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We know the feeling of horror and disbelief when unimaginably bad things happen to good and innocent people. When space shuttles filled with the potential of brilliant lives and exploration of the universe explode. When earthquakes and floods, cyclones and hurricanes kill and displace thousands of good-hearted, hard-working families. When someone walks into the halls of education in Newtown, CT, or Parkland, FL, looking for innocents to slaughter. When people praising God are no longer safe in their houses of worship. How do we find sense in these deaths?
Jesus’ cohort are wondering the same thing. Why did Pilate kill those people who were worshipping in the Temple? Why did the tower of Siloam fall on those others? What did those people ever do to deserve that death?
Pat Robertson often has had an answer for us about natural disasters. He said that Hurricane Katrina came to punish the people of New Orleans for their sinfulness. And the 2010 earthquake in Haiti was because of the practice of voodoo. Mike Huckabee claimed that the Newtown tragedy was God’s revenge for having removed God from schools. We even hear the apostle Paul in today’s epistle reading telling the Corinthians that people died horrible deaths because of their sinfulness.
In Jesus’ time, this kind of thinking was common. Jewish belief held that painful experiences were signs of God’s judgment. The worse the experience, the more you must have sinned. Remember the story where the people bring a blind boy before Jesus and ask, “Who sinned – this boy or his parents?” A tragedy so awful must have its roots in sin.
Jesus’ followers are asking the same question. The same question we often ask when something bad happens in the world. Or even when something sad, disappointing, or even tragic happens to us or our loved ones. What did we do to deserve this? Did the rest of us do something, or fail to do something, that caused this tragedy to happen? Did these people die or suffer because they are sinners? Or worse sinners than the rest of us?
Jesus’ answer – to all of us – is clear. In today’s gospel Jesus says it twice – “No, I tell you.” It doesn’t matter whether they died by natural disaster or human evil – it was NOT because of their sinfulness. God does not punish sin with death or tragedy. Jesus DOES remind us that we are all responsible for our own lives. He reminds us that we are ALL sinners, no one worse or better than another, and we ALL need repentance.
The call to repentance is one of Luke’s signature themes. He calls his readers to repentance and forgiveness of sins more often than any other New Testament writer. For Luke, this is not just a message for the Jewish people, but for all nations and all people. Luke sees and draws on God’s story as the story of salvation: the story of our return to God, traceable from the beginning of time, through events recent in his time, and present even in the our time. Luke’s God is a forgiving God, for what is a call to repentance without the promise of forgiveness?
The second half of today’s gospel is a fig tree parable unique to Luke. Again, someone is rushing to judgment about the worth of another part of God’s creation – this time it’s the landowner talking about a fig tree that isn’t bearing fruit. The gardener protests – begging for just one more year to loosen the soil and fertilize it and give it a chance to be fruitful. Fig trees bear fruit twice a year, usually beginning in the 4th or 5th year. After three years of waiting for the tree to mature and bear fruit, the landowner wants to see some return on his investment. The gardener is gentler with his expectations, willing to put more time and patience and caring into nurturing the tree to produce fruit.
The fruit of forgiveness is a changed perspective on the world. In forgiveness, we see the world with eyes changed by our experience of God’s grace. Forgiveness begins with repentance, with recognizing sin, something done knowingly or unknowingly that has broken us down from being our very best holy self.
When we repent of our sin and ask for forgiveness, we admit that we have a relationship with someone, with God, or even ourselves. If we didn’t have a relationship to mend, why would we bother asking for forgiveness? Rather than giving up on the possibility of a bountiful relationship because we aren’t in one now, in our repentance we are invited to be patient and try again.
In remembering and returning to God, we re-engage in that relationship, a relationship filled with love and forgiveness and grace – from God, bestowed on us. Reconciliation with God frees us from the heavy guilt that weighs down our branches, aerates the holy soil around our roots, gives us new oxygen to breathe. All the while it nurtures us, heaping on us grace and love, rich and nutrient laden people and experiences that invite us to grow and thrive, to reach for light and warmth. Renewed and re-grounded in God, we see the world afresh. Newly awakened in grace, we find our own hearts opened to the pain of others and strength to respond in new ways. Bearing fruit is the natural result of being given time, nutrition and nurturing.
Walter Brueggemann, a contemporary scriptural scholar, talks about Lent as “a time to reflect on the way in which God gives new life that is welcome when we recognize how our old way of life mostly leaves us weary and unsatisfied.” Repentance is making the decision anew to rely on the God of the gospel. The God we hear about today who does not judge anyone by their sins. The God who calls ALL us sinners to repent and return to fruitful relationship. The God who is patient with us, who loves and graces us richly.
Brueggemann goes on to say that Lent also offers us the time to “face the reality that there is no easy or convenient passage from our previous life to a new, joyous life in the gospel.” In the next four weeks of Lent, we will walk no easy or convenient journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem and his death and resurrection. The deep soul-searching work of repentance and reconciliation can leave us feeling more heavy and broken as old manure gets stirred up to stimulate our turning toward the light and love of God.
In the coming weeks, we will continue to hear Luke’s equal-opportunity message of repentance and forgiveness. The Church offers two specific tools for healing and repentance. The Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka Confession) is available to everyone. It’s an opportunity to release the sins that weigh on us and receive a sacramental forgiveness. Just call or email me to make an appointment. And, in 2 weeks, we will have a healing service with individual laying on of hands for healing. That service is another time for releasing our sin and guilt.
We are invited by this season of Lent to take these weeks to focus inwardly, to examine how our old ways of life leave us weary and unsatisfied, to decide anew to rely on the God who showers us in forgiveness, and to rest in God’s grace and nurturing care.
[1] and [2] Bruggemann, Walter. "Lent is 'Come to Jesus Time'." Sojourners Magazine (March 2010). Accessed 03 March 2013. http://sojo.net/magazine/2010/03/lent-come-jesus-time.
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