One Pebble at a Time
Reflections on Luke 13.1-9
RCL Lent 3C
24 March 2019
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Luke 13.1-9
13.1At that very time there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them — do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
6Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7So he said to the gardener, ‘See 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 be wasting the soil?’ 8He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”
By mid-April of 1981 spring was making a tentative effort to gain a foothold in southern Wisconsin where my seminary, Nashotah House, is located. As a final year student the coming of more sunlight and warmer temperatures heralded the changes that were soon to occur for me and many of my classmates. In six weeks we would graduate. In eight weeks I would be ordained to the transitional diaconate and begin to exercise the ministry for which I had been preparing for three years.
To be sure there were still papers to be written and final examinations to take, but it was a good time. As one of the two senior sacristans of the House I had survived the rigorous and time-consuming preparations for the many liturgical celebrations of Lent, Holy Week and Easter. This was the time of year that the second-year sacristans took up the reins in preparation for graduation and for their duties in the coming year. Now that I was freed from many of my duties, I could concentrate on finishing my theological studies well.
We were in class when the news of the tragedy came to us. The wife of one of the first-year students had parked her car in the driveway of their home and left it running while she went to open the garage door to unload the groceries. When she shut the door of her card, the transmission shifted from park into reverse. The car, with her two-year-old son still in his car seat, rolled into a pond. Despite her desperate and those of her neighbours, the boy drowned.
The next week was one of the more intense weeks I have ever experienced. But the pain and shock we were all suffering became even more horrible when we learned that the accident need not to have happened at all. Several years earlier the car manufacturer had learned of the defect that caused the transmission to shift when the driver’s door was shut with any force. Someone in the company did the math and realized how much it would cost the company to re-call the vehicles and repair the defect. We ever learned that the memorandum had indicated that the cost of any wrongful death settlements would be far less than the cost of a wholesale recall.
Now I’m sure that the person responsible for this calculation did not wish Michael’s death. They undertook the cold equations, provided the analysis and then let someone in a higher pay grade make the decision. But Michael’s death was the result of their actions and the choices they made.
I will not pretend that today’s gospel reading from Luke is easy to understand. Throughout the history of the Jewish and Christian peoples there has been a desire to understand why things happen the way that they do. Countless theologians and even more countless believers have tried to understand how God is working in the world and what is the relationship between our actions and God’s will. We hear people wrestling with this question in today’s gospel. Why would God allow Herod kill people who are simply following their religious duties and traditions? They must have done something wrong. Why would God allow a group of workmen die in an industrial accident? They must have been great sinners.
To them and to us Jesus simply responds, ‘That’s the wrong question. The right question is this --- Do I understand that my actions, for good and for ill, affect the lives of others, some of whom I know and many of whom I do not know?’ After all, the Galileans whom Herod is supposed to have killed were more likely the innocent victims of Herod’s paranoia rather than their own imperfections. After all, the Muslim worshippers killed in Christchurch were innocent victims of a young man holding abhorrent views about Islam and immigrants rather than the thin edge of some international conspiracy to undermine pluralist democracies. After all, the workmen killed in the construction accident in Siloam were more likely the victims of shoddy materials and disregard for any safety protocols than they were for some secret indiscretions. After all, the young people who are killed in industrial accidents in British Columbia are more often victims of peer pressure and fear of standing up to their bosses rather than some deadly sin.
One of the most powerful tools that evil uses in the world today is the quiet whisper in our ears that what we do does not matter. We are told that we live in a world so complex that the actions of individuals do not matter. We look at the evil done in the world and fear takes hold of us, freezing us into inaction. It’s when I begin to hear this whisper and to see the immensity of wrong that exists in our world that I realize the simple wisdom of a familiar bumper sticker: Think globally. Act locally.
We can never underestimate the power of one person to influence the community in which they live and potentially the world in which all of us live. We can never underestimate the power each one of us has to influence the lives of our families, our friends and our neighbourhoods. When Jesus tells his audience to repent, he is asking them more to take seriously the implications of their own actions and decisions than he is asking them to create a catalogue of ‘things done and things left undone’ for which they are sorry. When Jesus tells them the parable of the fig tree, he is reminding them of God’s patience towards us and God’s nurture of us so that we can become the persons God knows us to be.
We here at Holy Trinity know that there are hungry people. So, once a week, fifty-two weeks a year, we feed them breakfast. We provide them with clothing and items for their personal needs. We connect them with resources and with agencies so that their human dignity is respected. On a busy week we may feed 100 people. On a slow week 60. But we act in our own small way to make our small plot of land a place of help, hope and home.
We know that there is a need for more affordable housing. So, for more years than some may wish to remember, we’ve been working towards re-developing the land occupied by the Parish Hall and Offices. It’s not an easy path, but we are drawing closer, I believe, to the realization of our hopes. Some may ask what difference forty-two affordable housing units will make in the face of widespread need. My answer is that we are doing our part and hope that our witness will inspire others to do theirs. In the meantime there will be forty-two individual, couples and families who will find our small plot of land a place of help, hope and home.
We make our choices, my friends, as disciples of Jesus. Not out of guilt but out of joy. Not out of a sense of entitlement but of loving obligation. Not out of a sense of scarcity but out of gratitude for God’s abundance and generosity. Just as a pebble thrown into a pond creates ripples that rock the leaves on the surface of the pond, so God throws us out into the world, trusting that the choices we make will, in small but significant ways, rock our world and bring God’s reign of justice and peace just a little bit nearer. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be for ever. Amen.
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