At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Jesus teaches that these tragedies did not occur because the people were worse sinners than anyone else! But the unpredictability and tragedies of life can alert us to the need for repentance.
To me, that’s welcome information from Jesus himself! Our pastor’s thoughts make me think a little more about providence and trouble. I love the Old Testament, and study it with both Christian and Jewish commentaries at hand, but like many people I struggle with the passages where God sends trouble and tragedy and death---the well-known image of God as a “smiter” who'll slap silly (or kill!) people who have messed up.
Another biblical image is marginally more compassionate, but still troubling to me. It is the idea that trouble is a way for God to teach us or discipline us (e.g., Heb. 12:5-11). (1) We need to be extremely careful how we interpret scriptures like this. People have suffered terribly who believed that their cancer (or whatever) is something that God has sent them. I prefer to say: God uses difficult circumstances for good, as in Rom. 8:28, wherein God works in and with circumstances without necessarily sending all of them.
Thinking again about Luke 13: Jesus teaches that circumstances happen regardless of the quality of our lives. But we do need to repent---to get our relationship with God in order, or at least to turn toward God with our disordered lives and begin the journey of discipleship.
Our pastor also brought in Jesus’ parable in that same passage, concerning the man who wanted to cut down a fig tree that was unproductive in spite of being cared for and nursed. The man’s buddy suggested another year of care before giving up on the tree.
Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
Our pastor pointed out the wonderfulness of God’s patience with us. Eventually, something might happen and time will have run out for us, but in the meantime, God’s patient care remains, working the grace of repentance and renewal in us.
In my book, You Gave Me a Wide Place: Holy Places of Our Lives (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2006), I wrote: “The word 'repentance' (in Hebrew teshuvah) means to turn around or to return. Repentance is a synonym for regret and restitution. But [repentance can also have] a more positive meaning: of aligning one’s priorities in order to remain true to one’s values. Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson writes that, 'The beginning place, as with any return, is of having a place from which we start, a home base, a point of origin, a beginning.' But Rabbi Artson also notes that turning/returning includes 'finding our essence…our core.' He asks, 'What is your core? What is your center? What is that part of yourself that you cannot abandon without walking away from who you truly are? Is your life balanced, centered? This kind of turning is not a turning to get back to some earlier time; it is a turning to remain true.'” (2)
The quotation continues to give me food for thought. How might we think of repentance in the way that Rabbi Artson writes: not just sorrow for sin but a rediscovery of our true nature? (That's been one of our pastor's Lenten themes as well: the renewal of our true humanness.)
One way might be to reassess the “truth” of who we are and where we are in our lives. Are we involved in activities that give us a sense of satisfaction and service? Are we anxious, which can reveal old sources of distress in one's heart (my own struggle)? Are we engaged in unhelpful activities (gossip, maneuvering for position, etc.) that bespeak a core of unhappiness and selfishness? Do the words we speak sound like the person we want to do--or like some angry, dispirited, unsettled person?
Rabbi Artson’s questions, posed for this Lenten season, can inform a meaningful time of reflection: “What is your core? What is your center? What is that part of yourself that you cannot abandon without walking away from who you truly are? Is your life balanced, centered?”
*****
1. Writing from a Reform Jewish perspective, W. Gunther Plaut notes that the doctrine of “chastisements of love” (yisurin shel ahavah) is found not only in Deuteronomy 8:2-3 but also Psalm 94:12-13 and 119:71. He notes that, for Jews, this belief that God sends hardships in order to guide the people was upheld in Judaism until Maimonides, who argued instead that we suffer because of natural occurrences, social occurrences, and our own imperfection. While the biblical passages interpret the divine-human interaction in those situations, Plaut argues that the doctrine no longer has application in Judaism following the Holocaust, far too horrible an experience to attribute to a loving God. W. Gunther Plaut, ed. The Torah: A Modern Commentary (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981), 1390-1391.
2. Bradley Shavit Artson, “Turning,” in Tikkun, Sept.-Oct. 2002, pp. 66-67 (quotation from p. 66).
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