There are always those who, in the wake of natural disasters, like to tell us why God sent this or that calamity upon those affected. It happened following the recent earthquake in Haiti, and it happens all the time. But today's Gospel lesson negates these claims and others like them. The baffling claim of some that they are not worthy to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, or the unfortunate beliefs of others that their lot in life is the result of God's displeasure, or pleasure, with them, are all negated by the words of Jesus. And yet, even though Jesus' words negate these unfortunate misunderstandings of God, love, Christ, sacrament and redemption, the misunderstandings persist and remain widespread.
We all sin and we all suffer, because suffering is the nature of life in this world. Of course, there are wages to sin. Our sinful behaviors definitely have very real consequences, but God doesn't persecute us, or send earthquakes, or cause towers to fall on us, because we are worse than anyone else. God does not punish us for our sins. Our sins are punishment enough, and yet, so many believe that for better or worse, they get what they deserve.
The prosperous gladly believe their superior virtue and right living are cause for their prosperity. They believe in a well-ordered world where immutable, divine laws of cause and effect reward the deserving. On the other hand, too many of the less fortunate believe their lot in life is the result of their sinfulness, or their inability to measure up to life's demands. In truth, however, we are all simply a planet's worth of people who need to repent and learn a better way.
I like how theologian Karl Barth puts it: The love of God is a purifying love. This term sums up all that has to be said concerning the character of the divine act of love in its relation to the perversion and corruption of . . . human sin. [We are] not worthy, and do not deserve, to be loved by God. Yet . . . God loves [us] in spite and even because of this fact. . . . It can never be sufficiently underlined that God loves [us] in spite and even because of [our] worthlessness, for this helps to bring out the fact that . . . the love of God is grounded only in God and not at all in [us]. (Church Dogmatics IV.2, p. 771)
A hospital chaplain tells the story of a woman whose 5-year-old daughter was in surgery to remove a tumor that was pressing on her optic nerve:
"On the day of the operation," writes the chaplain, "I found her [standing outside the hospital beside a receptacle] full of cigarette butts. She smelled as if she had puffed every one of them although she was not smoking when I got there. She was staring at [the ground] in front of her, with her eyebrows raised in that half-hypnotized look that warned me to move slowly. I [just stood there] beside her. She came to, and after some small talk she told me just how awful it was. She [told me how her daughter had become suddenly unable to see and was rushed to the hospital].
‘It's my punishment,' she said, ‘for smoking these [awful] cigarettes. God couldn't get my attention any other way, so he made my baby sick.' Then she started crying so hard that what she said next came out like a siren: ‘Now I'm supposed to stop, but I can't stop. I'm going to kill my own child!'" (Barbara Brown Taylor, Christian Century)
The chaplain talked with this distressed woman about how God wouldn't do something like that; about how God is a loving God; and that bad things simply happen, because we live in a world where chaos seems to reign, and terror comes at us from all over the place, and all too unexpectedly. But when we are in a crisis such as that poor woman was experiencing, we can't hear philosophical arguments. And so we react from the deep recesses of long-held superstition and ingrained belief.
A rabbi sold a lot of books decades ago by trying to explain Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. But there are no "good people," just better off and worse off people. When we open our minds and hearts and listen to Jesus, we understand that terrible events befall us simply because we live in a broken world where such things happen with alarming frequency.
God does not punish us for our sins, but we are called to repentance. Unless we accept our sinfulness and understand it within the context of God's redeeming, life-changing love, we cannot bear fruit for the kingdom of God.
As usual, there is no loophole in the Gospel, no escape hatch for anybody, and that's really irritating. It irritates the prosperous AND the downtrodden that all are sinners. It irritates everybody that the way to life is the way of repentance, the way of living close to God and embodying the ways of love.
Repentance is essential, but we can't repent as long as we see ourselves as "Good" people. As long as we are the good guys, we are condemned to an endless search for the cause of our affliction when it comes, and it always comes. This self-focused, sin-focused life keeps us from God and from living the abundant life God wants for us.
On the other hand, if we feel so unworthy of love and mercy that we think we deserve everything bad that happens to us, this mindset also keeps us from God, and the abundant life God wants for us.
As William Coffin once put it, Of God's love we can say two things: it is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet; and secondly, God's love doesn't seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement. (Credo, p. 6)
The risen Christ wants us to stop focusing on sin (our own and what we perceive to be another's) and embrace God's gift of new life; the gift that awaits all who repent and lifts everybody from the realm of sin into the kingdom of love.
Just as the vineyard owner in Jesus' parable looked for a fig tree heavy with plump, ripe figs; so does God, (who is still the rightful owner of this world), so does God look for people who will live fruitfully and abundantly for God. You and I are the fig tree of the parable. We have not yet been cut down. We can still grow and bear fruit. Abundant living, for and with God, is the purpose of our lives.
We are simply called (because we still live and breathe, because we are still being nurtured by God's gracious gift of love, because God's love gives us value, because sin and its punishments do NOT define us), we are simply called to repentance and the new life God wants for us and others.
