"Bending Our Imagination Toward Hope"
Luke 13:1-9; Isaiah 55:1-9
The headlines are grim. Current events, like much about our lives,
can leave us feeling hopeless, fearful, and uncertain. We may struggle to figure out where God is in
the midst of tragedy… crisis and hardship.
When things go terribly wrong, we
try to make sense of things. We
think: there must be a reason. It’s a way we try to get a grip on things.
“Do you think that because these
Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other
Galileans?
“Or 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?”
Jesus points to two calamities that may have been
subjects of recent conversation around the local watering hole--one an instance
of state-sanctioned terror, and one a random accident. Both saw people snuffed
out with little warning and for no clearly apparent reason. Both kinds of
events remind us to how precarious our existence is.
Do bad things happen because people are bad? The people of Flint—have they been suffering
because they’re worse sinners than people of other cities? The victims of the latest mass shootings—did
they do something to deserve to be shot?
When bad things happen, we may long for a
cause-and-effect scenario, so we can explain away suffering as a means of
distancing ourselves from it. We may
want God to give people we think are evil or wrong what we think they deserve. The problem with that is that isn’t the way
God works.
As Jill Duffield points out, “The problem with making our
relationship with God a transactional one rather than a covenantal one—is that
at some point the math just won’t add up.
We will be persecuted by Pilate for no reason other than Pilate chooses
to persecute us. Or the tower will fall
on us because we were at the wrong place at the wrong time. We will seek a reason, some logical
explanation, some underlying purpose and it simply will not be there. Then what?
Are we bad people? God forsaken?”[1]
Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke who has researched and
written about the prosperity gospel and has been wrestling with how that
theology that claims the righteous are blessed impacts her understanding of
being diagnosed with stage IV cancer at age 35.
In a recent piece in the New York Times, she writes:[2]
“Put simply, the prosperity gospel is the belief that God
grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith…
“Tragedies are simply tests of character.
“It is the reason a neighbor knocked on our door to tell
my husband that everything happens for a reason.
“I’d love to hear it,” my husband said.
“Pardon?” she said, startled.
“I’d love to hear the reason my wife is dying,” he said,
in that sweet and sour way he has.
As Kate writes, “My neighbor wasn’t trying to sell him a
spiritual guarantee. But there was a reason
she wanted to fill that silence around why some people die young and others
grow old and fussy about their lawns.
She wanted some kind of order behind this chaos. Because the opposite of #blessed is leaving a
husband and a toddler behind, and people can’t quite let themselves say it:
‘Wow. That’s awful.’ There has to be a reason, because without one
we are left as helpless and possibly as unlucky as everyone else.”
People may wonder, is she a worse sinner? Did she smoke? Did she eat poorly? Not exercise enough? Bad genes?
We hope for an answer that will explain why she has cancer—an answer
that will help us feel safe from getting it.
I was very moved by what Kate Bowler wrote, so I want to
share a little more of how she describes her experience:
“Cancer has kicked down the walls of my life. I cannot be certain I will walk my son to his
elementary school someday or subject his love interests to cheerful
scrutiny. I struggle to buy books for
academic projects I fear I can’t finish for a perfect job I may be unable to
keep. I have surrendered my favorite
manifestoes about having it all, managing work-life balance and maximizing my
potential… Cancer requires that I stumble around in the debris of dreams I
thought I was entitled to and plans I didn’t realize I had made.
But cancer has also ushered in new ways of being
alive. Even when I am this distant from
Canadian family and friends, everything feels as if it is painted in bright
colors. In my vulnerability, I am seeing
my world without the Instagrammed filter of breezy certainties and perfectible
moments. I can’t help noticing the
brittleness of the walls that keep most people fed, sheltered and whole. I find myself returning to the same thoughts
again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.”
So what do we do with this? “Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.”
I think questions about who sinned or who is the worst
sinner is irrelevant here. In today’s
gospel lesson, Jesus gets pulled into a worried conversation about the
latest news cycle. Jesus implies that the victims did nothing wrong, nothing
that caused their demise.
It's such a tempting equation. But Jesus won't go there. He denies that there is a simple connection
between what happens to people and the punishment of God.
Does this mean that God never
punishes us for our sins? Not necessarily, though there are those who
argue that retribution for human evil is built into life. If we
build houses on flood plains, we’ll be flooded out at some point. If we
insist on fighting wars, people will suffer and die. If we pollute the environment, there will be
all kinds of negative consequences.
But Jesus doesn’t get into all of
that. He simply denies that there is any
easy connection between what happens to people and the punishment of God. It just isn’t that simple.
What Jesus does say in today’s
gospel lesson is, “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” In other words, the issue is not why the tornado
hit that particular town…or why the hurricane did so much damage. God
didn’t single out these people for punishment.
The issue is whether or not you and I will repent.
For
the entire previous chapter in Luke, Jesus has been calling for repentance—for
lives turned around to embrace God’s mercy and gift of new life. But people think he is talking about someone
else—the Galileans Pilate had slaughtered as they worshiped, or the eighteen
killed in Siloam when that tower fell on them.
Like
most of us, they try to avoid Jesus’ challenging words about repentance by
playing the "But look; we’re not bad as them" game. You know that
game?
But
Jesus will have none of it and makes the point that this is not about comparing
ourselves with others.
Unless
you repent, you will all perish. Unless you
repent.
Jesus follows this cheery thought
with a story about an un-productive fig tree that gets one more chance -- aided
by some re-invigorating horticulture -- to realize its purpose. “Give it another year. Cultivate the soil so more, and add some more
manure, and give it another chance to bear fruit.”
The parable clarifies Jesus’
motivations for previously exhorting people to “repent.”
A lot of people hear “repentance”
and think of behavior and guilt, as if Jesus’ primary goal
was to reform personal morality. But I
think this is a misunderstanding.
To repent is not so much a matter of
giving up certain habits or practices… or about being sorry—as it is a matter
of loyalty. The Greek word that we
translate as repentance—metanoia—means “to turn.” Repentance means that we turn away from the
forces of sin and evil—and turn toward God’s ways.
When we repent, we see things
differently, and we come to new understandings of what God makes possible… about how God wants us to live… and about
what the world is like when God’s will is done.
When Jesus says, “Unless you repent,
you will all perish just as they did,” he isn’t saying that repenting will
extend our lives or offer some kind of miraculous shield against super-storms
or disease or catastrophe. Rather, our repentance
will lead to bearing fruit. If we turn
toward God’s ways and see things as God wants us to see them, we will live out
God’s intentions for us.
When Jesus calls us to repent, he’s
inviting us to discover God as the source of our
sustenance…belonging…meaning…and hope in this difficult life-- and into the future. Repentance is the change that occurs within us
when God meets us and re-shapes our understanding.
The gospel invites us to live our lives in response to God’s gracious
and patient invitation. We don’t need to
be wicked to repent. If we find
ourselves feeling empty… confused… overwhelmed…barren… aimless…or simply out of
touch with the source of life, we have another chance to live out our God-given
purpose and to bear fruit.
As a gardener and someone who grew up in farm country, I love the parable of the fig tree-- especially the image of manure being
spread over the roots of our lives, to help us grow into who we are created and
called to be. God is willing to give us
another chance… and can use anything and everything in our lives to help us grow,
rooted and grounded in Christ, to produce good fruit.
So, I wonder: What does it take
to turn us around? How much manure does
it take to bend our imaginations to trust in God to provide for us and sustain
us?
I believe God can use the manure of a spiritual or health or
relationship crisis to cultivate and nurture us into a new life. When we repent in the truest sense of that
word, we can spend the rest of our lives embracing the new life God offers us.
Earlier today we heard the prophet
ask, "Why do you spend your money
for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not
satisfy?" This is a question of eternal
importance.
On this third Sunday of Lent, where
do we need repentance? Where do you need
to turn around to embrace God’s love and promise of new, abundant life?
This Lent, some of us have been
getting some extra "fertilizer" and "cultivation" for our
spirits through the practice of various spiritual disciplines. Some of us have been getting our spirits
"cultivated" in our weekly Lenten book study gatherings, and a few of
you have been reading our Lenten book on your own. Some of us have committed ourselves to a
personal Lenten devotional practice.
I believe God uses these kinds of spiritual
disciplines to cultivate and fertilize our souls. This cultivation can break up the hard soil
that forms around our hearts. Then, with
the help of the Gardener, we will bear sweet juicy fruit-- the fruits of the
Spirit.
The good news in the story we heard
today is that we worship a God who doesn't want to give up on us. In Jesus, God calls us to live a transformed
life, cultivating and nurturing our souls with daily care and attention. If we will return to the God who created us
and loves us, we will have life and we will have it abundantly.
Thanks be to God! Amen!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
February 28, 2016
[1] Jill Duffield, “3rd Sunday of
Lent-February 28, 2016”, posted at The
Presbyterian Outlook at www.pres-outlook.org
[2] Kate Bowler, “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me,” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html?_r=0
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