Reading: Isaiah 55:1-19, Psalm 63:1-8, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9
Preached at Baldwin Presbyterian Church on March 7th 2010
One bright and breezy morning when I still lived in West Virginia I took the dogs for a walk. But as I walked the clouds began to gather and the wind grew stronger. Hmm. Better move along a bit faster. There was a clap of thunder and a few raindrops. I hurried through the trees down the path back to the house. The wind was increasing in strength and the trees were waving wildly.
Suddenly, an enormous crack and an old tree broke in two and the vast part of it landed right on the path in front of me. If I had been a few more steps forward it would have landed on top of me. Had it done so it would have caused some major damage and I probably wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. It certainly shook me up.
It’s strange what goes through your mind when these things happen to you. I almost shouted, “Ha,Ha, you missed me!” but then figured that the wind that continued to blow through the trees might decide to take another shot.
As I later reflected on the experience, I mused that if the tree had fallen on me, would people think it was a judgment from God for some sin committed, past, present or future? Or will people presume I got away without the tree hitting me because I was living a pastor’s life? Or was this some kind of warning that if I didn’t look out, then I would be in serious trouble?
Or was it simply that one of the trees in the woods had grown old and brittle and just happened to fall as I was walking by, and the fact that it either hit me or missed me was completely void of any significance whatsoever. It just happened.
It raises the question that philosophers and theologians have wrestled with for years. Do things on earth happen because of the will and ordering of God or is the whole of life just a messy jumble of chaotic unrelated happenings?
We like the idea of order. We like to think that we are masters of our own destiny. That if a + b = c then a + b will always = c. We are comfortable with the idea that good things happen to good people and that bad things happen to bad people. We like to think of life as a journey with some point and meaning to it, and like to believe that God has a plan for us.
But if that plan includes trees falling on us, then we’re no longer so convinced of our logic. We don’t like things we can’t explain. We know that people others consider bad often get good things in life and some tremendously good and noble people go through the worst of situations. This is exactly the dilemma that our gospel reading places before us.
The disciples are confronted with two tragic situations. One is an incident in which Pilate slaughtered a group of Galileans with the result that their blood was mingled with that of their sacrifices. The other incident is the collapse of a tower in Siloam that had fallen and killed eighteen people. The first was an atrocity, an act of political violence. The second appeared to have been the whim of fate.
Whilst nobody in the account gives voice to the idea that any of the victims were being punished for their sinful lives, Jesus senses that, somewhere in the back of people’s minds, they harbored the notion that people only got what was coming to them. That if they had been truly good, or had been more careful, then such tragedies could have been avoided.
The logic behind this idea is fairly straightforward.. If God has a will, and that will is for the good of all people, then if bad things happen to them, they must have messed up somewhere along the line. (Or if it wasn’t they who messed up, then maybe it was somebody else in their family who had, and they were just caught in the crossfire).
Jesus tells them they are seriously missing the point. None of those who died were worse sinners than any of those who were standing there listening to his words right then. Their lives were not cut short as a punishment from God. God was not in the business of randomly picking off victims to satisfy his wrath.
Jesus refuses to be drawn into the question that we all ask when tragedy comes. The tragedy that such events as the earthquake in Haiti raises for us. The question “Why?” He did at other times warn about the dangers of reaping a bad harvest in our lives if the only seeds we sow into it are those of sin. Yet about these acts, which seem to belong in the realm of chaos rather than order, He chooses not to speak.
Instead He warns. ‘That wall that fell on those people? Do you realize something similar could happen to any one of you? Those people Pilate murdered, that could have been you who had become tangled up in events that led to your demise. Life is uncertain. Death? Now death is a 100% certainty. That’s where you are headed. And after death comes the judgment.’ Then He stings them with this thought. “I tell you; unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did” (Luke 13:3).
He uses the calamities to serve as a warning. Life is very fragile. Try as we might, none of us can protect ourselves or those we love from every danger: disease, traffic accidents, crime, emotional disorders, and random violence. Such things are just as much a part of our landscape today as they were in the times of Jesus. Any one of us may find ourselves standing before our Maker without a moments notice.
The second part of the lesson, the parable of the fig tree, speaks of the grace of God. Yes, life is tremendously uncertain, (that’s the bad news), but the good news is that God is always giving us chances to start over again, even when our lives appear to be heading down the wrong track.
In the agricultural society Jesus lived in, land was precious. An unfruitful tree could not be allowed to take up space that could be occupied by a fruitful one. So, in the story, the man tells his gardener to cut it down. ‘Not yet’ says the gardener, “Let me nurture this one for another year, and we’ll see what it produces. If it’s still nothing, then we’ll cut it down.”
Putting the two parts of our lesson together, both the warning of judgment that came from reflecting upon tragedy, and the promise of Grace that appears in the parable of the fig tree, the message appears along these lines: -
That life is a precious gift that comes without a guarantee. Bad things happen at random. You just never know when an old tree may be plotting to squish you. But don’t despair. Make the most of every day by living with your heart turned towards God.
In the words of a quotation I recently came across, ‘Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like you do when nobody’s watching.’ Or to quote Carl Sandburg, “Time is the coin of our lives. We must take care how we spend it”.
We spend time now around a table where themes of judgment and grace draw together in the shape of a cross. We see how the One who calls us to repent, took upon Him the judgment we deserve for our fruitless lives. We see how the love of Jesus offers to us another chance, another day, and another year to live in the light of God’s grace.
Through sharing in bread and wine we empower ourselves to face the days ahead, whatever they may hold. We are empowered, not simply with renewed hope, but by the inner presence of the Holy Spirit, who reaches down into our hearts and desires to reach out through our lives to touch others.
I invite you to share this bread and wine,
and as you thank God for the Gift of Life,
pray that we may live our lives in a way,
that brings honor to God’s name.
Adrian Pratt
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