"Looking for Sin in All the Wrong Places" (Luke 13: 1-5)

A few years ago, Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of the east coast. It was also known as Superstorm Sandy and Frankenstorm. The level of destruction it caused was unprecedented.

Why did God allow such a devastating storm to happen?

Pastor John McTernan of Defend and Proclaim the Faith Ministries said it was God’s judgment on America for supporting rights for homosexuals and marriage equality, and because of America’s policies toward Israel.

Pat Robertson said God was reacting to having a Mormon – Mitt Romney – run for president; that the hurricane was sent by God to prevent that from happening.

Others likewise tried to make sense of the storm, tried to figure out why God sent the hurricane, and who God had in mind when God sent this meteorological punishment.

But is that how God works? More recently, when Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died, Glenn Beck said God allowed that to happen in order to help elect Ted Cruz as president.

Yeah. That makes perfect sense.

When tragedy strikes for no apparent reason, it’s part of human nature to find a reason. Even if the reason we come up with makes no logical sense, we cling to it, because it just may be all we have. We don’t want to live in a world where things happen that we can’t explain; there must be some explanation, some reason, for bad things that happen.

And yet, sometimes the explanations we come up with are not only wrong, they are dangerous and destructive.

Jesus witnessed people making the same mistake. Some worshipers were killed by a cruel dictator named Pontius Pilate, and a group of people came to Jesus and asked why. Why were they killed?

The answer, obviously, is because Pontius Pilate was a cruel dictator.

But this group of people came to Jesus and questioned him as to whether there might have been another reason. Maybe this happened – maybe God allowed it to happen – because the people in this group of worshipers that was killed were evil sinners…

The logic is faulty, and the theology is bad. It implies that Pilate, the cruel dictator, was only carrying out God’s wishes.

This kind of thinking is dangerous. Instead of blaming the one who ordered that terrible event, it blames the victims.

And the one who is really guilty is not held accountable.

Jesus compares it to another event: apparently there was a tower called the Tower of Siloam, which had collapsed and killed 18 people.

Why did God allow those 18 people to die? What sin did those 18 people commit, that God would punish them that way? Was it because they voted wrong? Was it because they were of the wrong race? Was it because they were sinners? Was it because they worshiped wrong?

According to Jesus, these questions don’t make sense.

It reminds me of something else that happened just a few weeks ago. Before dawn on February 6, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck Taiwan. 117 people died in the quake. 115 of those 117 deaths were the result of a 17-story apartment building that collapsed. What sin did those 115 people commit that they should die like that?

Again, this is the wrong question.

Three developers have been arrested; their development company built that apartment tower, and there is evidence that they cut corners in its construction. Had it been built properly, it would not have collapsed.

Should the victims be blamed for their own death? Of course not.

The Tower of Siloam that Jesus talks about shouldn’t have fallen. It wasn’t the fault of the 18 people who were killed. To say it was blames the victim, and ignores those who were really at fault: the builders of the tower.

Hurricane Sandy was not the fault of homosexuals, or Mormons, or those who make policies regarding Israel. God doesn’t work that way.

In fact, Hurricane Sandy was the result of unusual weather conditions coming together just right to form the storm, which was then intensified by increased temperatures caused by climate change.

And climate change is intensified and accelerated by the carbon humans are putting in the atmosphere.

In other words, the fact that the storm existed is the result of nature, and the fact that it became so intense is because of climate change, which you and I are contributing to.

BUT, we don’t want to blame ourselves, do we? That’s not a very satisfying explanation.

Isn’t it much more satisfying to say that God did this as punishment for someone else’s sins?

It’s good to remember what Anne Lamott wrote, that “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

And when it isn’t our fault, when it isn’t anyone’s fault… for example, the death of Antonin Scalia… we still try to find an explanation, a reason, that this happened.

But bad things happen all the time. People die all the time. What sense can we make of this?

The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes pondered these same things. He had heard that God blessed good people and God punished bad people. After all, didn’t God bless Abraham because God was pleased with Abraham? And didn’t God curse and destroy people and cities because God was displeased with them and what they had done?

But the writer of Ecclesiastes paid close attention to the world. He was very observant. And he noticed that the wise die just like fools (2.16), and that “there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing” (7.15).

The writer of Ecclesiastes then adds, “Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning” (7.20).

In other words, if God punished sinners the way the people I’ve mentioned describe – if God sends hurricanes and earthquakes and causes buildings to collapse in order to punish those who displease God –  then we’d all be punished. We’d all find ourselves destroyed by hurricanes. We’d all find ourselves buried under the rubble of a fallen tower or building. “No one on earth is so righteous as to do good without ever sinning.”

A similar discussion takes place in the book of Job. Tragedy befalls poor Job, who is introduced by the narrator as “blameless and upright.” In other words, Job is that person who is so righteous that he does good without ever sinning. This is obviously a fable, a parable, a made-up story meant to instruct, because we know there is no such perfect person.

And yet, as perfect as he is, tragedy befalls him.

In his grief, three friends come to comfort him. These friends believe that God rewarded the faithful and punished the wicked. It’s what they’d been taught. They tell Job that if he repents, then his fortune will improve. If he repents and does what is right, God will exchange his curse for a blessing.

For some thirty chapters, these friends explain this to Job. “You have sinned,” they say. “Repent, so God can remove this misfortune from you.”

They mean well. But they are wrong. In the last chapter, God says to Job’s friends: “You have not spoken of me what is right” (42.7).

Those who insist that tragedy is God’s punishment for sin do not speak of God what is right. God doesn’t work that way.

The group that came to Jesus thought that, somehow, those worshipers were responsible for their own death. They thought those worshipers must have sinned in order for this tragedy to occur. Of course they thought this. They had a grudge against them. They were prejudiced against them. This makes it easy to imagine that anything bad that happens to them happens because God made it happen as punishment for sin.

But, like Job’s friends, they did not speak of God what is right. They were, in fact, looking for sin in all the wrong places.

Jesus told them so; and then he said to them: “unless you repent, you will likewise perish.”

Twice, he said this to them.

From what I’ve read in my studies, it doesn’t seem that Jesus means they, too, will be killed by Pilate, or have a tower fall on them, if they fail to repent.

What Jesus means is that they will suffer the judgment that they think God has levied on those who did die, that the judgment for sin that they think is upon those who have died, that same judgment is upon they who judge.

In other words, judge not lest ye be judged.

In other words, we’re all in this together.

We all have work to do when it comes to righteousness.

When it comes to sin, we need to pay more attention to our own lives than the lives of others.

When it comes to sin, we need to look inward rather than outward.

Why do we go around trying to find the sin in other people’s lives, and fail to notice the sin in our own lives?

Why are we so quick to see every tragedy as a sign that they need to repent, instead of humbling ourselves and working on our own shortcomings?

That is looking for sin in all the wrong places.

The right place to look for sin is within. That is the place where you can be most successful in getting rid of sin. That is where change begins. It’s a lot harder to make someone else change than it is to make a change in your own life.

And here’s one more thing to remember when we do find sin, whether we find it in ourselves or in others:

Our God is a God of grace. A God of forgiveness. Which means that every sin you discover in your own life is an opportunity to grow and learn and become a better person today than you were yesterday.

Isn’t that what you want? To grow and learn and become a better person?

The call to repent really is a blessing. As we examine ourselves, we have the opportunity to start anew, become better people, find focus and meaning and purpose…

It may be difficult to contemplate, and admit to God and to yourself, your own shortcomings. But only by doing so will you discover the joy of living in God’s grace, and the joy of following more closely the way of Jesus.