A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent, Year C

 

Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way

they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. [1]

 

People come to Jesus with a terrible tale:  Pilate, the Roman governor of Jerusalem known for his brutality, has had some Galilean pilgrims killed in the very act of offering sacrifice in the Temple.  They want to know what Jesus has to say about this horror.  Surely he will condemn Pilate!  And maybe he’ll answer that nagging question we ask when a particularly chilling evil takes place– why?  Why in God’s name do such things happen?  Why did these particular Galileans suffer this awful fate?  Did they do something to deserve it?

 

In Jesus’ time many thought that visible suffering could be traced to the sufferer’s own wrongdoing – their suffering was a clear punishment for their sin.  Of course, it could be tricky to figure it all out sometimes.  In John’s Gospel, when the disciples meet a blind man,

they ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  Still, everyone agreed that someone’s specially heinous sin was at the root of the suffering they saw.  Everyone, that is, except Jesus- who wasn’t interested in figuring out who was to blame or why such things happen.  “It was not that this man or his parent’s sinned,” Jesus says, “but rather that God’s works might be revealed” –  and then Jesus healed the man.[2]

 

In today’s story, Jesus challenges the crowd’s assumption yet more directly:  "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  No, I tell you!”  Then he uncovers the dirty little secret behind the tendency to blame others for their suffering:  that if they suffered because of their wrongdoing, then we must be better than they.  “No!” says Jesus.  “But unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” 

 

To emphasize the point, Jesus reminds them of another local tragedy:  “Those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--  do you think that they were worse offenders than everybody else in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."

 

In other words, Don’t waste your time trying to figure out who to blame for the suffering you see around you --  Get to work on your own need to repent.  Writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul makes the same point in different words:  “If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” [3]  Both Paul and Jesus know how much we human beings like to focus on others’ sin as a way of avoiding dealing with our own.  But for the good of our souls & the wholeness of our lives Jesus won’t let us get away with it:  “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." 

 

Jesus doesn’t mean that God will make a special effort to punish those who don’t repent.  Rather, Jesus knows that sin of its very nature is destructive of human life.  Willful persistence in sin damages human beings, sometimes beyond recognition.  Jesus knows that we need  repentance.  He knows the truth in today’s Collect which we may have a hard time hearing:  that we are subject to “evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul;” [4]  that we are capable of evil actions that can deeply wound others’ lives and our own.  Jesus is crystal clear:  We all need to repent.

 

OK – but what is it to repent?  What must we do to re-set our course away from death and towards life and wholeness?  The first thing that likely comes to mind when we think of repentance is being sorry for things we’ve done wrong --  that sometimes skin-crawling feeling of regret over words said or deeds done that we wish we could take back – but no longer can.  The best we can do is say we’re sorry –  both to those whom we have hurt and to God, who bears the pain of every human sin.  

 

Such sorrow is indeed part of repentance, and sometimes a hard to endure – but it is only the beginning.  The Greek word translated “repentance” in the NT is metanoia – which literally means a change of mind.  That change of mind includes remorse for actions we now wish we hadn’t done --  but the change of mind that metanoia speaks of is far more than regret for the past.  

 

Metanoia encompasses changes in feelings, disposition, and approach to life going forward.  To undergo metanoia is to have what we would call today an attitude adjustment –  and an attitude adjustment of a very deep kind.  Metanoia reaches ultimately to change in resolve, in purpose, in will  -- indeed, in the whole of our being.  Metanoia is not just a turning away from sin --  it is turning to God and opening ourselves to God’s desires for us.  

 

All of that means that repentance is as much forward looking as backward looking.  It may start with remorse for past behavior, but it necessarily leads to a desire for and commitment to changed behavior in the future.  After all, how do we know that someone has had a real attitude adjustment -- except by changes in how they act?  How can anyone undergo a deep renewal of self without that showing in their behavior?  

 

Jesus makes this point in the short story he tells at the end of today’s Gospel.  A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard;  and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.  So he said to the gardener, “Look here!  For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none.  Cut it down!  Why should it waste the soil?”  The gardener replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.  If it bears fruit next year, well and good;  but if not, you can cut it down.”[5]  

 

The story repeats the warning Jesus has made – lives that persist in fruitless ways will end in destruction.  But repentance that produces actual results gives life.  As Tiger Woods’ said in his public confession of his many affairs;  “[My wife] pointed out to me [that] my real apology to her will not come in the form of words.  It will come from my behavior over time.”

 

 “It is now up to me to make amends,” he continued.  It is up to me to start living a life of integrity…  I know above all I am the one who needs to change.” [6] That much, at least, Tiger got right.  Real repentance involves real change.  That’s why some Bible translators render metanoia into English with the word conversion  or with phrases like:  “a changed life – changed inside and out.” [7]

 

Real metanoia, then, is a tall order.  It is much more than kneeling in a church on a Sunday morning in Lent and telling God we’re sorry for what we’ve done wrong. It is an attitude adjustment of the deepest kind;  a life adjustment of the fullest kind.  It is turning from all that is destructive of ourselves and others;  at is best, it is turning wholly to God.  

 

If you find that at all daunting, you are not alone.  If you feel like you need help living into real metanoia, you are in excellent company.  And here’s the real good news: God knows we need help with this – and gives it.  As we prayed in this morning’s Collect:  Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves…[8]  And God, knowing we need help and wanting more than we can imagine to lead us on the path to wholeness of life, gives help the help we need.  

 

Two aspects of that help show up in the little story Jesus tells at the end of the Gospel.  Remember what the gardener says to the landowner?  First, he says, give the fig tree another year.  Give it another chance; give it more time.  Time is one of the greatest gifts of grace that God gives to allow metanoia to work in us --  time to face our sin, honestly, often painfully;  time to say we are sorry, and to mean it from the heart;  time for the long, hard, often tedious work of change;  time for that deep adjustment of attitude and action we need.  I’m grateful that, so far, God has given me 56 years for metanoia to be at work in me.  I pray I will be given many more, for I have a very long way to go.  Time is a great gift.  

 

Second, the gardener says, he will dig around the roots and put manure into the soil;  he will nurture the tree with loving care so that it will be able to bear fruits as the landowner wants.  Is it too much to read into these words something about the gift of God’s life-giving grace, maybe even something of the gift of metanoia it self?  After all, the process of metanoia is not unlike what the gardener describes.  Metanoia often involves digging up some dirt;  it can mean working with manure (to put it politely): dark and smelly, to be sure, but properly used, a source of life and growth.

 

Could it be that the gardener’s offer to dig and to spread manure signifies that metanoia itself is a gift from God?  Well… in the Book of Acts, St. Luke says something rather remarkable:  twice, he sys, that in Jesus, God has given metanoia, first to Israel, then to the Gentiles. [9]  Let me say that again -- in Jesus, God has given metanoia, given repentance..  In Jesus, God offers to us that very change of mind and heart, that life-giving adjustment of attitude and action we so desperately need --  God offers this to us as a gift.  

 

We don’t need to do it all on own – which is good, because we can’t.  God offers us help – indeed God is willing, eager to give us the metanoia that leads us to life. God does not want us to persist in the habits of sin that can destroy us.  That is why Jesus warns us to repent in the gospel.  That is also why God gives the gift of metanoia.  What we need to do is to ask for it; accept it;

work with it; dig with it; feed on it; grow with it; --  that our minds, our hearts, our attitudes & our lives can be changed.

 

The Rev. Jack Zamboni,  March 7^th, 2010