Most of us spend considerable time and energy trying to make our lives as safe and secure as possible. We want to be able to sit back and count our blessings - such as our jobs, our homes, our net worth. Jesus turns our notion of a blessed existence upside down, finding strength in vulnerability and warning us about the dangers of contented complacency. A blessed existence involves being sent to hell.

The "Ritual of Friendship," or "Passing the Peace" or whatever else that period of enforced sociability might be called, is a practice of problematic significance. A large percentage of congregants cringe and steel themselves while they plaster on a phony smile and breathe their most sincere prayer of the service - that this ritual will get over with quickly! In fact it is not unreasonable for you to assume that a significant number of those who attend your smallest, earliest services do so precisely in order to avoid this whole procedure.

What would be your congregation's reaction if this Sunday you told them to stand, turn to their neighbor, grasp hands firmly, look each other in the eye, and say "In the name of Jesus Christ, go to hell!"

Wilfred Bailey and William McElvaney have offered this rude sounding remedy for another Sunday of mumbled, meaningless "Peace be with you's" in their book, Christ's Suburban Body (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970).But Bailey and McElvaney are not just prescribing shock therapy. Their recommendation is carefully considered and theologically based. Where does the Apostle's Creed tell us Christ went those three days before the resurrection? To hell. As the continuing presence of Christ's body on earth, where should the church go in order to find the neediest souls, those farthest from God and closest to despair? To hell. As the hands and feet, eyes and mouth of the Christbody community, where should members of every congregation find themselves instinctively being drawn? To hell. Pumping your pew-mates' hands while earnestly urging them to "go to hell" is a way to reclaim and revitalize the mission and message of the Church.

It doesn't take much imagination to uncover the hellish holes that we all walk by, listen to or read about everyday. Drive through a poverty-stricken, drug-plagued neighborhood and you see hell on the street corner and alleys. Look into the faces of the drifting, mentally-maimed homeless, and you will see hell in their eyes. Even cruise through the local mall and note the aimless, empty wanderings of the well-off, walled-off ("high salaries and high fences go together"), and see hell in the all-consuming consumerism which has sold off their souls.

Jesus recognized all the hellish holes human beings can fall into. In this week's gospel lesson, he takes special note of those who are both in a material hell - the poor and the hungry - and those in a spiritual hell - those suffering profound personal sorrow and rejection. It is those very people, the ones we might call the "unblessables," that Jesus lavishes with his blessing. For those who appear to be in superb circumstances - wealthy and well-fed, carefree and chic, Jesus predicts dire consequences. It is to those we would surely perceive as "blessed" that Jesus intones a somber "woe to you."

For Jesus the issue is one's relationship to God and God's kingdom. It is easier for those who are meek, "push-overs" or impoverished to realize the need for God's strength and support in their lives. For those who are enjoying the strength of a healthy body, home and bank account, the need for God's intervening hand is not so obvious.

Each of us has areas of our lives where we think we are doing great. Progress seems steady and perhaps even inevitable. Jesus' curse to the rich and successful, however, should warn us that these are precisely the places where we most need God. When we are satisfied, we are in danger of smugness and sanctimony. Conversely, where we think we are most vulnerable in our lives, those worrisome, weak spots in our armor, are actually the very places where God can make us the most secure.

We cannot allow God into some portions of our lives and exclude God from others. Jesus went to hell to bless the unblessables. He calls on all his disciples to do the same.

Does your congregation dare to go to hell in order to fulfill its mission for Christ? As this sermon title suggests, you and your congregation can no doubt easily think of ten different "hells" they should visit during the next year. What about the hell of a homeless shelter that needs volunteers, the hell of a retirement complex where the residents have become "inmates," or the hell of a lengthy legislative procedure that will determine the site of a new toxic waste dump? Wherever you go as the body of Christ, God will be with you. Entering hell is the mission and ministry for which Christ has called the Church.