Who Deserves What?

Sermon by: Rev. Mary Alice Mulligan, Ph.D.

Scripture: Luke 13:1-9

Today’s passage mentions several events where people died needlessly, by a malicious show of power in one case and by natural disaster in the other. Event one: some Galilean Jews, like Jesus and his disciples, apparently had come to Jerusalem to make sacrifices at the Temple, as their scripture requires. But while they were there, Pilate sent soldiers and had the Galileans slaughtered in the act, so their blood literally mixed with the blood of the animals they sacrificed. Event two: as some workers constructed a tower in the wall around Jerusalem, where the wall turned by the Pool of Siloam, the tower collapsed, killing a group of 18. When such events happen, a natural question arises: What did these particular people do to deserve dying in these circumstances? Or we might rephrase it to ask Jesus: Who deserves what? Please stop and read Luke 13: 1-9.

We don’t really need examples from 2000 years ago to raise the question: When people die pointlessly, are they being punished? When a van full of college golf team members gets hit head-on and six of them die, what did they do to deserve that? Or when a tornado flattens mobile homes in an entire subdivision in Alabama, are people just getting what they deserve?  Or the Ukrainians? Or the 15-year-old shot and killed in the park the day after his baptism? Or the hungry children in Sarasota? Our human nature demands an explanation when disasters strike. Why did this tragedy happen? When our world falls apart, things only make sense again if we can figure out why something happened. So, what do people deserve? 

First thing to know: Tragedy is not punishment. God doesn’t create natural disasters to punish people for their sins. Jesus says, arbitrary violence happens, but not because anyone is a worse sinner than anyone else. Who could imagine the hundred or so people who escaped from the bombed theater in Mariupol were less sinners than the hundreds who are still trapped; or than the people whose bodies are left on the street? There is no sacred reason. Those people whose bodies are waiting for burial did nothing to displease God. And those who have escaped to Poland are no more holy than anyone else. Jesus is clear: there is no theological reason for one family rather than another to be touched by tragedy.

But lots of people interpret tragedy as if God is rewarding and punishing. A minister once got one of those really fierce flus, the kind that leaves a person empty and weak in bed for days. On about day 4, the minister moaned to his wife, “I don’t deserve to be this sick.” She responded, as Jesus might have, “No one deserves to be this sick.” “But,” the minister responded, “I don’t deserve it more than most.” 

He believed he was a good man, who didn’t cheat on his taxes or his wife, gave generously to the church, and worked in the local food pantry one day a month. So, he assumed, as a minister of Jesus Christ and a good man, he should be divinely protected from being sick. But, illnesses are not caught as punishments for sinfulness. And good people are not spared life’s hardships. The Bible is clear; everyone sins. So, if illness were divine punishment for sin, everyone would be sick most of the time. But of course, God doesn’t make bad people sick, or direct tornadoes to take their houses, or cause mud slides to bury them in their car. God doesn’t carry a “sin yardstick” to punish those whose sin is worse than someone else’s. Disasters happen. And no one deserves the bedlam that results. Sufferings are not punishment.

But in the midst of tragedy, God is offering grace. You already know this. God wants every one of you to have an abundant life, because each of you is divinely treasured. You might carry an image of how God cherishes you, like when a new mother looks on her child for the first time. In her face, you can see she would do anything to protect that baby, and there is nothing the baby could do that would cause its mother to do anything other than offer it all the care possible in the universe. The mother could hold and nurse and love that bundle of joy forever. God’s excited affection for you is like that mother’s, eager to see you grow, watch your faith develop. You are a precious, beloved, child of God. 

The Bible gives lots of other images of what God is like. Often you see God as powerful king or landowner with vast properties and a crowd of willing servants. So who would God be in today’s parable of the barren fig tree? You might immediately think of the owner who decides the fate of the fruitless tree. Who wouldn’t want to cut down such a worthless, apparently dead thing, after years of bearing nothing? If a tree is just wasting orchard space (you might think he said, wasting pew space), dig it out. Sounds right. Jesus must mean the owner is like God, except he just said God doesn’t punish people like that; God doesn’t cut them down for not being more productive than someone else. 

The truth is, God is actually more like the worker (the gardener) who tends the orchard, yearning for every tree to bear fruit. In the time you have, whatever length of time that happens to be, the gardener is longing for you to bear fruit. The image of the gardener, tending to your needs, giving you a little fertilizer, allowing you a span of time, treasuring any little sprout you happen to put out. There is an image of God worth tucking into your heart. With divine care, the sacred gardener lavishes attention on each person, hoping your lives flourish. Because God is passing out grace to everyone.

So, we respond by repenting. We change direction, in order to thrive for God.  As we move through Lent, accompanying Jesus as he moves toward Jerusalem, his call becomes more urgent for his disciples to follow more closely. Jesus mentions repentance again and again. Repentance is an uncomfortable word for most of us, bringing to mind images of some chest beating guilt trip, as if repenting is about feeling guilty over something, or making amends for some terrible thing we did to someone, or doing something to pay for some horrible regret we have. But repentance is not that. 

Jesus is talking about change. The Greek word is “Metanoia,” meaning turning; a change of heart, or a change of direction. Like when the school clown realized the importance of education and buckled down to study. There is metanoia. It’s what our translators refer to as repentance. 

When Jesus calls us to repent, he means to respond to God’s loving acceptance of us with a commitment to turn toward God’s way, which we can learn by following Jesus more closely. And as we follow, we bear fruit for God’s purposes on earth.

The parable of the fig tree teaches that we have been given this time, no matter how brief, to repent/ change direction, to move toward God’s way. And here’s a key to understanding repentance. We need to ask, “What change of heart, what turn can we make, in order to have a life which nourishes others?” That’s the key, because the fig tree does not bear fruit for itself. The tree bears to feed others. So our decisions to change need to take others into account. We need to bear fruit to feed others.

Perhaps this week, we can each take time to meditate, pray, and think. Ask Jesus an additional question: Where do I need to repent/turn in a new direction? Maybe some of us need to give up a resentment. Old grudges suffocate life. When we hold onto some old bitterness, no wonder we don’t bear new fruit. So, God invites us to let the resentment go. 

Or maybe some of us don’t need to repent from something on the inside, but rather something on the outside. Maybe we need to stop buying ourselves those collectible “whatever-they-ares.” Because another word for “collectible” is “anchor,” which pulls us down, cuts off the air we need to breathe if we are going to bear fruit in new ways. Each of us has stuff, emotional and physical, which hinders our becoming the person we could be for God. So, we have been given the gift of time (long or short) to figure out what will free us to serve God. What changes can we make in our lives which will allow us to further God’s purposes in the world? We respond to God with repentance. We are given time to change.

Questions for Jesus are important. Who deserves what? No one gets tragedy as a punishment for being bad. Instead, because God is like the Loving Gardener, each of us has been given grace, because God loves us infinitely. So we respond by considering what we need to change. How do we need to repent/change, in order to bear fruit to assist in nourishing God’s world?