Tumbling towers
Commentary
Note: This installment was originally published in 2004.
I still remember that morning, and I imagine that I will for the rest of my life. I was scheduled to have the first (and hopefully last) significant surgery of my life. I had arrived at the hospital very early that morning, and had been taken back into the surgical preparation area. Initially everything was proceeding as scheduled, but after a while everything just seemed to come to a halt. Oh, there was plenty of activity buzzing around, but the things I had been told would happen with me just weren't. I was growing impatient and irritated.
Then I began to pick up some buzz about a plane crash. It was hard to pull together details from what I was overhearing (no one was bringing me news directly, and there was no television where I was). It apparently had happened in New York. I could understand why everyone was talking about it, but I didn't see why it should have brought things to a halt in a suburban Washington hospital. Then the buzz seemed to be about a crash here in Washington. Was it a second crash, or were they confused about where the crash had been in the first place? All that was clear was that I wasn't on anyone's agenda at the moment.
A short while later my surgeon arrived. All surgeries for that morning had been cancelled. Not one, but two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center Towers in New York, a third had crashed into the Pentagon little more than 10 miles away, and a fourth plane was reportedly heading toward Washington. The operating rooms had been closed in order to deal with what was expected to be a flood of emergency cases.
The date, obviously, was September 11, 2001. For me, the events of that day were in some ways up close and personal, but still primarily experienced through radio and television news reports. For the vast majority of Americans, that day was lived vicariously through the news media. The ability of millions to simultaneously share in an experience through the mass media has created events that became defining moments in our culture. People can replay in intricate detail the circumstances that surrounded them and the emotions they felt when they first heard that news, or that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded on lift-off (or more recently that the Columbia had exploded during re-entry), or that Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot while standing on a balcony of a motel in Memphis, or that John F. Kennedy had been shot while riding in a presidential motorcade winding through the streets of Dallas, or that Japanese warplanes had just destroyed much of the U.S. Pacific fleet as it lay at anchor in Pearl Harbor.
Of all the national experiences that have been created by the mass media, why is it these catastrophes stay with us so vividly and with such tenacity? It cannot just be their shock value or their overwhelmingly negative impact; we hear about many shocking evils every day. I am convinced that the impact of these events is that they serve as dramatic wake-up calls. Their significance in our minds goes far beyond the particulars of the individual events.
Not a few historians have concluded that the Civil Rights era begun in 1950s died as well on that Memphis balcony, for King's assassination and the rage of the riots that followed in its aftermath fundamentally changed once again the relationship among races in our country. Lee Harvey Oswald's bullet stole life not only from a young president but also from the idealism of America's "Camelot." And the bombs dropped by Japanese Zeros not only set ablaze America's Pacific Fleet, but left in ashes as well the nation's myth of geographic isolation bolstered and protected by unassailable military might. "9/11" did the same thing for a new generation. The very reason the first shuttle disaster is more etched on our memories than the second is because a whole world view about the power and precision of technology, a mythology embodied for many by NASA, crumbled along with the Challenger, leaving room only for a "not again" reaction at the loss of Columbia. Such events lay waste to our carefully constructed worlds of human self-sufficiency.
Isaiah 55:1-9
Sometimes when you read the end of a book first you get a different sense of what it was about than if you had started at the beginning. Knowing how things will turn out and what will be important at the end of the day, as it were, focuses one's attention on different details at the beginning than might have been apparent without those clues. Reading from the end provides an interesting perspective on this particular scripture lesson.
The New Revised Standard Version provides the heading, "An Invitation to Abundant Life" for the oracle by the exilic prophet preserved in Isaiah 55. God's call to satisfy our thirst and hunger "without money and without price" in the opening verse certainly fits with the theme expressed by the heading. Yet the final verses of the reading emphasize lack rather than abundance, at least as regards human wisdom as compared to God's. The oracle insists that our thoughts and actions are as far removed from God's "as the heavens are higher than the earth" (v. 9). Now it could be argued that the prophet invites us to leave behind our lack for God's abundance, to "seek the LORD while God may be found" (v. 6), but one could also argue that the prophet is encouraging us to change our very notions of what counts as abundance.
Returning to the opening verses of the oracle, then, notice just how different are God's thoughts from the values that dominate our culture. God calls to those who "have no money, Come, buy and eat!" But what can it mean to "buy" if we give neither money nor bartered goods in exchange? To our "free market" world, God calls for everyone to come and receive the necessities of life for free. But we only assign value to things that have a price. Our slogan is, "You get what you pay for," and its corollary is that if you pay nothing then you get nothing of value. We want to be self-sufficient, to make our own way in the world; God calls us who thirst to come to the living waters by which God supplies life (v. 3).
And what is God's assessment of the things that we do value? God simply asks each of us, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" (v. 2a). If we are so wise and self-sufficient, then why do we experience so much of life as lack rather than abundance? Our ideas of abundance always leave us hungering and thirsting for more. We need to "listen carefully" to God so that we will know what food is genuinely "good" and can bring "delight" to our lives. We need to elevate our thoughts by replacing our human values and wisdom with God's thoughts.
Such transformation of one's thinking lies at the heart of the biblical concept of repentance, and it is precisely the language of repentance that we find in the final verses of the reading (and the heart of the oracle as a whole). To "seek the LORD," "forsake" wicked ways, and "return to the LORD" (vv. 6-7) are all common expressions of repentance. As long as we think of life primarily in terms of things we can provide for ourselves, then we will be confused by the call to repentance of those who live in want. Those who do return to God and God's ways, however, will receive mercy and abundant pardon -- truer marks of abundant life than any material goods one may amass no matter how necessary to physical life.
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
In this portion of his letter, Paul utilizes a classic form of argumentation that is usually referred to as either allegorical or typological. Almost every sentence of the reading bears an allusion to some event from the experience of the Israelites during the Exodus and subsequent period of wilderness wanderings. The specific source references for these allusions can be found in most any study, Bible or commentary, and so will not be repeated here. Paul himself refers to these allusions as "examples," and so we need to ask why he considers these the relevant or appropriate examples (vv. 6 and 11) for his Corinthian readers and what particular function does he hope these examples will play for his readers.
Regarding the initial part of our question, the simple answer as to why Paul chose these particular examples would seem to be that they parallel specific topics that he has already taken up in the letter. Concern with baptism (10:2; cf. 1:11-17), idolatry in the specific context of eating and drinking (10:7; cf. 8:1-13), sexual immorality (10:8; cf. 5:1-13), and complaints within the community and about its leadership (10:10; cf. 3:1-23; 6:1-11; 9:1-18) comprise the bulk of what Paul has written about to this point. Yet examples of all these things abound throughout the Old Testament. Might there be some further reason why Paul chose to cluster all his examples in the experience of Israel in the wilderness?
Perhaps there is one implicit parallel between the Israelites and the Corinthians that Paul wishes to draw out from his choice of these particular examples. Just as all the examples Paul offers are from the earliest period of Israel's communal experience as the people of God, the Corinthians are themselves flush with the experience of being a newly constituted community of God's people. Paul may have wished to suggest that there are particular dangers or risks that accompany a newly experienced awareness of God's grace and acceptance.
The conclusion that Paul draws from his typological argument would seem to support this view. "So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall" (10:12). Those who realize they have been brought into covenant with God as a result of God's grace rather than their own worthiness may be tempted to libertarian excess. God chose us when we were sinners, so would God reject us now if we continue in our sin? But just as the biblical story of the Israelites shows that they put their participation in the covenant at risk by such behaviors, Paul now warns the Corinthians that they now run the risk of following exactly the same course.
But beyond providing a warning, Paul also emphasizes "God is faithful" (10:13). The God who brought both the Israelites and the Corinthians into covenant will also help keep them within that relationship. The experience of both the Israelites and the Corinthians is "common to everyone," and God will intervene both to limit the severity of the temptations and to assist in withstanding them. Although the Israelites were tempted to abandon their covenant with God, God would ultimately abandon them. The same would be true for the Corinthians, and for us.
Luke 13:1-9
Jesus suggested that two catastrophic events contemporaneous to his own ministry destroyed any sense of self-sufficiency for those who had heard about them. His comments were prompted by a report that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate had ordered the massacre of a group of worshipers from Galilee, mixing their human blood with the blood of the sacrificed animals. The report here in Luke is the only record of this particular atrocity, but it is in keeping with what the contemporary Jewish historian Josephus reports about Pilate's actions against those under his authority (killing Samaritans on their way to worship at Mount Gerizim and diverting funds from the Jerusalem temple's treasury and desolating it with Roman images, provoking riots; Antiquities 18.55-62, 85-89).
Jesus related this political tragedy to another recent event where the culpability was hardly obvious. A tower had collapsed, killing eighteen people who were standing nearby. Now there was a widely held view among Jews at that time -- a view still found among even some Christians to this day -- that physical suffering, whether as a result of illness or disaster, was a direct consequence of sin and a clear indication of divine judgment. Jesus rejected such a simplistic notion outright. Were those who died at Pilate's hand or those crushed by the tower worse sinners than those who escaped with their lives? Jesus answers the question directly: "No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did" (v. 5).
If you listen carefully to what Jesus said, it would seem that he takes away with one hand what the other had just granted. No, Jesus insisted, those who died in these disasters were no worse than anyone else. You cannot draw conclusions about a person's morality from the tragedies that occur in their life. "But," Jesus continued, "unless you repent you will all perish just as they did." We are quick to object. "Now wait just a minute, Jesus! If repentance, asking God's forgiveness for our sins, can spare us from perishing as those did in these tragedies, aren't you saying that there is a connection between sin and suffering in a person's life?"
It was to head off just such an objection that Jesus immediately related the parable of the fig tree. Jesus wanted to make clear what was wrong with the old way of thinking. The problem was not with the notion of divine judgment. Just as the fig tree, if it failed to produce in response to the gardener's careful attention, would be cut down at the end of the next growing season, so was it true that there will be those who will ultimately suffer God's judgment. Their belief in divine judgment was not the problem; their problem was in their blithe assumption that their comfortable lives were proof they were already immune to such judgment.
The point of Jesus' assertion that the victims were not any worse than the survivors was not to rehabilitate the reputations of the dead, but to challenge the living to see that they were no better than those who had been overcome by tragedy. It was not their superiority that had spared them, but God's grace in continuing to care for them, to nurture them like the gardener tending the fig tree. "There, but for God's grace, go I!" Jesus' point in relating the parable in response to the disastrous news that was buzzing about the people was that while they could see what was happening, they were not understanding it correctly (cf. Luke 12:54-56). Where we see divine punishment in the disasters, we should rather see a call to repentance. Where we see divine approval in the care given to the unproductive fig tree, we should actually see divine mercy. Even given God's grace, there are limits to the divine patience. The clock is ticking for the fig tree, and the clock is ticking for each of us.
Application
But how, then, are we to respond to this realization? Jesus said that in order to avoid "perish[ing] just as they did" we must repent. Repentance means much more, however, than simply acknowledging that we have done wrong and asking for God's forgiveness. Genuine repentance involves a change of our minds. It only really happens when our view of the world is changed, when we reject the notion of human self-sufficiency in favor of the truth of our dependence upon the Divine.
Too often we have watered down repentance in our minds to something like this: "God, I know that you -- for some reason -- have a problem with this kind of behavior. Now, I don't pretend to understand why you get so upset about this, but I do know that I don't want you mad at me. So please forgive me this time, and I'll try not to do it again." That is not real repentance; that is being sorry that you got caught and being afraid to face the consequences. Real repentance comes when we begin to see the world the way that God sees it, to understand the harms that God's prohibitions direct us away from and the joys that God's commands bring to our lives, to recognize that God is not a cosmic killjoy but a loving and patient parent. That is why these events that shatter our preconceived notions about the world -- whether towers that fall on the unsuspecting, or vibrant, young leaders felled by assassins' bullets, or technological marvels that cataclysmically fail -- provide occasions for genuine repentance.
Repentance arises not from fear of punishment, but from realization with the prophet that God's wisdom is of an astronomically higher order than human wisdom. Indeed, as Isaiah reminds us, our vaunted wisdom leads to the foolishness of valuing what is ultimately worthless and of despising what has true value. Our problem is not just sins, the numerous ways in which we waste our "money," as it were, buying things that cannot satisfy us and that only bring harm to others. Our problem is sin, the inability to recognize the lack of ultimate value in what we desire, the ability to deceive ourselves into thinking we are self-reliant when truly we are dependent upon God. Repentance is replacing human value judgments with divine ones.
Jesus does not call us either to blithely accept suffering as inevitable or to acquiesce to suffering as divine judgment. He calls on us to change ourselves through genuine repentance and to change the world by bearing the fruit of that repentance. They may not have the sudden and dramatic impact upon our emotions and psyches as disasters or assassinations, but in their own ways the disciplines of Lent are also about calling us to reconsider our view of the world. It is a time to ask ourselves if the values that truly govern our lives, that we enact as we go about our daily business, are the same values that motivate God to action. Lent is a season of repentance, a time not only to seek forgiveness for our failures to God and others, but a time to "be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, so that [we] may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2b).
An Alternative Application
1 Corinthians 10:1-13. If the Israelites were an example to the Corinthians of the dangers of an incipient libertinism as they began their communal life as God's people, then both the Israelites and the Corinthians are examples to modern Christians as they continue their Lenten journey. The purpose of Lent is not to raise questions or doubts about our salvation. That is ultimately in God's hands. But Lent should remind us both of our need to respond to God's grace with faithful lives even as it heightens our awareness of the activity of God's grace in our lives.
Paul's use of a typological argument here also provides good homiletical guidance for modern preachers. He does not so much look for discrete, isolated parallels as for a pattern within the scriptural narrative that is played out again and again in the spiritual lives of God's people. Being able to see that pattern within the Bible helps us to recognize it within our own lives as well. In this instance that pattern serves both to underline that such experience is "common to everyone," and that then just as God has helped others in the past so God will give us the assistance we need as well.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 63:1-8
Psalm 63 is particularly well suited for helping Christians take stock of their commitment. Often times, as we take a long inward look, we become aware that we have lost or laid aside some of our passion for God. This does not necessarily mean we have left the church. There are many who sit in the pews week after week, visibly faithful and plugged in, who are nevertheless spiritually fatigued.
The psalmist gives poetic expression to this fatigue. Drawing upon the common experience of those who live in an arid region, the psalmist compares waning spiritual passion to thirst. "My soul thirsts for you," he writes, "as in a dry and weary land" (v. 1).
The loss of spiritual passion, often called burn out, actually has many causes. For instance, spiritual drought can result from doing too much. Too many committees, too many jobs, too many roles. If we are not careful, God gets crowded right off our calendars by all the things we are doing for God.
A barren spiritual life can also be the result of doing too little. We are aware that there are legitimate things we should be doing -- maybe just the basics of prayer and worship. Maybe it's some calling, some task we are uniquely suited for. It could be something we agreed to do but then failed to do it, or failed to give it our best effort. The guilt that comes from doing too little can have an eviscerating effect on our soul.
We can become barren from success. Consider what happened to Elijah after defeating the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). After his astounding accomplishment, he was apparently so spent that the feeble threat of Jezebel sent him scurrying to the wilderness to hide and die. There is a strange deflation that may occur after we get what we want. Finishing a task can leave us feeling we can do nothing else, or that we have nothing else to do.
And, of course, failure can leave us feeling barren and dry. When we make an effort, do the best we can, but fall on our face -- it can wipe us out. The pain of failure can create in us such a sense of powerlessness and incompetence that we may be tempted never to try again.
Regardless of the way we get to spiritual drought, whatever it is that makes us thirsty, the psalmist reminds us that it is God we are really thirsty for. It is not busyness, or success or failure that really makes us dry -- it is the absence of God in our lives. In order to find God in all his refreshing and life-giving potential, we must be willing to find God in the way God wants to be found.
"So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory" (v. 2). It is not in busy work that God is found, but in worship. It is when we stop and focus mind and heart in devotion and adoration that we can expect renewal to come.
And if it is failure that has dimmed our hope, it is in the sanctuary that we will find forgiveness. We must school ourselves to believe that God's "steadfast love is better than life" (v. 3). Once we learn that, we will be able to say with the psalmist, "I will lift up my hands and call on your name" (v. 4), and "My soul is satisfied" (v. 5).
I still remember that morning, and I imagine that I will for the rest of my life. I was scheduled to have the first (and hopefully last) significant surgery of my life. I had arrived at the hospital very early that morning, and had been taken back into the surgical preparation area. Initially everything was proceeding as scheduled, but after a while everything just seemed to come to a halt. Oh, there was plenty of activity buzzing around, but the things I had been told would happen with me just weren't. I was growing impatient and irritated.
Then I began to pick up some buzz about a plane crash. It was hard to pull together details from what I was overhearing (no one was bringing me news directly, and there was no television where I was). It apparently had happened in New York. I could understand why everyone was talking about it, but I didn't see why it should have brought things to a halt in a suburban Washington hospital. Then the buzz seemed to be about a crash here in Washington. Was it a second crash, or were they confused about where the crash had been in the first place? All that was clear was that I wasn't on anyone's agenda at the moment.
A short while later my surgeon arrived. All surgeries for that morning had been cancelled. Not one, but two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center Towers in New York, a third had crashed into the Pentagon little more than 10 miles away, and a fourth plane was reportedly heading toward Washington. The operating rooms had been closed in order to deal with what was expected to be a flood of emergency cases.
The date, obviously, was September 11, 2001. For me, the events of that day were in some ways up close and personal, but still primarily experienced through radio and television news reports. For the vast majority of Americans, that day was lived vicariously through the news media. The ability of millions to simultaneously share in an experience through the mass media has created events that became defining moments in our culture. People can replay in intricate detail the circumstances that surrounded them and the emotions they felt when they first heard that news, or that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded on lift-off (or more recently that the Columbia had exploded during re-entry), or that Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot while standing on a balcony of a motel in Memphis, or that John F. Kennedy had been shot while riding in a presidential motorcade winding through the streets of Dallas, or that Japanese warplanes had just destroyed much of the U.S. Pacific fleet as it lay at anchor in Pearl Harbor.
Of all the national experiences that have been created by the mass media, why is it these catastrophes stay with us so vividly and with such tenacity? It cannot just be their shock value or their overwhelmingly negative impact; we hear about many shocking evils every day. I am convinced that the impact of these events is that they serve as dramatic wake-up calls. Their significance in our minds goes far beyond the particulars of the individual events.
Not a few historians have concluded that the Civil Rights era begun in 1950s died as well on that Memphis balcony, for King's assassination and the rage of the riots that followed in its aftermath fundamentally changed once again the relationship among races in our country. Lee Harvey Oswald's bullet stole life not only from a young president but also from the idealism of America's "Camelot." And the bombs dropped by Japanese Zeros not only set ablaze America's Pacific Fleet, but left in ashes as well the nation's myth of geographic isolation bolstered and protected by unassailable military might. "9/11" did the same thing for a new generation. The very reason the first shuttle disaster is more etched on our memories than the second is because a whole world view about the power and precision of technology, a mythology embodied for many by NASA, crumbled along with the Challenger, leaving room only for a "not again" reaction at the loss of Columbia. Such events lay waste to our carefully constructed worlds of human self-sufficiency.
Isaiah 55:1-9
Sometimes when you read the end of a book first you get a different sense of what it was about than if you had started at the beginning. Knowing how things will turn out and what will be important at the end of the day, as it were, focuses one's attention on different details at the beginning than might have been apparent without those clues. Reading from the end provides an interesting perspective on this particular scripture lesson.
The New Revised Standard Version provides the heading, "An Invitation to Abundant Life" for the oracle by the exilic prophet preserved in Isaiah 55. God's call to satisfy our thirst and hunger "without money and without price" in the opening verse certainly fits with the theme expressed by the heading. Yet the final verses of the reading emphasize lack rather than abundance, at least as regards human wisdom as compared to God's. The oracle insists that our thoughts and actions are as far removed from God's "as the heavens are higher than the earth" (v. 9). Now it could be argued that the prophet invites us to leave behind our lack for God's abundance, to "seek the LORD while God may be found" (v. 6), but one could also argue that the prophet is encouraging us to change our very notions of what counts as abundance.
Returning to the opening verses of the oracle, then, notice just how different are God's thoughts from the values that dominate our culture. God calls to those who "have no money, Come, buy and eat!" But what can it mean to "buy" if we give neither money nor bartered goods in exchange? To our "free market" world, God calls for everyone to come and receive the necessities of life for free. But we only assign value to things that have a price. Our slogan is, "You get what you pay for," and its corollary is that if you pay nothing then you get nothing of value. We want to be self-sufficient, to make our own way in the world; God calls us who thirst to come to the living waters by which God supplies life (v. 3).
And what is God's assessment of the things that we do value? God simply asks each of us, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" (v. 2a). If we are so wise and self-sufficient, then why do we experience so much of life as lack rather than abundance? Our ideas of abundance always leave us hungering and thirsting for more. We need to "listen carefully" to God so that we will know what food is genuinely "good" and can bring "delight" to our lives. We need to elevate our thoughts by replacing our human values and wisdom with God's thoughts.
Such transformation of one's thinking lies at the heart of the biblical concept of repentance, and it is precisely the language of repentance that we find in the final verses of the reading (and the heart of the oracle as a whole). To "seek the LORD," "forsake" wicked ways, and "return to the LORD" (vv. 6-7) are all common expressions of repentance. As long as we think of life primarily in terms of things we can provide for ourselves, then we will be confused by the call to repentance of those who live in want. Those who do return to God and God's ways, however, will receive mercy and abundant pardon -- truer marks of abundant life than any material goods one may amass no matter how necessary to physical life.
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
In this portion of his letter, Paul utilizes a classic form of argumentation that is usually referred to as either allegorical or typological. Almost every sentence of the reading bears an allusion to some event from the experience of the Israelites during the Exodus and subsequent period of wilderness wanderings. The specific source references for these allusions can be found in most any study, Bible or commentary, and so will not be repeated here. Paul himself refers to these allusions as "examples," and so we need to ask why he considers these the relevant or appropriate examples (vv. 6 and 11) for his Corinthian readers and what particular function does he hope these examples will play for his readers.
Regarding the initial part of our question, the simple answer as to why Paul chose these particular examples would seem to be that they parallel specific topics that he has already taken up in the letter. Concern with baptism (10:2; cf. 1:11-17), idolatry in the specific context of eating and drinking (10:7; cf. 8:1-13), sexual immorality (10:8; cf. 5:1-13), and complaints within the community and about its leadership (10:10; cf. 3:1-23; 6:1-11; 9:1-18) comprise the bulk of what Paul has written about to this point. Yet examples of all these things abound throughout the Old Testament. Might there be some further reason why Paul chose to cluster all his examples in the experience of Israel in the wilderness?
Perhaps there is one implicit parallel between the Israelites and the Corinthians that Paul wishes to draw out from his choice of these particular examples. Just as all the examples Paul offers are from the earliest period of Israel's communal experience as the people of God, the Corinthians are themselves flush with the experience of being a newly constituted community of God's people. Paul may have wished to suggest that there are particular dangers or risks that accompany a newly experienced awareness of God's grace and acceptance.
The conclusion that Paul draws from his typological argument would seem to support this view. "So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall" (10:12). Those who realize they have been brought into covenant with God as a result of God's grace rather than their own worthiness may be tempted to libertarian excess. God chose us when we were sinners, so would God reject us now if we continue in our sin? But just as the biblical story of the Israelites shows that they put their participation in the covenant at risk by such behaviors, Paul now warns the Corinthians that they now run the risk of following exactly the same course.
But beyond providing a warning, Paul also emphasizes "God is faithful" (10:13). The God who brought both the Israelites and the Corinthians into covenant will also help keep them within that relationship. The experience of both the Israelites and the Corinthians is "common to everyone," and God will intervene both to limit the severity of the temptations and to assist in withstanding them. Although the Israelites were tempted to abandon their covenant with God, God would ultimately abandon them. The same would be true for the Corinthians, and for us.
Luke 13:1-9
Jesus suggested that two catastrophic events contemporaneous to his own ministry destroyed any sense of self-sufficiency for those who had heard about them. His comments were prompted by a report that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate had ordered the massacre of a group of worshipers from Galilee, mixing their human blood with the blood of the sacrificed animals. The report here in Luke is the only record of this particular atrocity, but it is in keeping with what the contemporary Jewish historian Josephus reports about Pilate's actions against those under his authority (killing Samaritans on their way to worship at Mount Gerizim and diverting funds from the Jerusalem temple's treasury and desolating it with Roman images, provoking riots; Antiquities 18.55-62, 85-89).
Jesus related this political tragedy to another recent event where the culpability was hardly obvious. A tower had collapsed, killing eighteen people who were standing nearby. Now there was a widely held view among Jews at that time -- a view still found among even some Christians to this day -- that physical suffering, whether as a result of illness or disaster, was a direct consequence of sin and a clear indication of divine judgment. Jesus rejected such a simplistic notion outright. Were those who died at Pilate's hand or those crushed by the tower worse sinners than those who escaped with their lives? Jesus answers the question directly: "No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did" (v. 5).
If you listen carefully to what Jesus said, it would seem that he takes away with one hand what the other had just granted. No, Jesus insisted, those who died in these disasters were no worse than anyone else. You cannot draw conclusions about a person's morality from the tragedies that occur in their life. "But," Jesus continued, "unless you repent you will all perish just as they did." We are quick to object. "Now wait just a minute, Jesus! If repentance, asking God's forgiveness for our sins, can spare us from perishing as those did in these tragedies, aren't you saying that there is a connection between sin and suffering in a person's life?"
It was to head off just such an objection that Jesus immediately related the parable of the fig tree. Jesus wanted to make clear what was wrong with the old way of thinking. The problem was not with the notion of divine judgment. Just as the fig tree, if it failed to produce in response to the gardener's careful attention, would be cut down at the end of the next growing season, so was it true that there will be those who will ultimately suffer God's judgment. Their belief in divine judgment was not the problem; their problem was in their blithe assumption that their comfortable lives were proof they were already immune to such judgment.
The point of Jesus' assertion that the victims were not any worse than the survivors was not to rehabilitate the reputations of the dead, but to challenge the living to see that they were no better than those who had been overcome by tragedy. It was not their superiority that had spared them, but God's grace in continuing to care for them, to nurture them like the gardener tending the fig tree. "There, but for God's grace, go I!" Jesus' point in relating the parable in response to the disastrous news that was buzzing about the people was that while they could see what was happening, they were not understanding it correctly (cf. Luke 12:54-56). Where we see divine punishment in the disasters, we should rather see a call to repentance. Where we see divine approval in the care given to the unproductive fig tree, we should actually see divine mercy. Even given God's grace, there are limits to the divine patience. The clock is ticking for the fig tree, and the clock is ticking for each of us.
Application
But how, then, are we to respond to this realization? Jesus said that in order to avoid "perish[ing] just as they did" we must repent. Repentance means much more, however, than simply acknowledging that we have done wrong and asking for God's forgiveness. Genuine repentance involves a change of our minds. It only really happens when our view of the world is changed, when we reject the notion of human self-sufficiency in favor of the truth of our dependence upon the Divine.
Too often we have watered down repentance in our minds to something like this: "God, I know that you -- for some reason -- have a problem with this kind of behavior. Now, I don't pretend to understand why you get so upset about this, but I do know that I don't want you mad at me. So please forgive me this time, and I'll try not to do it again." That is not real repentance; that is being sorry that you got caught and being afraid to face the consequences. Real repentance comes when we begin to see the world the way that God sees it, to understand the harms that God's prohibitions direct us away from and the joys that God's commands bring to our lives, to recognize that God is not a cosmic killjoy but a loving and patient parent. That is why these events that shatter our preconceived notions about the world -- whether towers that fall on the unsuspecting, or vibrant, young leaders felled by assassins' bullets, or technological marvels that cataclysmically fail -- provide occasions for genuine repentance.
Repentance arises not from fear of punishment, but from realization with the prophet that God's wisdom is of an astronomically higher order than human wisdom. Indeed, as Isaiah reminds us, our vaunted wisdom leads to the foolishness of valuing what is ultimately worthless and of despising what has true value. Our problem is not just sins, the numerous ways in which we waste our "money," as it were, buying things that cannot satisfy us and that only bring harm to others. Our problem is sin, the inability to recognize the lack of ultimate value in what we desire, the ability to deceive ourselves into thinking we are self-reliant when truly we are dependent upon God. Repentance is replacing human value judgments with divine ones.
Jesus does not call us either to blithely accept suffering as inevitable or to acquiesce to suffering as divine judgment. He calls on us to change ourselves through genuine repentance and to change the world by bearing the fruit of that repentance. They may not have the sudden and dramatic impact upon our emotions and psyches as disasters or assassinations, but in their own ways the disciplines of Lent are also about calling us to reconsider our view of the world. It is a time to ask ourselves if the values that truly govern our lives, that we enact as we go about our daily business, are the same values that motivate God to action. Lent is a season of repentance, a time not only to seek forgiveness for our failures to God and others, but a time to "be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, so that [we] may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2b).
An Alternative Application
1 Corinthians 10:1-13. If the Israelites were an example to the Corinthians of the dangers of an incipient libertinism as they began their communal life as God's people, then both the Israelites and the Corinthians are examples to modern Christians as they continue their Lenten journey. The purpose of Lent is not to raise questions or doubts about our salvation. That is ultimately in God's hands. But Lent should remind us both of our need to respond to God's grace with faithful lives even as it heightens our awareness of the activity of God's grace in our lives.
Paul's use of a typological argument here also provides good homiletical guidance for modern preachers. He does not so much look for discrete, isolated parallels as for a pattern within the scriptural narrative that is played out again and again in the spiritual lives of God's people. Being able to see that pattern within the Bible helps us to recognize it within our own lives as well. In this instance that pattern serves both to underline that such experience is "common to everyone," and that then just as God has helped others in the past so God will give us the assistance we need as well.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 63:1-8
Psalm 63 is particularly well suited for helping Christians take stock of their commitment. Often times, as we take a long inward look, we become aware that we have lost or laid aside some of our passion for God. This does not necessarily mean we have left the church. There are many who sit in the pews week after week, visibly faithful and plugged in, who are nevertheless spiritually fatigued.
The psalmist gives poetic expression to this fatigue. Drawing upon the common experience of those who live in an arid region, the psalmist compares waning spiritual passion to thirst. "My soul thirsts for you," he writes, "as in a dry and weary land" (v. 1).
The loss of spiritual passion, often called burn out, actually has many causes. For instance, spiritual drought can result from doing too much. Too many committees, too many jobs, too many roles. If we are not careful, God gets crowded right off our calendars by all the things we are doing for God.
A barren spiritual life can also be the result of doing too little. We are aware that there are legitimate things we should be doing -- maybe just the basics of prayer and worship. Maybe it's some calling, some task we are uniquely suited for. It could be something we agreed to do but then failed to do it, or failed to give it our best effort. The guilt that comes from doing too little can have an eviscerating effect on our soul.
We can become barren from success. Consider what happened to Elijah after defeating the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). After his astounding accomplishment, he was apparently so spent that the feeble threat of Jezebel sent him scurrying to the wilderness to hide and die. There is a strange deflation that may occur after we get what we want. Finishing a task can leave us feeling we can do nothing else, or that we have nothing else to do.
And, of course, failure can leave us feeling barren and dry. When we make an effort, do the best we can, but fall on our face -- it can wipe us out. The pain of failure can create in us such a sense of powerlessness and incompetence that we may be tempted never to try again.
Regardless of the way we get to spiritual drought, whatever it is that makes us thirsty, the psalmist reminds us that it is God we are really thirsty for. It is not busyness, or success or failure that really makes us dry -- it is the absence of God in our lives. In order to find God in all his refreshing and life-giving potential, we must be willing to find God in the way God wants to be found.
"So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory" (v. 2). It is not in busy work that God is found, but in worship. It is when we stop and focus mind and heart in devotion and adoration that we can expect renewal to come.
And if it is failure that has dimmed our hope, it is in the sanctuary that we will find forgiveness. We must school ourselves to believe that God's "steadfast love is better than life" (v. 3). Once we learn that, we will be able to say with the psalmist, "I will lift up my hands and call on your name" (v. 4), and "My soul is satisfied" (v. 5).
