Mon 8 Mar 2010
How Can I Help?
Posted by Bonnie under Sermons
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David Orendorff Luke 13:1-9 March 7, 2010
Once upon a time a Jerusalemite was reading the Jerusalem Times and saw an article that puzzled him. Knowing that a wise man named Jesus was in town, he went to Jesus for an answer. It seems that some Galileans were on a holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem and, on the way to the temple to make a sacrifice Pilate, the Rome-appointed governor of Judea took umbrage and had the Galileans killed. The reader’s question was, “Were the Galileans killed because they were bad people?”
This is our old friend “blessings theology” (God blesses good people and curses bad people) sticking its ugly head up yet one more time. If you get killed by a power -mad tyrant, you must have done something bad to deserve it.
Jesus answers with what I can only imagine was an incredulous tone: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered such?” followed by an emphatic, “I tell you, NO!”
Then Jesus takes the Jerusalem Times and points to another article. Eighteen construction workers in the Siloam tunnel, which is the main supply of water to Jerusalem, were killed when a tower in the tunnel fell. Jesus asks, “Do you think those who were killed were worse folks than all the others who dwell in Jerusalem?” And again he answers, “I tell you, NO!”
Note, for clarity, that the tragedies which struck were in no way the result of the behavior of those who died. That is, they weren’t smokers who died of lung cancer. They were victims of someone else’s decisions and actions-in one case the vicious power of Pilate and, in the other, faulty construction.
We could take today’s Seattle Times, find an article about a tragedy and ask the same question, “Did this happen because this was a bad person, a person worse than other people in King County?” Blessings theology just doesn’t hold water; it doesn’t make sense. Very bad things like car wrecks, earthquakes, the holocaust, famine, poverty, and fatal illnesses happen to very good and very innocent people.
Jesus doesn’t just deny that God operates by blessings theology, he also says, twice, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” What is that about? It sounds pretty threatening and a little confusing. Repent from what? Perish like the Galileans, like the construction workers? What is Jesus talking about?
A refresher course on “repent” will help. When someone tells us to repent, we usually think of the bad stuff we do and our need to stop doing it, with an added “I am sorry.” While this is hopefully the consequence of repentance, it is not the heart of repentance. The word we translate as repent literally means “to change one’s mind or opinion.” Saying I am sorry and trying to change behavior is not repentance, it is the consequence of repentance, of a changed mind. We have all known and been folks who are sorry and say sorry and then do it again. Why? Because the same old mind generates the same old behavior. Only when we have a true transformation of mind do we actually quit doing it or do it differently, whatever it is.
But what about the “likewise perish” part of “unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Folks who spend their time thinking about how the blessings and curses of life come from a power greater than themselves have what we now call a victim mentality. Why? Because those with a “blessings theology” mind don’t believe they have power over their lives, but that they are most generally at the mercy of some powerful other, be it a god or a person.
Barbara Baker, in a psychological article discussing victim mentality, writes: A victim mentality is one where you blame everyone else for what happens in your world… If you do not get the promotion it is because Mr. Johnson was out to get you. Not because he found you playing on the Internet every day. Your best friend called and said she could not have dinner with you. She is always doing that to you; not showing. You’ll show her. You won’t invite her when you go out again! Instead of remembering she has just started school and you did call her at the last minute. Victim mentality.[1]
And those who live as victims, Jesus says, perish. Barbara Baker says they become resentful, angry, trapped in their circumstances, both physically and emotionally ill and often abusive of others. And further, folks with a victim mentality will sometimes actually set themselves up to be the victim.[2]
I love that AA calls this old thinking “stinking thinking.”
Jesus wants a new way of thinking, and that new way of thinking is in the parable of verses 13:6-9. In the new way of thinking life is a vineyard, a garden. The garden, in Judaism’s literary use, is both the creation and the community of the loving faithful by which we have been blessed.
And in this wonderful garden, we are the plants. A garden is a garden because, though there are a great variety of plants, all of the plants are meant to be fruitful, be it a fruit, a vegetable, a medicine or a flower.
What will get the fig tree (or any other plant) yanked out of the garden is being barren. If the fig tree doesn’t grow figs, it is gone. If the lilac doesn’t bloom, it is gone.
But in this garden, in God’s garden, there is a gardener who loves even the barren fig tree, and who will dig about its roots and haul manure that the fig tree might bear fruit and be saved. In God’s garden there is hope for the fig tree because there is a gardener who loves it. What matters in the new way of thinking is that the owner of the garden and the gardener not only want us to be fruitful, they suspend judgment and come to our aid. God and Jesus not only want us to succeed, to live and not perish, they suspend judgment and come to our aid.
For Luke and his congregation, being fruitful has a very specific understanding. It is to do justice as the prophets, especially Jesus, did. The prophet Micah sums it up well when he writes, “…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”[3]
Whenever we find the word “repent” in Luke’s Gospel, it leads the reader to think new thoughts about God (Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit); to think of God as the one who cares for us and serves us that we might care for and serve others; to think new thoughts about how to live a just and kind life which blesses the outsider and the oppressed just as we have been blessed.
To put the mind shift in blunt terms: When we read in the newspaper of the earthquakes of Haiti and Chile, the thing we are to think about is not, “I wonder what they did to deserve this,” but to think about “How can I/we help?” So let’s practice this new thinking just to make sure we have it. I will set up a scenario and then give you a choice of either “a” or “b.”
You see a 13-year-old boy crumpled next to his skateboard in the parking lot. What do you think?
a. Stupid skater. Maybe next time he will be more careful.
b. How I can help?
And who will help you help?
Another one: You hear that a couple is getting a divorce. What will you think?
a. Good people have good marriages. What’s wrong with them?
b. How can I help?
And who will help you help?
Here is one more question just to make sure we have it. You hear that someone is HIV/AIDS positive. What will you think?
a. They must be sleeping around a lot.
b. How can I help?
You get the idea, right?
During Lent we are asked to make an honest self examination of our minds and hearts. And should stinking thinking lead us off the trail, we pray for the power of God’s mind changing and healing love to enter us and change us to be more like God’s love as known in Jesus. The new thinking of our repentance is that we live in a wonderful garden and are tended by a loving gardener that we might forever bear the fruit of lovingkindness.
Shalom and Amen.
My wish for you[4]
I wish you not a path devoid of clouds, nor a life on a bed of roses,
Not that you might never need regret,
nor that you should never feel pain.
No, that is not my wish for you.
My wish for you is:
That you might be brave in times of trial,
when others lay crosses upon your shoulders.
When mountains must be climbed and chasms are to be crossed,
When hope can scarce shine through.
That every gift God gave you might grow with you
and let you give your gift of joy to all who care for you.
That you may always have a friend who is worth that name,
whom you can trust and who helps you in times of sadness,
Who will defy the storms of daily life at your side.
One more wish I have for you:
That in every hour of joy and pain you may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you and for all who care for you.
This is my hope for you now and forever.
– anonymous Irish blessing
[1] http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Baker4.html
[2] ibid
[3] Micah 6:8
[4] video - http://www.e-water.net/viewflash.php?flash=irishblessing_en
text - http://musings-in-a-strange-land.blogspot.com/2008/02/this-week-my-dad-was-told-about-awesome.html



