The Third Sunday of Lent, March 7th, 2010

The Rev. Dr. Katharine C. Black
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10: 1-13
Luke 13: 1-9

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. AMEN.

The connection between bad things happening to people and their sins has been fodder for many sermons, because we would, on some days, really like the bad things that happen be their fault. If that were so, then, we think, if we weren't bad, bad things wouldn't happen to us. On other, perhaps more honest days, we want bad things to be random, because maybe, we'll avoid the bad things we deserve. Today's Gospel looks at just this question: what is the connection between bad things and people's sins?

The Gospel has three tiny stories tucked into it. First, Pilate, at his most wicked, was making sacrifices, and slaughtered some Galileans with those sacrifices. We'd guess he was killing a young goat, a kid, or ox, and there had been Galileans there, and they'd been added to the sacrifice. Maybe the Galileans were in the wrong place. Maybe they were they were being punished for their cries, or sins, and maybe they complained at the Roman sacrifice not done according to Jewish law, so they felt defiled by their laws by their presence at these sacrifices. Maybe the Galileans were in Pilate's crowd. For sure, it was their bad luck. They should have known better than to be near Pilate, even if they'd thought it was a festive, public, and, so a safe, occasion. Maybe they were elite Galileans were friends with Pilate's fellow leaders. Maybe they'd thought they were lucky to be invited. Maybe they were traveling by and Pilate invited them to join in. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Their defilement was on many levels. They were slaughtered like animals, and we can be sure, not according to kosher standards. They were at a sacrifice not done by kosher rules, and so their person, as well as their actual, physical bodies were defiled. Their blood was mixed with unclean animal blood, so their deaths made even their killed bodies unacceptably defiled for burial. Moreover the event was so public, if or when, their defiled bodies got back to their families, no one could pretend that these Galileans died of old age, robbers, or some freak accident. Therefore their burial would have been hard, if not impossible, and their families would have had no acceptable options for their remains. All in all, this would have been a devastating, mode of death. The Gospel, though asks, "Were they worse sinners than all other Galileans?" No, I tell you."  While it's a relief that they weren't worse, it's also means a warning to us; it could happen to us.

Second, what about the 18 people killed when the tower of Siloam fell on then? We know about these folk. What about the 230,000+ folk in Haiti or the 700+ in Chile? Do we think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem, Haiti, or Chile in their time? We know a little about the folk in Haiti. There are no decent building codes, no building inspectors to uphold reasonable anti-earthquake building codes, and there probably isn't the technology there to build with reinforced concrete. Does that make the people at the bottom of the rubble worse offenders? While it's clear that what Chile has accomplished in the last few years to follow stringent guidelines for building in earthquake zones makes a huge numerical difference even in the face of a even devastatingly enormous earthquake, the 700+ who died there, were probably not worse offenders than others living in Chile at this time. In fact, sometimes, we'd all like to draw up lists of those we consider among the worst of the offenders, and hand the list to the fates and urge earthquakes and more, onto our lists. We never really do that, lest we find our own names on someone else's list.

Remember a couple of years ago a group of kids from Tortola were leaping and diving off the Bath's big rocks, and one of them didn't come up? Who knew whether he hit his head hard or got caught by the strong undertow, but I'll bet he wasn't any worse than the other kids, and it was as upsetting to all: all the families, all the people at VISAR and the other rescue teams, which looked and looked for him, all the people who heard the drone of the helicopters and rescue boats until deep darkness that night and during the next day.

Do you remember the petitions of The Great Litany? "From lighting and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine, Good Lord, deliver us. From all oppression, conspiracy, and rebellion; from violence, battle, and murder; and from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us. Our wise forebears got that just right. True, they omitted hurricanes, but they lived where there were no hurricanes, and so we forgive them that omission, and put it in as we need. Modern liturgists want to shorten and simplify these two petitions but which of these horrors holds no risk to us? We know each one through newspaper reports, history writing, and our own experiences, and we know more of them than personally than we'd guess about ourselves. The lists describe the sadness that we've made of much of human life, and our hope comes down to:  "From dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us.

That's what the Gospel's first two stories are about. The tower of Siloam and the Galileans may have been actual stories known to all at that time, but for us, the stories remind us of the earthquakes that effected random numbers of people, and the diving boy, a particular individual-all unlucky people at the wrong place, at the wrong time, no worse than others, but all dying suddenly.

The prod of the Gospel is this. They all died, but was each unprepared? Were all unprepared? They weren't worse than others- they were just like us. The Gospel asks, therefore, are we unprepared or prepared? How do we prepare? It's not that anyone, especially our Savior, expects us to be better than all others all the time in all places. That's silly. The Savior urges us to repent along the way, not saving up repentance until we know the number of our days. There are occasions when we have an indication of our lifespan, but even a long illness or sudden trauma doesn't always work out the way we expect. How many times do we visit people who are dying for months, and we step out for a coffee, and come back and they've slipped away. Did they know: Now is the time for my total repentance? Maybe, maybe not.

Jesus says, "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."

Then he tells the story of the fig tree that doesn't bear fruit. Perhaps, when we think of repenting we think as Emily Dickinson thought: "One need not be a chamber to be haunted/One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing /Material place." She adds later "Our self, behind ourself concealed, / Should startle most;/ ...O'erlooking a superior spectre, /More near." I'd guess many, most, if not all of us, have things for which we repent, regret, or just wish hadn't happened, or we hadn't done. There are things that haunt us. There are minor things-harsh words, small tasks overlooked, small ways we cheat-those things "everyone does," not paying taxes on tips, taking the pen from the bank, being late, because we didn't want to hurry, the little things that erode our being. What's our list? Not answering the phone to hear someone complain again about the same old thing? Not being sympathetic to someone ill from something done to themselves over years- smoking, now coughing; drinking steadily, now the liver's bad; eating too much; now diabetes and heart woes. We all know some of those realities in our lives- what is the sin? Maybe its gluttony, or sloth, or pride that we, ourselves, could do that bad behavior and it wouldn't get us; we could get away with it. Maybe it was envy, wanting what someone else had or could do, so we did it too, but we couldn't. What is the root for me, for you, for us-not them there-for us, of those behaviors? Which sin allowed the bad behavior, "that superior spectre, more near"?

Hang those things right on our clothesline of sins, out in the open. Look at them so they can be washed and put away. Guilt and shame are useless because they permit us to deny the sin, or even worse, keep on doing it because it's "the way we are." Guilt and shame are only useful when they lead to repentance and naming, at least to ourselves openly, and so to stop doing the bad thing. Drinking a bottle of rum a day qualifies us as alcoholics. Naming that gluttony doesn't help until we say, "Gluttony is a sin; being an alcoholic is a disease of that sin, and I need help to stop the drinking. Instead of waiting for liver disease, deal with the disease of alcoholism which leads us to gluttony, and I need help for both."

After telling stories about the need for repentance, Jesus tells the story of the fig tree that yields no fruit. The fig tree had long been the symbol for Israel, and the many seeds in a fig, show abundance and fruitfulness. Here, probably God is the gardener, and so Jesus is the man who pleads for one more year for the tree to bear figs. The gardener grants the extension. Remember: "God's glory is always to have mercy."

Even today's first two stories, therefore, of perhaps "dying suddenly and unprepared" take on new, hopeful outcomes. Paul tells us "God is faithful and God will not let us be tested beyond our strength, but with testing God will also provide the way out so that we can endure it." Endure here must mean not suffering for a long time, but outlasting the suffering for time for repentance to take hold. The man in the garden was there for the Galileans somehow, in their hearts and minds, maybe too with those at the tower of Siloam, maybe for those in Haiti, and Chile and in the boy's heart as he hit the water. Jesus is the one who promises to be there in those moments. Some of them are learning moments not attached to death, some are near death experiences. Jesus promises always and always to be there, in the "brain's corridors," even overpowering and overlooking that "spectre more near." Our life's work is to keep at naming those things that make us feel unprepared for dying suddenly. "Whoa, there's one- I'm sorry and I'll try hard not to do it again, though for true life, most of us repeat our sins, and our sins are pretty familiar. Name them and fling them onto that clothesline, and aim our arrow onto its target again, and hope not to miss the mark this time. That repetition of aiming again and again is what's meant by repentance. Aim again; maybe it'll bear fruit this time. Aim again; Jesus will be there to guide us closer to the mark of holiness. Jesus always asks for a little more time for each of us. He promises to be there always to take away those finals sins, time for God's mercy, until he brings us to join him in Paradise. That's Good News.

© Katharine C. Black, 7 March 2010, delivered at St. Mary's, Virgin Gorda.