Third Sunday after Lent

1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.2 [Jesus] asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 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? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Wow! OK. So, the Jesus we meet today has a little bit of an edge to him.

She just showed up here, at the office this past week. I think it was on Tuesday. With her soft voice, her tears, and her accent, it was sometimes a little hard to understand her. She told me her name was Jemaya. She’s an architect with a small independent contracting business. She was crying and in need of prayer because, due to everyone’s economic anxiety, she’d lost all of her contracts. And now she was getting threatening phone calls from her creditors. She was scared to go home, because she wasn’t sure who might be waiting there for her. Wanting to help in some way, I asked her if she would like to have a gift card. She smiled weakly and said she appreciated the offer, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough to help. That’s why all she wanted was prayer. It was the only thing she had left. I’m guessing that she probably no longer had the words left in her; that she was all prayed out. And so that’s why she came to me. So, is she a worse sinner than all the rest of us, to have such a terrible thing befall her? No, I tell you. The same thing could happen to any of us.

So, who, exactly, is this Jesus? Because the Jesus we experience today seems very different from the Jesus we find in other parts of the Gospel of Luke. This is the same Jesus, after all, who in chapter 4, stood up in the synagogue and read from the prophet Isaiah, highlighting his mission to bring good news to the poor. In chapter 5, we see him very publicly heal a paralytic and a leper of their physical maladies and restored to their communities. In chapter 9, Jesus feeds 5,000 hungry people while also sharing the good news. While the prophetic Jesus certainly attends to the spiritual needs of the people he encounters, he ministers to the whole person. But that compassion and caring for the whole person seems to be missing in the Jesus we see today. He seems more concerned with their piety than their wellbeing.

So why do we meet this Jesus today? Or more to the point, why is Jesus acting this way? I think it’s because Jesus wants us to ask better questions. Usually when we hear the story of some kind of tragedy, be it first century Palestinian Jews being killed by a falling tower or a 21st century African woman facing a collapsing market, our first temptation is to rush for an answer to the question of “why?” If we can just manage to answer that question then everything still makes sense, and the world remains manageable, and our lives can go on their merry little ways. Why did these things befall them? In the examples from our story for today, death comes through the cruelty of a ruler who would have his subjects killed while they are engaged in the religious ritual of offering sacrifice. In the second, death comes by accident or shoddy workmanship. But why to these people? Jesus eliminates the answer that is the go-to for many of us. Just like he does in the Gospel of John, at the beginning of the story of the man born blind, Jesus makes null and void the easy and wrong answer that terrible occurrences are punishment for sin. The disciples ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And Jesus answers, “Walk into this…” No, he doesn’t! What he says is, Neither! “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” John 9:3

It never ceases to amaze me how we continue, even in this day and age, to hold onto that idea: If something terrible is happening, it must be God’s punishment: God is punishing me, or my friends, or my enemies, depending on what bad thing is happening to whom. Or, on the other hand, God is blessing me with something good; this must be my reward for some good and virtuous deed.

Jesus puts a stop to that. Yet we’re still tempted to offer some sort of explanation: the “why” of a calamity. In theology, this is called “theodicy”: Defending a just and merciful God in a world in which there is no one-to-one correspondence between righteous deeds and rewards or sins and punishments. We need to resist this temptation. The point of these two stories is not to say that, since the victims of these tragedies were not worse sinners or offenders than others, there must be some other explanation as to why these horrible things befell them. That’s not the point.

Jesus says, twice, “No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” We need to repent. All of us. That is the message. And repentance means turning our hearts and minds away from self-centered desires and toward God. It means recognizing our errors, our selfishness, our dishonesty. And it means the desire to do something about them, something that means change involving our whole lives. But that something cannot be simply my resolution to do better. If I could simply do better and turn my life around, and become a righteous and virtuous person, all on my own, then I wouldn’t need to worry about God’s grace. But let’s be honest. If I really could do all that on my own, don’t you think I would have done it by now?

That deep aching need at the center of our being that every single one of us thirsts for is God’s grace. It’s freely offered to everyone who experiences that thirst. And it’s offered with no strings attached, without money and without price. But the old Adam or the old Eve, as Luther referred to them, our old thirsty selves would rather live in a dry and barren place where there is no water, than to admit that there’s nothing we can do to earn, and therefore control, God’s grace.

Lent is a journey through a wilderness, as preparation for our return to the cross and resurrection. It’s a journey back to the roots of our baptism; our physical participation in the cross and resurrection of Christ. The purpose of this liturgical wilderness is to remind us of the real wilderness we so often created create for ourselves in our own lives.

John the Baptizer preached in the wilderness. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he said. God comes to each of us seeking this fruit. So, what will God find?

The gardener answers this question. Not with an explanation of our failures or ineffectiveness. Not with arguments of how we prefer our own barren wilderness to God’s feast of rich food, of marrow and fatness. The gardener’s answer is what he offers to do for us. To dig around the calcified egocentric desires encrusting our roots, making it possible for God’s cool clear water to penetrate and relieve our thirst. To nourish our roots. To feed our souls, so that we might be strengthened and encouraged. So that we can learn to see beyond ourselves, our self-justification, and our self-indulgence. So that we can be truly open to the power of the Holy Spirit to change us and to change our lives.

Now there is a flipside to all of this. The side which I’ve been discussing is very internal and rather abstract and esoteric. The flipside, however, is very real and concrete. I think it’s also a lesson in how to respond when we see some sort of tragic event unfolding around us. Instead of seeking to place blame with the one suffering misfortune, we are instead called to attend to them in their moment of desolation, their moment of doubt, their moment of fruitlessness. Because when someone is going through a difficult time, the last thing they are thinking about is how they might be bearing spiritual fruit. So how do we, like the gardener, tend to the people who’ve been entrusted to our care?

Well rather than focusing on the question of why, we focus on the questions of who, what, and how. Who is suffering? What is their need? How might that need be met? And we answer those questions by taking the time to listen to their story.

Take, for example, the story that I told at the beginning of this sermon: the story of Jemaya. She came in with a very clear understanding of what it was that she needed. She needed someone to pray for her. But I had a hard time hearing that at first. Because here was a woman who was clearly distressed. Here was a woman who clearly needed something. Here was a woman who clearly needed to be saved!

At least, I realize now, that was what I was hearing. Because that was what I wanted. I want to help people, yes. But it’s very easy for that to turn into wanting to fix people. And not everyone needs to be fixed. Not everyone wants to be fixed.

So, I had to remind myself to really listen. To focus entirely on her and what she was saying to me, rather than hearing her word while, in my mind, I’m running through all the options at my disposal. Lucky for me, she knew exactly what she wanted and what she needed. And when I was able finally able to listen, I was able to give her what she needed.

Not every tree needs to have a trench excavated around it to then be filled with manure. Some trees need some extra water. Other trees need some light pruning. Still others might need some water and some pruning. And some trees simply need someone who is willing to sit quietly and listen as they pour out their pain, their fear, their anxiety, their frustration, their anger… And then they need a word of reassurance. They need to know that God still sees them. They need to know that God still loves them. They need to know that, regardless of circumstance, God still walks with them.

So, the lesson we take from today’s reading is really two-fold. First: Yes, we need to be mindful of our piety, our need to repent and to allow God’s grace to nourish us and feed us so that we can bear the fruit of righteousness and grace. And second: we need to do that because it’s those very same gifts of grace that we bring to bear upon the issues and the challenges faced by those who come to us in their times of brokenness.

Our calling is not to fix anyone. Our calling is to be present with those who are suffering. Our calling is to hear their stories with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind. Our calling is to meet them in their need and to nourish them, so that they, too, can go on to bear the fruits of righteousness and grace. So that they, too, can be empowered to minister to those who come to them.

AMEN