Cause and Effect

March 24, 2019  *  Luke 13:1-9

Have you ever pondered the question, “why do bad things happen to good people”?  We all have.  Most of us also have been the “good people” that others have referred to when they asked that question.  Bad things happen…it’s a fact of life.  We see in today’s gospel lesson that this question was present at the time of Christ, and even before.

Let’s take a look at what Luke would have us understand in today’s lesson.

Immediately prior to today’s encounter, Jesus warned that he came not to bring peace, but division.  Immediately after today’s lesson, Jesus is criticized by a temple leader for healing on the sabbath.  Today’s lesson (which is 2 stories and a parable) begins with some of the people who had gathered telling Jesus about what happened to some of the Galileans who had brought sacrifices to the temple and how their blood had become mingled with the sacrifices by Pilot.  This escaped me at first.  Then in the commentary I saw it plainly spelled out:  Pilate’s soldiers had slaughtered these Galileans in this holy place of worship and atonement.  There was now human blood and sacrificial animal blood on the desecrated altar. 

Can you imagine walking in this church, and seeing such a horror?  While we can only imagine in terror, there are some places of worship, both here and abroad, who don’t have to imagine;  they’ve lived through the horror of seeing the carpets stained with blood mingled with communion wine.  The 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing which resulted in the loss of the lives of 4 young girls, the shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME church and the 8 lives lost there, the shooting at Burnette Chapel in Antioch not 2 years ago, and just last week a man killed 50 people and injured 50 more in New Zealand.  And these are just the ones that come to mind in recent memory…there are dozens more.  All of them people, just like us, who come together in peace to worship, pray, fellowship, sing…people who came together for good…and bad (horrible) things happened to those gathered.

So when Jesus was being told of the horrible thing that had happened, they wholly expected Jesus to respond the same way we would…by saying horrible things about Pilate (or any of the “victim-culture” responses ranging from “those blasted Romans” to “let’s drive them out”).  But…that’s not how he responds. 

His unexpected rebuttal was “do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than others, because of what befell them?”.  Essentially:  did they get what they deserved?  He is addressing the unspoken assumption that these Galileans had not just sinned, but had sinned egregiously…extra especially bad with sprinkles on top and a bag of chips or whatever the kids are saying nowadays.  That was shocking to hear Jesus say…but he only said what everyone else was thinking.

So why were they thinking that?  Let’s ponder that for a bit; as we reflect on the history found in the Old Testament, it isn’t a far stretch to see how they would correlate disobedience to God and punishment from God.  They disobeyed so many times…sooooooo many times…and the prophets would foretell the wrath to come, and when they didn’t straighten up, BAM:  wrath.  Conquered and forced into captivity, bound to slavery, plagued by drought and famine, fiery serpents and angels of destruction…it’s all there.  So it really isn’t hard to see why they thought these Galileans had done something pretty bad to meet their end the way they did.

But, true to the warning prior to this lesson that Jesus didn’t come to bring peace but division, he tells them this is not the case.  He explains that they will all meet the same fate unless they repent.  This is of little comfort…because they found solace in linking sin with suffering…the explanation eliminates randomness and offers us a way to avoid the disasters we see others suffering through.  It’s important to note that Jesus is not condemning these gathered, but shows them the way.  The ways of old are passed.  Through this new way, this way of personal repentance and turning away, redemption awaits. 

This is a courageous response on the part of Christ.  It’s amazing that the people gathered didn’t attack him on the spot.  Think about it.  These were people who had been subjugated, kicked around, abused…they view themselves as victims.  And reasonably so, had adopted this victim-culture thought pattern, which would have viewed the lack of sympathy as essentially taking the side of the enemy in this polarized environment (you know…kind of like having to choose between right and left, conservative and liberal, pro-choice or pro-life…and if you’re pro-choice then you MUST be pro-abortion; does that help with the visual)?

Then Jesus turns the tables with he brings up another tragedy that befell another group of gathered people, when a tower (the tower of Siloam) fell on 18 people and killed them.  This was an accident; but by the logic of those gathered speaking with Jesus, surely they must have also done something awful to have met such a fate…a tall building falling on them.  This is cause and effect…as misguided as it was.

Repentance (not condemnation) is the major theme in this gospel lesson (and throughout the gospel of Luke actually).  Repentance is not a nagging call, but a promise of salvation.  It offers us hope instead of a way to escape the fear of retribution. 

Jesus ends today with a parable:  A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard.  He came to see the fruit it had brought forth, but it hadn’t.  For three years the man kept coming back, hoping to harvest figs from this tree, and for three years the tree remained barren.  The man told the gardener to cut the tree down…no longer will be a wasted plot of soil.  But the gardener advocated for the tree; give it one more year.  Let me tend to the soil around it, fortifying it and enriching it with nutrients and food.  If it bears fruit it stays; if not, then you may cut it down.  Give it one more chance.

When bad things happen to good people, it tugs at our heartstrings.  We feel pity, sadness, all sorts of feelings of compassion, sympathy, and empathy.  It’s natural. 

But what do we feel when bad things happen to bad people?  Let’s take a look at the people we have judged as “bad”.  We’ve all done it.  The homeless person, dirty and in threadbare clothes, covered up with newspapers on the roadside bench.  What choices did they make in their life that brought them to this point?  What had they done?  Certainly they deserved to be in their current predicament.  Maybe they chose to be homeless.  Some people like it, you know.  Some people would rather life that type of life.  Or what about the person who has been sick for so long, and finally worked up the courage to go to the free clinic in town, and it turns out she’s HIV positive.  After her husband left she had to do something to feed, clothe, and shelter her children, so she turned to prostitution after being turned down from dozens of jobs.  Did she not choose to get HIV?  Or the drug addict whose life was cut short by overdose.  What else did they expect?  Maybe they’re better off…they aren’t battling those demons any longer.  It has to be a relief on the family.

The things we tell ourselves to feel good about the judgement we cast.  Cause and effect.  Duality.  And these scenerios are a mixed bag; on one hand, it is true that the end result is a direct outcome of the decision made…on the other hand, the end result is not a punishment for the decision made. 

I grew up with the theology of the “The Will of God”.  And this “Will” was a mysterious thing that you dare not try to understand.  I was reminded of it not too long ago…let me elaborate.  When my niece was born prematurely at 28 weeks, we were terrified to say the least.  There were 2 other preemies born that day, about the same gestational age, with the same statistical odds for survival and/or complications.  Knowing that, when we would pray for my niece, we would pray for baby A and baby B, for their health, prosperity, and vitality.  Six days later, baby B goes into cardiac arrest and dies.  We were there when it happened, and the buzz of the room was “it was God’s will”…”God needed another angel”….  Having removed myself from this indoctrination from my upbringing, this immediately made my stomach flip and the hair on the back of my neck stand up. 

In this cause and effect framework, what did that baby do to bring this on themselves?  What decisions had been made which resulted in death?  If we remove this cause and effect mindset and strictly go with the “Will of God” theology, then were we really advocating the thought that God killed this baby and allowed the other two to live?  That the will of God was to cause pain, and inflict grief?  The rebuttal, of course, being that God would use this death to bring glory to God, somehow, somewhere; you may never see it, but there’s a reason. 

The people in Jesus’ time believed this, because it’s all they knew.  But Jesus was here to change things…to chart the course for a new way.

God doesn’t cause bad things.  God doesn’t take your loved ones.  God doesn’t cause car wrecks, cancer, bankruptcy, incarceration, homelessness, rape, murder…the list never exhausts of the things God doesn’t do to us.   In our world, things are in motion…one of those things is free will.  Have you ever heard the saying “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”?  Well, if you walk out into traffic, you will get run over.  God didn’t cause that.  If you walk off a cliff, you will land at the bottom and become a splat on the rocks.  God didn’t cause that.  If you don’t study for a test you will likely make a bad grade.  God didn’t cause that.  God didn’t allow the deaths of all those people in those places of worship we spoke of at the beginning of the lesson because they were all a part of a “greater plan”.  They died because someone used their free will and made the decision to end their lives.

While God is in control of all things, God isn’t in the business of watching us suffer.  That’s not who God is.  But, God knows we will make some bonehead decisions.  We will fail to “bear fruit” to compare it to that fig tree.  And when we make those bonehead decisions and bad things befall us, God hopes we see the need for repentance and spares us the condemnation.  We are given one more chance…one after another….  And for these chances, for this opportunity of repentance, as hard and gruesome as it may be, we are ever thankful.