Dismissing A Theology of Retribution
Sermon for Lent 3
Exodus 3:1-13
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
It was the longest however many minutes of my life; I hope I never have to experience it again. When the Dr., the fellow actually, finished telling Sara and I about Leukemia, words and words that were going in one ear and out the other and how this disease was affecting our little boy, and how they would cure it, the words “cure it” screamed through my head, when he finished and had left the room, I remember this feeling of great elation, great joy, great relief and I hugged Sara like I had never held her before. It was as if I had been reborn, made new, resurrected and given new life.
For a moment it was just the two of us in that room, darkness, tears, elation filling us up, we were holding each other, falling into an embrace that wasn’t our own. We squeezed each other and sobbed and simply stood there next to Eliot’s grey, metal crib while he sat there in his little yellow pajamas unfazed by all the tubes, beeping machines and cramped space of the hospital room. In that moment, his little voice came wafting up to us, “Eliot want hug too.” We laughed and cried all at the same time and gave him a big hug and cried a little (ok, a lot) more.
Our lives had been ripped apart, torn asunder, bared open all the way to the bone. It was a holy place for us, in that moment that little hospital room became infected with God’s holiness; it became a thin place, a place where the Kingdom of God and the earth we walk upon meet. That hospital room became a place, a holy place of fear and fright. We became vulnerable in our fear and in our vulnerability were able to hear God’s still small voice in our lives, a voice of re-birth, a voice of a beloved two year old, “Eliot want hug too.”
One of the most memorable sermons I have heard from Barbara Brown Taylor came to my mind as we stood there with Eliot, she spoke eloquently about holy places as torn open spaces, places torn asunder by fear and anxiety, she said, “Look around while you are in that place. Pay attention to what you feel. It may hurt you to see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death. It is the kind of hurt that leads to life.” I look now, back at that place and see that life has truly come out of death. I have taken time to reflect on that moment, the moment we were told Eliot had Leukemia to the moment the Dr walked out the room, I have stayed there and dwelled there listening and imagining a new way to feel God’s presence in my life. How could this happen, why did this happen, why to someone so young? Where is God in the midst of this suffering? Did God cause this? Did God bring the healing to this little boy we so desperately love? These are questions that any one of us who have experienced loss, death, grief over something or someone we deeply love has asked. Questions that shake the very foundation of the faith we have.
Recently a young man I grew up with at Ascension Stillwater went missing, you may have seen it on the news, he was rock climbing in Idaho and simply disappeared. He was young, full of life and had a bright future in front of him. It was sad when they finally stopped the search for him, Jon Francis is his name, they stopped the search and decided it was time to have a service of memorial, a chance for those of us grieving his disappearance to gather and remember him. I can’t imagine the pain that his parents must have felt, to have this beautiful young person torn from their lives, no body, no sign at all of what happened. It was one of the most difficult memorial services I have ever been to.
The homily was done in two parts, first the Rev. Jerry Doherty spoke powerfully about the resurrection and the presence of Jon with the ancestors, but left a little light shining, a little hope for his return. After Jerry, Jon’s father, David spoke, and the entire place, filled to the brim with people, fell absolutely and totally silent. He spoke of his son’s passion for outdoor recreation, for life and for God, he spoke of the memories he will cherish for the rest of his life, and he talked about how sad it was that he had to remember his son in this way. Then he became angry. He became angry at those who had told him at one point or another, probably because they had nothing good to say and were filled with awkwardness in front of a grieving father, he became angry at those who told him that God wanted Jon in that moment and so caused his death. It must have been time Jon’s time; God plucked him from the mountain top and took him to God’s kingdom.
It was an overwhelming moment, but a moment filled with truth. If we believe God has chosen when people die, why then, do we put so much effort into saving people’s lives, pulling them from the rubble, rushing them to hospitals, going to extreme measures to save their lives? If Jesus had believed that, would he not have said to the lepers, to the sick, to those who were full of disease, go and die, God has judged you! David Francis, Jon’s father drove home the point that he believes in God, he believes in the power of God and power of God’s love, but he could not believe in a God that took people away because it was their time, he said. That kind of God is unjust, that kind of God is evil.
I might have used this example from Barbara Brown Taylor in past sermons, but it is appropriate again for today, it is the story of an experience she had working as a chaplain at a hospital for a time. She spoke of how the calls she dreaded the most were not from the ER or from the psychiatric ward or even the morgue, the most dreaded calls came from the pediatric floor. She had received a call from the pediatric floor about a girl who had a brain tumor; she went to be with the girl’s mother while the operation was taking place. The mother said, “It’s my punishment for smoking these damned cigarettes. God couldn’t get my attention any other way, so he made my baby sick.” She continued, crying hard, “Now I’m supposed to stop, but I can’t stop. I’m going to kill my own child!” Brown Taylor’s response was, simply, “I don’t believe in a God like that. The God I believe in wouldn’t do something like that.” In the parable of the fig tree we have Jesus saying exactly the same thing. People walking with him at the time tended to believe that sinfulness caused calamity, that God recognized people’s sin and therefore brought punishment against them, something that still is prevalent in today’s pop culture theology. Likewise, those people who were successful and had money were blessed by God in some way to have received so much.
The writer of the Gospel of Luke is debunking this theology of retribution and in the process is not offering any simplistic answers to atrocities and calamities that often claim human life. If human beings die by the sword, by accident or by natural disaster, it is not because God has arbitrarily chosen to punish them for their sins while sparing others. God, the writer of Luke says, would give even an unfruitful fig tree another chance. Pilate’s ruthlessness is not God’s doing, the falling of a tower on 18 people of Jerusalem was not accomplished by God. Jesus’ point in these stories, was that death is always so close to us, life is fragile, and we must be alert, death can come in the midst of rituals we are doing, it can come in the midst of working in our day, it can come while we are sleeping, we have no idea, so therefore we must repent, we must be sure our faces are always turned toward God, transformed by the power of God’s love in our lives.
Moses was walking along and he saw a burning bush. Out of that bush came a voice, not just any voice, but God’s voice. Moses was torn open in that moment, because God was calling him back to Israel, the place of his birth, the place of his identity. Moses walked into the space that God had made holy with God’s presence, a place that had been ripped open, torn asunder, a place that was filled with fear, fright and anxiety because it was a place where Moses had to face the calling of God in his life. Moses was to go and set God’s people free, liberate the Hebrew people from the oppression of the Egyptians, who were killing every male newborn Hebrew child. Moses was being called to return to the place of his identity, face the Pharaoh and demand that God’s people be set free.
Vocation and calling, when we truly listen to the spirit in our lives, are those places where God is present. As Barbara Brown Taylor said, and as Moses did not do, because it was a little too holy, “Look around in those places.” Where have we been torn asunder by grief, by joy, where have our lives become holy spaces and thin places? Where in our lives, do we place the idea that it is God’s will for pain and destruction and grief, or even for God’s joy and prosperity so we can have an excuse for not feeling the fear of God’s holy presence in our lives. Because that is what it is, an excuse, making pain and agony, joy and elation about God’s will is an excuse for us not to enter the holy places that God is calling us into. God is with us, God is near us, calling us always to follow the way of Christ, a way of healing by being present, a way of prophesying by being profound, a way of living by dwelling in the love of God.
Exodus 3:1-13
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
It was the longest however many minutes of my life; I hope I never have to experience it again. When the Dr., the fellow actually, finished telling Sara and I about Leukemia, words and words that were going in one ear and out the other and how this disease was affecting our little boy, and how they would cure it, the words “cure it” screamed through my head, when he finished and had left the room, I remember this feeling of great elation, great joy, great relief and I hugged Sara like I had never held her before. It was as if I had been reborn, made new, resurrected and given new life.
For a moment it was just the two of us in that room, darkness, tears, elation filling us up, we were holding each other, falling into an embrace that wasn’t our own. We squeezed each other and sobbed and simply stood there next to Eliot’s grey, metal crib while he sat there in his little yellow pajamas unfazed by all the tubes, beeping machines and cramped space of the hospital room. In that moment, his little voice came wafting up to us, “Eliot want hug too.” We laughed and cried all at the same time and gave him a big hug and cried a little (ok, a lot) more.
Our lives had been ripped apart, torn asunder, bared open all the way to the bone. It was a holy place for us, in that moment that little hospital room became infected with God’s holiness; it became a thin place, a place where the Kingdom of God and the earth we walk upon meet. That hospital room became a place, a holy place of fear and fright. We became vulnerable in our fear and in our vulnerability were able to hear God’s still small voice in our lives, a voice of re-birth, a voice of a beloved two year old, “Eliot want hug too.”
One of the most memorable sermons I have heard from Barbara Brown Taylor came to my mind as we stood there with Eliot, she spoke eloquently about holy places as torn open spaces, places torn asunder by fear and anxiety, she said, “Look around while you are in that place. Pay attention to what you feel. It may hurt you to see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death. It is the kind of hurt that leads to life.” I look now, back at that place and see that life has truly come out of death. I have taken time to reflect on that moment, the moment we were told Eliot had Leukemia to the moment the Dr walked out the room, I have stayed there and dwelled there listening and imagining a new way to feel God’s presence in my life. How could this happen, why did this happen, why to someone so young? Where is God in the midst of this suffering? Did God cause this? Did God bring the healing to this little boy we so desperately love? These are questions that any one of us who have experienced loss, death, grief over something or someone we deeply love has asked. Questions that shake the very foundation of the faith we have.
Recently a young man I grew up with at Ascension Stillwater went missing, you may have seen it on the news, he was rock climbing in Idaho and simply disappeared. He was young, full of life and had a bright future in front of him. It was sad when they finally stopped the search for him, Jon Francis is his name, they stopped the search and decided it was time to have a service of memorial, a chance for those of us grieving his disappearance to gather and remember him. I can’t imagine the pain that his parents must have felt, to have this beautiful young person torn from their lives, no body, no sign at all of what happened. It was one of the most difficult memorial services I have ever been to.
The homily was done in two parts, first the Rev. Jerry Doherty spoke powerfully about the resurrection and the presence of Jon with the ancestors, but left a little light shining, a little hope for his return. After Jerry, Jon’s father, David spoke, and the entire place, filled to the brim with people, fell absolutely and totally silent. He spoke of his son’s passion for outdoor recreation, for life and for God, he spoke of the memories he will cherish for the rest of his life, and he talked about how sad it was that he had to remember his son in this way. Then he became angry. He became angry at those who had told him at one point or another, probably because they had nothing good to say and were filled with awkwardness in front of a grieving father, he became angry at those who told him that God wanted Jon in that moment and so caused his death. It must have been time Jon’s time; God plucked him from the mountain top and took him to God’s kingdom.
It was an overwhelming moment, but a moment filled with truth. If we believe God has chosen when people die, why then, do we put so much effort into saving people’s lives, pulling them from the rubble, rushing them to hospitals, going to extreme measures to save their lives? If Jesus had believed that, would he not have said to the lepers, to the sick, to those who were full of disease, go and die, God has judged you! David Francis, Jon’s father drove home the point that he believes in God, he believes in the power of God and power of God’s love, but he could not believe in a God that took people away because it was their time, he said. That kind of God is unjust, that kind of God is evil.
I might have used this example from Barbara Brown Taylor in past sermons, but it is appropriate again for today, it is the story of an experience she had working as a chaplain at a hospital for a time. She spoke of how the calls she dreaded the most were not from the ER or from the psychiatric ward or even the morgue, the most dreaded calls came from the pediatric floor. She had received a call from the pediatric floor about a girl who had a brain tumor; she went to be with the girl’s mother while the operation was taking place. The mother said, “It’s my punishment for smoking these damned cigarettes. God couldn’t get my attention any other way, so he made my baby sick.” She continued, crying hard, “Now I’m supposed to stop, but I can’t stop. I’m going to kill my own child!” Brown Taylor’s response was, simply, “I don’t believe in a God like that. The God I believe in wouldn’t do something like that.” In the parable of the fig tree we have Jesus saying exactly the same thing. People walking with him at the time tended to believe that sinfulness caused calamity, that God recognized people’s sin and therefore brought punishment against them, something that still is prevalent in today’s pop culture theology. Likewise, those people who were successful and had money were blessed by God in some way to have received so much.
The writer of the Gospel of Luke is debunking this theology of retribution and in the process is not offering any simplistic answers to atrocities and calamities that often claim human life. If human beings die by the sword, by accident or by natural disaster, it is not because God has arbitrarily chosen to punish them for their sins while sparing others. God, the writer of Luke says, would give even an unfruitful fig tree another chance. Pilate’s ruthlessness is not God’s doing, the falling of a tower on 18 people of Jerusalem was not accomplished by God. Jesus’ point in these stories, was that death is always so close to us, life is fragile, and we must be alert, death can come in the midst of rituals we are doing, it can come in the midst of working in our day, it can come while we are sleeping, we have no idea, so therefore we must repent, we must be sure our faces are always turned toward God, transformed by the power of God’s love in our lives.
Moses was walking along and he saw a burning bush. Out of that bush came a voice, not just any voice, but God’s voice. Moses was torn open in that moment, because God was calling him back to Israel, the place of his birth, the place of his identity. Moses walked into the space that God had made holy with God’s presence, a place that had been ripped open, torn asunder, a place that was filled with fear, fright and anxiety because it was a place where Moses had to face the calling of God in his life. Moses was to go and set God’s people free, liberate the Hebrew people from the oppression of the Egyptians, who were killing every male newborn Hebrew child. Moses was being called to return to the place of his identity, face the Pharaoh and demand that God’s people be set free.
Vocation and calling, when we truly listen to the spirit in our lives, are those places where God is present. As Barbara Brown Taylor said, and as Moses did not do, because it was a little too holy, “Look around in those places.” Where have we been torn asunder by grief, by joy, where have our lives become holy spaces and thin places? Where in our lives, do we place the idea that it is God’s will for pain and destruction and grief, or even for God’s joy and prosperity so we can have an excuse for not feeling the fear of God’s holy presence in our lives. Because that is what it is, an excuse, making pain and agony, joy and elation about God’s will is an excuse for us not to enter the holy places that God is calling us into. God is with us, God is near us, calling us always to follow the way of Christ, a way of healing by being present, a way of prophesying by being profound, a way of living by dwelling in the love of God.
Comments
Aron, it is so nice to read this and to share in your insights about theology and its impact int he real world.
Thats really all I can say. I know you have probably heard this a lot, but I will say an extra prayer tonight for your son and your family.
See ya Sunday,
Justin