“Theological Breakthrough”
Sermon Presented March 7, 2010
Third Sunday of Lent – Year C
Luke 13:1-9
In 1981, the best-seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner was published. As a testament to the popularity of the topic, the book continues to be printed and read by those who seek answers to this puzzle. The question of Why? comes up again and again as people reflect on 9-11, the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the economic downturn, and the death of innocent people caused by drunken drivers and mass murderers.
After the initial shock of a tragic event, people want to assign blame. Is it because of lax airline security? Is it because there aren’t stiff enough penalties for drunken driving? Is it due to the lack of stringent regulations of economic institutions and individuals in the financial world? Is it because God caused the disaster as punishment for sin? If we can assign blame, hopefully we can learn a valuable lesson and the tragedy won’t be repeated.
At the time of Jesus, the prevailing theological understanding of disasters was that God caused all calamities as punishment for sin. We heard a religious leader recently assign blame for the Haitian earthquake to voodoo practices of their people many generations ago. Jesus addresses this theological issue when a question is put to him by some who are listening to him teach. Hear the exchange between Jesus and his questioner as written in Luke 13:1-9.
Many warnings are issued to us in order to cut our risk. Smoking causes cancer and heart disease. Texting while driving causes accidents. Drinking alcohol or using drugs before or while driving is a recipe for disaster! Failing to exercise or wash your hands is hazardous to your health. Do your homework before investing! Those who disobey these warnings suffer more frequently than those who obey, BUT some who obey all the rules experience heart attacks, lung cancer, auto deaths, H1N1, and financial ruin.
Jesus addresses this topic and Luke reinforces this teaching with his audience. People need to understand that sometimes bad things happen to good people! Sometimes good people die by gunfire, accident, or natural disaster and it’s not because God arbitrarily chooses to punish them for their sins while sparing others. Even an unfruitful fig tree is given another chance!
The inference from Jesus’ questioner was that those who died, died because of an impure sacrifice. Perhaps their action in the temple wasn’t consistent with their daily lives. Perhaps they had done something that justified their death. However, Jesus turns the incident inside out. Rain falls on the just and the unjust. There’s no correlation between the fate of those victims and their righteousness or lack thereof. (Timothy Shapiro, New Proclamation, Year C 2006-2007, p. 198)
Jesus says: “No more shallow theological thinking!” There are no quick fixes or easy answers. No single answer fits every circumstance.
The two incidents in question before Jesus happened suddenly with total devastation. There was no warning and no opportunity for the victims to repent. Jesus stressed that repentance needs to be an on-going attitude toward one’s life rather than an occasional act. These deaths were not the result of sin in the lives of the victims. They just happened!
Jesus says that if people don’t repent, they will perish as did the victims of the disasters. Repent of what? Jesus wants the crowd to repent of their sins. But what is their sin? Is it their indifference to his message? Are they to repent of any thought that the misfortune of the Galileans (or those who fell to their death from the tower of Siloam) was because they lost favor with God? Are they to repent of harshly judging those whose death they don’t understand?
We all receive warnings or wake-up calls for living our lives. Sometimes we learn that our life is a gift and we should live it faithfully because we never know when it might end. A warning went out to the teens of the small community of Weston, MO in the late 80’s. First one teenager was killed in an auto accident because of drunken driving. After the grief lessened, things went back to normal and a second high school student died – and then a third – in separate accidents from the same cause in the same year. Sometimes we learn from a tragedy and turn our lives around. This is what we mean by repentance – a 180 degree turn. This is what Jesus is seeking! But sometimes we fail to repent! We have free will and the responsibility to make good choices.
Jesus tells a parable to help explain what he means. Jesus’ parables have been domesticated over time but when he told them they were usually subversive – even dangerous. (Timothy Shapiro, New Proclamations Year C 2006-2007, p. 198) Jesus begins by saying that there is a fig tree in a vineyard. What is a fig tree doing in a vineyard? One thought is that both the fig tree and the vineyard represent Israelin Hebrew writings. The gardener cares about the fig tree and wants to see it produce the fruit for which it was planted. He doesn’t want to see it cut down, and he doesn’t intend to cut it down, either. He asks the owner for another year to tend the tree and then if it still bears no fruit, then the owner can cut it down – “YOU can cut it down,” he says. (ibid, p. 199)
The tree was given a reprieve – a time of grace – to become fruit-bearing, and would have the help of the gardener to bear fruit. If you recall in the story, this isn’t the first reprieve. For three years in a row the owner expected to find fruit on the tree, but it was bare.
In the parable, the owner of the fig tree is equated with those who might liken bad things with sin. The world Jesus describes is not the world that the owner of the tree or the people in the crowd sees. It’s a different world. It’s more dangerous and at the same time much freer and friendlier. It’s a world filled with grace! (ibid)
It’s not up to us to figure out God’s kingdom. We will live our lives without having all of the answers we seek. We are to acknowledge the mysteries of life. We are to do the best we can and leave the rest to God. We plant the seeds that will someday grow. We water the seeds. (I tend to over-water my plants, and that is a danger spiritually as well.) We provide the love that produces effects beyond our capabilities, if we leave the end result to God. We can’t do everything! It’s good to know and understand what’s going on, but that isn’t always possible. We can’t manage the results of our actions. In fact, we may never see the end results!
One of the greatest dangers – or sins – that is exposed in this text is the sin of judging others. Now we may not believe that AIDS is a curse on the sexual practices of some, or that the Jews deserved what they received in the Holocaust, but we still may be guilty of judging! “If she had been a better mother…”; “if he had been there to guide his daughter…”; “if he didn’t drink so much…”; “if she paid more attention to her diet…”, then…. There must be a reason and it’s my duty to discover and expose it.
Jesus says: “Never mind whose fault it is. You can’t know! Besides all the goodness and righteousness we can muster will never make us exempt from falling towers or killers on the loose.” And besides, humans are given freedom, and the earth is prone to earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
And so we, as Jesus, come back to the reality of grace! Thankfully our lives aren’t extinguished when we sin – at least not usually. Thankfully God’s grace is offered to us – along with the opportunity to repent of our sins. Let’s give thanks that the gardener cares and offers us a reprieve.
03/07/2010
