Unless You Repent — March 3, 2013

https://stjohns02129.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/VN810060.mp3Exodus 3:1-15I Corinthians 10:1-13Luke 13:1-9If I were teaching a course in pastoral care for others, and I had a student like Jesus, I am not sure what kind of grade I would give him.  In our story from the Gospel today, we hear of people coming to Jesus with a question that is as old as the Bible itself: Why do bad things happen to good people? The particular circumstances may be unfamiliar to us:  Galileans who have been killed by Herod, or innocent bystanders, killed when a stone tower suddenly collapses. But the resulting question is most familiar. It is the question that occurs after a natural disaster. It is the question asked after a horrific event like the shootings in Newtown Connecticut. It is the question my uncle asked when his beloved sister Mary was dying of cancer: why her? Why does it happen to the best?  Why do the innocent suffer?A typical answer to such questions in Jesus day was this: those who suffer deserve it. If you are sick, it is a result of sin. If you come to harm, it is because you have done something wrong and God is displeased. We hear some of that kind of thinking in Paul’s words to the church in Corinth. But Jesus the pastor rejects that answer: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?”Jesus knows they were not any worse. And if I were grading Jesus, I would say, “Wonderful response!” Certainly an A-, at least in the pastoral care department – a caring response to an age-old question.  We cannot draw a direct line between suffering and our own behavior. My Aunt Mary did not receive a cancer diagnosis because she had sinned.And I can just imagine where Jesus would go next: perhaps asking a person to share more about his or her anguish. Perhaps leading gently into a discussion of our limited comprehension, and the recognition that we can never fully comprehend the ways of the world or the ways of God.But of course, Jesus does not do that. Instead he says this:  “But unless you repent, you too will perish.”So much for the Good News. So much for a passing grade in the pastoral care department. What do we do with this unpastoral response?I see the innocent suffer. I see a world that does not always seem just. And I am asking Jesus about that seeming unfairness. And Jesus tells me to look at my own life, to look at my own circumstances, and to turn toward God. It is a rigorous challenge, but perhaps, also, an inviting one. When the world confounds us, the confusion it presents can cause us to look with fear, with doubt, with anger – and sometimes prevent us from engaging more deeply with what we can understand, and with those circumstances over which we do have control.A number of years ago, I used to attend a midweek noon Eucharist at the Episcopal Church in the town where I served as a United Methodist pastor. It was wonderful midweek refreshment for me, as I was there with no responsibilities for presiding and leading. There were usually 8 to 10 people at the service, and the priest often preached a very brief homily, after which she invited those of us there to offer our responses to her words or to the scriptures we had heard.On one of those Wednesdays, the priest spoke of a nineteenth century Anglican missionary in Asia.  I cannot even remember who the particular missionary was. But the priest shared something of his life and witness, which, by the inclusion of his name on the church’s liturgical calendar, was being held up as a model of Christian faithfulness. I do not remember the missionary’s name. What I do remember was the strong and anguished response of one person attending that day. He asked how the church could celebrate and give thanks for this missionary, who represented an imperialistic culture bringing the Word of God to others in ways that were no doubt oppressive, if not racist. That parishioner went on to say he could never give thanks for that missionary’s work.Certainly, the missionary impulse of nineteenth century Christians - to bring the Gospel to the seemingly “benighted natives of other lands,”- can and should be critiqued.  But might such a response also prevent us from analyzing our own complicity, our own limited vision, our own inability to get it right in our own day and age?That nineteenth century missionary ventured forth with a sense of purpose and ultimate belief that what he was doing was for the glory of God and the good of the world.  At that Wednesday Eucharist his story, and the angry response to it, evoked for me a different question:  Are there ways that I am just like that missionary? Am I doing things that I believe to be fundamentally faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that a subsequent generation may find less than faithful, less than helpful?Unless you repent, you too will perish.  After the shootings in Newtown last December, I know that you, like I, experienced many emotions. In the aftermath of the murder of innocents, I looked for all kinds of reasons to explain what had happened: the prevalence of guns in our culture; the lack of adequate mental health care; the culture of violence which seems to permeate our advertising, our movies, our games, our lives.  But in retrospect, there was one thing I did not do. I did not spend much time looking at the interior of my own life, and examining the ways in which I collude with a culture of violence or accept it as a grim reality of life in 21st century America. I did not spend much time reflecting on my own anger, my own ability to strike out at others if not physically, then certainly emotionally or spiritually.Were the dear children of Newtown any worse sinners than I? Of course they were not. But unless I repent, unless I reflect on how their senseless suffering might change my behavior and my attitudes, I too will perish.The words of Jesus may sound harsh. But perhaps what he is saying is this:  You cannot make sense of all that happens in the world. There will be random accidents. There will be the inexplicable occasions of evil that make one question the love, if not the very existence of God. You will not have all the answers. But what you do have is this - a life. A life that you have been given. A life in which you can make choices. And you have been given the opportunity in this time, and in this place, to live it as fully and as faithfully as you can determine.So do that.  For that is what repentance is all about. It is about turning.  Turning always toward ourselves and an honest assessment of our lives, but even more importantly, turning to the reality that Jesus proclaimed. Turning toward love, turning toward forgiveness, turning, when faced with doubt and despair, toward trust in the God whose ways are beyond our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts.And perhaps that is why Jesus follows the challenging words with the briefest of parables. About a fig tree. A tree that does not seem to have borne fruit. But a fig tree tended by a gardener who is persistent, who will dig around it and continue to nourish it with manure. A gardener who has faith that it will bloom. For you know what a tree that is carefully tended and nourished with water and manure will do. It will turn toward the sun. It will grow, and thrive, and reach heavenward. It will blossom.May we do so as well. May we turn our faces, our hearts, and our lives toward the light that shines upon us; light that comes from burning bushes; light that comes from the Word in our Midst, Light that beckons us to live; the Light that has overcome every darkness, the light that is Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.A Sermon for St. John’s Episcopal ChurchCharlestown, MassachusettsPreached on The Third Sunday in LentMarch 3, 2013By the Rev. Thomas N. Mousin