This Week: Lent 3C
Gospel: Luke 13:1-9
Perhaps I hang out with a lot of history buffs, but my first instinct when reading this week’s gospel is that people will want to know about these two particular events named in it: the mixing of blood at the temple and the tower falling on people. They exist here as examples, but I suspect that, for many of us, they are more like distractions.
This is a lot like what happens when I mention Spider-Man in a sermon — that’s always what people fixate on. At least it’s the one thing they mention to me on the way out of church. “I like Spider-Man, too!”
This happened the other week when I mentioned the human pentiance to protect rather than condemn each other — that the incident the book Lord of the Flies was based on told the opposite story. A couple people came up to me after church and said “I didn’t know that!” and confessed that they didn’t really take in much else because they were focused on working that one through.
There is also a second character about this week’s gospel that can distract the hearer, I suspect. At least my intuition tells me so. The principal seems to be that God doesn’t target the sinful, so stop being an ass and thinking people must have done something wrong when bad things happen. This is kind of like a what-not-to-do thing when people are asking but what am I supposed to do.
A little more context
I haven’t been writing new articles for my “between” series, but this one would benefit from one. We were just later in chapter 13, now jumping to the first part of 13, but neither offers the wider context of Jesus’s teaching, which, if I were to settle on only one word, I’d probably pick division. But even this sends the wrong message.
- Beware the yeast of the Pharisees — their hypocrisy.
- He tells a parable about a rich fool who tries to store up abundance rather than share it with his neighbors.
- Don’t worry about the small stuff.
- The watchful slaves are wise.
- Jesus is the source of division.
- Dude, if you can interpret the season, you can interpret the time we’re in.
- Try to settle with an opponent yourself without getting the courts involved.
There’s a lot to work with, right? But I think the thread that runs through this is to think about what causes division and what it is that we’re supposed to think about it.
Hoarding wealth is bad. Sharing it is good. Ignoring the moment is bad, but getting the signs or preparing for it is wise.
And in the midst of this, Jesus comes to divide — but not like a fascist with shock troops or a jerk whatabouting in a comment section. He comes to bring us all into right relationship with God knowing some don’t want that. He confronts the exploitative money-making system that the powerful benefit from. Yeah, that’s going to be a problem.
What does this have to do with our gospel passage?
Good question, you! I think it helps us see just how out of place the question these people ask Jesus really is. They are looking for him to give his insight about their assumption. It’s like a friend sharing a conspiracy theory from QAnon and wanting your take on it. The point here is that they’ve bought into a faulty assumption. And that is the assumption is that when bad things happen to people, its because they did something to deserve it.
And here, I think, is the real reason the history stuff will distract some of our people. Because they don’t see the problem with that assumption. This must be natural; the way of the world.
To this, Jesus says Not at all.
Helping people today get over this thinking is essential, because punishment is not the result of sin any more than blessing comes after doing good things. We follow a God who offers the sunshine and the rain upon everyone. The thing we’re avoiding, the part we don’t want to face is that division haunts us. Not because Jesus wants us to be divided, but because a few people want to hoard wealth or punish the poor or attack the immigrant, the prisoner, or the homeless and have us believe that people deserve their violence like the wealthy deserve their wealth. And Jesus tells us that this way of thinking is not his Way of Love.