Dear Friends,
It always happens. In the midst of terrible tragedy or an unexpected turn of events or inexplicable circumstances, some well-meaning person will say, “Everything happens for a reason. God has his reasons.”
I have no quarrel with the experience many of us have had that, given enough time and reflection, good things may emerge from bad, or important lessons may be learned, or that God can fashion blessings from the harshest of circumstances. But I can barely remember what I had for breakfast—to imagine we can read God’s mind or motives is a little bit above my pay grade. In fact, in Sunday’s reading from Isaiah, we are reminded that “God’s ways are not our ways; God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.”
How does God think about things? What, if anything, does tragedy mean?
I have been having this conversation with Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 13.1-9) which seems to assign meaning or order to suffering in ways that make me squirm.
Sunday is the third Sunday in Lent; the cross is starting to emerge over the horizon; Jesus’ jaw is tight and his responses terse. You can imagine that, knowing death lay only days away, he might have had little patience for petty chit chat.
A small crowd of breathless worriers assailed him with a question about a recent tragedy. Apparently, Pilate (yes, the same Pilate who would send Jesus to the cross) had murdered a group of Galileans—a far-right Jewish political group opposed to the Herod—and mixed their blood with the blood of the animal sacrifices they offered in the temple. Gruesome. “What can it mean?” they wondered.
Jesus reminded them of another horror during which eighteen people were killed when a tower collapsed. Construction accident? Building code violation? Terrorism? Jesus doesn’t say. “What can it mean?” he echoed.
Of course, we can top Jesus’ tower with airplanes that fall from the sky, the murder of people at worship, or the loss of whole herds in winter/spring floods. The list of unimaginable tragedies is endless.
Jesus offered no satisfactory explanation for these random disasters, but invited his hearers to “repent, or you will all perish as they did.”
Perish as they did? In a bloodbath? Under a pile of bricks? No, I think Jesus, having intimate knowledge of the world’s wicked randomness, wanted them to be able to greet their final fate—whatever it might be—with a clear conscience and a holy heart.
I have always enjoyed the parable Jesus told following this troubling exchange—a parable about a gardener armed with a hoe in one hand and a bag of horse manure in the other, a gardener who always gave his plants one more season, one more chance, one more opportunity to bloom. To the impatient owner of a fig-less fig tree, the gardener said, “Let me work with it one more season. A little digging. A little manure. Let’s see what happens.”
So why do horrible things happen—to both good and bad people? Hard to say, but Jesus would have us live each day so that, if it were to be our last, we would leave no unspoken kindness, no heartfelt apology behind. After all, we don’t want to die unrepentant, as too many do. And, Jesus promises time—another season perhaps, so the Gardener can loosen the roots of the weeds in our lives.
On that happy note, might I remind you to join us Saturday afternoon for Irish Singer and Storyteller Paddy Homan, a belated St. Patrick’s Day gift to us from our “One Tree Many Branches” series. The phone at church has been ringing all week with Paddy Homan fans, eager to hear him and his band. Come early if you hope to have a seat.
Sunday finds us gathered in the shadow of the cross, where all our joys and sorrows mingle. Children enjoy Children’s Music and Godly Play. In Worship we will scratch our communal head at scripture texts that leave more questions than answers. We will tell you more about our Lent Challenge with The Night Ministry.
So, as I draw closer to the need to put pen to paper for Sunday’s sermon, I’m thinking about senseless tragedy, unspoken apologies and horse manure. Please join us Sunday. I’m as curious as you are to hear how this all comes together.
What can it mean?
Pastor JoAnn Post
A Word from Pastor 