"Wait 'till Next Year?"

          Life is filled with quiet temptations. And one of those

temptations is to compare ourselves to other people, to

notice their sins, while minimizing our own. Ever do that?

         We pick up the newspaper, turn on the TV, or scan the

computer screen and there staring back is a photo of a

celebrity, politician, religious leader, or famous athlete--

disheveled hair, wild eyes, clothes asunder--caught doing

wrong. And we’re liable to think, "Hah! Another sinner. I’m

not that bad."

         Likewise, what’s the definition of a lousy driver?

Answer: anybody who drives worse than I do.

         And who’s a really awful sinner? Anyone who sins

more than I do, or who commits sins I don’t commit. As Jesus

warned, we see the speck in our neighbor’s eye but do not

notice the log in our own eye.

         People were telling Jesus about some Galileans

murdered by Pontius Pilate, while they were worshiping no

less. Tragic. There’d also been eighteen people killed when

the tower of Siloam fell on them. Dreadful. But apparently

Jesus perceived what these first century action news

reporters were really thinking. "Those folks who died were

worse sinners than we are. So God punished them. And they

got what they deserved."

         Be honest. When we hear about misfortune crushing

another person, don’t we sometimes, maybe just for a

fraction of a second, think that person must have done

something to deserve it? And sometimes people do suffer

because of their behavior. Occasionally the natural

consequences of our sins are seen and felt immediately or

after many years.

         But often misfortune has nothing to do with a person’s

behavior. Suffering clamps its icy hands around the necks of

the innocent and death sprays bullets at random. So

intellectually, we know better than to assume that God goes

around "zapping" people. As preacher Ernie Campbell wryly

put it, "If God doesn’t destroy New York and Los Angeles, he

surely owes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah an

apology."

(Journal for Preachers, Advent, 1993, 22.) Yet we’re still tempted to

imagine our neighbor is suffering because of some

wickedness, and we are doing well because of our virtue.

         But Jesus said, "Do you think those folks who died

were worse sinners than you? No, but unless you repent,

you’ll perish just as they did." Wow! What a troubling answer.

We’re hoping for Jesus to say something comforting. "There,

there. You’re upset. Let me make you feel better." But

instead he throws down a challenge. He says it’s not for us to

judge who is more sinful. God will sort that out, and before

God we only confess our own sins, not somebody else’s.

         At the same time, Jesus does say that sin is deadly.

"Unless you repent, you’ll perish just as they did." So if God in

Jesus Christ is supposed to be gracious, merciful, forgiving,

how are we to understand "Unless you repent, you’ll perish

just as they did."?

         Well, Jesus tells a story, a parable to pester us into

struggling with the answers. A man has a fig tree in his yard.

After three years it still produces no fruit, and the man says

to his gardener, "Cut it down. It's just wasting soil." But the

gardener says, "Give it another year, while I dig around it,

and fertilize it. Then if it bears fruit, great. If not, then you

can cut it down."

         You know where this is going. We’re the fig tree that

will either bear or not bear fruit. God is patient and provides

all that’s needed for growth. But time is limited. So the

question is not, Can we judge the lives of others? The

question is, How will God judge the fruitfulness of your life

and mine?

         While his wife lies in a hospital bed dying, a man in

one of Walker Percy’s novels comes to some terrifying

conclusions about his life. He thinks, "Not once in his entire

life had he allowed himself to come to rest in the quiet center

of himself but had forever cast himself forward from some

dark past he could not remember to a future which did not

exist. Not once had he been present for his life. So his life

had passed like a dream."

(Walker Percy, The Second Coming, 113.)

 

 

         Are we like that, never finding the quiet center of

ourselves, always living either in the past or in the future, but

never in the present? Are our lives passing like a dream?

         The man looks at his dying wife and thinks. "How can

it be? How can it happen that one day you are young, you

marry, and then another day you come to yourself and your

life has passed like a dream? They looked at each other

curiously and wondered how they could have missed each

other, lived in the same house all those years and passed in

the halls like ghosts."

 

(Ibid. 114.)

         Are we like that, in relationships in which we miss each

other and pass each other like ghosts?

         How fruitful are our lives in God's eyes? What are we

really producing with our life? What are we going to do with

the fact that God will judge how we use the life we’ve been

given?

         On the one hand we might move into a frenzy of

activity in the hope of earning God's care. But the care of

God is already present; it does not have to be earned.

         On the other hand, we might simply lie back and say,

"God loves me. Nothing else matters. I don't need to do

anything." But God wants us to produce something good.

"Unless you repent, you will perish just as they did." Without

repentance we’re spiritually dead.

         The parable leaves us with a tension. As one writer

puts it, "God's mercy is still in serious conversation with God's

judgment."

 

(Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation Commentary Series, 169.)

         Life is short. Time is limited. So what does it mean to

be fruitful, productive human beings before God?

         I think it means seeking balance in our life. Doing our

work with integrity. As students, studying with honesty and

effort. Balancing time for prayer, worship, study of Scripture,

service in the church. Time for family and friends. Time for

rest and play. We seek balance to be productive for God.

         Lent gives us an opportunity to reflect on our priorities

in life. Here are some questions for each of us to ponder.

         What in my life is a waste of time?

         What am I doing that drains away the joy in my life?

         On the other hand, what’s painful or difficult that I'm

doing which is worth the time and effort, because it’s

kingdom of God work?

         Which relationships do I need to nurture, and which do

I need to end?

         I once did continuing education with a man who works

on parish empowerment. Here are some questions he asks

laypeople to consider when they think about their fruitfulness

as Christians.

         "If I offered to pay your salary for three months and

you could do any kind of work for God's kingdom what would

you do?"

         "If I gave you $1000.00 to give to any cause what

would you give it to?"

         "When you read the newspaper what makes you tear

up? What makes you passionate?"

         

 

Let me leave you with a final question of my own. If you had

only one year of life left to live, what would you do in order

to be fruitful in God's eyes? What would you do?