Sermon – “Sooner Rather Than Later”

Posted on March 14, 2013

“Sooner Rather Than Later”
Luke 13:1-9
Preached by Dr. Laurey Murphy on March 3, 2013

In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus isn’t letting any of us off the hook! If you came here just to
get a warm fuzzy from the gospel, it isn’t all polite smiles and a warm handshake of hoping this
makes you feel better. Jesus isn’t our man for that kind of good news this week. He is on his
Way of upsetting the apple cart of faith and forcing a life changing decision.

It’s this decision that continues to baffle his followers….even those closest to him. They
long for a checklist that if you do this, this and this—then God will do this. They crave 10
straightforward steps to heaven but instead Jesus gives a sketch for extensive cardiac rehab for
the soul. People want a GPS to guide them each step of the way but Jesus says stop being best
friends with Siri, the go to voice of your personal assistant on Iphone and instead start trusting
him.

A shocked group in the crowd comes forward with the latest headline news of some faithful
pilgrims who had come from the same region as Jesus to Jerusalem for worship— only to be
murdered. It could have happened to the group of us from here who went two years ago to
those same Temple steps. How could anyone do such a horrible act? Why did this happen?
What had any of those folks done to deserve such a tragic death?

It’s human nature to ask why do bad things happen. Haven’t you yourself asked at a time
of crisis, “What did I do to deserve this?” We try to make sense out of such a tragedy…to
speculate that if bad things happen to people it must have been because they have done
something wrong and are being punished for it. I’d be willing to bet that almost all of us have
been with someone in the hospital or at a funeral home and heard God being attributed as the
cause for such tragedies . Even insurance companies call a calamity that occurs accidentally or
in nature as an “Act of God.” I remember after Hurricane Katrina hearing in the news people
being interviewed of how God was punishing the people of New Orleans.

Obviously from his response, this distraught group has come to Jesus asking, “Do you think that
these Galileans suffered somehow because they had ticked off God?”

But without hesitation, Jesus gives a resounding “no—that they weren’t worse sinners than
any other Galilean.” It’s good news, sort of,…until Jesus dons his teaching hat rather than his
pastoral care tone, and says “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”

It’s what educators call taking advantage of a teachable moment. Jesus throws in a lesson
about turning around. “Unless you repent, unless you turn around, unless you turn to God…,
then you will all perish as they did.”

Jesus does not really argue with the popular notion about sin and death. But what he seems to
want to emphasize is that death happens…it is always a possibility today and its not necessarily
controllable or explainable. It just happens and will sooner or later. It can happen when you
are asleep. It can happen at church. It can happen when you are standing under a wall. It can
catch you by surprise. And though you might intend to one day turn to God but you don’t have
time now or you’re not ready to give up a habit—what’s to say you’ll have the time to do so
later? Jesus doesn’t sound very understanding as we might expect him to be. But maybe he’s
not aiming to comfort the crowd; he wants to challenge them. The time is sooner rather than
later to change, to turn, to repent.

Jesus touches the panic inside us about all the awful things that are happening around us. The
crowd is terrified by these happenings and for good reason. While Jesus doesn’t comfort them
with the thought that nothing bad will ever happen to them, he does seem to embrace the
vunerabilty that they feel. It is not a bad thing to feel how fragile life really is. It is not a bad
thing to count your breathes in the dark of night if it makes you turn toward the light.

It is that turning Jesus wants for them…that repenting which is why he confronts rather than
cuddles the crowd. Tragedies do happen….tragedies that are by man and tragedies by nature
and there is not always a neat explanation nor someone to blame. But don’t let that stop you
from doing what you can do about yourself here and now, sooner than later.

In the midst of feelings running high, Jesus says suddenly, “Let me tell you a story.” It’s as if the
crowd is a classroom of rowdy kindergartners and Jesus wants to quiet them down by telling
them about some fig tree that hasn’t put out any fruit for three years. But the fruitless tree has
been given a second chance by some gardener willing to dig around it, fertilize it and water it
some more…hoping the fruit shall come sooner than later.

When the story is finished, one person in the crowd leaves thinking about her brother she
hasn’t spoken to in over year and goes off to call him. A father realizes he’s been working
too much lately and vows to take his kids to the park that very day. One person heads off
untangling the excuses she’s made for being stuck in one place and not moving on with her life.
A couple leave knowing it’s time that they finally do the necessary papers for a will and a power

of attorney. And yet another departs from the story in awe—believing this guy Jesus is really
onto something that is so true…so life giving.

What’s there for you to change…to do…to turn sooner than later. That’s the gift of Lent in
realizing now is the time to do it…sooner than later.

Let us pray. Almighty God, you nudge us, call us, challenge us by Your Word in Jesus Christ to
make a u turn, a roundabout, an about face in our hearts, in our faith, in our lives. O God of
Hope “grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the
things we can and the wisdom to know the difference…living one day at a time” sooner than
later.