God’s Mercy for Repentance

Lent III; March 11, 2007

Luke 13:1-9

You know the old notion: if you do good, then good things will happen to you; if you do evil, then bad things will happen to you. I suspect you also know better than to believe it strictly, although it works that way often enough to tend to encourage good behavior. Still, when bad things happen to someone, it is common to ask, “What did she do to deserve that?”

Jesus debunks that way of thinking when the folks tell him about Governor Pilate’s latest atrocity and he adds to that report his comment on those killed when Siloam tower fell on them. So, although these tragic events are not judgments against those who were harmed by them, Jesus takes them as an opportunity to warn us to repent. When coupled with the parable of the fig tree that does not bear figs, right after it, we have a clear message: God is merciful in order to give you and me opportunity to repent.

God’s mercy is not in winking at our sins, not in indulging our little misbehaviors, our selfish and aggressive actions. God’s mercy is in warning us of what may be coming and then giving us time to repent. God is good at giving warnings: using prophets and people with insight to show us where things need to change, yet human beings typically go blithely on our way as though everything were okay. By the mercy of God, we are given time to repent, even if generally speaking we don’t repent.

God tells the prophet Jeremiah to warn the government of Judah that if it persists in stubbornness then the country will be stomped by the Babylonians. But God doesn’t really expect them to repent, and they don’t, and they do get stomped by the Babylonians. Prophets and pundits warned us about what we were doing in Vietnam; did we repent? We were warned about Iraq; did we repent?

One of our current controversies is over global climate change: is human activity contributing to the increasing temperature of the planet? A story in last Sunday’s World-Herald (“Study projects sharp increase in U. S. greenhouse gas emissions”) notes that a report approved by 113 nations, including our own, concludes that global warming “very likely” is aggravated by human activity but can be mitigated if we change policies and behaviors now. Even so, the same story notes that the Administration reports that by 2020 the United States will emit almost twenty percent more greenhouse gases than we did in 2000. We have been warned; will we repent?

You don’t have to listen to talk radio to be aware that there is not universal agreement with the conclusion that the planet is growing warmer at a dangerous rate as a result of human activity; the scientific agreement is approximately 90%, not universal. But whenever we are warned to repent, there is never universal agreement. The Prophet Jeremiah wore a yoke – you know, the wooden collar you put on oxen so they can pull a wagon or a plow – to symbolize his message that the people should submit to the yoke of Babylon and live; if you continue the government’s policy of resisting the Babylonians, he said, then Nebuchadrezzar will destroy us. The Prophet Hananiah took the yoke off of Jeremiah and broke it, saying that Babylon was doomed and all would be well (Jeremiah 27-28). By the time the people of Judah realized that Jeremiah was right and Hananiah was wrong, it was too late; the Babylonians had destroyed their country.

We can never expect universal agreement and we cannot know for certain that prophets of doom are right, not until it is too late. God is merciful and gives us time to repent; we should use that time to repent. My father insisted that there was no absolute proof that smoking cigarettes was hazardous to one’s health. He continued to insist that there was no proof until he was dead at 53. When we are warned, let us pay attention and repent while we can.

A second point to keep in mind: events can be warnings to repent, even if God doesn’t do things to people for that purpose. Jesus insists on that point: God did not compel Pilate to commit his atrocity against these Galileans because God wanted to punish them and God did not push the Tower of Siloam over on those other people because they were wicked. Nonetheless, Jesus says, “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” These events can be warnings to others.

Everyone above the age of childhood probably remembers where you were 5½ years ago today. I was in my office, talking to a colleague on the phone about the antics of another minister in our presbytery and what the Committee on Ministry was failing to do about him (this was another presbytery, not the one I’m in now). After our conversation, I stormed out of my office, yelling something about the Committee on Ministry being a bunch of wimps, when our Administrator yelled at me from her office, “Shut up and get in here.” I did; the whole staff was gathered around her television set, watching flames coming from the side of one tower of the World Trade Center. We watched a second plane fly into the other tower. You know how the rest of the day unfolded and you could surely tell me in great detail what September 11, 2001 was like for you.

I remember wondering, after more than a week, when I was going to be able to read the newspaper again without weeping. I also remember the promises people made to themselves, to each other and to God. We were going to give more of our attention to family life and less to acquiring and spending money. We were going to cut back on a life of frantic activity in order to take time to appreciate being alive, to worship God, to have real friendships. The Tower of Siloam did not fall so that Jesus could warn the people who were listening to him and the towers of the World Trade Center were not destroyed so that God could warn us all to repent of existences consumed by things that do not matter, but “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” says Jesus. He has a point.

Third point: although God, in great mercy, gives us time to repent, judgment does come. Sooner or later we have to face up to our decisions and what we have made of ourselves by those decisions. Jesus’ little parable about the fruitless fig tree could be read in more than one way, but one good way is to read it as an allegory. The tree is the spiritual life of God’s people and the fruit – if there were any – would be the kingdom of heaven let loose in the world as a result of that spiritual life. The gardener is Jesus, calling upon the mercy of God the landowner to give the tree more time to bear fruit. I guess that means that the preacher’s sermons are the manure. Sounds right.

In the providence of God, judgment delayed is not judgment denied; judgment delayed is an opportunity to repent. The gardener persuades the landowner to give the tree another year and the landowner, merciful, agrees. But the fourth year will come, it comes to each of us, and it comes to all of us. If we do not repent because there is not universal agreement what the problem is, then agreement will come when it is too late to repent. If we do not repent because we enjoy our comfortable ways, then judgment will come upon us when the landowner checks again after another year. Whether we are talking about climate change, international policy, government spending, the ministry of the Church, the well-being of our communities or our own messed-up, misguided lives, do we want our judgment to be our grandchildren asking us, “Why didn’t you do something when you could?”

Although judgment does come on our decisions and what we have made of ourselves, God is merciful; God gives us time to repent. Let us use the time well.

Keep spreading it on, Lord Jesus, our gardener, and give us the grace, the faith and the strength to repent. Amen.

Robert A. Keefer

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Clarinda, Iowa