1 Corinthians 10:9-13
10:9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.
10:10 And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
10:11 These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.
10:12 So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.
10:13 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Prayer:
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds
and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the
thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
Message of Hope
As some of you know, I lost my only child to suicide on February 28, 2013.
As you can imagine, I was completely devastated. Someone asked me how I was feeling during that time, and the only thing I could think of to describe where I was emotionally, was “eviscerated” which is a 50 cent word for having your insides ripped completely out. I don’t remember a whole lot about much of anything during the following months, and what I do remember seems that it was someone else going through life, sort of like watching a movie. Who I was, or my sense of self, had always related to being Brandon’s dad. I got full custody of Brandon, and raised him on my own, doing my best to get him through childhood, and into adulthood with as few permanent scars, both physical and emotional, as possible. That’s what we as parents do right? I thought I was a pretty successful parent. Brandon was about to sign a record deal with a branch of Universal entertainment, and finish his first album. He seemed happy and mostly well adjusted. I was pretty proud of myself.
At three AM, three years ago today, a knock came at my door, and I knew when I woke up that he was gone.
In October the previous year, I finally had the opportunity to sign up to participate in a “Walk to Emmaus” weekend. Almost everyone in my family had been on a walk, and several had been leaders in the Emmaus community. My walk was scheduled for the second week of March 2013. If you ever have the chance to participate in a Walk to Emmaus, don’t miss the chance to be a part of something that can change your life.
It was truly an act of God that I had finally signed up to go on a walk to Emmaus, after years of not being able to take advantage of the retreat. Signing up in October, for a walk that was to begin only two weeks after my son’s suicide was a sure sign that God was holding me in his hands. God does provide you with what you need to endure, this was concrete proof and is a great example of God’s providence in my life.
I was still in shock and not fully functioning when my scheduled walk began. After consulting with my most intimate relatives, we reached a consensus that the walk would probably be a good thing, and the timing was definitely a God thing. There were no phones, no TV, no outside communications at all, and it would probably do me good to disconnect for a while, and be surrounded by those that had chosen to give up a few days of their busy schedules to focus on their relationship with God. February 28th is my special day. It’s the day that my son took his life. It’s because on February 28th three years ago, I woke up to a parent’s worst nightmare. At that point, I knew that life is indeed not always fair. I knew that life can change in a second, and I realized that every small decision we make can change the course of life. I didn’t wake up from that nightmare for over a year. I didn’t function well, as my mind was trying to wrap around the fact that my only child was gone, and all of the plans and hopes for the future as I had seen it then, were now gone. My sense of self-identity was gone, as I could no longer relate to the world, my proudest accomplishment of being Brandon’s Dad, or as he and his friends all call me, “Pops” had forever changed.
In Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, he wrote in chapter 10:13 “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”
I’m very thankful that I was raised in the church, and that I had faith in God, and had surrendered to do “God’s will” for my life when my Dad fell ill in 2008. I had changed my life. For real this time. No seriously, I meant it this time.
I think that the well-meaning cliché “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle”, probably comes from this writing. If that is true, then God must think I am one bad dude. What people leave out of “God won’t give you anything that you can’t handle” is the second part of the verse, that says he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure. My way out, or actually through this tragedy was to lean on those I loved, and that loved me. I was furious with God. I was mad at the world, I was furious with Brandon, but I got through that. I felt I didn’t have a reason to live. I got through that. I felt as if my life no longer had a purpose. I got through that. I wanted to just give up, and actually prayed for God to take me home right here and now, but for it not to hurt a whole lot. I got through that. I blamed others for my son’s death, I blamed myself even more so. I got through that. I was lost without my best friend. I am still getting through that. There are times when I still play the woulda, shoulda, coulda game in my head. I am getting through that. There are times that I wonder exactly what it is that God is calling me to do. I am getting through that. God won’t give you anything you can’t handle, because he also gives you the way out so that you may be able to endure. And of course that vehicle that enables us to endure is his unconditional love, the love of our family of faith, and the love of the people in our lives. Once again, the gospel in a nutshell, is love.
I once wrote that the person I loved most, gave me a gift. I thought it was a box full of darkness. That gift has allowed me to walk with people in their grief, it has helped me to relate to those that are facing their own mortality, and it has opened me up to be more mindful of the things that God guides me to say and do. It turns out that that gift was actually a gift of love. I’m here today as your part-time preacher, out of obedience to God’s calling on my life. I am thankful that I had 29 wonderful years with my son, and the gift of understanding the meaning of unconditional love, which came on the day he was born.
I’m sure you have all heard this before, but the only way someone can really change is when they hit rock bottom. I don’t believe that is always true, but in the context of addiction problems, it’s an accurate statement. I believe that most people don’t seek change unless the pain of their reality is great enough for them to want change bad enough to leave the familiar, and change course.
I grew up believing in the “boot-strap” ideology. I thought that a person was wholly responsible for their lot in life, and if they wanted to change all they had to do was focus on their self-determination. I was not a victim I was not powerless over anything in my life. My choices in life would determine my success, and if I wasn’t happy with where I was, then I was responsible and I needed to do the things that would get me closer to where I thought I should be. That is the culture we live in. Self-determination flavors our perception of the world around us, and we may not even realize that we are judging the homeless and the poor based on the “boot-Strap” theory. I have been guilty of doing just that.
There are some good things about the bootstrap theory. It is a good source of motivation for ourselves. But it really depends on what your boot straps consist of in your life. Is it ego-centric or is it Christ centered. As I matured, I realized that some people don’t have bootstraps, heck some people don’t even have the foundation that a boot-strap can be tied to. If you have a personal bootstrap, that is great. I still have one as well, but mine now has changed in it’s makeup. It has taken a lot of pain for me to reevaluate my life and my bootstrap theory. Having my world completely shredded by the loss of my son left me with no alternative other than to look to God, his word, and pay attention to the people he placed in my life to help get me through. I rebuilt my concept of the bootstrap, to be the hand of God. Through studying the bible, and reading the prophets both ancient and current. I was able to piece back together my sense of self, and my purpose in life.
The Gospel reading for the 3rd Sunday of Lent comes from Luke 13:1-9
Luke 13:1-9
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”
In a blame-the-victim society, Jesus reverses the responsibility to social systems that don’t function to fulfill God’s intention of abundance for all. We are called to be fertilizers of those systems of abundance. God doesn’t want us to have over-abundance, but he wants us to have enough to be able to become the fully realized beings that we were created to be.
Jesus uses specific events of his day and images of his listeners’ culture to communicate the nature of repentance and grace. The events and images in this passage would have evoked a visceral reaction from the first-century listeners. They do the same for us. The political violence of Pilate resulting in the blood of Galileans and a natural disaster that destroys buildings and the people beneath them do not affect all individuals the same. The symbolic nature of these events becomes real in the experience of listeners of all time periods. Why do the innocent suffer? Why did this tragedy happen to these people? Why the seeming randomness of death and destruction. It parallels the question raised in John 9:2, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus moves those “why” questions from a focus on those individual victims to the society and systems of which they are part. “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” he tells the disciples (and us). In Jesus’ world, repentance requires turning and change into a path of right relationship with God and with one another. “Life in the kingdom is not an elevated game of gaining favors and avoiding losses. Without repentance, all is lost anyway” The only way to win is to surrender.
Corporate and individual repentance is the go-to response for Jesus because although the cause of the suffering is not the main point for God, the reality of those without power as the most vulnerable to political violence or natural disaster persists. People who live on the margins of society already struggle with multiple layers of hardship to which the crisis at hand is added. Those who already suffer also have fewer resources at hand or available to them to recover. They not only have no bootstraps, they have no shoes.
Jesus then switches from historian to story-teller in this passage from Luke to communicate the grace in this repentance. He refers to the fig tree and a verbal exchange between master and gardener. Luke uses this to reinforce the grace in repentance. In all accounts, the fig tree is held accountable for not producing good fruit as is intended.
In Luke, the master is ready to cut it down and start over until the gardener pleads for another chance. The request is not just one more year to let things ride, but one in which the gardener will fertilize and work with the soil so the tree will produce the abundance intended for itself and for the vineyard of which it is a part.
The master agrees to another year, offering the fig tree, with the gardener’s accompaniment, another chance to be in right relationship as intended – to bear fruit.
The seeming randomness of unexpected death and natural disaster adds to the difficulty of experiencing the event and its aftermath. Life is going on as expected one moment and in the next everything is thoroughly completely changed. To recover one has to shape a “new normal” physically, communally, emotionally and spiritually, assigning meaning to the experience. I will never “get over” the loss of my only child, but I have found a new normal.
I used to think that suicide was the most selfish act in the world. Now I see clearly that it is not, but it is driven by enough pain to incite such a desire for change, that ending one’s own life seems to be the only way to get relief. No matter how misguided and untrue that may be, to a person whose mind is not working correctly, or is affected by a disease, reasoning will not be sound and judgment will not be completely accurate. When Robin Williams took his life, I heard several comments about the selfishness of suicide. Most people were unaware of his mental illness, and the depression he suffered as well as the onset of Alzheimer’s related dementia.
When that assigned meaning of the tragedy is to blame the victim, it not only causes more suffering for the group already affected, but also, compromises the whole society. Jesus turns that go-to response of blaming the victim on its head, insisting instead on the responsibility of all in an attitude of repentance. Inherent in repentance is turning and change. That gardener is given the grace of yet another chance to be the one who fertilizes and cares for the tree so it produces good fruit.
Our job as Christians is to be the gardener of God’s creation. Planting seeds, watering, working the soil, and leaving the growing, to God, the Master of the garden.
When bad things happen to people, or when you see suffering, don’t blame the person, because there is no way to know the whole story of what they have endured. Our job is to love our neighbors, not to judge who is worthy of God’s grace, our love, and our assistance.
I want to leave you with this one request for today. Call someone this week that you may not be as close to as you once were, and tell them how important they are to you. Tell your family that you love them as often as you can, because tomorrow isn’t promised for anyone.
It is in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Prayer
Creator God,
We are so very thankful for the unconditional love you have for your creation.
We are thankful that you are God, and that we are not.
We are greatful for the provisions available to us, and knowing that even in the worst of times, you will provide a way to endure, if we just look to you, and follow your will.
Lord be with those that are grieving, be with those that are finding a new normal because of loss or a change in circumstance. God we ask today for your abundant peace and love for those in this community who are facing struggles, and for those that are dealing with things unmentioned.
Bless our lives with your presence, and reminders of the coming new season of growth.
We ask in Jesus name.
Amen