Why do bad things happen? Why do
horrible things happen to some people and not to others? Why do tragic things
happen to innocent children? The school shooting in Newtown, CT, that killed 20
children and six staff members, is a recent example that has captured America’s
attention. Another example is the teenage girl who performed at the President’s
inauguration and a few days later was gunned down in a driveby shooting in
Chicago. Why did these things happen? I am not talking about gun control and
mental illness now. People can get into all sorts of political arguments about
the cause and solution to gun violence in America. But that is not what I am
talking about. I am talking theologically. Why did God allow it to happen? I am
raising the theological issue of theodicy.
If God is all good and all-powerful, then
God could have stopped this shooter. Why didn’t he? If any one of us would have
had prior knowledge that this crime was going to occur, we would have done
whatever we could to stop this young man from entering that school and pulling
that trigger. If I had been at the school with a firearm, I would have shot the
shooter and had no regrets. If you and I would do this, why didn’t God do
something? Politicians are arguing about what human measures we can take to
stop future shootings. Why didn’t God stop this shooting using his divine
measures? What is the divine purpose in such senseless killing?
As Christians we say that God is
omniscient – that he has foreknowledge of all events - and that he is
omnipotent - that he has the power to do anything. Then why didn’t God act in
these cases? The standard answer is that there must be some greater good in
God’s plan to justify allowing such great evil to happen. To be very honest, I
have a hard time imagining what type of greater good would justify these deaths.
This question of theodicy is the greatest philosophical challenge to the
Christian worldview. I have never heard a satisfying explanation to this problem,
and I have heard them all. Many people end up saying something like, “We can’t
understand God’s ways. We just have to trust.” Maybe that is the only answer. If
it is, it is disappointing. It feels like giving up to me. It smells like a cop
out. I have to believe that in spite of our limited human understanding, if
there is an answer, we can at least get a tiny glimpse of it. I want a better
answer than “I don’t know. Stop asking the question, Marshall.” I want to know.
That is why I am preaching on this text today.
One day Jesus asked the question. I
love him for this – as well as for everything else! He did not wait for someone
to ask him the hard question. He raised the issue! 13:1-2 “There were present at that season some who told Him about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus
answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse
sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things?” And
then in verse 4 he mentions another incident. “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do
you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in
Jerusalem?” Jesus asked these questions because he knew they were on
people’s minds. And he knew that people were suggesting that the reason these
people were killed was because they were worse sinners than others. He wanted
to stop that line of thinking completely, so he answers the question. To
understand this passage of scripture it helps to know something about the events
the people were talking about.
There had been an incident in
Jerusalem not too long before. It is kind of reminiscent of some of the things
happening in Syria and Egypt these days. The Roman governor in Palestine,
Pontius Pilate, was planning to build a water conduit in Jerusalem to replace
the old water system that was no longer adequate. Because it was going to serve
the needs of the Jerusalem temple, which used a lot of water, Pilate thought it
only right that the temple share the expenses. So he was demanding that the
temple pay its fair share. But the temple money was considered sacred and to be
used only for temple sacrifices. So a struggle between temple and state
developed. The Jewish temple authorities organized a massive demonstration
against the Roman demands to use temple money. Pilate, always afraid that it
might turn into a rebellion, infiltrated the crowd that gathered in Jerusalem
with some of his soldiers dressed as Jews. When the crowd began to get
unwieldy, the Roman soldiers began to attack the civilians with swords. The
soldiers followed the demonstrators right into the temple courts, which was forbidden
by the Torah. The soldiers even killed some Galileans who were offering their
sacrifices at the altar, mingling their blood with the blood of their
sacrifices. This massacre of these
Galilean worshippers is what is referred to in this story. Shortly after this,
during the construction of the water system, a tower near the pool of Siloam,
fell on some workers and bystanders. This was the other incident referred to in
the passage.
People were wondering why these
people died. The Galileans were innocent pilgrims who were worshipping God with
their sacrifices in the temple courts. If a Jew was not safe in the house of
God at the altar during the act of worship, then where is he safe? If God does
not protect him at that time and place, then when and where is he safe? That is
what people were asking. And they were theorizing that these Galileans must
have been harboring some terrible secret sins for this to happen to them. The
same with the eighteen people who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them.
Maybe they were killed because they were helping the hated Romans. We hear
arguments like this today. A November 7, 2012 article in the Economist magazine
reported all sorts of people saying that the devastation of Hurricane Sandy was
divine punishment upon America. I will quote a few sentences from that article:
John McTernan, a born-again American blogger, pointed the finger at gay
marriage, noting that the storm struck just six days after the New York State
court of appeals dismissed a challenge to the state’s legalization of gay
marriage. Rabbi Noson Leiter, who runs a group called Torah Jews for Decency,
agreed, explaining on the radio that God had targeted the southern end of
Manhattan because it was “one of the national centres of homosexuality.” …A
Saudi blogger reports that the Friday sermon at his local mosque took a more
general approach, describing the heavenly anger as simply intended to smite
“the capital of the infidels.” Other sermons in the kingdom suggested that the
Americans’ failure to convert en masse to Islam was a probable cause. But Wagdi
Ghoneim, a perpetually angry Egyptian tele-Salafist, tweeted to his followers a
more specific reason. The storm, he declared, was intended as payback for the
recent release on YouTube of a scandalous film produced in the United States
that insulted the Prophet Muhammad.
This shows us that the divine
punishment explanation for disasters is still alive and well today. Even the
murder of the children at the Newtown school has been put in this light. The
notorious Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, best known for picketing at
military funerals, announced their plan to picket at the funerals of the
children with these words: “Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School
to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment.” In
their minds the Christian God was punishing America by killing its children. Jesus
addresses this type of mentality in this passage “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other
Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no.” And the
phrase and word he uses for NO is as emphatic as you can get. ”Or those eighteen on whom the tower in
Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all
other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no.”
Therefore as Christians we can
dismiss the idea of humanly-caused tragedies or natural catastrophes as God’s
punishment. When bad things happen to you or those you love or those you know,
it is not God punishing them or you. So just get that idea out of your mind.
But Jesus does not end his comments on the topic with just the word “No.” In
both cases Jesus adds the words, “but
unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” What does Jesus mean by
these words? Some commentators think that Jesus is referring to the destruction
of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD. But that explanation doesn’t make sense to
me. That would mean he is bringing back the idea of divine punishment that he
just rejected. That can’t be it because he was emphatic in saying No to that idea.
So what does Jesus mean?
It seems to me that Jesus is talking
about the need for universal repentance in the face of universal mortality.
When tragedy strikes and someone dies, especially when a group of people die
suddenly for no good reason, and especially when they are innocent people who
have done nothing worse than anything we have ever done – in the case of
children, who have done nothing deserving death – then it should cause us to
ponder our own mortality. It makes us realize that we are going to die. That
causes us to look at our lives. And it should cause us to repent. The word
repent mean “re-think” and it also means to “change course.” It means to turn
around and go in a different direction. The direction that we need to head in
is the direction of eternal life. When bad things happen it should cause us to
ponder our own lives deeply and change the course of our lives. We need to stop
going our own way and start going God’s way.
That is why Jesus follows his
teaching on the two tragedies with his parable of the fig tree. He says in
verses 6-9 “6 He also spoke this
parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came
seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 Then he said to the keeper of his
vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and
find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ 8 But he answered and
said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and
fertilize it. 9 And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut
it down.’” Jesus is calling us to examine our lives for fruitfulness. The
fig tree is sometimes used as a symbol for Israel in the OT, so Jesus is likely
calling all Israel as the people of God to examine themselves for fruitfulness.
As the Church, the new covenant people of God, we likewise are to examine our
lives for fruitfulness.
In the parable the fig tree is not a
wild fig tree. It is a fig tree that the farmer planted in his vineyard. So it
is his tree, and he has presumably been taking care of it, but it has not
produced any fruit in three years. It is just taking up valuable space and
precious water in that arid climate. So he is going to uproot it and plant
better stock. But the keeper of the vineyard is not willing to give up on it
yet. He intercedes on behalf of the fig tree. The keeper asks the owner to give
him one more year. In that year he will give it special care. He will dig
around the roots and fertilize it well. If it still doesn’t produce fruit after
all that special care, then he will cut it down.
Applied to our lives, it means that
we do not have an endless amount of time to get our lives in order. Tragedies
that strike family members and friends remind us of that. Tragedies we read or
hear about in the news that strike people we don’t even know remind us of that.
Life is short. It might be much shorter than we think. We do not have time to
waste. The longer we live and the older we get, the more we are aware of this
truth. We have only a limited amount of time. We better make good use of the
time we have.
We make use of it by being fruitful.
Fruitful can mean lots of things. But I immediately think of what the apostle
Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. He lists nine of them. It is not an
exhaustive list but it is a good place to start. The fruits of the Spirit are
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control. To sum it up, the fruit that God looks for in a Christian’s life
is a certain quality of life. It is a spiritual quality of life. It is God
working in and through our lives accomplishing his purpose. In the Gospel of
John Jesus develops this metaphor of fruitfulness using the image of a vine.
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in
Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He
prunes, that it may bear more fruit. … Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch
cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you,
unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides
in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. … By
this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My
disciples.”
We become fruitful by abiding in
Christ, dwelling in Christ, living in Christ. Christ is the one who produces
the fruit. Our responsibility is to be available to him. As Richard Foster says
concerning the spiritual disciplines in the book we are studying on Thursdays,
the disciplines do accomplish anything for God. They simply place us in a
position for God to accomplish something in our lives. We just need to live in
the spacious presence of God, opening ourselves to his Son and his Spirit, and
he will do the rest.
This message started off with the
problem of evil and suffering in this world. As you can see, I still have no
explanation for why bad things happen. But by grappling with the issue and not
letting it go, like Jacob not letting go of the angel until he receives a
blessing, we can receive a blessing by struggling with God over this issue. And
we find that after the struggle the answer is to rest in God, abide in God, and
see how God can work through us to address the senseless evil and the suffering
in the world with the fruit of his Spirit. God is indeed doing something – in
us. I want to end with the famous prayer known as the prayer of Saint Francis.
It is the best answer I know to hate, evil and suffering in the world.
Lord, make me an
instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred,
let me sow love;
Where there is injury,
pardon;
Where there is doubt,
faith;
Where there is despair,
hope;
Where there is
darkness, light;
Where there is sadness,
joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so
much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to
understand;
to be loved, as to
love.
For it is in giving
that we receive.
It is in pardoning that
we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that
we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.
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