You never know what's around the corner

“I am expecting the end of the world tomorrow!” 

With these words a visiting preacher began his sermon at the North Perth Church of Christ.

You might be able to imagine how stunned we felt when he said that.  We weren’t the kind of Christians who dwelt heavily on the “end of the world” stuff let lone setting a date for it.  In fact I think most of us rather felt that life would go on pretty much as it has been for a very long time – and if that was 40 years ago, maybe we were right.

Now, as it turned out, the preacher wasn’t really expecting the reverse of the big bang to happen the following day.

Firstly, I think he was wanting to get our attention – as I was by using this story.  But I think he had a deeper message that has stuck with me all these years and which I think is at the heart of the two little gospel stories we have considered this morning.

The state of our relationship with God is the most important consideration we can have in this life.  Getting this right is our most urgent priority.

In our guts I think we all know this, and sometimes this gets us into all sorts of almost superstitious difficulties:

1. 1.      Like the Christian people who wanted to say that the mass-killing at Sandy Hook School in Connecticut was God’s judgement on the USA because of its slack stance on abortion and gays and lesbians; or
2. 2.      Like the woman whose husband and daughter are killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver and in the depth of her grief she demands to know from God what she has done to deserve this sort of judgement or pain.

When sudden and tragic things happen we want to attach some sort of meaning to them, and the meaning we most generally like is something selfish – self-righteousness if it reassures us that we are better than those people who got it in the neck, or self-centredness if it beats up on ourselves asking “What have we done to deserve this?”

The people Jesus was referring to had been confronted with similar sudden and tragic events – Pilate had killed innocent people mercilessly, and a tower had fallen killing innocent people as well.  Jesus makes the observation that the people who died were basically no more or less sinful than the people who survived – implying that we should not try to attach judgemental meanings to such events.

But what does he go on to say?

Jesus agreed with Job.  Happiness or misery could not be simply equated with goodness and badness.

Here we see Jesus taking up two news headlines of his day and as usual with headlines, it was bad news:

1/  Do you think that those Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices were worse sinners than other Galileans? 

Pilate was an intemperate and arrogant ruler, and he had his soldiers massacre some Galilean men as they were making sacrifices in the temple.  Did that mean that those Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans who stayed at home and minded their own business?  Were they were being punished by God?

Jesus gave his verdict:  I tell you, NO!

2/  Or those eighteen men who were crushed when that tower in Siloam fell, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?

You can easily picture this construction accident. Builders’ labourers toiling on the erection of a tower near the pool of Siloam.  Something goes wrong; the tower collapses and eighteen men die.  Were these builders’ labourers scum that deserved to die?  Worse sinners than the other residents of Jerusalem?.

Again Jesus gives an emphatic verdict: I tell you, NO!

This old superstition is a lie.  The old gods of retribution and reward who lurk in the dark corners of our minds, are false deities.  The world of the God that Jesus called "Father" doesn't work by giving blessings and good things to those who are good, and heaping punishments and "bad luck" on those who are bad.  Dismiss this superstition.   You have Jesus’ word on it.

Ah! But I have not completed the statement of Jesus have I?  So far I have left something out.  I must not be allowed to get away with that, eh?

After describing each incident and giving a resounding NO! Jesus went on to say:

      But unless you repent you will perish as they did.

      But unless you repent you will perish as they did.

Now I am sure that some of you will see that word REPENT there and think that Jesus is telling us we have to stop being bad people, or stop sinning, or else we will perish like those people.

I want to suggest that Jesus had a much deeper understanding of both human nature and the meaning of REPENTANCE. 

At its deepest level, the Good News that Jesus came to proclaim was that even though there wasn’t a single person whose life was good enough to merit God’s good favour, God reaches out to us and invites us into relationship with him.  When we turn-around in response to that – stepping into the relationship – that is REPENTANCE. 

There are two prongs to this:

Firstly there is a clarion call for us to enter into that relationship with God right now.  Don’t wait for some future day – you never know what is around the corner.

Then there is some sense of discouragement for us all from adding a sense of judgement to the tragedies and stories that happen around us – it only encourages our own self-righteousness or our self-mortification depending in the nature of the tragedy.  Neither response reflects the nature of God and our relationship to God.

This discouragement of judgementalism leads us nicely into the second story that is part of the text we considered today.

Nine or ten years ago I was on a work related trip in the country and as I was about to leave Wongan Hills I drove past a Nursery that was closing down.  There was a scruffy sign declaring huge discounts on citrus fruit trees.

I turned around and went in to see what they had.  I came away with a Mandarin, Grapefruit, Tangello and Navelino.

The Navelino, struggled and died over the winter. But the Grapefruit and Tangello settled in and went gangbusters.

That left me with a Mandarin that didn’t look like it was stressed or dying, but just didn’t seem to flourish.  Every spring, with it still showing no signs of vigour, my wife would say shall we dig it out and get a new one?  And I would say “Give it one more year, then we might pull it out.”

This past winter into spring has seen that Mandarin finally starting to flourish.  The central branches are shooting forth and maybe next year it will flower and set some fruit.

My story and Jesus’ parable both remind us of God’s grace and willingness to wait. 

It is very easy for us to nurture a judgemental attitude towards people who aren’t the flourishing Christians we think they should be, and we write people off and condemn them as lost. 

But in truth we are all lost.  Jesus calls us to follow in his way – out of our lostness and into a deep relationship with God – and each of us is at a different mile-peg along that road.

When I was working with Scripture Teachers for YouthCARE I used to spend a lot of time encouraging new Teachers to try and avoid that subtle attitude we often have that looks down on people who are not IN – who don’t believe and/or don’t go to church.  Kids will get those subtle messages even if we are trying to avoid passing it on.

I said to them, “Never write off a kid, no matter how hard they might be.  You don’t know the end of their story yet.”

And the same is true for you and me and everyone we come across in life.  If we write someone off as having been cut out of the Kingdom of God I think we are in danger of putting ourselves in more jeopardy than they are.

These two stories are, for me, an invitation to allow God to be much bigger than we generally allow him to be, and welcome others into our company as children of God all in need of God’s grace and acceptance.

And there is a sense of urgency in the stories – we don’t know what is around the corner, so let’s make sure our lives are connected to God right now.