In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
How many of us here ever took a high school or a college class in physics? Help me out here--see if we can finish the sentence together--it’s Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Here goes: for every action, there is an equal and opposite _________.
An equal and opposite reaction. That’s certainly true in the physical world as Isaac Newton saw it, and as we see it still. And its truth or its falsehood is the issue that our readings are pointing at today for the spiritual realm. In other words--every time we do something less than good, is God ready to clobber us for it? Our readings today give us a tantalizing mix of answers to this question.
First let’s look at the Epistle--this is from Paul. He grew up a Pharisee. He was an educated and cosmopolitan Jew who brought his intellectual Jewish background along when he became a believer in Jesus, a follower of the Way, a Christian. In this part of the letter, Paul is speaking to converts from Judaism to Christianity, and wrestling with the story that’s primary in Jewish formation--the Exodus under Moses from Egypt to the Promised Land. He’s using the Exodus and its events as an encouragement to the people to hold fast to their faith, to repent of their wrongdoing, to trust that God in Christ will pull them through any trials they may encounter, including death by martyrdom.
Take a close look and you can see he’s taking them through various episodes in their past, and linking the bad stuff to God’s retribution for their sins. He says that their ancestors were led by Moses into an awareness of God’s care, yet they committed evil things against God’s Law--think of the golden calf or the various episodes of unfaithfulness and distrust of God that fill the pages of the book of Exodus. And Paul says quite clearly that 23,000 were slain by God for sexual immorality. He says that those who put God (Christ) to the test were slain by serpents. And some who complained were destroyed by the destroyer--that would be God.
Now this interpretation is not new to Paul. It’s right there in the Old Testament, too--a clear assertion that God punished people with death for their evildoing and mistrust. And he ends this section with a warning to the Corinthians--”So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.”
I don’t know about you but this passage certainly makes me stop and think, and go to God with sorrow for the ways I’ve mistrusted and misbehaved. That is certainly Paul’s intent. He is coming from the place that says, if you break the Covenant and misbehave, God will react and push back and punish you. And the world will see it and know it, and you will be an example to others.
So now let’s turn to Jesus’ words. The Gospel of Luke was written down about 30 years after Paul was writing. So it’s entirely possible that Paul was unaware of the teachings of Jesus that we have before us today. Isn’t that interesting? And isn’t it interesting that the lectionary gives us both of these readings on one day? It’s forcing us to consider the philosophical issue of misbehavior and punishment--and repentance.
So now we turn to Jesus. Some people asked Jesus if the Jews who were slaughtered by Pilate, and whose blood was added to the blood of sacrifice they’d offered at the temple, were allowed by God to be killed because of their sins being so much worse that the sins of other Galileans? And Jesus says no, that’s not the case.
Then they ask about the 18 people who were killed when a tower fell on them and crushed them--was that because they were notorious sinners? And Jesus says no.
In other words Jesus is telling us to be very careful with our interpretations. God doesn’t reach out and clobber us for our wrongdoing right on the spot. People caught in tragedy aren’t suffering because God wants to get back at them.
Remember some of the strong and judgmental interpretations we heard from Christian Conservative preachers right after 9/11? I’d rather not dredge them up here today because they were so hurtful . . . but in the spirit of Jesus’ words these interpretations could not have been correct.
One of the classic questions that new hospital chaplains are asked by patients, is “what did I do to deserve this? Is God getting back at me because of something I’ve done in my life that was a really terrible choice and that hurt people? Is it payback time?”
And of course the answer is No. God doesn’t clobber us or inflict suffering upon us in this life as a way of punishing us or getting retribution.
YET now let’s look at the rest of Jesus' words to his listeners and to us: Jesus says that God certainly doesn’t clobber us to get back at us. However, we are to repent, to turn our lives around, because IN THE END OF DAYS there will be a judgment. And unless we are judged worthy, we will pay for it. In Jesus words, “unless you repent, you will all perish.”
Now as a preacher I don’t know how to make those words any less chilling. Jesus is taking the idea of judgment out of the here-and-now and putting it at the end of days, giving judgment an apocalyptic setting--the Last Judgment, if you will. We’re told to repent because we will be judged.
Not a warm and fuzzy message today, is it?
Perhaps we can warm it up a bit, though, by casting repentance in a different light--an equally legitimate light. We can repent because we acknowledge the goodness and the holiness of God--as Moses did today by obeying and taking off his shoes, and ultimately by acceding to God’s call for him, strange and difficult as it seemed to him.
We repent because we’re grateful to God and we wish to do God’s will. We love God and we want to do right by God. That means we look at our lives, we ask for help in changing, and we respond to God in love and gratitude, and, yes, in fear and awe. We respond to God’s call to be changed because we love God, we desire union with God, as we hear in the words of the psalm today:
"O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,
as in a barren and dry land where there is no water."
"For your loving-kindness is better than life itself;
my lips shall give you praise."
"So will I bless you as long as I live
and lift up my hands in your Name. . . ."
Judgment is coming. But if we live as people who love their God and wish to grow ever more like God, we have nothing to fear, and everything to look forward to. God may not, after all, obey the laws of Newtonian physics.
