This sermon was delivered Gordon McCulloch to the congregation at Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 24th March 2019; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
Exodus 3:1-15 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Luke 13:1-9 Psalm 63:1-8
“Please join me in a short prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
Introduction
In my last sermon on loving our enemies, I said that bad things happen to good people, in fact very very bad thing happen to some very very good people as we all know; … and we wish it were not so, but that is the way of our world. … I personally believe that this is down to the fact that God has given us all … a free will, and had he not, such injustice would not occur.
This morning’s reading from Luke’s gospel is a very strange reading, and you can’t help but get that feeling that there is a lot of information missing. … I mean, it mentions a tower falling, and eighteen people who were killed as result, and very little else. … But it’s actually quite a relieving and comforting reading, considering the topic is all about suffering. However it becomes more topical if we relate it to a disaster that we are more familiar with, such as the collapsing 911 twin towers tragedy in New York away back in 2001 … a tragedy where we still feel for those, who were so brutally attacked … while innocently going about their daily business. And we may even still be asking the question as to why those innocent people were killed … and where was God on that day?
Now remind me … are we talking about the twin towers in 911, or are we talking about the tower of Siloam in today’s reading … do you see the similarities, we are talking about the same thing?
In verse 3 Jesus says a strange thing, “except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish … Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem”?
To give such a strange answer, it implies that Jesus was asked the question as to whether “those people died because they sinned; or had they brought it upon themselves”. … What a horrible question to ask … although we all know that people can be so horrid to ask such a question, but Jesus answers it with a cryptic reply in verse 5, the answer he gives in verse 3, which means that it is important … “I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did”. … So what kind or answer is that? … What does that it mean? … … I mean, you come to Jesus with a deep, troubling philosophical question, “why does such harm come to good people” and turns the question around … into a statement about our own spiritual condition.
This idea of suffering has puzzled us all for centuries, and non-believers are always quick to say, “well if there is a God, why does he allow all the bad things to happen”. … And this is a reasonable question to ask, but what is the answer? … Well, I don’t know, and if I did, I am sure I could not answer it in this short sermon, however it is important that too answer this question, we need to understand the different elements of suffering, as they must all be accounted for in the answer, but the main element of suffering is the fact that we are part of a fallen world.
1. Suffering is part of a fallen world.
Yes, we live in a fallen world, because do you remember … there was no suffering in the Garden of Eden? … Well that is until Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, and made suffering a reality: and it’s a reality that we are living in a world affected by that original sin. … It is also complicit by adding the sins of our fathers, the sins of others, and of course the sin of our own making.
i. We live in a world full of Moral.
Yes we all know that we live in a world of evil, and we cannot help get the impression that it is getting worse, particularly with today’s familiarity and declining standards. … We also share this world with some very wicked people indeed and we are not short of an example of them … even back in the day of Jesus, the bible tells us that Pilate was a cruel evil Roman governor … for example, verse 1 tells us that one day when some Galileans were in the Temple getting ready to make their sacrifices, Pilate had some Roman soldiers disguised as Jews to intermingle with them … we do not know why … but for some reason known only to him … ordered these Roman soldiers to massacre this group of worshipers. What a horrible thing to do … and it sounds familiar, as is still raw on our minds, the recent and terrible events in New Zealand.
And in a similar way, that is what the Jews were still outraged with back then… that Pilate would “mingle the blood of the worshipers with their sacrifices”. … This world has always had to put up with, or deal with cruel wicked people like Pilate; like Hitler, like Stalin, like Paul Pot and a whole host of others … we are not short of people like that … nor are we short of misguided religious zealous … or even the terrorists of this world … nor are we short of the criminally insane, all of which turns us to horror; despicable people, people with evil in their hearts. Mark 7 verse 21 says, that “for from within, out of the hearts of men, (and women too), proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders … thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, immorality, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. … All these evil things come from within, and defile the man”. …
So, we conclude then it is it is the human heart that is part of the problem … and that man is basically a sinner, unless he has had that life-transforming realisation that Jesus is their Lord … and who by following him, determines himself to be a better person, or is trying to be.
So please don’t blame God for the actions of the wicked, because when God created us, He gave us all the freedom, through our own free will to choose, and this choice range from those who solely believe in themselves and choose to commit acts of evil and violence … and those who believe in a supreme deity and moderate their lives to emulate his demands. I like to think we are all trying our best to be perfect, but somehow, not quite managing it, but at least we are trying.
ii. We live in a world of natural evil.
Anyway, to move on, we also live in a world of natural evil, if that is the correct word. … Many times we suffer not because of some wicked person or persons; it could be that we suffer from what we call natural accidents or natural disasters like tornados and earthquakes and volcanos and tsunamis and things … or just simply accidents in which people get hurt or die? … We could even include disease in this category? … So why are there cancers, infections, and disease … well again it’s because we live in a fallen world. … a world where a Pandora’s box was opened by Adam and Eve when they sinned.
Yet at the same time, this can be a beautiful world in many ways, our wonderful country-sides, the mountains, the beaches, the fields full of crops, the glorious sunsets and sunrises etc. … but it is a world that is perfect either as according to the warning in Romans 8:22, “we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time”. The Bible is telling us here that the very creation itself can be knocked out of kilter; and that we can almost hear it groaning like a woman in childbirth. x
Can we blame God for that, maybe? … I suppose we can blame ourselves as well, maybe to an extent, but our world is messed up for one reason or another but it is not all down to us. And although it is not perfect, it is as perfect as it can get, or could be.
2. Suffering and goodness are unrelated.
Anyway, to return to or story … the question in the minds of the people that day were, “did those people suffer and die from Pilate’s cruelty, or from their own sin, or … from a natural disaster, which caused the tower to fall” … again a fair question, but it a question with the assumption that those people who died must have been bad people to suffer like that, or they had done something wrong.
Today, in our society, there is still that tendency for “some people” to look at someone when they are suffering, and to think, “Maybe they are just getting what they deserve” … , and this is not nice … but, John 9 tells us a story where Jesus and his disciples were walking along a street when they saw a blind man, and his disciples asked him, “Master who sinned; this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Do you remember?
Jesus asked this morning in verse 2, “Do you think those upon whom the tower fell were worst sinners than you”? It’s the exact same thing. … Do you know what they are implying? They are implying that bad people should be the ones to suffer … and good people shouldn’t … and what Jesus is saying here is that that’s not the way it works … because according to Luke 18:19, “no one is good except God alone”.
And we do not like to hear this because we are all sinners, and we all deserve to be sent to hell, but fortunately, some of us called Christians … are really sinners saved by the grace of God … and so suffering is no respecter of persons, saved or unsaved, as we all suffer at some stage in our lives … but the good news is that any suffering we endure in this world is only temporary.
Romans 8:17-18, says, “we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”, which implies that our present sufferings are not worth bothering about compared with the glory that will be revealed in us … when we meet with him … and that is glory without suffering.
3. SUFFERING AMPLIFIES GOD’S MESSAGE: “REPENT OR PERISH!”
We move on, when asked why Pilate had those people killed, or why did 18 people died when the tower fell, Jesus gave the same reply twice: “unless you repent you will likewise perish”.
And if we were to ask Jesus, why did all those people die in 9/11, or any other disaster, he would reply with the same answer: “ … but unless you repent, you will likewise perish”. … That’s it, repent or you will perish, and although it seems like no answer at all, it is in fact a great answers, for Jesus is telling us, that that is not a question that we should be asking, rather we should be focusing only on our relationship with him and nothing else, because nothing else matters, only us and him, because he is looking after us personally. … And I think that is am absolutely brilliant answer, because it means that Jesus himself is guiding us through this world, and preparing us to meet with him in the next.
Do you know, (and this is important), it also means that we are not responsible for anyone else, because they have the exact same duty, or obligation as we have towards him. Yes we are obliged to help and assist other when we can, but ultimately it is everyone’s own decision and responsibility to develop their relationship with him … no one else can do that for them.
In fact Acts 17:30 tells us that God “commands all men everywhere to repent. … For He has set a day when He will judge the world by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
We are being told to repent, and turn our hearts towards a loving God: to acknowledge his higher authority, an authority is named Jesus. … We are to repent continuously in our minds … and turn away from the cares of this world, and start looking, and living towards the next.
And as we know, repent means turning from sin and our sinful ways, but it’s not a single action that we do once, it an action that we do continuously, it’s a lifestyle, and a lifestyle of continually showing remorse for our misdeeds so that we can move on, developing healthfully as we grow in status, and be right with God at the same time.
And I hope it is clear from this passage that we are not suffering because we are worse sinners than someone else. … No way, it’s more about how we handle or suffering, using it to turn to him.
And this may simply mean that we repenting about something we have done wrong or are doing wrong … it may mean we are to change the direction that we have been heading, or … even better, we are being set us up for a new adventure, where he is preparing our hearts, and I find that extremely encouraging and exciting. We cannot let suffering get us down, as we know, as I know only too well, but there is different ways of looking at it. … There is different ways of look at him: so we do not let life beat us down but turning to him who shows us how to beat life.
Conclusion
Finally, after the 9/11 attack, President Bush declared a Day of National Prayer and Remembrance, and a service was held at the National Cathedral in Washington where Dr Billy Graham was the main speaker. In his message that day, he spoke of the mystery of suffering, and I quote … “I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. … I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, not even to my own satisfaction. … I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He’s a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of that suffering. For he took upon Himself in the person of Jesus Christ … our sins and our suffering … and from the cross, God declared that he loves us; … that he knows the heartaches and the sorrows and the pains that we feel. But he loves us”.
Yes, there is hope, and yes there is much to get excited about because Jesus suffered, died and rose victorious over the grave to show us the way. … Our hope is not in our country, nor our politicians, our hope is in God, in Jesus to be precise, and our relationship with him, because only he overcame this world.
And because he lives, we can face tomorrow with hope, with confidence knowing that he holds our future in his hands, and that life is worth living, because we know that he lives in our hearts.
Amen.
PS. Could I add big thanks to John Lowe for his help in getting started in this very difficult reading? Many thanks John.
