Sermon of the Week

Scripture: Luke 13:1-5

1 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Sermon
(SLIDE: Water)
Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And every day for the next 6 days, God (SLIDE: Montage) created the heavens and the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the plants, the animals, the birds, the fish, and even the people.
Beginning with Day 3, after God had finished his handiwork, we find these words, (SLIDE: Mont and text) “And God saw that it was good.”
And you know, it really was good.
But then, a little while later, there were some new developments in the world.
Somebody made these two (SLIDE: Adam and Eve) an offer they should have refused.
Sadly, they didn’t.
And suddenly, the world was not quite so good anymore.

Flash forward to Jesus (SLIDE) teaching.
In the years between Adam and Eve and Jesus God had been very busy shaping a people.
It was no easy task because the people resisted.
Because of sin, we, well, how many of us really like being told what to do?
See? Not too many.
Even when God is doing the telling, we still resist.

One of the things that we resist, and that they were already resisting in Jesus’ time, is the idea that we are not basically good.
We like looking at that first creation story in Genesis and reading that God “saw that it was good,” and so did they.
There was a limited number of things that the Jews of Jesus’ time believed that they had to do and not do to be “good”.
If they did these things, then they were not sinners.
This quickly coupled itself with the idea that good things happen to good people because God blesses them and bad things happen to bad people because God curses them.
Those who obey the law get rewards, those who disobey the law get punishment.
Simple, right?

Well, our lives a seldom so well ordered.
They might be if we could actually be ‘good’, but God’s standard of good is 100% obedience to God’s will for our lives.
Total submission to God. Total. Period.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
They don’t.
That’s because, by God’s definition (and God’s is the only one that matters), there are no good people.

It was into a world, much like ours, where the people believed that they were good that Jesus came and taught.

Just like in our time there were accidents and catastrophes that made the news.
And they had their own share of Pat Robertson’s, who blamed the fate of those involved on their failure to be good.
They blamed the sin of construction workers building a tower for the fact that it fell on them.
“God made that tower fall on them because of their evil ways”, they said.
They never considered that the architect could have designed the building poorly or that the contractor could have substituted substandard materials, either one or both combined could have sealed those workers’ fates without them ever making any mistake or committing any sin.
It just never occurred to them that the sin of one person usually affects many others, rather than that particular sinner.
For instance, if I kill you and no one can prove it, you and your family suffer, not me.
If I steal from you and no one can prove it, then you suffer while I benefit.
If I gossip about you then my desire to tear you down is satisfied and you and your reputation suffer.
But this idea was totally foreign to the Jews of Jesus’ day.
They always blamed the sinners for the bad things that happened to them.

Jesus said, “You think that bad things happen to people who are sinners because they are sinners and bad things do not happen to you because you are not sinners.
“Get a life!
“Everybody is a sinner and bad things happen to everybody.
“Some have worse things happen to them than others, but that’s not because of their sin, it’s just the way things are.
“You ask, ‘Do bad things only happen to bad people?’ and that’s the wrong question.
“The question you should be asking, ‘Am I more concerned with what I want for me or what God wants for me?’”
In other words, have we turned from the idolatry of me to the worship of God? (SLIDE: blank)

Last week we made a most difficult decision for our life and ministry together.
I believe that we made the right choice.
God knew that there would be an end to our ministry when God set us out on it.
Our congregation is closing.
It’ll take a while to finish that, but it is closing.
That puts us in the position to make other decisions for our life and ministry.
As we make those decisions, I believe that Jesus wants us to know that we are not bigger sinners than anyone else out there.
We are not good, but we are not worse, either.
The closing of this congregation is not because we have sinned in a particular way.
Look around us.
There are a lot of congregations in trouble.
There are catastrophes for congregations all over town, all over the country.
Many will close before we do and many more will close after.
Right now, that’s just the way things are.

There is something important that I believe that Jesus wants us to know this morning.
That is, we are not failures in his eyes.
We are not failures in the eyes of Christ as long as we continue to do three things.
First, we are not failures in the eyes of Christ as long as we keep our faith.
No matter what happens in our lives, no matter who comes and who goes, we can always keep our faith.
Second, we are not failures in the eyes of Christ as long as we continue to worship.
We have worshiped together here, but worship can go on for us, as a group or as individuals joining other groups, somewhere else, and it should.
Worship is important for us and for the Lord.
Finally, we are not failures in the eyes of Christ as long as we find new ways to share his love in our community.
We are a people who knows how to love and we will continue in his love.
We are not failures in the eyes of Christ.
We need not be failures in our own eyes, either.