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A Sermon by Donel McClellan
A Sermon by Donel McClellan
Meeting
Jesus Again for the First Time . . .
Luke 13:1-9
- Lent 3 - March 14, 2004 In the
crowd around Jesus someone asked, “Teacher, what about those 200 Spaniards who
were blown up by terrorists in the trains going into Madrid?”
Jesus asked them “Do you think that because these Spaniards suffered in this way
they were worse sinners than all other Europeans? No, I tell you; but unless you
repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those thousands who were killed when
the twin towers of New York fell on them—do you think that they were worse
offenders than all the others living in America? No, I tell you; but unless you
repent, you will all perish just as they did.” It
doesn’t help much to translate the text into contemporary images does it? We
still don’t understand why innocent people have to die and we don’t get the
connection between their tragedy and our need for repentance. Just what is Jesus
trying to get at here? One way
of approaching this scriptural puzzle is to understand Jesus as a wisdom
teacher. Biblical scholars are pretty much in agreement that, whatever else
Jesus may have been, he was certainly a teacher of wisdom, or a sage as
such teachers are called. The job
of wisdom teachers was, and is, to speak of the nature of reality and help their
students live their lives in harmony with reality. Wisdom suggests that there is
a path to that knowledge. In fact it generally speaks of two paths, a wise one
and a foolish one. Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate for the gate
is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who
take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and
there are few who find it.”
[1] In
addition, there are two kinds of wisdom. The first is conventional wisdom.
This is the primary wisdom of a culture. It is what everybody should know:
“don’t smoke”, “fasten your seat belts”, “don’t drink and drive.” The
second type of wisdom is subversive or alternative wisdom.
It questions and contradicts commonly held beliefs and strongly held prejudices.
It presents a “road less traveled” and calls people to a new and different life. Jesus was
a teacher of subversive wisdom and he used some tools which have become very
familiar to us. His two most notable tools were “one-liners” called aphorisms
and puzzling short stories called parables. These were the stock and trade of
teachers of wisdom in the first century. Many of them have been preserved in the
gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Unfortunately they are lumped together
there as though they were all used at the same time. As a great teacher, Jesus
would have used aphorisms and parables sparingly, punctuating his teaching with
memorable small pieces. “You can’t get grapes from a bramble bush”
might have been the final image in a sermon about looking for love in all
the wrong places. The statement is obvious, so the listeners agree and them must
consider what Jesus is trying to get across if he isn’t literally talking about
grapes and thorn bushes. Jesus
used aphorisms and parables, such as the parable about the fig tree in today’s
lesson, but not to impart information. He isn’t interested in what his listeners
know. Nor is he teaching morals. He isn’t primarily interested in how his
listeners behave. Jesus is leading people to a way of transformation. He is
inviting us to step away from the world of conventional wisdom into a life
centered and immersed in God. Our
problem is that we already know what we believe about how the world works. We
were taught this by our society and culture. We were taught by conventional
wisdom. Conventional wisdom is the consciousness of a culture, the beliefs that
drive the politics, economy and morality of any society. In the litany of
Dedication of the Offering on the First Sunday of Lent, some statements from the
conventional wisdom were set against Jesus’ response to the temptations in the
wilderness. Let
your jobs be your source of security.
Serve your careers if you want to be happy. Seek
power over others; it is your only protection.
Exploit the weaknesses of others before they exploit you. Let
your earthly desires have their way with you. It is only natural. Try
to get ahead in life any way you can. Get what you can while you can.
Conventional wisdom, according the Marcus Borg, creates the world in which we
live. It provides guidance about what is socially acceptable and, in the West,
comforts us with the belief that we will be rewarded for hard work. Rewards and
punishment are a part of our conventional wisdom. Work hard in school and you
will succeed. Strive in business and you will do well. Keep a perfect house and
your family will be happy. The problem is that there’s a rather harsh backside
to this wisdom. If you aren’t succeeding you must have done something wrong. If
you don’t prosper than you aren’t worthy. If your family has problems you must
be using the wrong dish detergent. The world
of our conventional wisdom is a realm in which we measure ourselves against
others. Compared to others, how attractive, prosperous, intelligent and popular
are we? It is a world in which there is plentiful stress and a multitude of
reasons to become disillusioned. Now, when
you mix religion with conventional wisdom, you get a God who is lawgiver and
judge, a God of rules and expectations, a God whose requirements must be met.
The Christian life, in this view, is a life of tests. One must do certain things
correctly in order to garner God’s favor. On the one hand, God is gracious and
loving, but strangely, that grace and love aren’t experienced unless one
believes the correct things, unless one has faith. So faith becomes a
requirement for the Christian life. And to take this religion of conventional
wisdom to it‘s conclusion, if there are people of faith, then there must be
people who lack faith. The world is divided into us and them, and clearly God is
more kindly disposed towards us. Jesus
tried to get people to see that there is another reality, another path which is
intended by God. When the people pointed out the terrible slaughter of innocent
Jews while they were at worship, they were using conventional wisdom. They
believed that if something terrible happened, it must be proof that the victims
had sinned and God was punishing them. It is an age old game called blame the
victim. And not only were the listeners suggesting that there must have been
some secret failing in the victims, they secretly assumed that they were
righteous and therefore immune from such tragedy. Jesus’
response as a teacher of wisdom, was to turn their logic on it’s head. No! He
said. The poor victims were no more sinful than anyone else in the city . . .
including you smug hypocritical questioners. Unless you repent and find God’s
way, you’ll end up where they are. The same is true of those killed by the
falling tower in Siloam. They were as good as anybody. Repent or some day
you’ll find yourself just as dead as they are. Then
Jesus slips in a tiny parable of grace. There was this little fig tree planted
among the grape vines of a vineyard. It was three years old and had no fruit.
The owner of the vineyard said to the gardener, “Cut this tree down, it doesn’t
bear and it’s using good soil.” The gardener intervened. “Give me a year, sir.
I’ll fertilize it. If it doesn’t bar fruit next year you can cut it down.” What’s
the point? It’s simple. We get a second chance. There is a little time left.
Repent while you can. Learn the way that leads to a relationship with God and
the nurture of the Spirit. If people feel that they don’t need repentance, that
in itself, suggests that they have been captured by conventional wisdom have
list their way. C. S.
Lewis wrote: “The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all
sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting
other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and
back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred.
[2] Pearl
Buck was riding a train in those days when India was one of Britain's colonies.
In her cabin was a British army captain. They stopped in some little, remote
town. Out of nowhere came all these beggars running to the platform, surrounding
the train, shouting and begging. The captain, disturbed by all of this, stood
up, reached into his luggage, and pulled out a rawhide whip. He went out on the
platform and began beating the beggars, scattering them. When he
returned to the cabin, Pearl Buck asked him, “How can you be so cruel? They
didn't hurt you. They were just trying to get some money. There is no law
against that.” The
captain, obviously astounded that anybody would even question what he did, said,
“They are filthy beasts.” Pearl
Buck said, “Someday, other white men, women and children, quite innocent, will
suffer for what you just did now.”
[3]
In that
encounter Pearl Buck was a teacher of subversive wisdom. Jesus
invites us to see the evil in the things we take for granted and to seek a new
source of truth. We are invited to turn from the conventional wisdom of a
punishing and harsh God into the arms of the Spirit who created and sustains the
universe. Only than can we understand the depth of God’s love and the magnitude
of God’s hopes for each one of us. It
doesn’t matter what you have done or not done before you got here this morning.
It doesn't matter how you have messed up your life, or wasted the talents that
God has given you. There is still time. That is God’s greatest gift—the gift of
time. Will you
use that gift? Will you take an opportunity to turn towards God’s intention for
you, to repent and find abundant life? Jesus
Good news is: there is a third way, there is a second chance, and there is still
time. Thanks be to God. |