The Rev. Ann R. Lougee March 11, 2007 What's the Verdict? Luke 13:1-9 On this Third Sunday in Lent we may want just to have a pleasant, detached discussion about the suffering of the world, preferably our own suffering, to have pleasant theological discussions about spiritual matters and point the finger of judgment at some scoundrel like Pilate. But Jesus won't let us. He wants to talk about judgment. We come in here wanting to judge Jesus, at least to make a verdict upon his Way, the Way to which he calls his followers. Does it make sense, is it practical? Is it an adequate answer to the deep questions that life puts before us? And so on. And then he questions us, pronounces a verdict upon all humanity, including us. The typical contemporary North American church has succeeded in sentimentalizing Jesus to the point where the romantic "gentle Jesus meek and mild" of the 19th century has been reworked into Jesus our good friend, our buddy, our therapist who always affirms and never criticizes, always blesses and never curses. And yet today's gospel reading presents us with an unsettling picture of a seemingly-judgmental Jesus. Judgment looms over this story. A whole generation stands before the judgment of God. The Pharisees are depicted as collaborating with the Romans in order to get Jesus out of the way, lest they provoke the Romans in any way to come down on their heads with their power. Ironically, just a few years later the time depicted in this story, despite all efforts to keep the Romans at bay, the Romans will brutally come down on Jerusalem, destroying the city, laying waste the temple, and devastating the people. The author of Luke knew this, of course, as he or she was writing in the late years of the first century. Just before today's scripture, at the end of Chapter 12, the author of Luke's Gospel has Jesus say that he has come to "cast fire on the earth." He warns people to read the signs of the times that predict judgment. And while Jesus is speaking about signs of judgment, bad news comes about Galileans killed by Pilate as they were offering their sacrifices at the temple. This is, by the way, the only place in the Gospels where Pontius Pilate, the executioner of Jesus, appears prior to the story of Jesus' death. We know from biblical historians that Pontius Pilate could be an efficient and brutal enforcer of Roman law and order against the Jewish homeland which his armed forces occupy. Pilate is the embodiment of worldly power. He wields his power as if he is responsible to no one. Pilate was eventually removed from his position, shortly after he crucified Jesus, because his cruelty and excessive use of power was too much, even for the Romans. Luke does not tell us why Pontius Pilate murdered these Galileans. We find nothing about this massacre in ancient sources outside the Bible, probably because killings of this sort were so commonplace. That's the way Pilate managed these Jews over whom he governed. When you're a foreign army, occupying somebody else's country, even though you may not want to be brutal, as we have found out in our own occupation of Iraq, it is terribly hard to be an enforcer of the occupation forces' values, without resorting to grave violence against the occupied. So Jesus is told of Pilate's horrible action against the poor Galileans who were just trying to worship God up at the temple. Surely Jesus knew all about Pilate and his terrible history already. Then, as now, when there is some great tragedy, some great disaster, people talk. People try to figure out, by talking, what happened and what to make out of it. And while we talk about these tragedies, usually we have a question in the back of our mind: "I wonder what those people did to deserve this." Jesus is not drawn into a discussion with his disciples about who sinned, or who caused this tragedy. Rather, he throws the whole question back in their laps. "I tell you, unless you repent, you shall also be under judgment." Some ideas die hard, though. The idea that God uses tragedy as a direct punishment for sin is one that persists to this day, despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary. Perhaps that's because we can't conceive of God reacting in other than human ways. In a crisis, we fall back on our childhood ideas of God as a super person somewhere beyond the sky, rather than thinking of God as the very Ground of our Being, the Power that has created all that is and keeps it in Being. Then, we imagine that this God we've constructed in our own image feels anger and acts vengefully because that's how we tend to act. Jesus makes it clear that no such equation can be made. What is made plain is that we are supposed to be productive, or fruitful. We shouldn't waste time in getting at it either, because we never know when one of life's unfortunate accidents may happen. While we are alive, we have lots of chances to become productive. But there are many things that we don't control, and any one of them may put an end to our opportunities to bear fruit, to be useful. Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem. That is the story immediately before this one. He is going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. And on his way, he puts before us a question. "Will you turn, repent, change direction in your life and walk with me? Will you go the Way I am going?" Jesus does not say specifically what we need to do to repent, to turn, and to change. Maybe he doesn't say specifically because that's a question between each of us and God. Perhaps the answer for each of us is different. The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor was honored in 1995 as one of the greatest preachers in the world. In an interview for PBS, Bob Abernethy talked to Taylor about her spiritual journey and her changing views on faith and ministry. In the interview, Taylor she observes, "Much of the religion I was schooled in was about putting myself away, aside, behind me, in order to become something holier and closer to God. To draw nearer to the 'Really Real,' I needed to be less me. Perhaps it was a midlife revelation or just wearing out on that that led me to a different understanding that my humanity was God's chief gift to me. And that if I was going to find the Really Real it was going to be with that and not separating myself from that. It meant that the holiest thing I could be was the human being God had made me to be, flaws and all." That's what I think Jesus did. I think he found his own truest self, his most fully human self, which put him in touch with the God within, with his own divinity. I believe he had the courage to follow that full realization to its conclusion in his crucifixion as an enemy of the State. He turned away from any aspirations toward power over others to help others discover their own power. That is, he repented, he turned back, returned, to his true self. I learned something new from the book which our Readers & Seekers are currently studying! What I learned is a different meaning for the word "repent." I already knew that the biblical meaning is quite different from the later Christian meaning of contrition for sin. I knew that in the Hebrew scriptures it has the meaning of "to turn around," "to return," especially "to return from exile"... This image is commonly associated also with "the way," and "journey." What I learned, though, is that in the Greek in which the New Testament was written, the roots of the word translated "repent" mean "to go beyond the mind that you have." So to repent in the New Testament sense is to embark upon a way that goes beyond the mind that you have. In Luke's gospel, it is to follow Jesus on his "Way," as he journeys in the way of radical justice and compassion that will lead ultimately to his death on a Roman cross. Lent is a time of seeking communion with God, earnestly and thoughtfully, in a time of spiritual discipline and particular attentiveness to the ways God is speaking in our lives. It's a time to allow that sense of God's speaking in our lives to lead us to new fruitfulness. Whether in the Sanctuary or on our bed, we can, as the Psalmist said, listen for God's voice, feel God's presence abiding with us, sense God's reassuring love and challenging call. What we face when we walk out of church or rise from bed in the morning is what God calls us to be and do, how to be fruitful. We may be surprised to discover our strongest communion with God most unexpectedly, in the highways and byways of life, in the hustle and bustle of everyday activities. Or we may find God in the Sanctuary in the quiet stillness of time spent doing nothing but waiting on God. We may even discover that we become most fruitful when life has spread manure all around us. The season of Lent is, indeed, a time for repentance. It is time for going beyond the mind we have had. It is not time for looking back at our past and groaning, "oh alack and alas," but a time to look ahead and say, "Wow!" May it be so. Amen.