Portraits of Jesus: Warning the Ignorant Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9

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1 Portraits of Jesus: Warning the Ignorant Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9 February 28, 2016 By Dr. David B. Freeman, Pastor Weatherly Heights Baptist Church This is one of the most famous opening lines in American literature: On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below. It s from Thornton Wilder s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. I mention it because the novel is based on our text from Luke 13. A priest, Brother Juniper, happens to witness the accident in which the five travelers meet a tragic death. He becomes obsessed with why the accident involved those five people. Why not five other people? Was it the unfolding of a divine plan, or was it purely accidental? Had these five done something to deserve punishment from the hand of God? Brother Juniper begins to investigate the private lives of the five victims. After six years of investigation, Brother Juniper had written a book and concluded that each of the five had done something to offend God. Their deaths were no accident. They died, he said, as a sheer Act of God. His book falls into the hands of some judges. The judges find the book to be heretical. They order that the book be burned in the town square, along with its author. Was his death accidental, or another sheer act of God? Here s what happened in Luke 13. Some people were troubled by a news report, something that apparently had recently occurred. The ancient historian Josephus gives us the details, and it sounds like it was a cruel bloodbath. The Roman governor Pilate built an aqueduct to bring much-needed water to the city of Jerusalem. It was a big and expensive undertaking. He took the money to build aqueduct from the temple treasury. The Jewish people understandably were upset and protested. So here s what Pilate did. He outfitted his soldiers in clothes the Jews typically wore, armed them, and imbedded the soldiers among the protesters. On his command the soldiers pulled out their weapons

2 and attacked the unarmed protesters. The attack was brutal and excessive, and many Jews were killed and wounded. Here s the question the people asked Jesus in our text: Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? In other words, had they done something to deserve punishment from the hand of God? Was it accidental they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or a sheer act of God? Jesus told the people who asked this question, No, those Galileans were not worse sinners. In other words, this was not punishment from the hand of God. But then he gave them this warning, but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. What did he mean by that? Jesus told them about another tragedy. A tower fell. It was called the tower of Siloam. Eighteen people died in this tragedy. Jesus asked the same question: Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? Had they, too, done something to deserve punishment from the hand of God? Was this another accident the tower just happened to fall at this that time or was it a sheer act of God. Again, Jesus said, No, those citizens of Jerusalem were not targeted by God for this punishment. But then again he adds that warning: but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Why? What did he mean? I think I know why Thornton Wilder wrote about this text and why that novel is considered an American classic. Many carry within an image of God as the Great Punisher. God sits on high, watches, waits, and then punishes those who deserve it. This image of God can be found in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. It is full of stories about Israel s disobedience to God, God s punishment of them, and then the people s repentance and return to God. The book of 2 Kings says that the sins of King Manasseh were responsible for the entire nation being taken into exile in Babylon. Prophets like Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah drew direct links between the sins of the people and the punishment of God. There were no accidents in their day. All things 2

3 happened for a reason. The righteous received good from the hand of God, and the evildoers received punishment from the hand of God. So if a bridge breaks and five people fall to their deaths, that has to be the hand of God. All you have to do is look deeply enough into the lives of those five victims, and you will find the reason. The failure of that thinking is this: if you look deeply enough into the lives of the ones who survived, you will discover that they too had reasons to deserve punishment from the hand of God. We all do. That s the message of the Bible. For all have sinned, Paul says, and come short of the glory of God. That much history has gotten right. What history has gotten wrong is this: God is not the Great Punisher. God is not sitting on high watching and waiting to punish those who fail. God, as presented throughout the Bible, especially in the life of Jesus, is the Great Forgiver, the Great Lover. Perhaps the greatest error of human history is that we have conceptualized God as the opposite of what God really is. The book of Job tried to correct this. Do you remember the terrible things that happened to the man named Job? He was the greatest man in all the east, which was an indication of his righteousness. He was righteous, and God blessed him. But Job lost everything his children, his vast wealth, his health. His wife finally advised him to just curse God and die. If you will just curse God, God will strike you dead. That s what the Great Punisher does. Throughout the book of Job, though, Job maintained his innocence. He told his friends that they could look as deeply into his life as they wanted, and they would find that he had done nothing to deserve what had happened to him. He maintained his innocence, and in the end was vindicated. The book of Job, then, was an attempt to correct this image of God as the Great Punisher. Jesus attempted to do the same in our text for today. Here we see a portrait of Jesus warning the ignorant. The word ignorant is not negative. It is neutral. They weren t dumb. They just didn t know. They hadn t been taught properly. They were asking the question that everybody else was asking. Were these people killed by Pilate worse 3

4 sinners than everyone else? Was this judgment from the Great Punisher? And might we be subject to that punishment too? And the answer of Jesus is perfectly clear: No. God was not the Great Punisher. At another time, he told them about the prodigal son who returned home after squandering the father s gifts in a foreign land. The boy s father didn t punish him. He welcomed his son home. He put rings on his fingers, a robe on his back, and killed the fatted calf for a feast. He called his neighbors in for a great celebration, not because the son squandered his gifts, but because his son returned. Jesus tried to tell people that God was the Great Forgiver, the Great Lover. But what about that troubling warning at the end? Remember, he said, But unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. He told them a story about a barren fig tree. The farmer looked for figs on the fig tree but found none. It had been growing for three years and still produced fruit. So the farmer told his gardener to cut it down. It was wasting space in the garden. But the gardener urged patience and a little gardening TLC with the belief that the fig tree could and would produce fruit. Jesus was warning the ignorant. They didn t know. They were so obsessed with these tragedies the brutal attack by Pilate and the horrible falling of that tower of Siloam that they were not producing fruit. In a sense, they were perishing, like the ones in the tragedies. They were paralyzed, cowering under their fear of God and not doing what God made them to do love their neighbor, show mercy, extend kindness to the stranger, a cup of cool water to the thirsty, aid to the wounded, a plate of food for the hungry, or a coat for the one who has none. They could not produce fruit because of their fear of the Great Punisher, so in reality they were perishing. So we see a portrait of Jesus today warning the ignorant. Don t let little images of God paralyze you. Don t let false ideas of God so overwhelm you that you fail to love your neighbor, show mercy, extend kindness, and all the other things that God made us to do. 4

5 If we could see that crowd listening to this teaching of Jesus, I suspect we would see some anxious faces, people worrying that they might be the next to fall off a bridge. And perhaps we would see among their faces our own, cowering and not producing fruit. The Great Forgiver, the Great Lover, says to us: Be free of that! Be free to produce the fruit of love, mercy, and kindness. Closing Prayer Great Forgiver, Great Lover, our images of you are too small, too much like us. Help us to be free of them, free enough to be what you have made us to be. Amen. 5