Am I the Cause of My Misfortune?

Luke 13:1-9

Am I the cause of my own misfortune?

1At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.2[Jesus] 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.’ ” NRSV

3/24/19 | Trinity Lutheran Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn |

Rev. Michael Vanacore

In our Gospel passage for today, Jesus tackles one of the oldest and most deep-seated theological dilemmas: is our righteousness connected in some way to the blessings we receive on this earth, and, conversely, is our sinfulness somehow a cause of the misfortunes and tragedies that befall us? In other words, when things are going well for us, are we correct in feeling that we have done something right to deserve it? Or on the other side, when things are going really poorly, did we do something wrong to bring this misfortune on ourselves?

Jesus answers this question in our text for today with a resounding NO! No, God ultimately does not relate to us in this strictly reward-punishment paradigm. In fact, Jesus warns us against the pride that would lead us to judge the misfortunes of others, and God calls us ALL--good and bad, rich and poor--to repent. That kind of deep, transformative, holistic repentance that will lead each of us, and this whole world, to a new life in Christ.

Our Gospel passage begins with a group of people who relay to Jesus a terrible event: the brutal execution of a group of Galileans in the temple of Jerusalem by the tyrant Pilate. And this massacre was done during the most holy of occasions--the ritual sacrifice that was the high point of the religious life of the Jewish community. Our Scripture relates how the blood of those poor souls fell down and mingled with the blood of the animals that had been just offered up on the altar. This was obviously a horrible and traumatic event for all present, and its fame had clearly echoed out throughout the whole region.

Interestingly, Jesus does not respond in the way that we--and I imagine those present--would have expected. This is one of those moments when Jesus sees through the words of those who approach him and speaks directly to the innermost workings of their hearts and minds. And into ours as well.

Rather than responding with horror at the atrocity of what happened, and even rather than jumping to anger and reproach of the dictator Pilate, Jesus reveals the deep prejudice that the people who had raised the issue--and probably everyone there--were harboring deep in their hearts. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?”

With these words, Jesus captures in a sentence the dominant mode of theological thought in his day. According to this way of thinking, the rich and fortunate enjoy those blessings because God has rewarded them richly for their superlative moral character. And the poor and unfortunate suffer because God is punishing them for their sinful and immoral ways. This way of thinking is powerfully on display in the Gospel of John, when the people ask Jesus of the blind man that they have brought to him to heal, “who sinned--this man, or his parents?” (John 9:2).

This theology in fact became the dominant strain of thought in much of the Protestant church--in particularly those churches descending from the great theologian Calvin and the Reformed tradition. And it remains a deep--and often unconscious--part of our religious and even secular worldview today.

Let me give you a lighthearted example and a more serious one of what I am talking about.

There is a rapper I really like named DMX. DMX took a major turn at one point in his life and became a preacher in the evangelical tradition. It made me very happy to see this man turning his gifts and talents in music and singing to the work of proclamation. And it made me laugh the other day to see this rapper from the late 90’s pop up on the Instagram feed of a friend of mine, the Minister Candace Simpson.

In her feed, she shared a video of DMX opening a morning outdoor service somewhere in Arizona. The video shows DMX entering into a powerful prayer of confidence and surety in the blessings of God. God, he proclaimed, is behind him and with him at every step. God is working to open every door, to overcome every obstacle, to increase his territory and bring great abundance to his life. It was a very positive, encouraging message, and the crowd around him responded with shouts and praise. It made me happy to see, and my friend as well. She wrote a post about how good it was to see the rapper DMX out there testifying to his faith.

But then she wrote another comment about how this kind of preaching can actually be problematic. To the best of my memory, she wrote, “What about the people who have not overcome today, who do not find themselves blessed with increase, abundance, and victory? Is God somehow less with them?” And that made me realize how troubling it can be if we see our successes and victories in this world as somehow evidence of God’s blessing on our lives.

Because when things don’t go well, we risk thinking that God has somehow abandoned us, or that we have done something wrong to incur God’s disfavor.

The more serious example comes from my time during seminary. During one class, a professor told us the story of a woman who had recently been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer. A chaplain went to visit her, and this woman said to her, “I believe that God is punishing me for the horrible things that I have done in my life.”

I believe that this example shows us how deeply this theology of reward and punishment, this belief in a God who rewards us for our righteousness and afflicts us for our sins, runs so deeply in our church and in our psyches.

I think that we all know what it feels like to find ourselves in some kind of awful situation, and our brain just turns on us, and we start to think that somehow, someway, we are to blame. We are the cause. That in some way we deserve the misfortune that has befallen us, and that God is righteously punishing us for the wrongs we have done.

But the good news is that the God that we worship is not ultimately a God of vindication, a God of judgment, a God of judgment. Our God is, as the Psalm says, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast mercy” (Ps 145:8). A God who does not use hardship and tragedy to drive us to repentance, but who rather who walks with us in the midst of that suffering and works at all times towards our liberation.

The great insight of the Protestant Reformation was that none of us are perfect, none of us are blameless, and none of us can ever, through our own striving, win our way into God’s favor; for that we are entirely reliant on God’s grace.

And so let us heed Jesus’s warning and resist the temptation to look with disdain upon the misfortune of others. In this Lenten season, let us look deeply within ourselves and to realize that, in many ways, we are all living lives far removed from the grace of God. Let us seize the chance, while we yet have time, to turn into the arms of our loving and compassionate God. Because when we do this, when we truly turn back to God, God pours down upon us the greatest gift of all--the gift of abundant life. Amen.