Reading from Luke 13:1-5:
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Were the people who suffered worse sinners than other people who did not suffer? Do bad things happen to good people or only to bad people? Were these Galileans worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? Were those 18 who died when the tower fell on them worse sinners than all others because they suffered this way? Were those who died on 9/11 when the twin towers fell on them worse sinners than all others because they suffered this way? Were those who died in the Mosque shootings in New Zealand and Montreal worse sinners because they suffered that way? Those who died in the plane crash in Ethiopia, were they worse sinners than those who have flown many times without incident because they suffered that way? Think of that really horrible thing that happened to you (me) once upon a time or just the other week. Was that because you (I) was worse than those who were spared that tragedy?
· Matthew 5:45 "...your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous"
· Ecclesiastes 9:11 “…The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned…”
· John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”.
· John 9:1-3a: As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…” said Jesus
These questions, is this man blind because someone sinned? Did this tragedy fall upon the Galileans because they were worse sinners than others? These questions relate to a theological term called theodicy. If there is anyone here going off to seminary or training college you might want to make a note of that word, theodicy; you will impress your instructors. It relates to the question of suffering: In its most basic form theodicy refers to the question, ‘do bad things only happen to bad people’? This is exactly what is being asked of Jesus in our scripture today. To which Jesus emphatically answers 'no' and then he adds "But unless you repent, you too will all perish. [like those in the tragedies just mentioned]”
I will come back to this in a bit but right now I want to share with you some stories from our trip. For those of you that don’t know already, Susan, the girls and I spent much of spring break driving all over the western United States: Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and then back again through Oregon and Washington before we arrived home.
That was a lot of driving over a few days but as those who are our ‘friends’ on Facebook or who follow us on other social media know already, we got to see a lot of things: a Stonehenge replica, the original Starbucks, the first Taco Bell and the oldest McDonald's. We saw the Rio Grande and other amazing scenery. We saw Roswell New Mexico where the aliens supposedly landed in 1947; we saw Tombstone Arizona, the OK Corral and Boothill. We saw Hollywood and the Walk of Fame.
(One of the many blessings that comes from being an Officer is that you can be transferred to anywhere. I encourage everyone then to explore everywhere within driving distance of where you live. It is a great way to really get to know the history, culture and traditions of different parts of the world and I think it has been quite valuable for our kids growing up too).
We stayed in some great hotels and we stayed in some other ones. This was an actual sign from one of the hotels we stayed in:
We saw Aztec’s ruins. That was neat. We were going to see some other ruins but they were all closed due to weather. We ran into some pretty bad weather on our trip surprisingly. Here we are looking at some ancient petroglyphs down south where the weather is supposed to be nice and you can see that we were caught in the snow.
The weather actually got way worse than a little bit of snow and it even got a little bit scary at one point. We were heading through the mountains to see a particular bridge over the Rio Grande but the snow kept coming down and the road through the mountain pass kept getting narrower and narrower as snow piled up on both sides and it looked like there was no place to turn around even though it looked more and more like that is exactly what we should do. Do we keep going? Do we turn back? Can we even turn back? And then we got to a point in the road where it was totally closed off! We could not go any further. We had to slowly turn the car around and get out of there as carefully as we could. We had to back track quite a bit and find another way, hours longer, through another mountain pass. Needless to say we didn’t see the bridge that evening.
We did make it to our hotel and when we were there we overheard a man speaking to his friend or acquaintance and he said that he was caught in an avalanche in that same mountain pass. He and his girlfriend/significant other had rented a house up there and an avalanche came down and buried the place where they were staying. Maybe she was unconscious; they managed to get out and someone somehow got her to a hospital, where she still was when we were there. We prayed for them that night and/or the next and a couple of other times along our trip. They got caught in the avalanche; we did not? Relating back to our text today: Is that because they are worse sinners than us? Of course not! He, and hopefully she, survived; does that mean they are holier than those who do not survive disasters like this? Of course not! …but let us all change direction lest we perish…(ellipses)
The next day, we altered our plans and backtracked to see the bridge over the Rio Grande. It was amazing to see. At every vantage point on the bridge they had these things. They were direct lines to a crisis/suicide hotline. At first I had concerns that if you picked them up you might get an automated message as confusing as ours here: "Press 1 in you are thinking about jumping of this bridge; for all other inquiries press 2, for service in Spanish press 3, or at anytime you can press '0' to talk to an operator. Please Hold." I am sure they are not like that. I am sure they are a direct line to some help and I think that it is great that they have these direct lines right on the bridge over the canyon. It is sad that they need them but great that they have them there and hopefully God uses some of those machines to help some people change direction, repent so that they do not perish. Is it because some people are worse sinners that their life circumstances or mental health get so bad that they contemplate suicide? No, of course not! Whenever I see things like that I am reminded that but for the grace of God, there go I...(ellipses; 1 Corinthians 15:8-10).
On our way to the bridge we saw some police trucks and some protesters. We later heard about them in the news like we also heard about the people caught in the avalanche on the news. There was a big protest in that area about water. Did God send the water problems because the people there were worse sinners than others? Did God send the protestors because the police were worse there than elsewhere? No, Of course not! We said a prayer or two for the protesters, those arrested, the police, and the water situation.
I mentioned Aztec’s ruins that we saw. No one knows why these were evacuated. What caused the people to leave their civilization as ruins? Famine? War? Disease? Other tragedy? Did they suffer this because they were worse sinners than civilizations who were not wiped out? Near by there were some similar pueblos that are still inhabited from ancient times. Were the ones who had to flee or who died out necessarily worse sinners than the others? No.
We stopped by many museums on our trip. We read about American wars of aggression towards the Spanish, the Mexicans, the Sioux, Apache, pueblos, and others. We read about the US genocide programs and how they enslaved people or used them as cannon fodder. Are those who suffered at the hands of American ‘Manifest Destiny’ greater sinners than those who benefited from their crimes? Of course not! And we should all repent if we are contributing someway to that same mentality today unless we all want to perish.
The book that I was reading on this trip, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, mentioned some of the oppression and persecution that the Scots suffered at the hands of the English after Culloden. I think this is around the time that the Scottish side of my family fled Britain. They not only suffered typical military reprisals; but there was also whole scale policy put in place to wipe out their culture, their language, and even their dress; does this sound familiar to at all to our local environment's history? Were Scots or the various First Nations worse sinners than the rest? Of course not!
We visited a display at a museum in New Mexico about the Atomic bomb. New Mexico is where the US developed the Atomic Bombs that they would go on to drop on Japan… after Japan had already offered surrendered. And did you know that the US intentionally dropped the bomb, not only after Japan had already surrendered but also at a time when mothers would be walking their kids to school so that they could kill as many innocent people as possible? Did you know that at first the Americans wanted to bomb Tokyo but Tokyo was spared due to bad weather? Is that because the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were worse sinners that the people in Tokyo - of course not! But let us all repent from the horrors of war and nuclear weapons if we do not wish to perish that way ourselves!
Bad things happen! Whether it is the Americans attacking Nagasaki, Mexico, or the Sioux; or whether it is Pilate and the Romans attacking the Galileans in our text today; or other Superpowers from other times and places attacking other people around the world. And more than just these military kind of tragedies that Jesus directly addresses here: sad, miserable things happen in this world. Sad miserable things happen in our city. Sad, miserable things happen in our corps; and sad, miserable things happen in our families and in our lives. Do these sad miserable things that happen to us and others happen because we and they are worse sinners than the rest? No. Of course not!
Now I want to come back to the two things I said that I would come back to later: the fig tree and its importance to all of this and the fact that Jesus, after he tells us that it isn't our fault that bad things happen to us tells us to repent.
About repentance: I read this story by David Hume (he was an 18th Century Scottish Enlightenment Atheist Philosopher) he told this story in a few of his lectures.
I thought that was amusing and I read it when I was meditating on our text in Luke about repentance so I thought I would share it.
Jesus talks a lot in Luke's gospel about repentance, changing not only the way we act but also the whole way we believe. And the major repentance reflected in this story, I think, is one of love. We are to change so that we love one another. Because we don't want anyone to perish, we are going to love them and support them the way Christ loves and supports them and the way Christ loves and supports us and we are going encourage them to grow in the faith having patience with one another just like God has faith in us.
Luke 13:6-8:
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.(A) 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down!(B) Why should it use up the soil?’
8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.
The parable of tree today is very important. Through it, Jesus reminds us that we need to be extremely patient with one another, tending to and caring for each other; interceding for each other; doing everything we can to help each other grow just like the gardener does everything in his power to help the tree produce fruit. We must love and encourage each other to bear fruit. And as we each change, as we each repent so that we love and take care of each other just like the gardener takes care of this tree that he loves, than even we might be saved.
Let us pray.
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