Living with Purpose: March 23

 Year C, Lent 3                                 Luke 13:1-9                                                                                                          One of my least favorite things about living near the coast of Virginia was the 3 month period when we were on alert for hurricanes.  Fortunately, in the 18 years that I lived there, we never had a devastating storm.  We had some bad ones, but none that caused severe damage or loss of life.  I was living in Norfolk, which is right next to Virginia Beach.  Virginia Beach was the home of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University, both founded by Pat Robertson.  The joke was that we didn’t have to worry about hurricanes because either Pat Robertson would pray the storm away, or it just wouldn’t affect us because of the moral leadership of Pat Robertson. 

We just got a small piece of the storm.

Robertson often linked disasters to the morality of the people in the places these  disasters affected. When an earthquake killed hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti, he said it was because they made a pact with the devil. When a hurricane threatened coastal Virginia, Robertson claimed that he prayed it away and God would never want to damage his Christian campus and ministry.  Instead, the hurricane hit North and South Carolina, killing 17 people there.

            Robertson is not the only Christian leader to make these kinds of connections.  However, before his death just a few years ago, he was one of the few who had his own television network and university to amplify his views.  There is a part of many of us that connects bad things that happen to what we have or have not done. Whether we admit it or not, we often connect good things with good people and bad things with bad people.  It drives us crazy when bad things happen to really good people. How many times have you said or heard someone say, “They didn’t deserve that.”  Consider the stories of people who give credit to God when they missed their flight on a plane that crashed. The implication is that God wanted that individual to live while letting the others die.  If you look at our Gospel reading today, you will hear Jesus addressing this question of why things happen to certain people and not others.  Unfortunately, he didn’t provide a very clear answer.

            It starts off clear. The people in his midst (probably a mix of disciples and onlookers) mentioned 2 recent incidents, one which was the deaths of a group of people at the hands of Pilate.   We know of Pilate as he was involved in Jesus’ death, but he was well known as being brutal with the Jewish people, quick to subdue any potential insurrection with violence.  When the people mentioned this incident, Jesus guessed that they were bringing this up because they wanted an explanation. Perhaps it was coming from a place of fear.  Were they next? Perhaps just curiosity. Have you ever noticed when something horrible happens, we are all desperate to find an explanation, partly to prevent other bad things happening, but also because we are wondering—how can we avoid this terrible thing from happening to us?  What can we tell ourselves to make us feel better?

            Jesus answered their non-question with a question: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you…” This answer probably made them feel a mix of relief and fear. If they thought they were more sinful then most, it was relief.  If they felt they were actually good people, they probably didn’t like this answer, because this meant they could do nothing to avoid horrible things happening to them.  So far, I like this answer by Jesus.  If I concluded that everything bad that has happened to me was connected to my sins and God’s anger about my sins—I would have a difficult time worshipping that kind of God and it would be a miserable way to live. 

Then Jesus goes on… and here is where things get murky.  “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  This is a good example of why we can’t read the Bible literally. Obviously, not everyone who refused to repent was going to be killed by Pilate.  Pilate just didn’t have that kind of time.  However, it appears that he was saying that there will be consequences when we don’t repent.  That sounds a little scary. We have to be really careful not to make this into some kind of formula. Like, if you don’t repent, bad things happen.  It’s not that simple. We have all seen people who have gotten through life without there being any obvious consequences for their bad behavior.  But just because we don’t see the consequences doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

I believe what Jesus is doing here is shifting the perspective of the crowd.  They wanted this conversation to be about the sins of other people. It’s so much easier to judge other people then look at ourselves.  I think we all know that when we sin, there are consequences, sometimes to other people, sometimes to our planet, but most often to ourselves. When Jesus says, “unless you repent” it looks like a judgment or an ultimatum.  Yet what if we perceive repentance as an opportunity for us to examine our lives and ask for forgiveness?  So many people move through life carrying guilt and shame.  This is Jesus saying, you don’t have to carry that forever. You can repent and wipe the slate clean.  It’s not easy, but you can do it, with God’s help. 

A lot of people think that if we emphasize the God of love and compassion, then we can’t possibly talk about a God who judges or holds us accountable.  If you have a child or remember being a child, you know that life without consequences doesn’t help the child.  When a parent says no to their child or reprimands them, that doesn’t mean they don’t love their child. We are God’s children and God loves us so very much, but God wants us to be better, do better.

That is what the parable at the end of our Gospel is about as well. A fig tree is planted in a garden and after the appropriate amount of time, the owner of the fig tree sees that it’s not bearing fruit and decides to cut it down.  The gardener says, let’s give it some help (manure) and some more time and then we will cut it down if it doesn’t bear fruit.  There are consequences, but there is also grace.  When we find that our sin are building up and stop us from being the people that God want us to be, we can ask God for help and God is going to give us the help and the time we need.  But that doesn’t mean that God has no expectations on us or our behavior. 

There is urgency in this text because as we all know, life is far too fragile.  It’s so easy to put our relationship with God on the back burner because there are always more pressing demands on our time and energy.  What Jesus is doing here is encouraging a faith that is action oriented, a faith that bears fruit.   The fig tree had a purpose, to grow figs. Each one of us has a purpose as well.  It’s probably not always as clear as it is with a fruit tree, but we all have a purpose, one that contributes not just to our own life, but this world that we live in.

 If you are thinking, I don’t know what my purpose is. Loving God, loving your neighbor, sharing the love of God— that is a good place to start.  Having a purpose doesn’t mean we have a life plan that is all figured out. It means that we live with intention and hope. One thing I love about our faith is that Jesus tells us no matter who we are, what we do, how far along we are in our journey of faith, we have a reason for being.  We might not know our plan, but there is a plan. The closer we are to God, the closer we are to our purpose.