We still get the paper edition of the Seattle Times every morning. The other day I was going through my morning ritual and when it came time to start reading the newspaper, I was taken aback. I’m not always taken aback. Like most of us, I’ve become accustomed and maybe even numb to bad news, but this time it was the large photo on the front page, capturing the mood of the aftermath of the most recent bombing by Israel in Gaza. You could see the usual wreckage and people who have been wounded or those weeping over loved ones killed. What caught my attention was an adult holding an injured child. For whatever reasons this image provoked a response in me that found me on the verge of tears. Mumbling under my breath I asked, “How long? How long, O God, must this tragedy endure?” Then I asked, “why, why?”
I suspect any of us have been impacted by headlines or images covering a lot of bad news these days.
Sometimes we wonder why or even cry out to God saying “why.”
Why? Why? Why?
- Why do bad things happen to good people?
- Why is there so much unjust suffering in the world
- Why do the innocent suffer and why do the bullies seem to win?
- Why do the unrighteous flourish?
- Why does God allow horrible tragedies or violent acts to take place?
These are questions we’ve been asking for centuries and much of the time there are no easy answers or reasons.
Sometimes the reasons are obvious: We hurt ourselves or others because of reckless behavior. We lash out in little ways or big ways in times of conflict. We recklessly pollute the planet. Still, beyond such reasons, there are bigger questions around God’s relationship to human suffering. Theologians have been spilling ink over issues like this for a very long time and when it comes to the problem of suffering, I have yet to discover an easy answer.
When bad things take place, especially tragedies, they have a way of disorienting us, interrupting our normal routines or the symmetry of our quiet lives. One of the first things we do in our disorientation is to ask why. If a reason isn’t given to us we will sometimes supply our own answers based on our moral judgments or maybe our belief in good or bad karma. We believe that perhaps an answer will alleviate our pain or confusion and provide some comfort in situations where there is scarcely little comfort or consolation.
In his novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder gives us a rich story around this dilemma. The story takes place in a little South American village where each day villagers crossed the bridge to go back and forth to the village. One day, without warning, the bridge snapped and six people fell to their death. It was devastating for everyone in the village and, naturally, people wondered why this happened and why these people had to die. There must have been a reason!
The village priest wondered why and sought an answer. He decided to do research into these people’s lives to see why those six people, of all the people, fell to their death. He wanted to prove beyond a doubt that if you do bad things that bad things will happen to you. If they were good, surely nothing like this would happen. The priest did his extensive research into the lives of the six villagers whose lives were abruptly taken and he concluded that these people were no better or worse than anyone else. He couldn’t find a correlation between this tragedy and the way they lived. There were no reasons. Bad things happen.
Jesus faced these same sorts of questions and answers. There was a lot of buzz around a tragedy that occurred when a group of Galilean pilgrims were murdered while visiting Jerusalem. Pilate, the Roman Governor, had them slaughtered while they were worshiping. “Do you think,” asks Jesus that “these Galileans were worse sinners than everyone else?” Jesus then answers his rhetorical question with a clear forthright “No!”
He also used the example of eighteen people who were crushed to death by the collapsing Tower of Siloam. Were these folks worse sinners? No. There are obvious reasons about these two events, Pilate was interested in yielding power and the tower was probably poorly constructed. These unfortunate ones on whom the tower fell were not worse than others living in Jerusalem.
Yes, sometimes things happen for a reason but in the grand scheme of things, sometimes there is no good reason. Sometimes there is no reason.
Life happens and bad things happen. We’ve lied to ourselves when we say that everything happens for a reason. Maybe we can resolve to accept that life happens. Instead of everything happening for a reason, just accept that everything happens.
I remember the death of child ten days after his birth and the mother said very wisely, “even if there were a reason, I don’t think it would erase our pain.”
Why do we search for reasons? Might we desire them out of a need for some measure of control? Do we want to live with some sense of certainty?
Friends in Christ, we cannot believe that God causes towers or trees to fall on people or that tragic things like unexpected death or murder is somehow part of God’s plan. We do not worship a God who sits at the panel of some cosmic control room, pushing buttons and manipulating switches to cause of prevent evil or natural disaster.
Life, not death, is part of God’s plan. God is the cosmic lover not a puppeteer. God woos us to his love that is freely offered, never does God manipulate or coerce.
In lieu of easy answers, we rush to find our own but such answers can be as devastating and lifeless as the tragedies themselves.
Maybe that’s why Jesus throws in the real zinger in today’s Gospel reading: He says “but unless you repent, you’ll perish just like they did.”
Jesus takes the opportunity to turn the story of speculation about others into a call to trust God. Jesus is saying that if you spend all your time thinking that other people are worse sinners that you, then you really haven’t faced up to yourself yet.
It may be fun to speculate on what happens to other people or we may find it an intriguing intellectual puzzle to discern reasons but when we find ourselves so consumed with the actions of others we avoid the primary questions of faith and the necessary work of self-examination.
Sometimes I think the primary questions of faith are questions we wish to avoid because they hit so very close to home. These are questions we like to ask during Lent. Questions about being and meaning in relationship to Christ. Primary questions like these:
- What does it mean to follow Jesus?
- Where do I find myself stuck in unloving ways and how might I ask God to increase within me a loving spirit?
- What is my role in the life of the church?
- How is God calling me to use my gifts in service to God’s kingdom?
- Where do I sense the nudge of the Holy Spirit?
- Where God might be calling me to repent?
So, Jesus bids us to repent. Perhaps the biggest fear with repentance has to do with change. Repentance is all about change. We begin with confession of sin and acknowledgment of our lack of trust in God, but we don’t stay there. Repentance
looks to the future and an openness to wherever God directs us. In the journey of following Jesus, the Spirit is always prodding us to change.
In the conversation about human tragedy, it is as if Jesus is saying this: Put the brakes on condemning others or evaluating whether they are good or bad. Turn away from idle speculation and get to the really important questions about the Kingdom of God and our participation in the Kingdom. Seek first the things of God.
God is no cosmic bully but as the divine lover, God is with us in our suffering and God brings light out of darkness and life from death. Never does God deal with us according to our misdeeds or sin. God’s greatest delight is forgiveness and part of the rich gift of forgiveness is the opportunity to repent – to step into the future as people changed and open to change in the light of God’s love.
So, Jesus directs us to the parable of the fig tree. For three years the person who planted the fig tree found no fruit from the tree and understandably wanted to cut it down. But the gardener advised something very different. The Gardner said give it another year and let me see what I can do. I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. Don’t cut it down. Be patient.
To ask and live into the primary questions requires patience and waiting and a good deal of pruning. And here is the Good News: God is the patient gardener.
Our repentance and renewal of life isn’t done in a vacuum. Isn’t that why one of our most used responses in church is “yes, and I ask God to help me?”
God is love and God is passionate about his love for us and though we understandably get distracted and frustrated by situations where we are without easy answers, God calls us to keep our roots in the tender soil of the Gospel. It is a call to trust in the slow and steady work of God. Jesus, the gardener patiently tends the soil of faith. Nurtured by God’s living word and sacrament, we do indeed bear good fruit to love God and one another as God tenderly and faithfully love us.
Amen