Third Sunday in Lent

Richard Davenport March 20, 2022 - Third Sunday in Lent Luke 13:1-9 As you go through life and listen to the things going on around you, you hear and see some pretty awful stuff. You see people suffering in ways that don't seem real until you come face to face with them. You hear about their ordeals and the struggles they face. For some, you wonder how they can even make it through a single day. Every day for them is a struggle just to get out of bed. The debilitating illnesses that slowly destroy your body. The persistent unemployment or other disaster that leads to financial ruin. There are the "rags to riches" stories that you hear about all the time, but there are also the "riches to rags" stories that aren't so popular. If it isn't any of those things, then maybe it's the drug addiction, or maybe it's the family that's tearing itself apart. The wife is cheating on the husband or vice versa. The kids don't want the parents in their lives. Nothing but heartache day in and day out. You look at your own life and you think, "Well, I mean, I have my problems. It's not like every day is sunshine and roses, but, all in all, it isn't that bad. I certainly don't have the kind of problems those folks have. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. All of that stress and grief? No thank you. I don't want to deal with that. No one should have to deal with that. Really, if you're dealing with problems like that, it must be because you brought it on yourself. You did something bad and now it's coming back to bite you. That's the only way someone could get into a situation like that. Gosh, that's actually really bad. If you've got those problems, you must have done something really, really rotten. I'm not sure I even want to be around you. Even if you don't do something bad to me, I don't want to become collateral damage when something worse comes along." That's the sort of discussion going on in the crowds in the Gospel reading for today. Some Jews had been in the process of offering their sacrifices in the temple. For whatever reason, Pilate had them executed while they were doing this. Pilate had a reputation for being a rather ruthless governor, but he also wasn't given much choice. The Jews were constantly rebelling against the Roman Empire and he was put in the position of trying to keep some semblance of peace. That meant he had to quell any rebellion quickly and efficiently. Pilate wasn't known for just murdering people out of hand. That would have stirred up the people against him all the more. So, in all likelihood, Pilate believed these individuals were guilty of some sort of crime and he was making an example of them all. But, we don't really know. The crowds may not know either. What they did see was a number of men cut down while trying to do the good and righteous thing they were supposed to do. It looks very much like divine punishment. Jesus gives another example of 18 men who died when a tower collapsed on them. Sounds like a freak accident. One of those things that just happens without any real explanation and isn't something you had any way to avoid. That sort of thing is unfortunate, but these things happen, right? Bad stuff just happens. It's part of life. A bad gas line in a house starts a fire that kills people. Torrential rain floods an area and people are drowned. A disease runs rampant and people die. These things happen all the time. They do happen all the time. Sometimes we hear one of those kinds of reports and think, "Wow that's terrible. I hope the rest of their family is ok." Other times we hear a report like that and think, "What did you do to deserve that, because it must have been something pretty horrible." There are those instances where the retribution is pretty much instantaneous. You're busy texting while you're driving around town and you end up driving into someone's trunk. The cause and effect are right there together. If you make some off color comments at work and are called to the boss's office to answer for them, well, you shouldn't be surprised. But these other problems don't quite fit into that system. You see the effect, the tower falls on you, you lose your job, your family falls apart, whatever it is, and so there must have been a cause. There must have been something back there that God was holding on to and waiting for the right moment to hit you with. You still did it and God decided there would be a better time for you to suffer the consequences of your actions. You just got to coast a little while, but it still caught up to you eventually. When it's someone we know, we a little more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. "She's my friend, of course she isn't a terrible person. That's my dad. He didn't do anything so bad as that." When it's a stranger, that's when the comparisons set in. You don't really know them, but you think you do. You look at the effect and you start thinking about what might have caused it. A terrible effect must have had an equally terrible cause. Bad things that happen to you might be because of bad luck or random chance, but when they happen to other people, no, something sketchy must be going on over there. "That's guy's wife left him. I don't know him really well but he always struck me as an alcoholic. He probably got drunk and hit her." "I heard that lady got cancer. She's always been greedy. Let's see if all that money she's been secretly pilfering will save her now." And so on. We would never do something deserving of that sort of punishment, but those people certainly can and obviously did. It's no surprise people get punished like that because there are bad eggs all around us. It's good that God is making sure they don't escape justice. The crowds come to Jesus expecting him to either denounce Pilate or denounce those who were killed. One of them had to be in the wrong. Either the people did something deserving that sort of punishment, or Pilate is really a bad man and he's going to get his own punishment at some point. Jesus doesn't go along with it. He doesn't play the game at all. The world just doesn't work that way. We look at some terrible effect, some horrible disaster and think it must have had an equally terrible cause, but we're thinking in human terms, where evil has a spectrum, where there are acts of violence and destruction that deserve immediate and decisive punishment on one end and there are little tiny things of really no consequence at all on the other. But there are no sins that are lighter than others, more tolerable than others. Where there is sin, any sin, there is death. Always. Did these Galileans or those on whom the tower fell do some terrible, heinous thing they were being punished for? It doesn't sound like it. Jesus implies there isn't. They were simply sinners and subject to death. The how and when of that death is not guaranteed, just the declaration that death will come for all who sin. Speculating on what horrible act brought about someone else's death isn't of any value. Even if they were terrible people, that doesn't make you look any better. If you are a sinner, then your death is coming too. Jesus refocuses the crowd's attention. All this gossip will not help them and just clouds the issue. Judgment isn't going to pass you by just because someone out there is a worse sinner than you are. This Lenten season, Jesus calls us to consider again the trek we are on. We follow him as his journey leads to the cross. He is going to die. The righteous for the unrighteous. The sinless for the sinner. He is going to die a worse death than all of these others. We will end up right there with them, as the thief who was crucified with Jesus understood, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." We are walking up that mountain to die. Whether we are at the front of the line or at the back makes no difference for the end is the same. Jesus looks at each one of us in turn and says, "unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." The death of Jesus changes the rules. Whether we were going to die was never really the question. It's a given. We sin, we die. Jesus is asking the more pertinent question, "what will happen to you then?" Are you going to spend your time looking around at everyone else, pointing out the flaws of everyone else, pulling all of their skeletons out of the closet and airing their dirty laundry, expecting that all of those terrible deeds will somehow exonerate you? Or are you going to take a hard look at your own deeds and what terrible things you've done to those around you? Are you going to look to the one who walked up that mountain, step by bloody, agonizing step, just for you, whose hands and feet were nailed to that rough wood for you, who took the insults and jeers for you, who gave up his spirit, his life, for you, and repent of the sins that started him on that road? We remember what drove Jesus to the cross. No one could force him to do it. No one had any reason to execute him. He, of all the world, had done nothing wrong. But, he looks at you and the millions and billions of others with you in the long line of sinners marching up the mountain to suffer the just punishment for their sins and instead of comparing himself to you and remarking on what terrible sinners you all are, he offers to take your place in line. He offers to take your sins on him. Death still must come, but now that death is given to him and taken from you. We repent of our sins and know, like the thief, that this body will die, but even still we will be with the Lord. This body will rise again. Our sins and our sinful body have been put to death. The Lord has paid for it all.