St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent (March 11, 2007)
Liturgical Color: Purple
Reverend Doctor Lyle McKee
"Faith and Superstition"
Grace to you and peace from our loving God and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This is one of my favorite stories of Jesus. He sets us straight about that question that hangs over every unfortunate event: "Why?" We come up with all sorts of answers. Jesus tells it, as we used to say, like it is.
The suffering of the Galileans and the death of the eighteen when the tower in Siloam fell were not due to the weight of their sins. "No," Jesus says. They were no worse sinners than are we. These events were not punishment for sins. They are, however, reminders of our need to repent.
I suspect that is why the reading appears during this season of Lent. Here is the warning: "unless you repent you will all likewise perish."
Our minds and hearts are enslaved by thinking that sees things in terms of cause and effect. If the tower killed only these eighteen, then they must have deserved it. The sin is the cause; their death is the effect. If I have suffered with the flu, I must have deserved it. If my teacher doesn't like me, it must be because I am a bad person. My life is falling apart; I must be the cause of it. Even sweet little Marcella was wondering what she had done that was so bad to land her in the hospital this week.
The books of Psalms and Proverbs are filled with reference to cause and effect. If you do what's right, you will have a long and good life. If you sin, if you behave foolishly, you will have short and pain-filled days. It sounds logical. Indeed we most often want it that way. We try to find order and method in our world so we can get a handle on life. "Just behave and you'll always be wealthy." "Just live right and your will live long and always be healthy." It's a frightening thing to us when it doesn't work out that way — when the unpredictable intrudes on us. Some of scripture, written as praise or so-called wisdom, explains things the way most of us do — in terms of cause and effect. Jesus, however, says that is not the way it is. Bad things happen even to people who are no worse than we.
Jesus made the same point in dealing with the man who was born blind (John, chapter 9). His disciples asked him who sinned — the man or his parents — that made him to be born blind. Jesus answers: "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him." Jesus consistently condemns the notion that human tragedy is punishment for sin. In the Sermon on the Mount too, he made it clear: "[God] makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45)
It's a point I have made before. God does not reward us according to our virtues or punish us for our transgressions. At base, our refusal to incorporate fully that biblical truth is yet another evidence of sin, of our self-centered nature. Isn't it the case that what most of us really want is to exert some kind of control over our lives? Isn't it an extremely attractive idea that everything that happens is controlled by a force that we might be able to understand fully?
This seems to be what all the fuss is about. We want to control the circumstances of our lives. We want everything to operate according to our sense of cause and effect. The truth, of course, is that we have no such control. There is much in life that we can't control.
Still, we try our level best to exert control. It may be a fading practice, but I'll bet there are some here who have a lucky charm. Folks have been known to use everything from a rabbit's foot to horseshoes for the purpose. What is it about animal's feet anyway?
Or, how many of your have a lucky hat, a lucky bat (for you baseball players), a sense of which side of the bed to get up on, which foot to step off the plane on, which situations to avoid (walking under ladders, in the path of black cats, broken mirrors, rooms or floors involving the number thirteen, etc.). How many of you, besides one of our former presidents, read your horoscope?
It's all the same, and it's all superstition. The gospel this morning sets all of it clearly in its place. It is all pointless, meaningless, and wasteful of time, resources, and God's good gifts.
But we persist. Maybe, just maybe, something good will happen. Perhaps the evil will be warded off. After all, we've been okay so far. We'd better not give up on our charms and our practices now; we might meet with disaster if we do.
Our mental gymnastics border on the absurd. In an airplane accident some years ago, the top was ripped off or a jet flying out of Hawaii and a flight attendant was flung out to her death. When the plane landed, another flight attendant on that same flight made plans to fly home on the next available plane. Someone asked her if she was nervous about flying again so soon after her terrifying experience. Her answer was that she figured that her number had been up once already. She didn't think it would come up again soon.
Our attempts to understand and control circumstances that in reality have no pattern of cause and effect are futile and destructive. When we carry a rabbit's foot or read our horoscopes, it is all too likely that we are trying to control what happens through a reliance on luck instead of hard work. Wearing a lucky hat or using your lucky pen is not likely to help you pass the test you didn't study for!
Superstition is an attempt to control aspects of our lives that are beyond our control. Faith, of the other hand, is a willingness to surrender control of our lives to God. Jesus, remember said to those gathered, "Unless you repent you will all likewise perish." If we place our trust or our hope in things that do not endure, we have no hope at all. We perish with them. The only path to true hope is to repent and to place our trust in that which does not perish; and that, or course, is God in Christ Jesus.
This story of the tower of Siloam has implications that extend even to our life of prayer. Take note of how you pray during this next week. How many of those prayers attempt to manipulate God. Are you seeking a God who will control the weather? Do you ask that God change the attitudes of others (your spouse, your boss)? What about prayers for good fortune (winning the lottery, getting a new car)? Is God a tool that we use for our own desires, a talisman or a genie? Or is God the One in whose care we place our lives, seeking from God guidance for good for ourselves and all whom we encounter on our daily journey?
It is, I suspect, a rare Christian indeed who has the spiritual maturity to pray, "Not my will, Oh Lord, but thine be done."
Jesus wanted us to understand not why bad things happen but rather our responsibility for making good things happen. He wanted us to be able to discern the difference between the things we can control and those we cannot. That wonderful prayer, called the Serenity Prayer, comes to mind:
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Superstition and cause and effect thinking lead to reflection on what life does to us. Faith leads us to reflect upon what we can do with life.
This parable of the fig tree leads us in exactly that direction. If we sit around doing nothing, immersed in vain hopes for a future we envision through rabbit's feet and horseshoes, we bear no fruit and we might as well be cut down.
If, on the other hand, we take courage to change what we can, we bear the fruit that comes of repentance and faith.
So many of the people in America claim to be Christian. Most polls put it at over eighty percent. And yet, the fruit we bear does not demonstrate our professed beliefs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the well-known Lutheran pastor martyred in Nazi Germany, called it cheap grace; the perception that Christianity offers only a flood of blessings, the rights of the Kingdom without responsibilities to the King. Cheap grace. Religion without a price, without any cost — without the Cross.
H. G. Wells once wrote an essay on that tribe of people called the "goodness sakers." We all know them. They're the folks who see something that needs doing, or see some social evil, or notice a moral short-coming; and they sit and wring their hands and say, "For goodness sake, why doesn't someone do something!?"
It is we who are called to do something. We may not be able to say why there is hunger in the world, but we can help to feed the hungry. We may not understand why healthy people are struck down before their time, but we can bring comfort and give support.
One of Goethe's wise thoughts might lead in the right direction. He wrote: "Let each person sweep in front of his own door, and then the whole world will be clean." If all who call themselves Christian moved beyond pacifying superstition to the faith that bears fruit, we could accomplish great things.
The Church is often portrayed in the image of a ship tossed about by the tides and winds of the world. If so, we are the crew, and we can't merely watch the ship sinking without concern. We may not be the captain, but it is our calling — our responsibility to do what we are able to do.
Superstition or faith? Are we using God or letting God use us? Which is it that brings us here? Do we call on the name of Jesus as we would cling to a rabbit's foot, or do we give our lives and our gifts to God and put them into the service of God's reign? Is there room for the cross in our lives? Or are we too busy looking for four-leaf clovers? Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts
and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal
life. Amen.
