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When Bad Things Happen...

WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE SECOND CHANCE

First sermon in a series on "Why Religion Matters"

TEXT: LUKE 13:1-9

 

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERMON SERIES

Today we are beginning a Lenten sermon series on "Why Religion Matters." People of faith have been getting a bad rap lately. There are a couple of critiques of religion which have gained best seller status. These books accuse us of being superstitious, intellectually dishonest, afraid to question outmoded doctrines, and worse, hateful bigots. The authors do not make distinctions between extremists and progressives. We all seem to be equally naive and narrow-minded. In these authors' opinions, the world would be better off without the excesses of religion and the best path to this is to lay off religion entirely.

One can hardly deny the destructive potential for religion misused by fanatics—religious and political. We are living in a world gone crazy for this very reason. Which, no doubt, explains the popularity of these books. But being in the religion biz myself, I feel moved to come to our defense. There is a lot of good perpetuated by religion. And I'm hoping, in this sermon series, to highlight what I think is valuable about religion and, because this is what I'm qualified to speak on, our Christian faith in particular.

You will notice in your bulletin that on March 18, Rabbi Howard Jaffe will be our guest, preaching about the religious basis for an ethical system.

Although he speaks from a Jewish point of view, the Hebrew Bible is our ethical foundation so we share common principles with him.

People say that the fundamental questions of religion are: Is there something else? Why do bad things happen? What is the meaning of life? And what happens when I die? Some form of religion has been around since we were living in caves and we're still asking those questions but that's no reason to give up.

Today I think I'll be chipping away at the second and third: Why do bad things happen? And what is the meaning of life?

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus is holding one of his teaching seminars and the group with him brings up a couple of items that have been in the news lately. A squadron of Roman soldiers forced their way into the temple and attacked some Galilean worshippers Many died.


(This story offers an eerie parallel to what's happening in Iraq since in Jesus' time, the Jews were mounting an insurgency against the occupying Romans and these death squads were a common strategy for keeping the population terrorized.) And then there was that other incident—a tower collapsed killing 18 innocent people.

Or were they innocent? The philosophy of the day was that when bad things happened, there was a reason; the victims must have deserved their punishment.

LUKE 13:1-6 BAD THINGS HAPPENING TO GOOD PEOPLE

13 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He 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.”

WE DON'T BELIEVE GOD PUNISHES US FOR OUR SIN ANY MORE … OR DO WE?

Perhaps we consider that worldview a little primitive. We don't believe that God punishes people for their sin any more. Accidents happen. No, actually, this practice is still common. When I did an internship as a hospital chaplain, families would often search for a rationale for their tragedy and come up with reasons that made God seem to be a very punishing character indeed. I visited a young man on a ventilator. He had been comatose for weeks after a car accident. His family was at his side and his wife wanted to talk. "It's my fault," she said. "If only I had insisted that he wear his seat belt. He would have done anything to please me but I just didn't push it because I knew he hated them. God wanted me to stand up for what I knew was right and I didn't so this is my lesson."

And often the more subtle: "I've had to totally slow down and change my lifestyle because of my heart attack. I guess it was God's way of getting my attention.

Behind every bad occurrence, there is some sin or failure. Barbara Brown Taylor says that this belief has a simple logic to it. "1) It answers the riddle of why bad things happen to good people: they don't. Bad things only happen to bad people. 2) It punishes sinners right out in the open as a warning to everyone. 3) It gives us a God who obeys the laws of physics. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction."

But Jesus doesn't allow us to sit in the neatness of that equation. "No," he says. "There is no connection between tragedy and sin." The long-suffering Job discovered that as well, several centuries before. I believe that too. But our supervisors at the hospital did not encourage us intervene with people who found meaning by attributing their illness to God.

By taking away this prop, we were likely to destroy a carefully constructed worldview that worked for them. This was not the time for lessons in theology. It was the time just to be there and to pray.

But Jesus didn't have Bill Schuster for a supervisor and he knows no such delicacy. He cuts through that belief and outright denies that these people died because of their sin.

OK. That could be good news. But his follow-up doesn't sound very comforting; in fact, it sounds contradictory. "But I tell you; unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” I can see the crowd whispering to themselves, "I don't get it. What's he talking about?" And they begin drifting away.

JESUS SEIZES THE MOMENT

Rev. Taylor has a convincing analysis of this puzzle. She says that Jesus puts their fears to work. "He seems to honor the vulnerability that their fright has opened up in them. It is not a bad thing for them to feel the fragility of their lives. It is not a bad thing for them to count their breaths in the dark, not if it makes them turn toward the light. He tells them, "Terrible things happen, and you are not always to blame. But don't let that stop you from doing what you are doing. That torn place your fear has opened up inside of you is a holy place. Look around while you are there. Pay attention to what you feel. It may hurt you to stay there and it may hurt you to see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death. It is the kind that leads to life."

Repent, he tells them. Repentance does not have to be self abasement. Nor does it always take the form of a single conversion experience. The word "repent" in Greek means to turn around. It is a perfect Lenten word because it speaks of a new orientation. The kind of attention that leads to life.

In fact, the story that Luke has Jesus tell next is about just that.

THE PARABLE OF THE BARREN FIG TREE

6 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. 7 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?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

WHO IS GOD IN THE PARABLE?

When we read parables like this, we tend automatically to decode them by putting God in the most powerful position. So it would be natural, wouldn't it, to interpret this by making God the owner of the vineyard, the merciless judge of the barren fig tree. Just like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland—"No figs! No figs! For three years no figs! Off with its head!"

But what if God is the gardener who knows a whole lot more about actually growing figs than the absentee landowner? What if God is the one who's willing to be a bit more patient? What if God's willing to do the hard work of cultivating and putting on the manure and watering that tree?

I think that fits. And I think Luke is being very clever putting these two stories together. The first a shocking wake-up call. Life is uncertain. Bad things happen.

Not your fault, but in the blink of an eye everything could change. So turn around now while it's all fresh in your mind.

And then that lovely, grace-filled parable of the patient gardener willing to do whatever he can to turn barrenness into fruitfulness. We're not alone in this turning around thing.

WHERE IS GOD WHEN THE BAD THINGS HAPPEN?

So back again to the theme of this sermon. How does faith support us in the midst of tragedy? How we find meaning when bad things happen? Where is God when we are in need?

The Luke passage tells us that bad things happen through no fault of our own. God does not punish. But that does not mean we cannot discover something about God and ourselves in the midst of suffering.

Just today in the Globe, there was a story about the suicides of four young people in Needham. The town is putting their shock to work by gathering a coalition of leaders, clergy, students, and parents to build awareness of issues that might lead to these desparate acts. Hope is coming out of tragedy.

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin's young son died in a car accident right here in Boston on Storrow Drive. He was devastated and never really got over it. But he got through it and he was able to write this:

It's comforting to be bitter about evil. … It's also easy to blame everything on a tragedy. But in m experience, most people give up on life not because of a tragedy, but because they no longer see joys worth celebrating; they do not see that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have meaning. Tragedy offers the opportunity to find new meaning and most of all to reevaluate what's important. (Credo. p. 129)

Jesus invites us to understand pain with the heart of faith. When he calls us to repentance, he asks us to keep turning, like sunflowers to the light of God so we can be prepared to meet adversity when it comes. And finally, he reminds us that God is there. God the gardener, who tends and nourishes our souls.