“Did Pilate’s Galilean victims get what was coming to them?”
“How about the dead in Siloam, did they do something to deserve it?”
“Why should this stunted fig tree be wasting the soil?”
Today’s lesson from Luke’s Gospel is packed with questions—implied, as well as asked aloud.
Questions, that, if reflected upon, can lead us down roads of thought that can kill us, or raise us from the dead—that’s what Scripture does to its hearer after all… Law and Gospel
Questions that:
-Move us from Reaction to Response,
-Through the narrow path between Randomness and Responsibility,
-And let us rest, Repentant and Rooted in God’s goodness.
Reaction & Response,
Randomness & Responsibility,
Repentant & Rooted.
Let us pray
From Reaction to Response
Those Galileans Pilate brutalized,
profaning the pilgrims’ offering with the pilgrims’ blood
—what’s your take?
Lead with your gut, shoot from the hip, these are your kinfolk after all!
Just lay it all out there! What’s your hot take… what’s your reaction?
Just double down on whatever your first impulse is
—don’t think, just speak, consequences be damned.
Re-Act.
No…
slow down…
don’t re-act… re-spond...
Respond… Do you really know what that word means?
—To Pledge Again.
You pledge allegiance to a flag
—pledge too, to be faithful no matter the situation. Even when something rips your guts out
—try to find a beat,
a pause,
so you respond instead of react
—when faced with the impossible, find room for a loving pause.
Am I doubling down, or allowing for a loving pause?
Randomness and Responsibility
In that loving pause—we come face to face with the question of “Theodicy” framed by playwright Archibald MacLeish as, “If God is God can God be good, and if God is good can God be God?”
As with most theological questions, there is an “O’ So Human” component lurking in the shadows—questions of Randomness and Responsibility.
Things like that don’t just happen, do they?
Clearly, they did something wrong!
Clearly, there is a way to avoid that fate!
If I just
—Eat Right, Avoid Rush Hour, Hug My Child, Get My Taxes in On Time, Wash My Hands, and Always Use My Turn Signal
—I’ll be fine…
A belief that the Galileans and the Siloam dead did something wrong
—that there are ways to do the right thing,
and in so doing avoid such an evil fate
…Is at best incomplete, and Jesus names it as such.
There is an element of randomness to this world that we cannot control.
Control… That’s what we want
—what we hope for with so much of our machinations
—control.
A magic formula
—a spell of sorts
—that sorts out life for us and allows us to avoid all evil…
And there is no such spell.
Now hear me clear,
that’s not to say that there are no consequences to our actions
—cause does lead to effect…
but so many of those consequences are downstream ones…
for example, if you fertilize too close to the streams edge,
there will be algae blooms in the aquafer…
Maybe not your problem, but certainly a consequence…
Or think of the book “All the King’s Men”
—a fictionalized account of the rise of Huey P. Long
—who essentially become Dictator of Louisiana…
In the book a contractor used shoddy bricks to build a school
—eventually a wall falls down and kills children…
this leads the Long character to lead a populist campaign,
that eventually gives him total control of his state,
and he corrupts everyone his rule touches…
A whole state corrupted, on account of shoddy masonry…
downstream effects…
consequences cast a wide net
responsibility…
When Cain asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Am I responsible for Abel? God’s implicit response was… yes… yes, in fact, you are.
We are interconnected
—we share the same stream.
We’re not an island
—but a continent, connected…
When navigating the tight space between randomness and responsibility, we ought to ask:
Am I being drawn to control or to connection?
Repentance and Roots
Repent! Bear fruit! Offer figs, that’s what fig trees do!
Am I bearing fruit?
Repent… in Luke’s Gospel there are two interconnected meanings for this word:
Repentance is a chance to change…
-That’s how John the Baptist describes his baptism…
-that’s how Zaccheus experiences becoming Jesus’ disciple…
-that colors the story of the Prodigal son…
Repentance is meeting God and being mended…
-that’s Peter’s call story…
-that’s the Tax Collector’s wail that Jesus points out as acceptable to the LORD!...
-encountering a loving Father and being made whole—that too is found in the Parable of the Prodigal we’ll be seeing in skit form next week.
An encounter with the Divine—a time of transformation
—that’s Repentance.
That’s being Rooted in God’s Grace as well…
What would happen if you were given another year?
Another year with a loved one. Another year to get your affairs in order. Another year free and clear.
As I asked you all on Ash Wednesday, that hyper-Lutheran question—What do I do, now that I don’t need to doanything?
“Why should this stunted fig tree be wasting the soil?”
“How about the dead in Siloam, did they do something to deserve it?”
“Did Pilate’s Galilean victims get what was coming to them?”
Questions that ruminate upon:
Reaction & Response— Am I doubling down, or allowing for a loving pause?
Randomness & Responsibility— Am I being drawn to control or to connection?
Repentance & being Rooted— What do I do, now that I don’t need to do anything?
Amen.
