Sometimes someone needs to to give us a good shake.

Read Luke 13:1-9.

He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way that they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?" (Luke 13:2)

What a strange and gruesome opening to our gospel passage coming on Sunday. Before I had the responsibility of actually explaining scripture to people, I tended just to skip these kinds of verses. People's blood mingled with sacrifices? Yeah, maybe I'll just go straight to the part about the garderner tending the fruit tree.

But here's some food for thought for anyone who might be trying to digest this in full. 1) There are two historical events alluded to in these passages, both of which were horrific. Pilate slaughtered a group of people in his fashion of random brutality. He polluted sacrfices in doing so. This was a wildly oppressive gesture on his part and effected the psyche of the his people much in the same way torture and murder affects people living under violent regimes today. The other event was a random tragedy: the collapse of a building crushing eighteen people. This prompted survivors to proclaim their uprightness. In this way, that ancient world isn't so unlike our own -- all the time, we have to make sense out of violence and tragedy. Sometimes we take the moral high road; other times we imagine ourselves immune for these kinds of horrors. (Matt Skinner this week on workingpreacher.org gives a good explanation of these events and texts and how they connect to repentence which is where I looked for help.)

2) My second thought is this: Jesus' words sound a little harsh. And yet, all he does is call us to task in our false securities. We are no different, no better or worse than any other victim in the world. Just because we live in a place with earthquake proof buildings and a functional government doesn't mean our lives cannot be cut short. It doesn't mean we are better believers because we have survived. Because life is random, the urgency is to right ourselves in relationship to God for the sake of our lives now. Jesus wants us to live our lives as if we are alive to God and not live as if we are slowly perishing from spiritual alienation. A change of heart, an alertness to God, is the root of spiritual growth. And Jesus wants us to have fruitful lives.

Reflection

• How do you handle the parts of the gospel that can come across as condemnation?
• How does one live being mindful that life may be randomly cut short and yet not perish in anxiety trying to stop that from happening?

Prayer

God of love, how you long for us to turn to you. You sent your Son to us, the truthteller, the one who cuts through all the falsities we build around our lives. He reminds us that we are like every one else. With our hearts tuned to you, we may live in peace even amidst the uncertainty. Thank you. Amen