March 11, 2007 - The Third Sunday in Lent
Luke13:1-9; I Corinthians 10:1-13; Isaiah 55:1-9
As a pastor, I often find myself sitting with someone in need of comfort. It might be someone who is grieving, or a person facing surgery or just someone who needs to talk through the events of their lives that threaten to overwhelm them at that given moment. Sometimes, just listening does the trick. Sometimes, a prayer brings a connection with God that calms and soothes. But sometimes, there are no words, because the experience is so tragic, or the fear so great, or the problem so insurmountable that there is no way to make sense of it, and the only theologically true thing that could be said would be to say, “stuff happens,” (which is a far cry from a pastoral response.)
It reminds me of a play we did when I was in high school about the suicide of a teenager. The title of the play was “No Why” and it was many years later that I found out that “No Why” is a police dispatcher’s way of telling the officer sent to the scene that there is no apparent motive, no immediate explanation for what the officer will find there: there is no “why?”
As human beings, we really don’t like those “no why” situations. What we really want is to KNOW WHY, and so we comfort ourselves by assigning blame for things we fear, things we avoid, things we do not understand. It is so much easier to blame our spouse for our unhappiness, when it is truly we that are unhappy with ourselves. It is so much easier to blame ourselves when a loved one becomes a victim of something that is out of our control. It is so much easier to blame God, when the world simply turns, and life delivers its inevitable and expected “ups and downs.”
Granted, we have heard that God tests us (at least, that idea provides us with some sort of reason.) Therefore, God must be the source of these “lessons,” these “things that we need to face,” these fearsome, life and death rhythms that we try so desperately to protect ourselves from. Because, of course, if there is a reason, we might be able to understand it. And if we can understand it, we have some power. And if we have some power, then hopefully, ultimately, we will have some small measure of what we desire most of all: control.
Jesus’ disciples must have felt like they were losing control. Day after day they heard his teachings which flew in the face of things they had known their whole lives. They watched him perform miracles that boggled their minds and stand up to the religious establishment with an authority beyond what they had ever seen. Their reality was being turned inside out and their grip on everything stable about their lives was getting looser every moment.
Meanwhile, they attempted to buttress their own sense of worth, to regain some semblance of control. So they told Jesus about how Pilate had killed some Galileans and mixed their blood with that of the sacrifice – Temple murders. (They must have been terrible sinners to have been killed in such a blasphemous way!) Then there were those who had died in an accident when the Tower of Siloam had collapsed and some had been killed. (Obviously they or their families were being taught some sort of lesson, so they were marked for death and “it was just their day to die.”)
Jesus understood all of their emotions, and yet his time was growing short and his message was taking on a new urgency. So Jesus upsets their world of “bad get bad/good get good” and says simply that they are no better or worse than those who have died. What he might have said (what I certainly would have blurted out) is, “Hey, Pilate is a stinking thug – don’t get in his way,” and, “Towers fall and kill innocent people, it happens…” Instead, he simply reminds them that they should ALL take this opportunity to take stock of their lives – to repent, to turn around, to take this opportunity to re-order their priorities.
When Paul wrote his letter to Corinth, it was THE cosmopolitan city of the time, and some of the folks were going down the very same idolatrous road as their ancestors in the faith, the Israelites in the wilderness. They were God-fearers by day, and idolaters by night. They “worshipped God with their lips, but their hearts were far from God.” Paul sees similarities between the wilderness wanderers and the Corinthians, and he wants to make sure that they all know that they even though they “think they are standing,” they are still in danger of falling. Everyone experiences tests and temptations. Everyone has things to endure. Everyone sins and falls short of the glory of God. But, “God is faithful, and will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing will provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (verse13.)
Please note here that Paul does not say that the tests are initiated by God. What he does say is that because God is faithful, God gives us a way out (just like Jesus’ way out through Jerusalem – his exodus – and we know how Jesus got out – through Jerusalem and death on a cross.) God’s way out of the testing is not avoiding it or going around it, but living through it, within the body of Christ – the Christian community. In other words, the way to endure the difficulties in this life is to stay connected to God through Christ and Christ’s church. Do you get that, people of God? YOU are the answer to someone else’s prayer.
Finally, our Old Testament lesson today is the prophet Isaiah’s message about a great banquet, the kind usually given when a new king was crowned. But even as the folks are feasting on food and drink, in the middle of celebrating their good fortune and great lifestyle, God reminds them to repent – to return to the Lord and seek mercy – “For my thoughts are NOT your thoughts; nor are your ways my ways…” They are as different as heaven and earth.
In last week’s Pastors’ Class we discussed the question, “What do you expect from the church?” One of the most intriguing answers was, “That the church would be a seedbed – the place where we get stirred up.” Hmm. Stirred up. Reformed. Repented. Turned Around.
Jesus told his followers who were attempting to regain some control in their lives to repent. Paul instructed the Corinthians to turn from their hypocritical lives and repent. Isaiah reminds even those who are in the midst of a festive celebration to repent. Perhaps, we who live in the richest, most secure, most educated nation in the world need to stop fearing “the tests,” and realize that our lives ARE the test.
Just a few weeks ago on Ash Wednesday, we were reminded, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” In the meantime, God wants us to live fruitful lives - lives poured out in service to others - not lives spent fretting about comfort or fulfillment; security or control, or even the remedial theology of attempting to answer questions that have no answers. Because in the last analysis – it will not be how happy, how self-fulfilled, how rich, how secure or how smart you are that counts – (for that matter it will not be how sad, how unsatisfied, how poor, insecure or illiterate you are, either…)
The only thing that matters is, were you faithful? Did you try, over and over again, to look away from the darkness and keep facing God’s light? Did you do what God asked you to do with the things that God provided to you? Did you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the brokenhearted? Did you work for justice and peace in all the earth? Did you love one another and worship the Lord your God alone? Repent. It is the only way out of the test. By learning to love God enough, that you can also love your neighbor. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.
