Rev. Tom Lenhart
Sermon: March 11, 2007
“Of Consequences and Opportunities?”
1 Corinthians 10: 1-13, and Luke 13: 1-9

Let us pray.

O God you are behind us and before us. Lay your hands upon me as I utter these words. And may we all feel your presence in our souls. Amen

            “It’s God’s punishment for the way they lived. They have no family values -- people are living in sin. There is rampant homosexuality: anything goes.” Those were the sentiments expressed by certain religious leaders in the wake of hurricane Katrina. They believed this devastating storm was God’s punishment for licentiousness and sinful conduct. In other words the people of New Orleans got what they deserved.  Now most of us simply shook our heads in disbelief at such comments, while others including leaders in our denomination, the United Church of Christ, rightly condemned such comments as theologically bankrupt.  Behind our reaction was an unspoken rhetorical question, “Do we worship a God who would for example allow, or worse, cause a nine year old boy with diabetes in New Orleans’s 9th ward to suffer and die to punish others who lived nearby. That is not the God of our faith.” Yet a question remains -- is there a cause and effect relationship between our conduct and actions on the one hand and punishment and suffering on the other?

            In our passage from Luke the underlying question put to Jesus is precisely the one raised after Katrina. Did God allow those Galileans to die at Pilate’s hand because they were sinful? Did they get precisely what they deserved? Did the 18 killed at Siloam when a wall collapsed; die because they were especially sinful?  We don’t know the motive behind these questions to Jesus. It is possible Jesus’ enemies were trying to set him up – to get him to say that Pilate was cruel and unjust, which would have subjected Jesus to the wraith of the Roman authorities even before his fateful, last trip to Jerusalem. 

Whether that was part of it or not, I think these questions were principally motivated by a genuine concern in Luke’s time about God’s justice.  The people wanted a world in which you get what you deserve. A world in which unfair things do not happen – bad things don’t happen to good people.  It seems to me that we also vacillate between wanting that kind of a seemingly just world and hoping for one where there are few, if any, bad consequences for what we do. In many ways life would be easier if we got what we deserved. There would be few surprises. We would be in control of our own destiny –if we were bad we’d be punished, if we were good we’d be rewarded.

Interestingly, Jesus does not give his questioners or us this easy answer. Rather Jesus gives an honest and a starkly real world answer. Those killed by Pilate and the falling tower weren’t great sinners. It simply happened.  Jesus was quite well aware that we don’t always get what we deserve -- in the end that is what most of us believe, if not desire. We all know immoral people who have succeeded. The system is not perfect -- good people suffer unfairly and bad people succeed unfairly.

The danger is that such a reality leads to a sense that what we do does not matter much.  When there are no certain consequences the force of morality and religion are seemingly diminished. This became clear to me some years ago during several of my investigations into corporate wrongdoing. When management lived by a different set of rules or by no rules but was driven by their own insatiable desires and yet they suffered no consequences, that behavior became a corporate-wide norm. Traditionally moral and religious folks succumbed to temptation because it didn’t seem to matter. There was no justice.

Though Jesus acknowledges that the world is not always just and fair, he does not leave us without any underpinning. Even if life is not always a just equation – in which the consequences match the conduct – Jesus reminds us that there are ultimate consequences of which we should and must take cognizance.  “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” (Luke 13: 5) In other words repent -- change your ways and turn from sin -- or else.  Just consequences may not always fit or flow from personal conduct, but a life lived in sin –that is disconnected from God -- is one that is dead, barren and without ultimate meaning. There are consequences, just not always meted out in the way we desire or devise.

So this is a sermon about “repentance”. You're probably thinking, “my God, I thought that concept went out with the 18^th century. Nobody preaches sermons today, such as ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!’” as Jonathan Edwards famously did in 1741. As you can imagine I approached today's lectionary passages and the subject of repentance with some trepidation. But it is about repentance -- hopefully an enlightened and useful vision of it -- about which I would like to talk in this Lenten season of self-examination.

What does it mean to repent? The dictionary definition of repentance is “to turn from sin …”[1] Certainly as Paul highlights in our passage from Corinthians, it means to turn from certain things in our lives. Paul recasts and retells the story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness during the Exodus to make a point to his church at Corinth. In Paul’s version, God was not pleased with most of the Israelites, though they followed Moses and engaged in the prescribed religious rituals. It was not enough to go through the motions – to embrace the trapping of religious practices -- in Paul’s words to drink of the spiritual drink -- if the core of one’s life was wanting. They were idolaters – literally worshiping idols, including the famous golden calf. They were libertines, luxuriating in sexual and other pleasures. The Israelites were guilty of treating each other as objects rather than as beloved creatures of God. The reality behind Paul’s rewriting of the Exodus history was   that he was worried that the people in Corinth were acting sinfully.  So he tells them -- through this revised Exodus story -- to turn away from such things. Compliance alone with the trapping of an obedient religious life is not sufficient. The message was repent or ultimately perish. “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (10:12). While our weaknesses and sins may not be idolatry or licentiousness we too suffer from the sin of separating ourselves from God. And it is useful to be reminded that religious rituals may become no more than hollow formalities.

But repentance is not simply about turning away from sin.  That is the problem with giving something up for Lent. In some ways to give up something – is a most effective way to avoid sinning. But is it? What takes its place? How do we sustain that discipline over the long haul? It is not enough to give up something – to avoid certain conduct and thus to turn away from sin.  What was the problem with the fig tree that Jesus’ talks about? The tree appears to have been healthy. There is nothing in the story to suggest that it had not grown tall or that it was not well shaped. There was no bark disease to overcome. No, the problem with the tree was that it did not bear fruit. It was not fulfilling its God-given purpose to be fruitful. The point, of course, of the parable is that we are fig trees and we need to bear fruit. 

 In Lent we rightly spend time assessing our lives and reviewing and addressing our shortcomings. That is important. It is what our Jewish brothers and sisters do at Yom Kippur. There is a place for traditional repentance; but it is not enough simply to turn away.  Why, because if that is all we did – like giving up candy for Lent -- over time we will slip back into our old patterns. Those ads for chocolate and the candy racks by the checkout counter will still call out to us and successfully. The world around us will channel us back into our old habits. 12 step programs all recognize that it is not enough simply to turn away. To conquer those desires, needs, and addictions that have become the center of our lives one must turn to something else. A vacuum at the center will not last.

 What is it that empowers and enables the fig tree to bear fruit? It is the love and attention of the gardener. And so it is for us; it is the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us. The dictionary definition of repentance is to turn away from sin. But as Luke points out it also requires turning to something -- to God.   If we embrace Christ – follow in his footsteps, act as he did – welcome the stranger and the outcast and forgive others, then we will bear fruit. We will with God’s help (and perhaps only with God’s help) truly realize in our own lives that love is more important than power and control. Frederick Buechner has provided perhaps the most apt definition of true repentance, he wrote

                        To repent is to come to your senses.

                        It is not so much something you do

                        as something that happens. True repentance

                        spends less time looking at the past and saying,

                        “I’m sorry,’ than to the future and saying, “Wow!”[2]

The parable of the fig tree also reminds us that it is never too late. Christ has interceded for us and given us more time. No matter what has happened in the past it is not too late. That is the essence of the gift of grace. It is not that the consequences of our prior sins disappear; they do not. But we are forgiven; we are given a new dawn every day. And so it is that we can start today to bear fruit by listening to the gardener.  

Now some of you are saying but life is too difficult. I am over whelmed at times. I don’t have the resources to overcome all the challenges in life and to turn my life to God. I try but fail. Fortunately, the gardener is always there to water and tend the fig tree. Paul also says by way of encouragement that God is faithful and will not let any of us be tested beyond our strength. (10: 13) Perhaps you question this assertion as I do. We all have known people for whom the tests were too much. What I think Paul was telling the church at Corinth and us is   that at times the difficulties may be beyond us but nonetheless God will provide resources to deal with them and a way out. It means putting oneself in God’s hands – not in lieu of using one's own resources but in aid of them.  It is when we have done everything --used all of our gifts -- that we also call on God.

Some years ago I met a woman who through a terrible chain of events became a quadriplegic with what is sometimes called “locked in syndrome.” She could move nothing intentionally except her eyelids. Her mind was not, however, diminished in the slightest. Quite clearly she did not literally have the strength to meet the tests placed upon her. Yet, she did. She had been given the resources – the way out – in the form of the love of another human being, who through her terrible ordeal had stayed with her. When I met her she and I had a conversation. How? She and her boyfriend had worked out a code in which she spelled out words, through blinking, that he then spoke. Through the divine gift of love between two human beings she was able to live a full life. Rather than be embittered or understandably self-centered, she had put God in the center. Rather than be focused on herself, she was determined to find ways to help others, suffering as she had, to free themselves from the horrors of this syndrome of isolation.

There is one final point to be made.  Let me turn back to where I started. The outcome of repentance -- including turning to God -- does not always lead where we desire or to the correction of the injustices of life.  Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. A fig tree bearing fruit may be tragically struck by lightening. That is simply reality. 

Why repent then? Because without it we will all perish. But it is not simply or even most critically that we risk God’s judgment and the loss of eternal life -- though that may be true. No, I think it is because as God’s children -- in turning to God we are the best we can be. We reach our highest potential as loving and loved human beings when we are tended by the gardener and bear fruit.

That does not mean, however, that we will necessarily be treated as we would hope or that life will turn out, as we desire. Gordon Forbes tells a story of woman he met early in his ministry.[3] She was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She underwent aggressive medical treatment and participated in healing services at her church. Some months into her treatment she discovered that it was not working. Her faith community rallied around her. She was embraced and surrounded by loving support and prayer. A little more than a year later she died at home surrounded by family and loved ones as she had desired and arranged. Three weeks after her death, her husband came to Gordon’s office. He said, ‘”I imagine you feel your healing services failed us. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The last year has been our finest in our life. We talked about things like never before. Our love deepened and grew; our whole family came closer together. In her death we experienced the triumph of love.’” That is why we turn to God. Not because we get what we deserve – we don’t. We get something far better -- the love of God and all that that brings. So repentance isn’t such an archaic concept if we remember it isn’t simply turning away from our sins but it is more importantly turning to God and to where ever God takes us. You can certainly give something up for Lent—it’s usually good for us. Just remember not to stop there. Amen