We All Got It Coming, Kid

A Sermon for DaySpring

By Eric Howell

“We All Got It Coming, Kid”

Luke 13:1-9

February 28, 2016

If you ever wanted a good middle of Lent, come to Jesus, get your life right, sinner repent passage. . . well, here’s what you’re looking for. Though even here in this dark and troubling passage, Jesus manages to squeak out a ray of light for all of us in the dark. The headline stories we read about in Luke 13 are as ominous and tragic as any you’ll find in today’s news. They are stories of bad news, the stuff that sells newspapers. Pontius Pilate had killed some people who had come from Galilee to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices in the Temple. We know nothing more about this incident, but it’s not out of character for what we know about Pilate, who was a brutal and ruthless ruler.

The story is ominous. Readers of the gospel know full well that we’re going to meet Pilate again soon.He killed some Galileans before, and we know he’s going to do it again.

And there has been other suffering and death in Jerusalem as well. There are dangers lurking everywhere in the city of David, including towers that fall on people and kill them. Jerusalem appears as a dangerous place no matter where you turn.

The events of that day have echoes of the always cheery prophet Amos. A long time before this Amos had warned about a day on which there would be no safety no matter where you turned. Amosprophesied, “It is as if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him, or went into a house (presumably to get away from the lion and the bear) and leaned his hand against the wall, and a snake bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?”

That must be how they felt about Jerusalem right about then: a place of darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it. It’s as if a man fled from the political ruler and then a tower fell on him. In Jerusalem, it seems, there’s no place to run, no place to hide, nowhere to turn where you are safe and secure. And they are headed straight for it.

Talk of these two incidents ripped from the headlines—the killing of the Galileans and the Siloam tower falling to crush 18 people—are the climax of a speech that began with chapter 12, as Jesus speaks to a crowd so thick people were getting crushed by one another. There’s a nervous energy in the air as Jesus begins to speak of danger and trouble awaiting his followers. His whole speech seems to hum with awareness of the fate that is ahead of them. He speaks of “those who would kill the body” and how his followers should not fear them who can only kill the body, but to fear him who has the power of heaven and hell in his hands and who knows the hairs on your head. Jesus speaks of the possibility of his followers being brought before the rulers and authorities. “Do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that hour what you ought to say.”

He tells a story about a farmer who built bigger barns. He lays up treasure for himself,but is not rich toward God when his life is required of him that very night.

Do not be anxious about your life, Jesus said. Seek God’s kingdom first. Fear not, little flock. It is your Father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom. Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning.

The urgency in Jesus’ speech builds and builds as he carves a way through their assurance of God’sprotection, to drive home the message: there is a judgment coming. God is faithful, but demanding. The world can be daunting and we cannot hide from it. The dangers that lie in your path are spiritual and material, political and physical. There are dangers that wait because you are who you are as a faithful follower of Christ, and there are dangers that wait because someone didn’t reinforce the concrete in the base of the tower. Either way, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

In the movie Unforgiven, the young, would-be gunslinger called The Kid is sitting under a tree shaken, coming to grips with the stark reality that he just killed a man. He’d been all big talk before then. Now that he’s ended the life of another person, the value and mystery of human life is weighing on him. With a pull of the trigger, he has taken all his victim ever was and all he ever would be. Straining against the weight of it all, as if trying to convince himself, he offers a rationale for what has just happened and his role in it, “Well, I guess he had it coming.” You get what you deserve and you deserve what you get. That’s the way it works right? That’s one way of making sense of the world’s suffering, pain, and death: “I guess they had it coming”

The Kid offers this explanation as a way of ordering the world. He had it coming. Standing nearby, the aging, hardened gunslinger played by Clint Eastwood, looking off to the distant horizon, replies, “We all got it coming, kid.”

There is some gritty wisdom in that response and it is, in a way, the same account Jesus gives to his followers on their way to Jerusalem. We all got it coming.

The ones who follow Jesus will not hide from these realities. Indeed they head right into the lion’s den without looking back. Back in chapter 9 Jesus turned his face toward Jerusalem and he has not veered from his path yet. Knowing fully what awaits him and all of them there, he continues to go forward.

The Christian way has cost many people very much from those first days until now, which is apparently confusing for folks who got the idea that if you’re a really good Christian then bad stuff won’t happen to you. Sometimes it’s the opposite: if you’re a faithful Christian, you may very well suffer for it. Be faithful anyway.

Those people who died at the hands of Pilate: do you think you’re going to escape such a thing because you’re better, or you’re with Jesus, or because they were some kind of terrible sinners who got what they deserved? Those people who died when the tower fell on them: do you imagine that you’ll be wrapped in bubble wrap and protected from the realities of this world? They were not worse sinners than you are. Just as they faced suffering and death, you may as well. Here is the bottom line: there is life and it is precious, death and it is assured, and there is judgment for all.

It’s a hard word from Jesus and we might imagine that the crowd around him got really quiet when he talked this starkly about the pain in life that can await anyone, especially when he used the moment to emphasize one major word that everyone needs to hear in the face of the uncertainties of life: repent.

Jesus used the word ‘all’ four times as if to punctuate the universality of our need for repentance. All. All. All. All. Jesus’ words about repentance and judgment and the stories around them are scary, yet the underlying message is that life is a gift. That little story he tells about the fig tree is about that. The fig tree that so far hasn’t done anything worthwhile is given another chance to flourish under the care of the patient gardener. Our continued existence is not evidence of our righteousness, but of God’s mercy. Every year we have, every day we have, every breath we take is a gift of God’s grace. It is another chance.

Since we all have it coming and we don’t know when we have it coming, be ready and repent! Jesus learned a thing or two from the fiery preaching of John the Baptist, who cried out “Repent! The ax is already at the root of the tree. Every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire.” But Jesus adds something important. Jesus’ parable also says, “Repent!” and then adds, “The ax is left alone for a little while longer. Every day is a gift to you to turn your heart and life toward the Lord, and to bear spiritual fruit.” John’s emphasis was on the urgency of the imminent judgment. Jesus’ emphasis is on the gift of the opportunity each day gives us to turn to life in Him.

Jerusalem did not just represent a geographic location; with his face set toward the city and all it represented, Jerusalem was his and their future. Everyone in that group could sense that their future was scary, unsettling, and dangerous, and Jesus doesn’t make it all better by telling them everything’s going to be all right. He doesn’t tell them that stuff that happened to the other Galileans isn’t going to happen to them. He doesn’t tell them that bad things don’t happen to good people. He doesn’t tell them that God will protect them from all trouble in their lives.

Why? Because Jesus tells the truth and he knows, far more than anyone else, that life is hard and God is good.

Jesus gives them all the assurance he can about God’s care for them and God’s provision in times of need, but he cannot or will not mislead them—the way of faithfulness may lead to great suffering. This is the way of the world and thus is the way of the Son of Man with his face set toward the cross.

The way of the cross for us is the way of repentance. Repentance isn’t just Lenten “long-faced expressions of piety.” We are planted, like that fig tree, in good soil that gives life. Repentance is the way we send our roots down deeper into the good soil. It is an act of hope for new life from the One who gives life.

“The Christian outlook on repentance arcs toward joy,” beautifully notes one commentator. (Matthew Skinner). We look life right in the face. And we confess: today is a gift of God. I entrust my life today and all the days ahead of me to God’s mercy and into God’s holy and perfect will.