In this week’s passage from Luke 13:1-9 Jesus confronts the question of why bad things happen to good people. In the thinking of ancient cultures a person deserved whatever happened to them, that is, bad things only happened to bad people. If you were a good person, then God would bless you with wealth, health, and happiness. If you were a bad person then God would punish you with bad health, accidents, and you would end up poor and homeless. In other words, blame the victim was the ruling thought of the day.
But Jesus contradicts this kind of thinking by saying that those who do encounter difficulty in their lives are no different from anyone else. But the idea that bad things only happen to bad people still persists in our society today. How often have you heard that anyone who gets HIV/AIDS deserved to get it by their faulty behavior? When I was growing up my parents would quote the following statement whenever I was in trouble, “If the shoe fits, wear it,” or “You made your own bed, now lie in it.” They were basically telling me that whatever had happened to me was my own fault. That wasn’t always true.
When my younger sister was born with facial deformities my parents decided that her handicaps meant that God was punishing them because they didn’t go to church and my father smoked tobacco and drank the occasional beer. Even as a five year old child I couldn’t understand the logic of that kind of thinking and if it was true wondered if God would get back at my parents by doing something horrible to me. My parents did start taking us to church and my dad did stop smoking and drinking any alcohol. But they also stopped playing Rook and cards and wouldn’t let me go to movies thinking that all of these things were somehow so sinful that God would punish them again if they didn’t clean up their lives completely.
We still have that kind of thinking going on in our own minds when someone has trouble in their lives. We ask: “What did they do or not do in order for this to happen to them.” Two hundred people get laid off because a company has economic problems but we ask our friend is one of the 200, “What did you do that they laid you off, too?” Like our friend might have some greater importance or ability than the other 199.
The fact is that we don’t control the future. But I guess I’m also saying that God doesn’t always control our future either. God has established a world where there are consequences to human actions like economic depressions and natural events like earthquakes and hurricanes that have nothing to do with what you and I might decide to do or how we might be living our lives. You cannot always, nor should you even try, to connect a natural event that causes you trouble with God deliberately punishing you in particular. That is a very childish way of relating to God. Grow up and take some advice from Jesus.
Jesus ends this discourse by talking about the fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit and the owner that wants it cut down. However, another person suggests that the tree may need some special attention and that by loosening the soil and adding some good old manure to the soil the tree just might bear fruit. Jesus is saying that God loves us enough to give us another chance, another opportunity to recover from our troubles and begin again. We are so much more important than even a barren fig tree that gets a second chance.
Got trouble in your lives? Don’t blame God or think that God is punishing you. Instead do turn to God for encouragement and God’s presence and power in your life to start all over again. God loves you enough to give you a second chance. It’s at least something to think about.
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