Transcript
I tell you, unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Please be seated.
Do you know the word theodicy? Have you ever heard of it? If you’re a Latin scholar or an ancient Greek scholar, you can at least start to guess what it means. Theo being God and the second half, dikē, means justice. Alvin Plantinga, a modern American analytic philosopher, defines theodicy as an answer to the question of why God permits evil. Basically, it’s the academic approach to understanding why God lets bad things happen to good people, or why bad things happen at all.
The Odyssey usually involves a thought exercise around the logical argument for the existence of God. And if God is an all loving, all knowing, and all powerful God wouldn’t God want to stop bad things from happening. And wouldn’t God know how to stop bad things from happening? And wouldn’t God be able to stop bad things from happening? So why do bad things happen?
Of course you know this is not a new idea or a thought experiment. People have been wondering about how to reconcile a God that is our God and the existence of evil in the world. For at least as long as people claimed our God as the God, that is. One argument is related to sin.
Bad things happen to us because we are sinful and God punishes the sinful. In fact, depending on which passage you read in Exodus or Numbers, God doesn’t just punish the sinful. God punishes the children of the sinful and the children’s children’s children. And those who are in the crowd with Jesus in today’s gospel reading, they have definitely read those parts of Exodus and Numbers, and they’re upset.
Real quick. I looked it up. There is no historical record of the events that are referenced in today’s gospel reading. It is clear that something tragic happened and probably on a pretty large scale. We can tell the tragic event involved Galileans who died at the hands of the Roman government, and probably while engaging in some kind of political resistance. People are upset and Jesus is, well… maybe he’s trying to soothe their pain?
Also, I’m just going to say that I probably would not go to this Jesus for pastoral care right now because instead of saying something expected, like maybe a kingdom of God parable about blood and towers and God’s great unending mercy and love, we get unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Fun Greek language lesson here. Jesus says that line twice. Or at least in English, he says the line twice. Unless you repent, you will all perish.
Except in Greek, it’s not the same. The two verbs that are translated as repent are actually different. One is a type of repentance that is continuous. That’s the first time he says it. The second time he says it, it’s the kind of repentance that is a once and for all kind of repentance. I guess if we were comparing it to something in today’s time, like winning the lottery, one is like when you take a lump sum and the other is when you take monthly payouts.
Anyway, people are upset because something bad happened and they have asked Jesus why bad things happen, especially to the good people. And Jesus kind of calls out the interpretation of the Old Testament and said- that says we carry the sins of our parents. He says that no, it is not because the people who died were worse sinners than anyone else. He disassociates sin and punishment. He disassociates bad things happening from people who maybe deserve bad things or not.
And then Jesus tells us to repent, or bad things will happen to us. So no, bad things do not happen because we are sinners also. We repent and stop being sinners or bad things will happen to us. Hmhmm.
Perhaps, though, the second half of today’s gospel reading is the pastoral Jesus, the Jesus who loves us so much so that he will hang on a cross and die for us. The second half is a parable about a fig tree because we know it’s a parable. We know it’s not just about a fig tree, and also it is just about a fig tree, at least scientifically. Because fun fact, I’m just full of them today.
A fig tree takes 3 to 5 years to mature to produce fruit. So yes, planting a fig tree and then expecting fruit in the first three years is not going to happen. And the gardener knows that and gives the fruit tree some grace. Oh, like you didn’t see that one coming. The gardener convinces the man that the fruit tree just needs a little more care, a little more gentle love, a little more unconditional hope. And then maybe next year it will grow fruit.
Also, who knows how many times the man came and yelled at the fruit tree and demanded it get cut down? And how many more times he will do so? And yet the gardener always knows. The gardener steps in and offers love, offers forgiveness, offers hope. Yes, we need to repent a continuous repentance and a once and for all repentance.
And even when we don’t, or when we forget, or even when we try and fail, God will still wait for us to try again. God will still love us and nurture us and show us the grace that, to be honest, none of us really deserve. And yet all of us get to have. Not because we do not sin, but because of God. In fact, not because of anything we do at all, or don’t do or say or don’t say. Our salvation is not tied up in our own actions.
It is totally and wholly and completely and fully tied up in God. A God that is all knowing and all powerful and yes, all loving. Both our Epistle and our Old Testament reading prove that, or at least offer evidence to God’s allness. Because the Old Testament reading is about a God who sends a shepherd, not even the owner of the flock, to save an entire nation of people. A God who sends an angel in the form of a burning bush to talk to a poor man in the wilderness. A God who defines God’s self as I am and promises to be with the poor man and those whom he will save for all generations.
And the Epistle from the first letter to the Corinthians, while perhaps some of it is hard to understand in the end, the bottom line is God loves us so much so that God will catch us when we fall. God is faithful. God isn’t going to cut us down for not producing fruit for three years. God isn’t going to let evil things befall us because we are sinful people.
Granted, bad things will still happen and none of it will make sense to us now. Much like how at the time, a man who preached about love and forgiveness and grace and mercy had to face the evilest of evils and hang on a cross and die, only to rise again and walk among us again. Yes. Bad things happen. No, I do not know why, but I can tell you that if we believe, and in all loving, all knowing, and all powerful God, then the journey we are on now, full of its own trials and tribulations, has to be part of something immensely good.
Capital G. Just as Jesus, Jesus’s journey was full of its own trials and tribulations and also was beyond immensely good. Our journey may not make sense, and I suspect even in his all knowing, Jesus’s journey didn’t make much sense to him either. And yet, in the end, there still is and always will be Easter. We might not understand it, but even despite all the bad, there will always be resurrection, eternal life.
Amen.