Third Sunday in Lent 3/3/13

Third Sunday in Lent 3/3/13 Text: Luke 13:1-9 Title: God’s Providence or Karma in the Face of Life’s Tragedies? Today’s reading is pretty gruesome. God’s people are murdered with their blood mixed with the blood of their sacrifices. A tower falls and many are killed. It is pretty bad, downright evil we would say, especially the murder of God’s people while they are worshiping God. Karma which is what goes around comes around, or God’s providence which refers to God's preservation of creation, his cooperation with everything that happens, and his guiding of the universe. I think most people, even Christians believe Karma, even though they would never say “Karma” for they believe that if you do good you get good. Do evil you get evil. Totally unscriptural, for God’s Word does not teach Karma but God’s providence. In our gospel reading for this morning, the same question is asked, “Is it of God’s providence or Karma that those people died?” Jesus answers the question with a question and then gives them the answer to their question and our question; when he tells them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” You have to admit that is not a very satisfying answer, for he did not answer their question or our question concerning the problem of evil, especially senseless evil when it happens to the innocent, for we like them, in asking that question, are questioning God’s goodness and might rather than accepting our sinfulness and lack of repentance. The question of why does God allow evil when God is good and all mighty takes many forms. Sometimes the question “Why are some saved, and not others saved?” or “Why did my loved one died young?” Or, “Why did the company I so faithfully worked for pension plan fail?” Or, maybe it is when one’s marriage has failed, “Why when I believe that she was the one God had chosen for me, she has divorced me?” Or, why are those scoundrels getting off scot free when I have to pay the price for doing the same thing they did?” “Why is life so unfair?” Or, in the case of the recent tornado “Why did my home or business get hit when my neighbor’s home or business had no damage?” We who so desperately want God to be fair are left with no satisfactory answer, and are thus left wondering if God is truly fair. The people of Jesus’ day questioned him more than once concerning God’s care and purpose. Jesus disciples once wanted to know whether the man who had been born blind had brought his condition upon himself or whether his parents were at fault. It is not clear exactly what Jesus meant when he replied, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him” for the translation does not make clear whether Jesus’ “that” refers simply to the result of the situation or to its actual purpose. Jesus may have been simply saying, “Whatever the cause, the result of his blindness is that God’s work is to be made manifest here.” We just don’t get it. God makes someone blind, so that Jesus would look good, even though the text does not say that, and we desperately want God to be good and mighty, to have everything in his control that we have to come up with some way to God off the hook, otherwise why believe in him? Here are just a few ways of getting God off the hook, concerning the problem of evil and his part in it since he is perfectly good and almighty. You could, as some do, that there are two gods, God and Satan who are more or less equal; one good and one evil. What we experience in life is the battle between the two, like we read about in the book of Job, except that God and Satan are never equal in the book of Job. Satan can only do what God allows him to do, but that brings up a whole new set of questions. But nevertheless for some God and Satan are for the most part equal. One time one wins, the next time the other wins. That explains the problem of evil, but is less than satisfactory, for there is no comfort in a God who is not almighty. Others say, as the Christian Scientists still believe today, that evil is just an illusion. In other words they deny that evil even exists. This type of enlightenment thinking of Christian Scientist soft-pedals the human experiences of guilt and shame, of tragedy and tribulation and trouble, of despair, death, and damnation by putting on a happy face. Thus God is always good and almighty. Then there are those who believe what Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote in his selling book that can be found in lots of Christian homes, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He solves the problem of evil by teaching that while God is good he is not almighty. He writes that we can only hope that God is evolving toward being almighty. That because he is not there yet we must forgive and love God in spite of the fact that he does not come up to our standards for good. Thus Rabbi Kushner’s god is a thoroughly human god, truly a god created in our own image. Furthermore, he focuses only on the evils outside us, the evils over which we have no control. He avoids confronting the evil within. Thus he too does not fully answer the question of God being good and almighty or the question of why there is evil. Then there are others who deny God’s goodness. In other words God while being powerful is not a good god, but a god that taunts us in the face of evil. Just the kind of god you want to believe in, right? None of the examples, and there are many more, are biblical descriptions of God. And they all leave us short of explaining the presence of evil in our lives. Jesus simply does not answer the question, of why there is evil, but he does answer two other questions that are tied to the problem of evil. And in those answers we find the solution to the problem of evil. He tells us where evil is going. It is headed for its own tomb, led by our victorious Lord who came out of his tomb victorious. Evil will be gone, destroyed forever. That is a promise from God. Furthermore, God does tell us the problem of evil for us today. Evil, ours, and the world’s, shuts us out of being in a relationship with God and he has, even in the midst of that evil, restored us back into a relationship with God when he cried out on the cross, “It is finished!”. “It is finished!” means it is finished; over, done with, no more. The answer to evil has been given, but we keep asking the wrong question. Why? For the answer to that question we need to turn to the book of Job where Job attempts to answer the question “Why?” as he questions God about the problem of evil in his life. None in the end satisfy Job. That is until God answers Job with a question, "Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? 9 Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?" Job is left speechless, well almost speechless, in the truth of God’s answer. He can only say, “I know that you can do all things; and that no purpose of yours can be stopped.” In the end God remains God and Job, just as we do, remain a child of God. While God tells us that evil came from the sin of Adam and Eve. He does not give us the answer we so desperately search for; where did evil come from originally. We are left with only two possible answers. It is either our fault, or it is God’s fault. Neither answer gets us out of our own mess. We cannot figure out God or justify his action or lack of action. And we certainly cannot justify our evil actions before God. God through Christ has justified us and our existence for eternity with him. That is all we need to know. Faith then ends up providing the answer to the problem of evil, for faith reaches out in confidence for the extended hand of God, even when it reaches out blindly in the midst of evil, for it reaches assured that God’s hand is there even when his hand is not evident. Because we are sinful people living in a sinful world we live among evil in all of its forms, from disease to senseless massacres of children. We cannot escape, it is the reality of life. Only the Lord can ultimately preserve his people from evil. He is, in fact, our first and last resort. In the end we will be rid of evil, because of him. It is thus our delight to thank and praise, to serve and obey him, even in the midst of unexplained evil, for he is our salvation. Amen.