[I pick up TABLOID newspaper and pretend to read a story on the inside}
“No?....Really?”
“God, after what he has done, he has got what is coming for him”
[look up at congregation]
we all think that - we all pick up the newspaper and read stories and think that
“he has got what is coming for him”
Of course - the story the story that might make you [point to one person] say that might be very different from the story that might make you [point to someone else] say that.
But if we are honest, there is something out there that can make each one of us feel just the tiniest bit judgmental. “after what he has done, he has got what is coming for him”
Cue our Gospel reading (Luke 13:1-9):
The Gallileans whose blood Pilate mixed with the sacrifices. They were probably involved in some sort of insurrection (“deserved it”?) - Well certainly people were blaming them for it. It was politically safer than blaming Pilate...
The 18 killed when the tower of Siloam fell on top of them. - we think that’s ridiculous blaming them. Innocent people who just happened to be somewhere when a tower fell on top of them- but in many parts of the world people would still think that if that happened it was a sign that people were cursed. If bad stuff happened to them it must be bad karma - they must have deserved it.
[smugly] “we don’t think like that”
But we still find other people to blame.
Sometimes wagging our finger at other people - It can be a displacement activity for blaming ourselves. We feel uncomfortable inside ourselves so we like to think there is someone else out there who’s worse than us. Let’s wag our fingers at them… it can take away the discomfort we feel at ourselves.
Did you know that if you go to a jail it’s extremely to find exactly the same thing? “yes I may have shot 5 people but at least I am not like those nonces and child murders”.
Paedophiles in jails have to be kept in protective custody or they get tortured or killed. Seems strange. Why should other prisoners turn on them? Shouldn’t every prisoner be facing up to the fact that they too have done something wrong or they wouldn’t be there?
But no, that’s not how it work.
Other prisoners turn on the paedophiles or the child killers, because it takes away the discomfort they feel at themselves. “I may be bad but at least I am not like them!”
And the thing is - it’s not just prisoners who do it. I do it. You do it. We all do it. We pick up the newspaper and say “Isn’t that other person awful” because it takes away the nagging feeling we feel inside
“Jesus -those rebels who Pilate mixed their blood with the sacrifices. Weren’t they terrible people?”
“Jesus. Those people who the tower fell on top of. They must have done something really awful for God to punish them like that, mustn’t they?”
Jesus replies “do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’
Stop wagging your finger at other people and start looking inside yourself.
And then he tells a parable
Luke 13vs7-9 “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking fruit on it and found none. So he said to his gardener: “see here: for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should I be wasting the soil” He replied “let it alone for one more year, until I dig it round and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good. But if not you can cut it down”
Where is God in the parable?
At first sight we perhaps think God is the landlord planting the vineyard and getting cross at the fig tree. But what if God is not the landlord? What if God is the gardener saying “give it one more chance”
Sometimes the most judgemental person about ourselves is ourselves. Either we give up on ourselves or we try to bury and hide the bad side because we are so uncomfortable. “Cut it down”
God is the one saying “give it another chance”
Giving it another chance isn’t a soft option - we are told it involves “digging it round and putting manure on it”. It probably involves pruning to. It is not a soft option. But it does involve restoring it to health and life.
I am not sure if you have ever seen any of The TED talks online. But there is a fascinating one by a woman called Brenee Brown (1) on the difference between Shame and Guilt.
When we feel shame we think “I am a bad person. If people knew what I was really like they would hate me”
When we feel guilt we think “I have done a bad thing. I need to make ammends for it and be forgiven”
Some cultures are described by sociologists as shame cultures while others are guilt cultures.
Take the difference between Germany and Japan about how they dealt with the aftermath of the second world war. Go to Germany and you will find plenty of museums talking about the horrors of the Nazis and how we must learn from it and how it must never happen again.
In Japan on the other hand… Well take the Yukushan museum - It has a locomotive there. The inscription says this is one of 90 that ran across the Burma Railway. No reference to the the fact that 12000 western POWs and 90,000 Asian prisoners died working as slave labourers building the railway. As Professor Nigel Biggar put it in an article in the Times (2), it would be like coming across a museum that showed one of the cattle trucks that took prisoners to Auchwitz and a museum making no reference to its human cargo or the fate they were headed towards.
The same Yukushan museum describes the Japanese military expansion in the 20s and 30s as “anti colonial war” against the west which though they lost militarily they won politically because early victories against the French in Vietnam, the Americans in Pearl Harbour and the British in Singapore helped inspire anti-colonial movements throughout Asia. Imperial Japanese attrocities such rape of Nanking in which 300,000 chinese civilians were massacred is described as just a “chinese incident”.
In a shame culture you must not lose face.
And the political consequences of this are still seen throughout Asia.
Japan isn’t the only shame culture.
In ancient Sparta - gruelling regime for children to grow them into terrible warriors. Not enough food - would have to steal it. But if they got caught they got beaten. Beaten not for stealing but for the crime of getting caught.
And of course our culture is slowly changing from a guilt culture to a shame culture. More and more people define morality as worst crime being getting caught.
Or like those prisoners in jails beating up the child abusers- they wag their fingers at others to stop the discomfort they feel inside.
But actually - you are not a bad person who no one would like if they knew what you were really like. You are simply a person who has done bad things.
God still likes you, even after everything you have done.
[voice of amazement] God still likes me, even after everything I have done!
Bad stuff can be forgiven! That’s the point of the cross.
Shame leads us to brush things under the carpet, to try to hide it from people. Guilt leads us to come to terms with what we have done, to say sorry and try to make it up.
There’s a probably apocryphal story of a bank that receives an anonymous letter containing £1,000. “Dear sir, 20 years ago I stole this money off you. I have recently become a Christian and feel guilty for what I did so am sending you this money to make amends. If I still feel guilty I will send the rest of the money….”
About three times a year I go to make my confession in front of another priest. I find it helpful to say outloud the sins I have done because it helps me be honest with myself, not to brush it under the carpet. It reminds me too that I need to say sorry to my fellow human beings. Then I hear through the voice of the other priest Jesus saying “your sins are forgiven”.
I know many other people find it helpful to do that too.
When I was vicar at Holy Trinity Barkingside we used to do all sorts of different penitence things during Lent. One thing we did one week was I invited everyone to write their sins on a piece of paper. At the foot of the Lenten Cross we had a shredder, and I invited people to bring their sheet of sins up to the foot of the cross - and see those sins being shredded and taken away. [use shredder to demonstrate]
We are ashamed of what people would think if they knew what we were like. We don’t give ourselves a second chance. God always gives us a second chance. We are the ones who say “cut it down” God is the one who digs round and covers us in manure and restores us to health” God is the one who says “your sins are forgiven” And when we learn to receive that forgiveness and love ourselves like God loves us, then we can stop judging other people and can love them like God loves them.
https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en
Article by Professord Nigel Bigger, the Times, London, 16 February 2016
