July 29, 2007

Oofta - has this been a hot summer? We are on our way to some kind of record. Do you suppose God is trying to tell us something? Like take your head out of the sand and take the scientists seriously, global warming is real. Of the twelve hottest years on record, globally speaking, 11 of them have been in the past 12 years.

It reminds me of a line in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, "Some certain significance lurks in all things."

The water temperature changes off the coast of Chile and it affects the weather in New Jersey. Go figure! We call it the El Nino effect. If this is so, it must be true, "Some certain significance lurks in all things."

This is why we study history. Historians sort out the events, put them in sequence, and show cause and effect. This way we can learn the "lessons of history," because there is "some certain significance...in all things."

This is why we go to the doctor's. We ask the doctor, "what is the meaning of these aches and pains in my body?" We believe the symptoms have some certain significance, based upon which the doctor will make a diagnosis leading to a prognosis, and a prescription for pain medication.

This is why we listen to economists. Economists study the numbers of the "leading economic indicators," believing these statistics will determine the price of bread and a spool of thread.

There is "some certain significance" in the stats, so we listen to the economist's interpretation, and invest in our mutual funds accordingly, like cows. Even though, as the joke goes, "You know what you get when you cross an economist with a godfather?" Answer: "An offer you cannot understand."

Of course, it is the same when a tragic event occurs. We want to know, "Why did this happen to me?" Our fender gets bent on 10th, we want to know, why me? Hail nails my crop and not my neighbors. Why me? The diagnosis of cancer? Why me? We believe "some certain significance lurks in all things."

Let's look at Luke. Our gospel lesson for this morning. By the way, Kama, I have been in Luke these past weeks, but I have looked ahead and I have not stolen any of your lectionary thunder. The lectionary wisely skips this morning's pithy piece.

It is the question brought to Jesus. There are two tragedies in the news. Everybody is talking about them. First, Pontius Pilate, Roman ruler of Israel, slays some Jews, Galileans specifically, who are worshiping at the Temple. They are preparing for prayer, properly prescribed by the Hebrew Law, and Pilate's soldiers slice them up with swords. A massacre.

The people ask Jesus, "Why them? What did they do?" There must be some certain significance in this slaughter.

Second, workmen are building an aqueduct in a part of the city of Jerusalem called Siloam. In fact, in recent years archeologists have uncovered portions of these incredible aqueducts just south of the Temple mount. You, Kama, have been there.

Back then it was a tremendous project, stones and scaffolds, towers and arches. During the construction one of the towers collapses, killing eighteen persons passing by.

The people ask Jesus, "Why them? What did they do?" The same questions we ask when tragedy strikes. Why me? What did I do? What is the message and meaning in this? You see, we believe there must be some certain significance in this tragedy.

The biblical people believed this because of their theology. They were taught that bad things were a consequence of sin. So those who were slain while praying at the Temple, they must have screwed up big to deserve this consequence. Well, or as Galileans, which meant, low grade Jews, maybe God was just having a bad hair day, for Galileans were expendable.

Those eighteen catching the brick on the head at the Siloam aqueduct project? You can bet there was some certain significance in their demise. God no doubt catching up with each of them for their wrongdoing. So the interpretation is: this is God's providence (intention), rather than accident.

The people learned of this relationship between cause and effect in the Bible. It is called the "Deuteronomic code." It is called this because it is found primarily in the Book of Deuteronomy, though it is sprinkled in other places in the Old Testament as well.

The authors of Deuteronomy, a consortium of priests in the court of Josiah in the mid-7th century B.C., believed there was "some certain significance" in every historical event. They believed this because they believed God was the ruler of history. And if God was the ruler, then there must be some meaning in every event that befalls us.

For the Deuteronomists, the pattern was clear: you do evil and bad things happen; you do good, you get blessings. In other words, sin brings suffering and righteousness brings prosperity.

This was still the ruling theology of Jesus' day, though books like Job offer a counterpoint to this uncompassionate and uncompromising code, where Job, a righteous man, suffers much unjustly.

Therefore, the news of two tragedies, the slaying of Galileans at the Temple, and the accident killing eighteen at the construction site in Siloam, has the people asking Jesus, "What did these people do to deserve this punishment? What led to this just fate?"

Well, "God is still speaking" through Jesus, when Jesus responds to the people: "Do you think that these Galileans who were victims were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered this? I tell you, No. Or those eighteen on whom the tower fell, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others in Jerusalem? I tell you, No."

I am so glad Jesus said this, and that it got saved in sacred scripture. Because I do no believe that everything that happens to us - the good and the bad of it - has a reason. Some things happen just because of dumb luck, and we are not going to know the reason why, because there is no reason
why. It's just life, and life is not as simple and as systematic as the Deuteronomic code would
have us believe, though we wish it were so, sort of.

Especially when the bad is happening to someone else and we can let ourselves off the hook by saying, "Hey, they deserved it. It's not my problem."

As Paul preached to the Corinthians, "We see in part." (I Corinthians 13:12) Maybe some day, as in heaven, we will see the whole and make all the connections of cause and effect, but not now. Now we see as "through a glass darkly."

This was "good news" to some of the people in Jesus' day. Specifically, this was "good news" to the poor, the lame, the leper, the outcasts of Jesus' society, who, according to the Deuteronomic code, were being punished for their sins. Jesus said, "No. You've got it wrong. These are God's children, too, and God loves these people."

Instead of telling the downtrodden they are getting what they deserved, Jesus tells them they are forgiven, and that God is with them, not against them. So have hope and begin anew. And to those who have it good, Jesus says, care for these less fortunate; don't condemn them, for there by the grace of God go you.

Well, it is pretty easy to figure out who likes Jesus and who does not. Jesus has nothing to do with this unmerciful, moralistic reasoning that says those that suffer deserve it. "Do you think these Galileans who were victims were worse sinners than the others...I tell you, no."

Jesus says, life is not this simple. Life is more complex than this, as well as more random and accidental. "Why me?"s will get us no where. We do not cause cancer, any more than we cause lightening to strike. It's the world we live in. So live with it, faithfully.

To Melville's comment, "Some certain significance lurks in all things," Jesus says, on the one hand, "no." No, there is no significance. So don't be so smug and satisfied with your pat answers.

Yet on the other hand, Jesus reinforces Melville's aphorism, with a twist.

For to the question, "What did these Galileans do to deserve Pilate's wrath? What did the victims at the Siloam aqueduct do to deserve the fatal blow of random rocks?" Jesus says, first of all, "They did nothing!" They did not cause this fate, nor deserve it.

And second of all, Jesus adds, wouldn't you know, we wish he did not add, but Jesus adds, as we have come to expect, "I tell you, if you do not turn from your sins you will die as they did." Say what?

Consider the scene. The crowds have gathered around Jesus to hear what the victims of these two tragedies have done to deserve their bad fate. They are at a distance disturbed by these tragedies and
want a simple explanation, one that will ease their troubled minds, assure them that the world is indeed a just and fair place, and comfort them that they need not get involved in the mess, for everything is as God wishes.

Jesus says, "No, it's not." These folks are innocent victims, no more deserving of their fate than you. So don't look to them - and to their sin - for the answer to your questions. You will not find a simple cause and effect. If you want answers, look to yourself. Look to your own sins, or you, too, may suffer a similar fate.

As it turns out, Jesus is affirming their theology, though in an unconventional and unpopular way. He is refuting the simplistic Deuteronomic code, which says the good will prosper and evil will befall the bad. But he is affirming a relationship between behavior and consequence, between cause and effect.

What Jesus is saying is we are interrelated. What I do affects you and what you do affects me. Which is not what the people wanted to hear. They wanted to walk away from these tragedies undisturbed and with peace of mind.

Instead, Jesus says, these events have everything to do with you. It could be you, it should be you, it may be you next, so you better do something about it. You better be concerned, offer sympathy to the victims families, show support for the widows, create scholarships for the orphaned children, or you will die as they did.

What will die? Your community. What will perish? The covenant in which God relates to you, which is what God is really about in Deuteronomy.

Jesus is saying Deuteronomy is not about pin pointing the cause of tragedy, especially as we seek to blame it on the victims, saying they caused this event to happen to themselves, the slaughter at the Temple, and the accident at the aqueduct.

It's just not there, Jesus says, a nice, tidy system that explains everything in life, sparing us questions, "Why did this happen?" and moreover concerns, "What should I do?"

But Jesus says Deuteronomy is about explaining the fabric of life. We are bound together, to one another and to God. This fabric is called a covenant in the Bible, and it is like a web. You touch it at one place and it will wobble at another place. You break a strand, and the whole web is weakened.

Therefore, Jesus preaches, there are repercussions to our actions. What I do affects you, and what you do affects me. Which means, my sins are not mine alone. They hurt you, too, even if you do not know about them.

So Jesus says, to those who are ostensibly good citizens, curious as to why tragedies happen to others and looking for justification to remain uninvolved, "unless you repent, you will likewise perish." Jesus does not let them off with a simplistic theology.

Instead he uses these two historic and tragic illustrations to bring calls them back into covenant, back into a relationship with a God of compassion and concern, who calls us to care for God's children.

If you want to sum up Jesus' teaching to his fellow Jews, it is something like, life is not about obedience to letters in a Law; life is about our relationship to God, where our very lives are an expression of God's love.

In the chapter before this, Jesus says, "You look to the west, you can see the clouds forming out over the Mediterranean, and you know there is going to be rain. You look to the south, to the desert, you feel the wind coming and you know it is going to be a scorcher. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the weather signs; but why don't you know how to interpret the present times?"

This is the key to understanding this text. Jesus is saying it is not only true there is an El Nino effect for weather, that the temperature of the water off the coast of Chile affects our weather in Montana, but that there is an El Nino effect for people. What I do affects you and what you do affects me.

Especially the El Nino, which, of course, means, "the child (boy)" in Spanish. We especially have to be careful of how our actions affect the children, and those who would come after us. Pearl Buck was riding a train back in those days when India was a British colony. In her cabin was a British army captain. They stopped in some little, remote village. Out of nowhere children appeared, begging at the platform.

The captain, annoyed by this, reached into his luggage, pulled out a rawhide whip, and proceeded to beat the children, successfully scattering them.

Pearl Buck asked, "How can you be so cruel? The children did not hurt you; they are just trying to survive. We should help them, not beat them."

Astounded anyone would question his authority or action, he commented, "They are filthy beasts."

Pearl, not intending to be a prophet, but having some common sense of the covenant, which binds us together, concluded, "Someday, other white men, women and children, quite innocent, will suffer for what you did just now."

Some certain significance lurks in all things. And that certain significance is God - working for good in all things, including through us. For this is God's world, and we are all bound in it together.

Back to the global warming thing. I am thinking a great goal for our congregations for this next year would be the "greening" of our shared facility. After all, green is the liturgical color for Pentecost, symbolic for life.

AMEN