Ground Zero and Love

In 2005, I was driving home through the rain late at night in the Ozark Mountains. The roads, with all of its twists and turns, were very familiar to me… and I used to aliken myself to a bit of a nascar driver on a few of the sharper turns along the route. I remember, on that rainy night, getting stuck behind a car travelling well below the speed limit. At first, I gave the car its space… but then I became impatient. As an opportunity to pass came, I pushed the accelerator down hard and started my pass across the dotted yellow line. About halfway through my passing attempt, we started into another curve and I saw lights in the distance.

My foot pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor, urging the car forward so I could get back out of the oncoming traffic’s lane. But as I accelerated and tried to swing back into my own lane all at once, the car’s tires hit some standing water and I lost control. The next few seconds slowed down as I fish-tailed from one lane to the next before going completely backwards and off the road. I was fortunate. No one was hurt except my car and the tree that stopped me. But to this day, I remember that night as I drive past that particular curve. I look down into the valley below and I remember stepping out into that cool evening as red and blue flashing lights came to my rescue. Later, I learned that there had been several fatalities on that particular curve over the years. When the road was built they did not angle it properly for the sharpness of the turn. I still experience a tinge of humility and thankfulness as I pass through that curve… and I wonder how many drivers experience pain and loss in that same spot that I experience thankfulness. -----------------------------

There are locations in our life that take on a unique meaning for us because of what we experience at them. Perhaps at a given location you experienced your first kiss… your first speeding ticket… the place where you were dumped… or a place where you were fortunate to survive something that could have ended you. The experiences that we have shape the meaning of certain places for us.

These are our “ground zero” places.

While the phrase itself might bring up memories of 9/11, ground zero places do not have to be negative places… or they may have different meanings for different people. The land runs in Oklahoma in 1889 bring up a swelling of pride for many as they embrace the frontier spirit that the people had those generations ago. For others, the land runs are reminders of land taken away from a people who already lived there. Ground-zeroes can be complicated and they can be experienced differently for different peoples. But they are places and dates that hold meaning for us.

In this week’s gospel, Jesus talks about a ground zero that feels familiar. We hear about the Tower of Siloam collapsing… and we can imagine the horror of those 9/11 moments where we too saw towers collapse and people die. Jesus talks about Pilate mingling the blood of Galileans in the sacrifices… and we might consider some of the images coming out of Ukraine of women and children being hurt so that someone else might be lifted as powerful.

We don’t need to know the ins and outs of these moments that Jesus describes in order to relate to them. We can guess at some of the questions the people were asking about God in response to those experiences. I still remember old Pat Robertson on the 700 Club in the wake of Hurricane Katrina declaring that New Orleans was hit because of all the sinners there. And I remember the stir that caused as people were asking questions as to whether or not God was smiting the community because there were evil people there. I also remember talking with a man down in a small town in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Laura. He was rejoicing that his home had been spared any damage in the storm despite trees landing all around it. He gave thanks to God that God has created a shield of protection for his home… and he was convinced that God had done so because he had prayed that his home might be spared. But even as his home was safe and sound… his neighbors, who were also Christians… and who also had prayed… saw their homes devastated.

If his home was saved because he put his faith in God… did that mean that the others lost their homes because they didn’t really believe? Does tragedy in whatever form it takes strike only those whom God is unhappy with? When someone dies in a car accident or contracts cancer or is the victim of war or terrorism or anything else… are they really the victim or were their sins greater than their neighbor who escaped the car crash or weathered the storm just fine?

The answer that we hear from Jesus is, of course, “No.”

It’s not that God is doling out punishments to this group or that group of people because they’re so much worse than all the others. When we experience tragedy i society or within our own lives… its not a tragedy struck because God has singled you out as being more worthy of experiencing pain or death than the next person. According to Christ, God’s finger is not going around smiting people with tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes and fires and disease and armies and whatever else we can think of.

Jesus says these were senseless tragedies, not acts of God. But, Jesus adds, while you’re considering senseless tragedies, as you consider the mortality of others… why not consider your own mortality? Your own sins?

What are the broken places in your life that might lead to even deeper brokenness? And before we jump and start pointing out sins of other people and saying that they need to change their ways… this message that Jesus offers is for the people who already consider themselves faithful. Jesus is encouraging us to look within ourselves and to examine the brokenness within. So, where are the places in our lives that we put up blinders against certain people? Whether it’s that homeless fellow who needs assistance or the gay couple who think that God is angry with them or that neighbor who keeps getting on your nerves… who are the people that you push away and don’t see in the image of God?

When we talk about bearing fruit in this life, we might consider it in regards to how we bear fruit that is life-giving for your neighbor? How are you bearing fruit for that homeless fellow who needs just one more handout… again? How are you bearing fruit for that couple who thinks that God can’t love them? How do you bear fruit even for that neighbor whose dog keeps getting in your yard or whose trees make a mess on your side of the fence?

Bearing fruit for our neighbors gives life… but bearing fruit takes an investment of ourselves and it is not always repaid by the neighbor.

I think that’s why I appreciate Jesus’ parable about the fig tree so much.

The landowner is ready to pluck that unproductive fig tree out of the ground and make room for something else. While I think we often imagine this landowner to be God… I think the landowner is any person who feels like they have a position of judgement over another. We might imagine the chopping of the fig tree as getting ready to write someone off and be done with them. We might imagine that, because we have not seen any fruit blossoming out of that relationship… that we’re tired of them and ready to move on.

That can even happen with how we perceive God… especially in the wake of tragedies. I know of one person who, in response to a significant tragedy in his life, tore up his family bible; saying that if God was going to make those tragedies in his life happen that he wanted nothing to do with God. Whether it’s our relationship with a stranger or a neighbor or family member or even God… whoever it is… this vineyard parable speaks to those times when we’re tempted to throw in the trowel and pick up the axe. It’s a vineyard where an unproductive fig tree grows; and where an impatient landowner expresses the desire to chop that tree down. This is a place that is getting ready to be a ground zero. If we look to the future… we can see a stump in the place of where life had previously flourished.

Yet the gardener knows that this is a future that doesn’t have to come to pass. The gardener advocates on behalf of the tree and even changes his own practices for it. The gardener works to avoid the future ground zero by engaging patience, sympathy, advocacy, and love.

Rather than writing the fig tree off… rather than giving up on the other person just because they’re not acting the way we wish they were or they seem too needy or they just annoy the heck out of us… Jesus coaches us to change the way WE interact with them. Rather than giving up on them… Christ tells us to love them more. He calls for us to sympathize with their hurts… invest in them to make fertile soil… and do what we can to help them succeed even at the cost of extra work on our end.

In 2015, when Dylan Roof entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church with the intent to kill those 9 African Americans… he received such a warm welcome from them at their Bible Study that he later commented that he almost changed his mind about the plan he had hatched. Their love toward a stranger who was not like them nearly averted a ground zero.

And that is the reality… that ground zeroes can still happen even when we lean into and love into the people we encounter. And yet, their compassion nearly saved not only their own lives but Dylan’s as well. I would imagine if they had met him with contempt and judgement from the start, his decision would have been an easier one to make.

Imagine how many senseless tragedies in our communities are spurred on because we meet each other with hostility and mistrust rather than the compassion that Christ calls us to. The parable invites us to imagine how we could work to prevent at least some tragedies if only we would work in our own communities as not-so-secret agents of God’s love.

Now can love stop a hurricane or miraculously cure a disease or end poverty throughout the world? No. But living into that kind of Godly love CAN help pick up the pieces after those ground zeroes occur. God calls us to be caretakers of the garden… to pick up the watering hose and the bag of fertilizer… to tend and to care. It won’t fix all of the problems, no. And it doesn’t mean that we will share the same perspectives of the other person. But there is much brokenness that can be mended when we engage with the intent to help the other.

Thankfully, we have a God that acts that way toward us. Rather than sending a new calamity to wipe out humankind once and for all… God is the God of second chances and renewed efforts. God’s son was sent into the world to live and to die and to be help bring life into the soil that we call life that we might bear fruit. This week, I invite you to use the nutrients that the Spirit gives you and bear fruit… fruit for your neighbor. Fruit for the stranger. While we may not end all of the ground zeroes, we can stand together united through a common care for one another. God’s peace be with you.