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March
14, 2004 (Jimmie Johnson) Old Testament Lesson Isaiah 55:1-9 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Gospel Lesson Luke 13:1-9 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 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? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'" ------------------------------------------------------------------ It was a very common belief in Jesus’ time that you got what you deserved. If something terrible happened to you, it was because God was judging you for your sins. If you were saying your prayers and Pilate’s terror police attacked you, it was because God was judging you. If you happened to be standing at the wrong place at the wrong time and a tower collapsed on you, it was because God was judging you. I am not sure that such a creepy view of God still doesn’t haunt us today. I remember right after 9-11, hearing a couple of TV preachers comment that the terrorist attack on our nation was successful because God had withdrawn God’s protective hand from our nation. God had become so displeased with our morals as a nation that God was using the terrorist attack as a way to punish us for our sins. So 9-11 was the fault of divorced people, gay people, feminists, Planned Parenthood, secularists, the United Nations, choose your flavor- of-the-month type of sinner. God had gotten a belly full of us and withdrew God’s protection. So, the deaths at the Pentagon, the Twin Towers, in the air planes—all were due to God judging our sins. This is the same thinking as in the day of Jesus. You know, that is pretty theologically creepy. Now God can do anything God wants. I don’t challenge God’s ability. But I don’t believe God is this type of God. If God did just a smidgen of all that God is described as doing in the Bible, then God should be locked up forever. We must remember when reading the Bible that the social position of the writers, their social location in the pecking order, is a factor in the words they write. We know that so often when people pronounce the judgment of God upon others, they are really revealing their own sins. This is true in the Bible as well. You can read the Old Testament and easily conclude Jerusalem is destroyed, the Old Testament version of 9-11, because God is judging the sins of the people. You can read the New Testament and hear similar theological echoes. I have no doubt God judges sin, for if nothing counts against us, then nothing counts for us either. But, given Jesus’ whole life and death as being the controlling image of God’s identity, I don’t think God kills us or infects us with cancer or birth defects or causes cars to crash or buildings to fall because we are sinners. Yes, that image of God is one of many in the Bible, and that’s why the Bible always has to be interpreted. The Living Word Jesus Christ is the standard by which to correct any reading of Scripture. This is Presbyterianism 101. “So, Jesus, these sinners that Pilate’s police murdered, they got what they deserved didn’t they?” “Jesus, the sinners who were crushed underneath the rubble of the Tower were experiencing the providential hand of God being withdrawn, right?” “Bad people get what they deserve, right, Jesus?” This is an interesting line of inquiry. When Jesus is crucified, such theology would say Jesus got what he deserved. Bad people have bad things happen to them. But Jesus doesn’t respond to their questions. He doesn’t engage in theological discussion with them. There are times, aren’t there, when you know individuals doesn’t really want to discuss their religious views with you. They are simply not open to your comments. They are trying to test you so that they can pigeon hole you into their world view as either a good guy or a bad guy, depending on how your beliefs line up with theirs. You can tell when others are truly open to your faith perspective and when they are trying to denounce you in a passive-aggressive way. The best thing to do is what Jesus does in this text: don’t take the bait. Switch the direction of the conversation. Jesus responds by encouraging his detractors to stop focusing on other people and their possible sins and, instead, focus on their own spiritual poverty and repent. To repent simply means to go in a new direction. Jesus is telling his listeners not to go there when it comes to such simple theology as bad things happen to bad people. He tells his listeners to go in a new direction of thought about God and God’s judgment. Also, he tells them to focus not on the faults of others. He’s right, you know. We have all been given the job of getting to know ourselves and dealing with our own sins. Most of us aren’t so good at it that we have the spare time and energy left to make judgments about others. What we are doing by focusing on the sins of others is trying to find a welcome distraction from anxieties about ourselves. But, we must learn with God’s help to detach from focusing on family members, friends, and others around us and resist attempting to fix or monitor or judge. Jesus pushes his listeners to go in a new direction with their image of God and the image they have of themselves. This is the true dynamic of repentance. He does so with this parable. A farmer is growing more and more frustrated with a fruit tree that wouldn’t produce. The farmer was expecting production, but there was only barrenness. You can’t have a worthless tree wasting the growing space and nutrients. He orders one of his hired hands to cut down the tree. “Sir,” pleads the hired hand, “let’s nurture it, care for it, give it a little more time. Let’s don’t give up on it. Give it one more year.” Jesus is the expression of God’s patience and love. God can’t be discouraged. The most important clue about our barrenness is that there is a patient yet assertive voice at the heart of reality calling for more time. A compassionate hand reaches out to halt the axe from falling. The grace of God is this merciful gesture woven into the fabric of life that stays all that would give up on the barrenness of our lives. There is a merciful voice that says: “Let’s give this hopeless case one more year.” Are we to do less with one another? With ourselves? Wherever the barrenness in your life, wherever there sounds the closing of a door, Jesus says, “Look for God to help you, to nurture you, to give you some more time. Don’t panic. Don’t throw in the towel. God’s other name is Hope.” Jesus is saying to us, “Let’s don’t give up on this barren life, this empty relationship, this child, this job, this church, this particular time in your life. Let’s nurture it for another year.” Jesus says that’s God’s voice speaking to you. Can you hear the sound of hope? No more talk of judgment then. Thank God, we literally don’t get in the end what we deserve, not if Jesus is our controlling image of God present in our lives. No, we don’t get what we deserve. We get so much more: time, nurture, attention, hope. All this comes from God. Turn in the new direction today. |
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