March 20, 2022 – Third Sunday in Lent

Do you hear them? The voices around Jesus.

One December night in 1982 in Westland, Michigan, a man and his wife were driving home. Suddenly a fourteen-pound bowling ball crashed through the windshield, killing the man. Why? That question is almost irrepressible, isn’t it? When we face freak accidents or tragic illnesses, the question, “Why?” instinctively forms on our lips. It’s not enough to be told that the man was killed by the bowling ball because a nineteen-year-old in the car ahead foolishly flipped the ball out his window.

Jesus faced the same kind of question in his time. Apparently, Pilate had some people from Galilee killed as they were worshiping. Just as they were offering a sacrifice, their own blood was spilled on the altar. The questions came, “Why?” Around this same time, the tower of Siloam collapsed, killing eighteen people. Again, the question, “Why?” This week, people were killed in a movie theater and in an art school in Ukraine. “Why?”

“Jesus, were these people more sinful than others? Were they deserving of the tragedy they experienced? Was God singling them out for punishment?” Jesus gave a brief but clear answer: “No!” God was not giving the victims their just deserts. God had not picked them out. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all.

It can be dangerous to say whose side God is on by simply looking at what has happened to them or for them. We’ve heard politicians say that America is great because America is good. And that may make us feel all warm inside. But if we look back at the time of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets, Assyria was great. But Assyria wasn’t good by any godly standards. In Jesus’ time, Rome was great. But Rome’s greatness had nothing to do with goodness.

Are the winners of the Mega Millions the ones that God has favored? I don’t know about you, but I always find it gratifying when I read that some man or woman who is out of work and has several small children has won the lottery. “All right!” I think. “That’s the way it should happen!”

But that isn’t the way it always happens. Some guy who left his wife and hasn’t been paying child support won the lottery a while ago. Too bad his ex-wife didn’t win! Several years ago in Illinois, there was a man who suddenly showed up weeks after the drawing with the winning ticket. The man had found the ticket on the floor of his car while he was cleaning it. The guy was a doctor. It didn’t seem fair. It would have felt “better” if the winner was a custodian or secretary or someone who didn’t have all sorts of financial resources.

Let’s be clear: God is not at work making sure everything comes out right during every step of our lives. There ARE real injustices. Undeserved gains. Deserving losses. Innocent suffering. Unaccounted actions by the guilty.

When we don’t get the rewards we deserve, we become acutely aware of the lack of justice in the world. I remember a “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip that reminds me of comments that I hear regularly from Zak. Calvin says to his dad, “Why can’t I stay up late? You guys can!” And then with a wide-mouthed protest, Calvin declares, “IT’S NOT FAIR!” His dad replies, “The world isn’t fair, Calvin.” Calvin walks away with a sour look on his face, and says, “I know, but why isn’t it ever unfair in my favor?”

Friends, the world is not fair. People do not always “get” what they deserve. But we can overstate the case. Sometimes we go to the opposite extreme. We start thinking that sin is never punished by God and that suffering has nothing to do with disobedience. Jesus certainly wouldn’t agree with that idea. It’s one thing to say that suffering isn’t necessarily a sign of the sinfulness of the victim. It’s very different to say that sinfulness never leads to the suffering of the sinner. Jesus tells us that sin has tragic consequences. While Jesus denied that the people Pilate had killed and those who were crushed by the tower of Siloam were being punished for their evil, he goes on to say, “Unless you repent, you will perish as they did.” (Lk 13:3)

The truth is that the world is a morally messy place. The things that occur in the world are not subject to easy answers. Once we recognize that prosperity is not automatically a product of righteousness and tragedy is not necessarily a result of sin, we might be tempted to conclude that God isn’t really involved in anything that happens in this world. We may imagine God as a mere observer, watching the world from far away. That isn’t the way that Jesus saw it. God is a player in the push and pull of life, and there is certainly judgment.

In the world that our God has created, there are consequences to our actions built into its very structure. The apostle Paul wrote, “the one who sows a generous amount of seeds will also reap a generous crop” (2 Cor 9:6). Jesus said, “All those who use the sword will die by the sword” (Mt 26:52). Even in this world, judgment sometimes comes. God doesn’t reach down and zap particular people. But disobedience does have its consequences. Those who lie soon face the distrust of others. The violent are the most likely to become victims of violence.

We have epidemics raging in our world. Is the measles epidemic in Washington a punishment from God? Is Covid? Many of those infected with AIDS have been asked if they think AIDS is a punishment from God. They often reply that AIDS may be a test, but not of the infected; rather it is of those not infected. Belinda Mason, a rural Kentucky native and mother of two, who contracted AIDS at age 32 responded, “[AIDS] tests [the not infected people’s] ability to respond in love.” She is surely right, and I think we can easily infer a similar question based upon the masking debate we have in the United States. When we speak about punishment for sin in our world, it is not other people’s supposed punishment and sin we should focus on, but rather our own. As Jesus told us today in the Gospel of Luke, “These Galileans suffered not because they were worse sinners; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did” (13:2-3).

Do you hear them? The voices around the mount?
Grieving widows, frightened soldiers, a poor man with outstretched hand.

Do you hear them? The voices around the temple?
Insecure preachers, hypocritical legalists, doubters and theological tourists.

Do you hear them? The voices around the table?
Deniers, Traitors, Disciples still not listening, still not getting the message.

Do you hear them? The voices around the cross?
Weeping women, screaming men, gawkers and hawkers.

Do you hear them? The voices around Jesus.
I hear my voice. I hear your voice. Listen. … We hear the voice of God speaking.

It is not our role to decide the punishment of others. It’s our duty to examine ourselves. And that can be a very sobering exercise. It is our duty to listen. To listen to ourselves. To listen to others. And to listen to God.