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ON THE EASTER ROAD (3) "Beware of the Trees!” Reading: Isaiah 55:1-19, Psalm 63:1-8, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9 Preached at Baldwin Presbyterian
Church on March
7th 2010 One bright
and breezy morning when I still lived in West Virginia I took the dogs for a
walk. But as I walked the clouds began to gather and the wind grew stronger.
Hmm. Better move along a bit faster. There was a clap of thunder and a few
raindrops. I hurried through the trees down the path back to the house. The
wind was increasing in strength and the trees were waving wildly. Suddenly,
an enormous crack and an old tree broke in two and the vast part of it landed
right on the path in front of me. If I had been a few more steps forward it
would have landed on top of me. Had it done so it would have caused some
major damage and I probably wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. It certainly
shook me up. It’s
strange what goes through your mind when these things happen to you. I almost
shouted, “Ha,Ha, you missed me!” but then figured that the wind that
continued to blow through the trees might decide to take another shot. As I later
reflected on the experience, I mused that if the tree had fallen on me, would
people think it was a judgment from God for some sin committed, past, present
or future? Or will people presume I got away without the tree hitting me
because I was living a pastor’s life?
Or was this some kind of warning that if I didn’t look out, then I
would be in serious trouble? Or was it
simply that one of the trees in the woods had grown old and brittle and just
happened to fall as I was walking by, and the fact that it either hit me or
missed me was completely void of any significance whatsoever. It just
happened. It raises
the question that philosophers and theologians have wrestled with for years.
Do things on earth happen because of the will and ordering of God or is the
whole of life just a messy jumble of chaotic unrelated happenings? We like
the idea of order. We like to think that we are masters of our own destiny.
That if a + b = c then a + b will always = c.
We are comfortable with the idea that good things happen to good
people and that bad things happen to bad people. We like to think of life as
a journey with some point and meaning to it, and like to believe that God has
a plan for us. But if
that plan includes trees falling on us, then we’re no longer so convinced of
our logic. We don’t like things we can’t explain. We know that people others
consider bad often get good things in life and some tremendously good and
noble people go through the worst of situations. This is exactly the dilemma
that our gospel reading places before us. The
disciples are confronted with two tragic situations. One is an incident in
which Pilate slaughtered a group of Galileans with the result that their
blood was mingled with that of their sacrifices. The other incident is the
collapse of a tower in Siloam that had fallen and killed eighteen people. The
first was an atrocity, an act of political violence. The second appeared to
have been the whim of fate. Whilst
nobody in the account gives voice to the idea that any of the victims were
being punished for their sinful lives, Jesus senses that, somewhere in the
back of people’s minds, they harbored the notion that people only got what
was coming to them. That if they had
been truly good, or had been more careful, then such tragedies could have
been avoided. The logic
behind this idea is fairly straightforward.. If God has a will, and that will
is for the good of all people, then if bad things happen to them, they must
have messed up somewhere along the line. (Or if it wasn’t they who messed up,
then maybe it was somebody else in their family who had, and they were just
caught in the crossfire). Jesus
tells them they are seriously missing the point. None of those who died were
worse sinners than any of those who were standing there listening to his
words right then. Their lives were not cut short as a punishment from God.
God was not in the business of randomly picking off victims to satisfy his
wrath. Jesus
refuses to be drawn into the question that we all ask when tragedy comes. The
tragedy that such events as the earthquake in Haiti raises for us. The
question “Why?” He did at other times warn about the dangers of reaping a bad
harvest in our lives if the only seeds we sow into it are those of sin. Yet
about these acts, which seem to belong in the realm of chaos rather than
order, He chooses not to speak. Instead He
warns. ‘That wall that fell on those people? Do you realize something similar
could happen to any one of you? Those people Pilate murdered, that could have
been you who had become tangled up in events that led to your demise. Life is
uncertain. Death? Now death is a 100% certainty. That’s where you are headed.
And after death comes the judgment.’ Then He stings them with this thought. “I tell you;
unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did” (Luke 13:3). He uses
the calamities to serve as a warning.
Life is very fragile. Try as we might, none of us can protect
ourselves or those we love from every danger: disease, traffic accidents,
crime, emotional disorders, and random violence. Such things are just as much
a part of our landscape today as they were in the times of Jesus. Any one of
us may find ourselves standing before our Maker without a moments notice. The second
part of the lesson, the parable of the fig tree, speaks of the grace of God.
Yes, life is tremendously uncertain, (that’s the bad news), but the good news
is that God is always giving us chances to start over again, even when our
lives appear to be heading down the wrong track. In the
agricultural society Jesus lived in, land was precious. An unfruitful tree
could not be allowed to take up space that could be occupied by a fruitful
one. So, in the story, the man tells his gardener to cut it down. ‘Not yet’
says the gardener, “Let me nurture this one for another year, and we’ll see
what it produces. If it’s still nothing, then we’ll cut it down.” Putting
the two parts of our lesson together, both the warning of judgment that came
from reflecting upon tragedy, and the promise of Grace that appears in the
parable of the fig tree, the message appears along these lines: - That life
is a precious gift that comes without a guarantee. Bad things happen at
random. You just never know when an old tree may be plotting to squish you.
But don’t despair. Make the most of every day by living with your heart
turned towards God. In the
words of a quotation I recently came across, ‘Work like you don’t need the
money. Love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like you do when nobody’s
watching.’ Or to quote Carl Sandburg,
“Time is the coin of our lives. We must take care how we spend it”. We spend
time now around a table where themes of judgment and grace draw together in
the shape of a cross. We see how the
One who calls us to repent, took upon Him the judgment we deserve for our
fruitless lives. We see how the love of Jesus offers to us another chance,
another day, and another year to live in the light of God’s grace. Through
sharing in bread and wine we empower ourselves to face the days ahead,
whatever they may hold. We are empowered, not simply with renewed hope, but
by the inner presence of the Holy Spirit, who reaches down into our hearts
and desires to reach out through our lives to touch others. I invite you to share this bread
and wine, and as you thank God for the Gift of Life, pray that we may live our lives in
a way, that brings honor to God’s name. Adrian Pratt |