0320A2022 – Luke 13. 1-9

The young college student walking down Wisconsin Avenue, deep in thought about that paper that is due before Spring Break, is held up and severely beaten at gun point.

The eight year old girl sitting in her living room is watching her favorite TV show. Mom is in the kitchen, making a frozen pizza for supper. A barrage of 9mm bullets is sprayed through the plate glass window, the young girl is struck and lays bleeding profusely.

The couple sitting outside their grandmas home on the Northside, is planning to surprise her with cake for her 88th birthday. They sit and talk as a car slowly comes up from behind and sprays more bullets into car parked curbside.

The elderly gentleman, well-known in the neighborhood, as being kind and caring, attempts to walk across a major intersection, alone at night with his cane. He does not see the two cars driving at high rates of speed, side by side, taking up all lanes of traffic, headed directly for him. The brakes are never applied.

Eighteen people in Siloam, a neighborhood of Jerusalem are out walking and talking and meeting in the town square. They do not realize that in a matter of minutes, they will ALL be caught under the rubble of the Tower of Siloam.

A whole group of religious pilgrims travel together to Jerusalem for the high-holy days. They do everything right. They purchase the necessary animals for sacrifice. They receive the necessary approval of the priests to make their sacrifices…

When all of a sudden, in comes Pontius Pilates’ soldiers, who end up mingling the blood of the worshipers with their sacrifices.

Life can horrific. Life can be startling.

Life can be in-your-face. And life can also be boring, mundane, same-old-same-old, drudgery. Life can also be fun and exciting. Life is known for its twists and turns. Just ask the people of UKRAINE.

We never quite know what the day will hold in store for us – when we awaken.

So, a bunch of people come to Jesus…

They have questions…The come seeking answers…They want to know WHY.

Everyone wants to know WHY. HOW COME? WHAT did ALL of these people do?

Did they all DESERVE what happened to them? Surely they must have done something…

Common belief, pedestrian belief (at the time,) was very Deuteronomic. If you are good, God will bless you, if you are bad, God will get you.

The rich and the wealthy were rich, because God had blessed them.

Those in power and held in high esteem were in those positions, because God had blessed them.

The poor were poor, because God had obviously looked down upon them.

The blind, the weak, the lame were also ALL looked down upon by God.

So the people coming to Jesus, knew the answer they sought, before even asking the question.

Everyone knew. Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people.

It was very simple. Very cut and dried.

If something bad happened to you, you were OBVIOUSLY A SINNER and very much deserving of everything that happened to you.

You had it coming. You OWNED it!

So, in all sincerity, they raised the question, were these people worse sinners than all the other people in Jerusalem?

Surely they were. They had to be.

Look what happened to them.

Again, with compassion, with empathy, Jesus looked upon those who came with their questions.

“OF COURSE NOT,” CAME HIS RESPONSE! DEFINITELY NOT! That is so last week, so old school, so old-odd-thinking.

Definitely NOT! NO, I tell you.

They were NOT WORSE SINNERS. All people sin, all people fall short of the GLORY of God. All of us err. All of make mistakes. And all of us should be repentant, and sorry, and turn our lives around. And sometimes, some of us are in the wrong place and the wrong time.

And Tragedy happens. Tragedies occur.

We do not like it. We cannot figure out why it happened. So, we blame God.  We blame God for all kinds of things. UNWARRANTED…INEXCUSABLE…INDE-FENSIBLE.

Stuff happens. You know that it does. You do understand that…

There is a randomness to life that most of us find inexplicable, unexplainable, almost downright embarrassing.

But you cannot blame God, for everything that you do not understand or can’t explain. And yet, we STILL do.

Amen.