First Reading:
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no
money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and
without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which
is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen
carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich
food. 3Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that
you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my
steadfast, sure love for David. 4See, I made him a witness
to the peoples, a leader and commander for the
peoples. 5See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord
your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
6Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while
he is near; 7let the wicked forsake their way, and the
unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may
have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are
your ways my ways, says the Lord. 9For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts.
Second Reading:
At that very time there were some present who told him about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices. 2He asked them, Do you think
that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse
sinners than all other Galileans? 3No, I tell you; but
unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or
those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them
— do you think that they were worse offenders than all the
others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you
repent, you will all perish just as they did.
6Then he told this parable: A man had a fig
tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and
found none. 7So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For
three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still
I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'
8He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I
dig around it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next
year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'
Why god? It has to be one of the oldest and most common questions that's ever been asked by people of faith. Why God. Why me? Why this? Why now? Why?
At that time, there were some people who came to Jesus and told
him about the Galileans who had been killed at the hands of Pilate,
the governor… At this time, after having two major earthquakes
in the span of a single month there are people who come to Jesus and
ask him about the suffering of millions of displaced victims…
Why? At that time there was a tower that fell in the city of
Jerusalem and killed 18 people… at this time there are hundreds
of thousands of people in this country who are facing health crises or
financial crises in their personal lives… why? When the people
came to Jesus and told him what was going on, Jesus asked them Do
you think that they suffered in this way because they were worse
sinners than all the others?
Suffering, whether it's our own suffering, or other people's suffering… whether it happens because of people who abuse some sort of power they have or whether it happens because the earth moves beneath our feet, suffering sometimes makes it hard to trust in the goodness of God. Even when we look around and remember that God created everything that is, all the beauty and all the splendor in the world, the people we love and the people who love us, when we're faced with suffering, we're still left with some unanswerable questions. Don't get me wrong, answers exist… sometimes they even seem appealing… but I've heard that a wise philosopher once said that every complex question has a simple answer… and it's almost always wrong.
In our gospel story, Jesus faces, and refutes- one of those
simple, and yet wrong answers. In general, people want to understand
what's going on… and it's in our nature that when we see an
effect, we look for a cause. Common sense says that there must be a
cause for every effect… and that's what the people were looking
for when they came to Jesus telling him that Pilate killed some people
in Galilee… and that a building fell and killed some people in
Jerusalem. In addition to reporting the terrible news, they were also
hoping Jesus would answer their question, why?
We can see that
in his response. It seems like they wanted Jesus to tell them yes,
there is a cause behind what you've seen. It's like they wanted him
to say those people were sinners, they had turned away from God and so
bad things happened to them… you can see that kind of logic all
over in the Old Testament. It was a pretty standard first century
thought pattern… if something was going wrong in your life it
was because of something wrong you were doing. And the logic isn't
limited to the first century… it's alive and well today too,
there are lots of people out there who believe that all homeless
people are only homeless because they're addicts. There are lots of
people who believe that all poor people are only poor because they're
lazy. There are some who would say that our lifestyle actually caused
the terrorist attacks and even in the news a few weeks ago there was a
prominent religious figure in this country who said that the
earthquake in Haiti was God's judgment because the people of Haiti
have signed a pact with the devil as long as they practice voodoo as
their native religion. I hope and I pray that we don't buy into that
argument. And yet, when I'm honest, I can see the appeal of it, first
of all it would answer the why question by saying that people are only
getting what they deserve. And second, it tells people who are more
or less comfortable that God is happy with them right where they are.
It's not a very big intellectual leap to go from thinking that
people deserve the bad stuff that happens to them,
to thinking
that I deserve the good stuff that happens to me.
But in our passage Jesus solidly rejects that line of thinking. Do you think that because they suffered in this way they were worse sinners than everyone else in Galilee? No. Do you think the tower fell on those people because they were worse offenders than everyone else in Jerusalem? Not at all… they didn't deserve this any more than you do and yet it happened. If the people who came were hoping that Jesus was going to point out the sin of the people who had fallen, or if they hoped that he would reassure them and tell them that they didn't have anything to worry about because they were more or less good people, well, they must have been pretty disappointed by his answer…
The people may have come with the question why?
And
realistically, I think we all wrestle with that question at some point
in life. Sometimes it's because of a major disaster in the
world… but perhaps more often it's because of something that's
a lot smaller scale and is a lot closer to home… In whatever
context it's asked, when it comes to suffering, Why?
may not
have a satisfactory answer … and it certainly doesn't have an
easy one, so on that day, when the people approached Jesus with a why
question, he didn't give them the answer they were looking for. In
fact, transformed their question and shifted the focus from a question
of why to a question of how.
You come to me worried about their
sin and your safety, but it would be better if you worried about your
own life… When he said to them Unless you repent you will
all perish as they did,
the question became, How are you going
to live in order to make the most of the time that you do have?
If
God went about killing off everyone who was sinful, no one would be
left and so he tells the people to repent. He tells them to repent.
And at first that may sound a bit un-pastoral as they're searching for
answers in the midst of tragedy… but when we remember that
there are two movements to repentance, it does makes sense. The first
movement of repentance is what most often comes to mind when we think
about the word - turning away from sin and it certainly has a
place… but the second movement is the part that makes the most
sense when people are tossed into questioning by the various
situations of life… and the second movement of repentance is
turning toward God.
Jesus is telling the people to take a message from these tragedies and disasters… it's not that the same thing's going to happen to them… it's not that they are necessarily going to suffer if they don't turn toward God… it's not that they're going to somehow be safe if they do turn toward God. The message he's inviting them to take is that no matter the situation of your life, God can make something out of it. God didn't necessarily cause the disaster or the hardship but God can use it. God didn't necessarily make the situation but God can bring growth out it.
You see right after he gets done telling the people to repent, he
tells a parable about a tree and a gardener. The tree hadn't borne
fruit for years so the owner was ready to take it down… there's
no point in wasting the soil, but the gardener said, no, no don't
cut it down till I have a chance to tend it… I'll pack manure
around it and see if it will bear fruit next year… if it still
doesn't bear fruit, then cut it down.
And I have to admit, it was
really tempting for me to preach a sermon about bearing fruit while
having all sorts of manure packed into our lives... but that's not
exactly what the parable is about. You see, the parable points to the
fact that whatever may cause it, there are going to be times in
everyone's life when there's nothing to give… there's no fruit
on the tree… at that point there may be many who would say get
rid of it, it's worthless… but the gardener doesn't give up.
The gardener says I will give the best care and nurture that I know
how to give… to cultivate the vineyard and especially this
plant; the one that's been hurting, the one that hasn't been able to
bear fruit.
In the midst of everything that goes wrong in the world… in
the midst of the suffering and the things happen close to home that
make us want to ask Why God?
, we do have assurance that God is
good… not because bad things don't happen, we all know that
they do; but because the gardener doesn't give up. Where we've become
a part of the problem and not the solution, we're called to repent and
turn away from our sin. No matter what is going on in our lives good,
bad or indifferent, we're called to repent and turn toward God. And
throughout our lives, we're called to bear fruit. God keeps working
with us, through the challenge of community, through the nourishment
of the sacraments, through times when we know God's presence and also
times when we doubt it, God hasn't given up. God keeps working with
us, correcting us, nurturing us and showing us a better way of being
than we would ever find on our own… Why? you ask. Because God
loves us so much that we won't be done until we've been transformed
into the people God created us to be, and that, my friends, is good
news. Thanks be to God, Amen
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on March 7, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
