eyes flaming like molten balls.

If this truly was Joyce’s experience as a young man, no wonder he renounced the Church and refused to have his children baptized!

Why does the Church even teach about hell?  In seminary, one of my classmates asked a beloved Old Testament professor, in a discussion about a “fire and brimstone” text similar to this morning’s reading from Malachi, if she thought there were a connection between a person’s sin and their subsequent illness.  It was at root a question of “theodicy,” or, “Why do we suffer?”  The professor chose her words carefully:  “While there are many who are quick to dismiss a connection between a person’s sin and their subsequent illness,” she said, “for centuries there has been a tradition that connected a person’s sin with their illness.  And to make that connection might still be for some spiritually beneficial and healing.  So,” she said, “I am not so quick to dismiss that old connection.”

Similarly, in regards to divine judgment and hell, while many might be quick to dismiss a conversation about judgment and hell or perhaps even to deny their existence, for centuries the Church has spoken about judgment and hell and has believed in their existence.  And it could be that for some it might be spiritually beneficial and even healing to consider judgment and hell and even to meditate on them. So, I myself am not so quick to dismiss conversation about judgment and hell.

So here is perhaps a better,more helpful way to speak of judgment and hell; it comes from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.  Ignatius had discovered that he experienced a greater wholeness in his life with God if,on occasion, he took time to imagine life without God (which is essentially the definition of hell (BCP, p 862)).  And so, as an exercise in contrast, one of his spiritual exercises – only one – and an exercise that can be omitted at the discretion of the retreat director – [one of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius] is, “A Meditation on Hell.”  As did Fr. Arnall in his retreat address, Ignatius invites those making the exercise to imagine the sights, sounds, and smells of hell, and what might be the pains suffered by those there.  Important is how Ignatius frames the exercise.  In the big picture, the exercise imagining life without God is set amid exercises imagining life with God.  In the immediate picture, before sitting down to the “Meditation on Hell,” Ignatius suggests a retreatant pause and consider the chair where he will sit or the cushion on which she will kneel, and to imagine God looking upon them with love. Ignatius suggests that a retreatant then begin the prayer time by asking God for the grace “that all my intentions, actions and operations may be directed purely to the service and praise” of God.  Only then is the retreatant invited to imagine the sights, sounds and smells of hell. Once finished, Ignatius invites the retreatant briefly to journal, such as about where in the meditation did they sense God’s presence or absence most strongly.  And the time concludes with prayer,such as the “Our Father.”  For Ignatius,the focus of the meditation is not so much to scare a person sinless (if that were possible), but rather, as an exercise in contrast, for the retreatant to experience a felt, internal knowledge of God’s love and mercy for them.  Ignatius had discovered a greater wholeness in his relationship with God if, on occasion, he took time to imagine life without God.

If the experience of Stephen Daedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was indeed Joyce’s experience, it’s no surprise that he renounced the Church and refused to have his children baptized.  Among the many feelings I notice when I hear “fire and brimstone” readings such as this morning’s reading from Malachi or when I consider judgment and hell, are feelings not only of discomfort, skepticism, and resistance, but –surprisingly (at least to me) – also gratitude. For when I consider and maybe meditate on judgment and hell, sometimes do I not only appreciate better God’s presence in my life, but also I sometimes realize how much my words and deeds matter.  Being assured of God’s presence in my life and of his love and mercy for me, and knowing also that my words and deeds matter and can make a difference in the world around me, then my life has the possibility of being charged with deep meaning and purpose; and the door is opened to finding, in the life I live right here,right now, a profound and satisfying joy.

So when we hear in this morning’s reading from Malachi how “the day is coming, burning like an oven,when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble,” it could be that God is inviting us not to dismiss but to consider more closely judgment and hell.  Perhaps we will discover like Ignatius a greater wholeness in our life with God as we consider life without God.  Perhaps, too, as Ignatius intended,we will be more fully assured of God’s presence, love and mercy.  And maybe we will discover as well gratitude for how much our words and deeds matter and can make a difference in the world around us.  Which opens the door to our lives being charged with deep meaning and purpose, and to finding, right here,right now, a profound and satisfying joy only to be had in Jesus.