3rd Sunday of Lent : Homily / Sermon

Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. (Luke 13:4)

Why? Why? 

This is the question which Jesus considers in today’s Gospel. What about the people who were massacred while they worshipped? Why did that happen? And the people who died when the tower fell on them? Why did they have to die? And the victims of the car accident or those afflicted by cancer: why? why? 

These are questions just as important to us today as they were to Jesus’ listeners.

Yet Jesus’ answer may at first appear a little puzzling. He doesn’t seem to be responding to the question we would like to ask. 

But look again - it is filled with hope.

Firstly, he rebukes those who think these terrible events occurred because these were bad or wicked people. This might not seem the most obvious question for us to ask. Yet we do ask ourselves, “Why”, which surely includes “Why them?” “Why me?”
It might be expressed in a different way, but it is obvious that people of Jesus’ time clearly struggled with occasions of innocent suffering as we do.

Those who suffer so terribly, they ask, what have they done wrong?
And the answer - is Nothing. Of course nothing. They have done nothing wrong. No, Jesus says. This is not punishment. It is not God who is striking them down through the wickedness of men or the whim of natural disaster. They are no worse than any of us you. (They might even be much better)

And secondly, Jesus makes another point. And this is our great hope.
He says this: We must all must recognise our need of God; we all need to repent. We must turn again to Him. And if we do - there is mercy, and hope, and more. Comfort often clouds our judgment - but disaster and affliction and persecution make us think again. Consider your lives, he says, live according to God’s will. If you do, you will see the light at the end of the dark tunnel; if you do, there is a very real hope.

When people are on their backs, and sometimes only then, they look up.
When we are in difficulty in despair, we concern ourselves not with theological questions, but with the reality and mercy of God himself. And in times of crisis, those who have a sense or perhaps only an inkling of a greater power and a transcendent love, are together at prayer, united across boundaries, gathering at cracked and wounded places of worship, to share a determination, and a hope, and a belief in Mercy.