Monday evening Cyndi and I talked to our son. He told us about his back tire blowing out while driving down a three lane highway in windy, snowy weather. He changed the tire along the side of the road, his car barely off the road. He got the tire off and put on one of those funny looking spares. The tire did not work well in the snowy conditions. The car fishtailed at an intersection and he narrowly missed colliding with another car while on his way to the tire shop. Cyndi and I were thankful. It is dangerous to change a tire on the side of a road in a snow storm. It is dangerous to fishtail at an intersection when cars are all around you.
The next morning I received a phone call from a colleague. His nephew, a transport driver, had been killed in an accident north of Toronto during a snow storm. He had stopped to help a car along the side of the road. He got out of the passenger side of his truck and continued on the passenger side of the women’s car. She got out on the passenger side. While they were talking, a half ton truck veered into them. At 39 years of age, the truck driver lost his life.
How is it that Nate is alive and is here this Sunday while another family grieves the loss of one they loved dearly? How do we answer a question like this? When tragedies occur, we ask “Why?”
The hurting, angry “Why?” questions the fairness of life. We cry out that life is unfair, that it is not right. If we are believers, we ask God, What is going on? Where were you? I thought you loved me. I thought you cared.” An unbeliever might say, “See, I told you there is no God. If there were a caring, loving God, these things would not happen.”
The fearful “Why?” looks for reasons why the tragedy may have happened to the other person. Was the person careless? Was he/she driving too fast or out in unsafe conditions or doing foolish things? If the tragedy involves illness, we may look at lifestyle or look for sin in their life. Sometimes we are ready to blame the victim--what happened to them was their own fault. If we can identify what they did and avoid it in our life, then we are safe. It can become almost like a formula.
Follow the formula and you will be safe. Fail to follow the formula and disaster could strike. That is what the book of Job is all about. Job’s friends were saying that they had God and life all figured out. “Job, you must have sinned. Confess your sin and everything will go well for you. Here is the formula for life, Job: Do this and this and this and you will be safe.” At the end of the book we find that God makes it very clear that they were wrong. Their formula did not always work.
Today’s reading begins with the story of a tragedy. “Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.”
Luke gives one sentence. But think for a moment of the implications. People were worshiping God, offering sacrifices of repentance or praise and they were cut down. How awful!
But there is another side to the story. The Galileans didn’t submit well to the Romans, who were occupying their country. Some the men were angry zealots who frequently pushed the limits. Maybe they had miscalculated and pushed Pilate too far. The Galileans should have been smarter, more tactful and less aggressive.
Jesus begins his response with a question. It was aimed at exposing the tendency we humans have to blame the victim. “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?”
People in the crowd may have begun to say “Yes. Yes or it never would have happened. There had to be something wrong with them. We know Pilate is a cruel jerk but some of those radicals would test anyone’s patience!”
Jesus tested the patience of the questioners. He disagrees and does not address the question of why. He does not speculate about cause.
When you think of Jesus’ close connection with his Father, when you think of all of his wisdom, his unbelievable understanding of scripture, wouldn’t it have been nice if he had done a teaching seminar on how to avoid negative consequences in our lives—or on the Bible’s ten reasons why bad things happen to good people. Unfortunately, he didn’t.
Jesus answers his own question. He says. “ I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you, too, will all perish.”
At that point, people in the crowd may have been saying. “But... but...” In response, Jesus gives a more neutral example where the human element in the tragedy is minimized. “Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were guiltier than all the others living in Jerusalem?”
Again the answer is “No!” In essence Jesus was saying that the people who suffered tragedies are like us. No better, no worse. What happened to the Galileans and to those on whom the tower in Siloam fell could happen to any one of us. What happened to the truck driver could easily be our story in the next storm. Life is unpredictable. There are no guarantees.
Given that those who suffer tragedies may be no different than ourselves, what are we take from all of this? The first thing to remember is: don’t be smug! Don’t assume that somehow you are immune from tragedy. Or even worse, don’t imagine in your own mind that the person who experienced tragedy somehow brought it upon their own life, that somehow they failed and are suffering the consequences of their own actions.
I remember people saying to me, “I can’t understand your Dad being inflicted with cancer. He gave his life to ministry. It just does not make sense.” It made sense to me. He was a human being just like every other human being living in a world infected with cancer. To be part of humanity is to share in the afflictions of humanity.
Some of you may be saying to yourself at this point. “But, Peter, what about the person who does such and such and dies as a result?”
Obviously, some of the things that happen to people are a result of their choices. I have had funerals of people who died under tragic conditions. Unfortunately, they were the ones who created the conditions. Choices do have consequences. But Jesus issues a warning in this passage to guard against believing that those who suffer misfortune are worse people than others. Coming out of this passage is the realization that life is uncertain. We are not immune from tragedy.
Out of this realization comes a warning. The warning in the passage before us has two levels of application. First and more central is on a national level. We read, “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” The “all” followed by the parable of the fig tree points to a collective need to repent. Jesus was saying to those who would listen, “Disaster is heading your way.” What happened to the people Pilate killed, what happened to the people killed by the collapsing tower of Siloam is going to happen to the nation as a whole.
Jesus warns the people to repent. Then he tells the story of a fig tree. For three years the owner had looked for fruit from his tree. When no fruit came he instructed his gardener to cut it down. The gardener intercedes asking the owner to give the tree one more year to produce fruit. In that time, he would do everything in his power to help the tree bear fruit. If there is no change after one more year then the tree could be cut down.
The parable of the fig tree points to the nation of Israel. What Jesus is saying was that God was giving the nation time, time to repent.
What did repentance look like for Israel? N.T. Wright put it this way. “Jesus was calling for them to give up their whole way of life, their national and social agendas, and to trust him for a different agenda, a different set of goals (N.T Wright: The Challenge of Jesus, p27).”
Jesus’ agenda was not accepted. Tragically as well, the leaders did not understand the times. They did not know they were living in serious times. They did not realize that grace was being extended to them and their time was limited. They did not hear the call, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”
Because of their unbelief they did not hear Jesus saying: “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.”
This man Jesus, who threatened their institutions, refused to be made King and talked about a spiritual rather than a political kingdom was more than they could take. As a result, Jesus ended up on a Roman Cross.
Following the death and resurrection of Jesus, the people of Israel became increasingly resentful of the Romans. If Jesus would not save them from the Romans, they would save themselves. Their resentment blossomed into full scale resistance in order to gain autonomy. The result was disastrous. About forty years after Jesus’ words, Titus moved into Palestine. Jerusalem along with the temple was destroyed. Thousands of people lost their lives. Others were taken to Rome as slaves.
Jesus’ offer of hope had been rejected. Tragedy and disaster followed.
These words at a national level can be applied to Canada and the United States. We have experienced privileges and a style of living uncommon in the history of human kind. But we are living in serious times. We live in a time of moral disintegration where people are taught to do what is right in their own eyes. We live in a time of economic exploitation and a growing gap between the rich and the poor. The danger of global warming is front page news. We live in a world of children soldiers trained to kill and a world where 27 million people live as slaves, many who are women and children. The list could go on and on.
Our society might be compared to the Titanic. We are moving ahead at full speed enjoying the luxuries and pleasures of life while we heading for a collision with an iceberg. Like the Jews of the first century, we also are living in troubled times.
So what are we to do? As the Church of Jesus Christ, we must begin by applying the words of Jesus to repent individually. The power of the Spirit cannot be released through his people unless his people repent. Repentance starts with each of us. His call to repentance, like his call to the people of Israel, is a call to follow him. The call is to adopt his agenda for our lives, to allow his goals and his values to become our goals and our values.
He calls us to give up our own ambitions and personal agendas and seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. He wants us to be change agents who through the power of the Spirit at work within us can be used by God to make an eternal difference in the lives of people around us.
Jesus is a leader worth following because he sees the big picture. He understands the times. He calls us to follow him and allow him to use us to make a difference in our world for him.
How that works out for you will depend on your gifts and abilities and where God has placed you at this time in your life. But you can be sure of one thing, Jesus wants to work through you to change Canada and our world.
Are you ready for the challenge? If you are, re-adjust your week. Take time to listen through reading the scriptures and prayer – at least once but maybe several times a day. Attempt to be God-conscious 24/7. Look for ways you can be an influence for Christ in the lives of the people around you. Ask the Lord what changes he wants to make in your life – maybe in your relationships, your use of time, your money, your reactions to the people around you. If you do, God will speak. As you listen, you will find that the Lord is near and he will give you what is good. You will experience everlasting life. You will not necessarily be protected from tragedies but you will be living a prepared life as people who know tragedies are a part of life.
Isaiah 55: 8 & 9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”