Isaiah 55:1-9
1Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
About twenty years ago, my wife Marie and I were involved with a Presbyterian Revival organization that went to local churches. We were blessed to visit churches in La Junta, Colorado and Papillion, Nebraska. On our first trip with this organization to La Junta we were making a planned stop at a nursing home visit to a woman who had lost nearly all of her hearing. Her daughter was there with her and explained that her mother would not be able to hear us, but she would tell her mother what was going on because they could still understand each other.
As we were getting ready to leave, Marie looked at me and said, “Well Paul, do you have a word of scripture before we go?” and frankly I didn’t. Instead of saying “Nope, what do you say we pray…” I silently prayed “Lord, I don’t have a word and I need your help here. Bless me with your word to share with your child.” So I opened my bible blindly. I opened a little more than three-quarters into my bible, knowing I would be in the New Testament, hopefully in the Gospels. Well, close, but no cigar. I ended up opening my bible to our reading from 1Corinthians. The heading at the top of the page, the one that gives the highlight of what’s happening on that page, read “Sexual Immorality.”
I’m sitting bedside of an 85 year old woman, in a nursing home, with her daughter, I pray for scripture, and I get “Sexual Immorality.” Thanks God, so glad to know you have such a wonderful sense of humor.
When I read the passages for this week’s sermon, that was my feeling. These are glorious pieces of scripture. All scripture, even the difficult and weird stuff is glorious. Our reading ends with God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,” but who’s going to remember that when you begin with “Sexual Immorality?”The heat is on, when I’m preparing to share the Word of God in a place I hardly know, the lectionary gives me Sexual Immorality and the death of hundreds and thousands of people. It’s not what I wanted to see.
At least I know better than to ask, “O Lord, what am I going to do with this?” That’s the wrong question. The better question is “O Lord, how are you going to shape me, how are you going to shape your people for your word?” Those questions I asked, again and again.
As I already read, our gospel passage gives us not once but twice, “do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others…? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” This is the equivalent to reading “Sexual Immorality to an 85 year old woman. Yeah, sure, there is something there, there is wisdom in the passage, but you have to pray and work to find something.
One of the issues that all pastors face when interpreting scripture is how it is to be read, not only reading silently but aloud. Our bibles have all of this wonderful punctuation that didn’t exist in the original manuscripts. All of the commas and semicolons and periods are later additions. With translation and interpretation we often end up losing nuance too. To quote Kurt Vonnegut, “even the funniest joke translated into King James English is destined to sound like Charlton Heston.”
In this case it is easy to read that Jesus is telling the people that unless they repent they will die the same miserable, horrible, tragic deaths that the people of Galilee and Jerusalem faced, not to mention those folks in 1Corinthians. When we read that we will die “just as they did” we might read that “we will die in a similar manner.” Do we fear this means our remains will be desecrated like Pilate desecrated the Galileans? Do we fear this means we will be crushed in the falling of a great tower, like what happened in New York City not fifteen years ago? If you read it this way you have achieved a faithful reading in English, but I don’t think that’s what the original text meant. I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant.
A better reading is that as they died, we too will die. It’s Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season/A time to live and a time to die.” It is a statement of fact more than it is a bold theological assertion. But that assertion comes with its own bold declaration.
In Christ’s baptism he identified with humanity. Even without sin he identified with the human condition. Being fully human and fully divine he embraced the words of the John Donne poem “No Man Is an Island:”
Any man’s death diminishes me,I suggest this is what Jesus meant when he said “we too will die.” When we die, when anyone dies, a little bit of all humanity dies too. As humanity dies, the humanity of Christ suffers. The deity of Christ grieves.
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
So if this is what our death means to the Christ, what does it mean when Jesus says “unless we repent, as they died, we too will die.” If it doesn’t mean we will die facing the same earthly fate from Pilate or architecture, then what?
Repentance is an easy word, and a difficult concept. It means turn around. We have placed a lot of theological and cultural baggage on this word, but in its simplest form, all it means is turn around.
Yes, this turning means that we are to turn from our old ways, the ways of sin and death and toward the ways of new life. This is where we get to the “easier said than done” part of our program, isn’t it? I’ve always found it to be that way.
The parable of the man and the gardener gives us a wonderful example of moving on, changing, growing, or to use the image from John’s gospel, bearing good fruit. The parable reads: A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. For three years he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to his gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still nothing! Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ The gardener replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year. Let me dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
There was the landowner, like a judge, like Pilate condemning the fig tree for not doing what fig trees are supposed to do. But the gardener knew better. He knew that if the tree received nurturing it would stand a better chance of reaping a harvest next season. He was prepared to tend the roots and the soil. He was ready to fertilize and water. He was ready to bring in the harvest the tree should be ready to produce. He was there to help. He couldn’t bear the fruit, but he could help in as many ways as possible.
This is something I read on the Internet, so you know it must be true. It’s attributed to a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a PC (USA) seminary:
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news and my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.
This Presbyterian Minister was the Rev. Fred Rogers, yes, that Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, and he’s in accord with our parable’s gardener. When the fig tree, which often stood for Israel and Judah in Isaiah’s prophecy, when the fig tree faced sudden annihilation, the gardener was there to help. The tree has to bear the fruit, and the gardener does all he can to help it along.
This is the lesson of Mr. Rodgers too, when someone says he wants to rip you out of the soil, pray there is someone else nearby to help you grow into the tree you are meant to be. When it comes time to change behaviors in your life that need change, pray there is a helper there for you. Who are these helpers?
The first and most important helpers are parents. Believe it or not they have seen what you are seeing. It looked different when they saw it, I know, but they saw it. They want to help. You may have a big brother or big sister who is willing to help too. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, coworkers, all of these people can be helpers too. Of course your Pastor and Sunday School teachers want to help you too. There is nothing that any of us wants more than to see you grow into the best fig tree you can be.
In the case of the fig tree, to repent means to turn from a leafy tree and become a tree that bears good fruit.
Of course, the one who helps you and all of the helpers is our Lord Jesus Christ. We are all tested every day. There are little tests and there are big tests. There are tests that are pretty obvious and tests that are far more subtle. Tests that are overt and tests that are covert. Tests that are hidden like blood in wine and tests that fall literally like a ton of bricks. Praise God we have a tutor. Jesus who came as one of us. Jesus who is fully human. Jesus who is less when we fail because as John Donne says:
Any man’s death diminishes me,So sitting in a nursing home in La Junta, Colorado, opening my bible to “Sexual Immorality” and giving thanks to the Lord (more like “Gee, thanks God…”) I wondered “what next?” Next was on the facing page. That page was 1Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.” I reminded her that to the glory of God, she taught her children to be imitators of Christ for the glory of God. Her daughter agreed and was preparing to tell this to her mother.
Because I am involved in mankind
Hooray, something worth sharing! God is great! No sexual immorality and I don’t look like a complete fool saying “Nope, sorry honey, no scripture, let’s just pray this out and get going before the shadow of shame covers me completely.”
And then something amazing happened… This 85 year old deaf woman looked at me and said, “I always made sure we were in church so that they could learn what’s right.” By the grace of God, she heard what I said. It wasn’t because of my big voice, my fog cutter pipes. I had spoken earlier and she didn’t hear me. But when I read and God’s word was interpreted for her, she heard me. You should have seen the look of shock in her daughter’s eyes too, “Mom heard.” Praise God, we were all taken aback.
Lent is a time of reflection and repentance. It is a time to take stock and inventory. It is a time to see where we have come from and where we are going. It is a time to stop and if need be, it is a time to turn around.
For this woman in the nursing home in La Junta, her kids had many teachers, including the First Presbyterian Church of La Junta. They all had one tutor, the Lord himself. Many lessons were learned, and yes, I am quite sure the roots needed some tending and the tree needed some pruning; and good fruit was borne. There were figs aplenty. She was passing her test. Death would come; death, like life, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe that was the difference Jesus was talking about all along.
This Lenten season, let us reflect on that; stop, reflect, and ask what do I need to repent? What do we need to repent? And thank God we have a tutor to help us with the test to come.
Amen.
