Judgment, Fig Trees and Hope Luke 13:1-9 March 11, 2007

“There is only one question which really matters: why do bad things happen to good people?” “Virtually every meaningful conversation I have ever had with people on the subject of God and religion has either started with this question, or gotten around to it before long.”

So begins Rabbi Harold Kushner’s bestselling book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, a book written after the death of his fourteen-year old son Aaron, and dedicated to his memory.

“Where is God when you need him most?” rabbi Kushner continues, “Every day we see evidence of innocent people suffering from catastrophe and cruelty, and yet we can't understand or make sense of the question "why?" If there is a just and all-powerful God, then why "do bad things happen to good people?

Kushner’s answer to that question, spread over the pages of his wonderful, helpful book is that God may not prevent bad things from happening, but God does give us the strength and perseverance to overcome the pain and the sorrow.

We must be sustained, he writes, “by the knowledge that the earthquake and the accident, like the murder and the robbery, are not the will of God, but represent that aspect of reality which…angers and saddens God even as it angers and saddens us.”

Our Christian faith, grounded in the example of Jesus, also informs us on this difficult subject.

In today's Gospel Lesson, we read, a few minutes ago, about two terrible tragedies that had happened in Jerusalem. One happened in the temple, the other happened near the pool of Siloam.

In the first instance, Pilate, the Roman governor, had brutally killed some Galileans who were making sacrifices at the temple and then gruesomely mixed their blood with the sacrifices. Pilate was flexing his muscles. He wanted the Jews to know that Rome was in charge. So he made a gory example of some people in the act of worshipping.

In the second incident, a tower fell on people near the pool of Siloam, in the southern part of Jerusalem, killing 18 people who simply happened to be there.

The first incident was an act of political violence. The second was a random example of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“How can we explain things like this?” Jesus asks. “Were these Galileans worse sinners than other Galileans? Were the people killed by the tower more guilty, somehow, than all of the other people living in Jerusalem?”

Jesus answers his own question. "No, I tell you,” he says, “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."

These words from Jesus are hard to listen to. We want to make sense of seemingly senseless tragedies. We want to find reasons, even when there aren’t any.

Jesus' words provide no such reasons. Instead, Jesus clearly says that there is no rational explanation for these tragedies. And he most certainly doesn't say, "It was God's will."

The Galileans killed by Pilate were innocent victims of the Roman governor’s whims and his desire for control. It could have been anybody offering sacrifices that day. And the people killed by the tower? It could have been anyone who happened to be standing there. Jesus is saying--don't look for cause and effect explanation. Were those who died worse sinners? No, but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Jesus tells his listeners – including us – to stop trying to find answers to unanswerable questions. Rather, he tells us to look inward. Let these senseless deaths be a wake-up call for you, he says.

Then, for good measure, as a further response to these unanswered questions, Jesus tells a parable – a parable about a fig tree.

“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard,” Jesus says, “and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’"

Cut it down. It makes perfect sense. "Cut it down" seems like the right thing for vineyard owner to say. But it doesn't end there. The gardener doesn't want to cut down the tree. Instead the gardener says, "Sir, let it alone for one more year until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, then you can cut it down."

The gardener suggests that the tree should have a second chance.

Why, you may be wondering, would Jesus tell a parable like this at this particular point in time? Why transition from a stern, forceful call to repentance – “see these people who have died in Galilee and Jerusalem? Unless you repent, you too will die, just as they have” – to a story about a fig tree given another year to produce even after three years of failure to yield any fruit?

If you think about it, it makes sense. This portion of scripture, beginning with the reference to the tragic Jerusalem events and ending with the parable, makes three important points:

Point one: Everyone can point to some tragedy in his or her life. No one is exempt. It is not because one person is better or worse than another. The Galileans who suffered were not worse than other Galileans. The people who endure hurricanes and tornados and earthquakes or the people who are currently facing genocide in Darfur, or any other victims of disaster, are not the bad guys. They are not worse than the rest of us. Young people sometimes die, not because they or their parents did anything wrong, but for no reason whatsoever.

Bad things, indeed, do happen to good people. These bad things are not the acts of a vengeful God; they are simply part of life.

Point two: Everyone is in need of repentance – real repentance. In the grand scheme of things, you and I may think we are pretty decent people, but the truth is we are all in need of forgiveness – and the way to experience that forgiveness is to repent.

And just so we don’t misunderstand, the repentance that Jesus is calling us to, in this passage, is a great deal more than just falling on our knees and saying we’re sorry. For Jesus, repentance is about turning around. About changing the way we live our lives. The repentance Jesus refers to is about surrendering control of our lives and allowing God to lead us.

Point three: There is hope for us. The parable Jesus uses to make his point isn’t a lesson about fig farming. Pretty clearly, Jesus is talking about himself. We don’t need to stretch too far to see Jesus as the gardener, do we? Jesus is the one who refuses to give up on those who are living in the vineyard.

The vineyard, in Jesus’ story, could represent the whole earth. It could represent the Church. Or perhaps it represents your life and mine. But any way you look at it, Jesus isn't giving up on any of us. Not on you, or me, or the church, or the whole earth, for that matter. There is plenty of hope in this parable. Judgment may be coming, but don't cut the tree down just yet. It is not too late – it is never too late to repent and realign ourselves with God.

And Jesus the gardener is standing ready to help us with that realignment. He is prepared to prune us and water us and fertilize us so we can grow and blossom and be what God intended us to be.

Unfortunately, sometimes people turn away from God when tragedy touches them or touches someone in their family. We all can think of example after example of people who get angry with God and retreat from all things God-related, when in point of fact it is the reverse that should be happening.

God is our best source of strength when tragedy strikes. Repentance, not retreat, is the action that will speed up the healing process.

Some of you have heard me say before that it is OK to be angry with God. I do believe that. God is not hurt by our anger. It is important, however, not to hold on to that anger too long. If yelling at God helps get over the angry feeling, then yell away. If the anger drives a wedge between us and God, however, then repentance and reconciliation are in order.

William Sloane Coffin was undoubtedly one of the most influential Protestant clergy of our time. As a chaplain at Yale University during the 60s and 70s, he was one of the leaders of the anti-war movement. As pastor of Riverside Church (the other Riverside Church - the cathedral-like one in New York City), he continued to be a leading voice for all sorts of social causes, with nuclear disarmament as a particular passion.

Coffin is the author of several books and enough memorable quotes to fill another book or two, and to top it off, Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau immortalized him, some would say, by modeling and naming his radical clergyman character, Rev. Sloan, after him.

Speaking of quotes, my favorite Coffin quote – one I thought about a great deal when I considered leaving the business world to return to the ministry – is this one: “Even if you win the rat race,” he wrote, “you are still a rat.”

Anyway, Coffin was truly a larger-than-life figure in the American church. When he died, just about a year ago, he was memorialized by friend and foe alike.

But at the end of the day, William Sloane Coffin’s most memorable contribution, in my view, was the sermon he preached, at Riverside, just ten days after his twenty-four year old son Alex was killed in an auto accident. Alex lost control of his car, it seems, and drove off the road and sank to his death in Boston Harbor.

In that sermon, Coffin confronts the question that is before us today – the extraordinarily difficult question of why bad things happen to good people – and arrives at this conclusion:

“The one thing that should never be said when someone dies,” he writes, “is, ‘It is the will of God.' Never do we know enough to say that.” “My own consolation,” he says, “lies in knowing that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break."

The message for us today is clear. Whether we listen to the words of Harold Kushner or William Sloane Coffin, or, better still, the words of Jesus in our Gospel Lesson, the message is the same.

Bad things sometimes happen to good people. There is nothing we can do about it, and God won’t do anything about it either. It is part of the way we were created. Part of the reality and the freedom of our humanity.

But the way to cope with that harsh reality, the way to deal with the pain and the sorrow which engulf us when tragedy strikes, is to turn to God for help, knowing that God is as outraged over the tragedy as we are.

Jesus, our gardener and the giver of second chances, stands ready to help us in our turning to God; ready to help us turn toward repentance. Nothing can separate us from his love. He will be with us, today, tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that. Especially when we need him the most.

AMEN