Daily Devotions

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20

With these words, Jesus launched the mission of the church. To go. To make disciples. To baptize. To teach. All with the promise of his living presence among them.

In John’s gospel, Jesus meets his disciples in an upper room on Easter evening and sends them out with a call to speak the forgiveness of sins through the power of the Spirit. He sends them out to love one another and the world around them. He sends them out to be the church.

In the book of Acts, Jesus tells his disciples that they will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Then, in the 2nd chapter, the Spirit fills those who gather around Peter’s preaching and the lamp of the light of the church is lit.

We continue this mission and ministry today. In the church calendar, the season of teaching and disciple-shaping, the season of Pentecost, stretches out across the remainder of the summer and on to the end of the year. It can be as long as 26 Sundays. The color is green, the theme is the growth of the church. Toward the end of Pentecost there are the celebration days of Reformation Sunday, All Saints Day and Christ the King Sunday.

Throughout the year, the church has the option of remembering various saints and leaders of the church along the way, our heroes and models of faithfulness. Many Sundays have more than one commemoration and worship leaders have a choice.

The Bible readings for each Sunday – in those congregations that use the common lectionary (list of readings) come in a three year cycle, years A, B and C. Each Sunday, a reading from a gospel is assigned with an Old Testament reading that picks up the same theme. The second lesson or Epistle reading is taken from a New Testament book, often several readings in a row from a particular book. In year A, most Gospel readings are from Matthew; year B, from Mark and John; and year C, from Luke. We are now at the beginning of year C.

Now that we’ve taken this quick trip through the year, I hope you can see that the church calendar, like all the liturgical traditions of the church, is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The calendar is a gift to us as it takes us through a journey in following Jesus, as it links us to all the other congregations listening to the same Bible texts and having the same kind of party each week. It can help us. Or it can, if misunderstood and (in my opinion) abused, it can make us focus more on “rite” living than “right” living.

If nothing else, when you go to worship this Sunday, when you see the blue clothes in the front of the church, the Advent candle waiting for a nervous acolyte, know that you are walking a journey that doesn’t end at a manger but inside the gates of heaven. I hope you choose to be there, to walk that path, and to have fun along the way.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, those who have gone before us and those who surround us now in the Christian family. We pray that the games we play at church draw us closer to you, help us center our lives in your presence and purpose, and birth in us the joy of fellowship with you and with one another. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Mark 16:1-8

As we move further into December, it will be increasingly difficult to remember that the holiest day of the Christian year is Easter rather than Christmas. Christmas captures our imaginations but Easter gave birth to the faith.

It is the Easter story, Jesus walking out of an empty tomb, swallowing up death, that is the vindication and the inspiration of the Christian faith. We celebrate that event every week throughout the year as the church gathers on the morning of the first day of the week.

I don’t know if “interesting” is the right word but it is interesting to see how differently the wider culture reacts to these two holy days. Brightly decorated shopping malls will play Christmas carols through their sound systems from the day after Thanksgiving on. But it is highly doubtful that we will hear “Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today” playing in Macy’s. Why is it that Christmas seems a relatively “safe” day while Easter seems a “threat”?

Maybe there is a certain “been there-done that” to the birth of a child. Just as God intended, the birth of Jesus helps Jesus identify with all of us. We’ve been born. We’ve had children. But Easter brings us face to face with the reality at the other end of our lives. Easter, coming on the heels of a season of repentance, is both judgment and grace in our lives. Judgment for the same sins of pride, greed and fear that rejected Jesus and grace in God’s refusal to let us die helplessly in our sin. That very judgment, and the promise of such grace, is an invitation to reorient our lives. To literally follow Jesus rather than just remember him.

The color for Easter is white, the theme is the resurrection. It is followed by the Easter season, 50 days of celebration. The color remains white. The Paschal candle (baptismal candle, processional candle…the big candle by the baptismal font) remains lit all season. The first reading is from the book of Acts rather than the Old Testament. And then, after 50 days, comes Pentecost Sunday, the traditional “birthday of the church” with the reading from Acts 2 and the church dressed in red.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, we are walking today through Advent, through the anxiety and weight of the Christmas story as we have come to live in it. Keep us mindful of the bigger picture, of the etneral purposes not only of your birth but also of your death and victory over death. Hope seems to be leaking away out of the lives of so many, fill us anew with the power of our faith in you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:16-18

Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday in Epiphany, is like a preview of coming attractions. On the one hand, the scene of Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah is an affirmation of Jesus’ ministry and a glimpse of the final culmination of God’s purposes at the end of time. On the other hand, Jesus still has work to do so he leads his disciples back down the mountain and starts the rest of the walk to Calvary.

That walk then takes the church into Lent and Holy Week. The timing for Lent is set by the date of Easter. Easter always falls… get this … on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (set at March 21st.) Easter then falls somewhere between March 22 and April 25th. Lent is the 40 day period (not counting Sundays which are always celebrations of the resurrection) before Easter, a reminder of the 40 years in the wilderness for the people of Israel and the 40 days in the wilderness at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, a somber service of repentance and rededication to Christian discipleship. In many congregations, people will come to the altar twice in that service – first, for the imposition of ashes, a sign of our mortality and our repentance and then later for Holy Communion. The color for Lent is purple and the theme is discipleship, following Jesus to the cross and serving Jesus in our daily lives. At Covenant and at many other congregations, we have a special worship series on the Wednesday nights in Lent.

Lent ends with Palm Sunday, also recently called Passion Sunday. The first part of that worship service remembers Jesus entering Jerusalem that last week of his earthly life and then the mood changes with the reading of the Gospel lesson and the story of the crucifixion. Many congregations worship several times during Holy Week, the week before Easter – Maundy Thursday which remembers the institution of the Lord’s Supper and Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, Good Friday, remembering the crucifixion, the Easter Vigil on Saturday night in preparation for Easter, and then Easter Sunday morning. Whew!

I look back at this brief “schedule” of the holiest time in the Christian calendar and I realize once again that we are wise to observe Lent, not so much by “giving stuff up” but by “adding worthwhile stuff” to our lives during the season – setting aside time for prayer, reading the Bible, worshipping, serving, learning and growing. The point of the whole season is not to impress God with our piety and acts of devotion but to quiet ourselves down enough to realize anew what God has done and continues to do in, with and for us in Jesus.

The goal of the whole church calendar is not that we serve the schedule but that the schedule serves us – “Man was not made for the Sabbath.” As we follow and observe the rhythms of the Lenten season, it takes us to new places of silence, of contemplation, of centeredness.

Maybe it even quiets us down enough that we actually catch that brief glimpse that means everything – that we see ourselves caught up in God’s purposes, in God’s love, in God’s sacrificial love.

Let us pray: In every season of our lives, O Lord, we run the risk of missing the point. Now, at the edge of Advent, and thinking ahead to Lent and Easter, the holy days rush in upon us and distract us from what matters. So we pray that you help us to slow down, to set aside time to be, to ponder, to listen, and to give thanks for your presence, your purpose and your power. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. Matthew 2:7-12

The Christmas season lasts for 12 days and is followed by the season of Epiphany. “Epiphany” means “revealing”. It begins on January 6th, the Day of Epiphany, which remembers the visitation of the three kings (magi, wisemen, astrologers?) to the baby Jesus who is still, 12 days later, in Bethlehem. I’ll say more about that below.

The color of Epiphany is green and the theme is the revelation of Jesus to the world. There are holidays within Epiphany – next year, the church will remember the “Name of Jesus” on January 1st and the “Baptism of Jesus” on January 10th. The length of the Epiphany season can vary from 4 weeks to 9 weeks, depending on the date of Easter. The last Sunday of Epiphany is Transfiguration Sunday where Jesus gathers with his disciples on the mountain and his ministry is again affirmed by God in the presence of Moses and Elijah.

Now back to the visitation of the wise men….

In all of our Christmas pageants this Advent season, the wise men are going to show up at the manger about fifteen seconds after the shepherds, or maybe after a verse or two of “Away in A Manger”. I don’t know when that happened, but it has always been that way in my lifetime. We just make the story come out the way we want it to come out. The wise men are as much a part of a manger scene as the lowing cattle (lowing, I think, means “mooing” but I never learned about that at the seminary…I just love the song.)

In other words, we just remember the story the way we want to remember the story. The Epiphany season, observed well, will threaten that temptation we have to bend the faith so that it says what we want it to say.

We want the faith to be about US, about OUR concerns, about OUR hopes and dreams. The Epiphany season says that God has much bigger plans that just us – God is out to save the entire world. It is the foreigness, the strangeness, the “out of placeness” of the three magi that is as much a part of the story as their gifts of gold (fit for a king), frankincense (for carrying prayers in worship) and myrrh (used to prepare a body for burial.)

The Epiphany season tells us that the child is named “Jesus” because God wants to save his people, ALL his people, from their sins. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan to identify himself with all the rest of the sinners who will come to die and be raised to new life through baptism from that time forward. Transfiguration Sunday says that nothing is going to stop Jesus from completing the mission that God has been working out from the very beginning. A mission for all people!

When you look at it that way, it only makes sense that the magi are right there at the manger.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, in so many ways we want to keep you for ourselves. We want you to confirm us in our prejudices and to allow us to close down to the needs and the realities of the wider world. So we pray that you open our hearts to see life through new eyes, to recognize your presence in the stranger, and to join in your mission of love for all. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight–indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” Malachi 3:1-2

I was a “late arriver” to the Lutheran tribe of the Christian church. Although I had been baptized as an infant, I didn’t join a Lutheran church until the last Saturday of the summer before my junior year in college. When I went off to the seminary, I arrived after having only worshipped that one time in my “home congregation.” I had a lot of learning to do.

One of the discoveries I made was the liturgical church calendar. I had never heard of that before – and I think there are probably lots of people on this list who haven’t heard of that before as well. So this week I’ll take a quick trip through the highlights of the way that many Christians organize time through the year. Today we look at the first two seasons of the year, Advent and Christmas.

Each of the seasons has a theme, a color and, sometimes, key traditions. Advent is the first season of the year. It runs for the four Sundays preceding Christmas. The color is blue which you will see on the cloth on the altar table and pulpit, the pastors’ stoles, etc. The word itself comes from a Latin word meaning “the coming.” It is the root word of “adventure” which captures some of the excitement of the Advent theme of waiting for what is coming.

Many congregations will use an advent wreath this December. The four candles of the wreath represent the themes of each Sunday (there are lots of different traditions for what those weeks represent) and one candle is lit each week. Sometimes children use Advent calendars with little doors that lead to Christmas.

During Advent, we listen to the Bible as it sets the stage for Christmas. We’ll hear from John the Baptist and the Old Testament prophecies of the birth of the Messiah. We wait to celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas but we also wait for the final appearance of Jesus and the “end of the story.”

Hope, anticipation and preparedness leads to the Christmas season. The Christmas season lasts for 12 days. (Yes, just like the song says.) The color is white and the theme is the incarnation, the birth of Jesus.

Over the course of these two seasons, we will all feel the interior pull of Christmas, the stress and the anticipation and the fear and the heightened expectations. We will feel torn between the spirituality of the season and the materialism of our culture. We will welcome Christmas carols and we will tire of them. We will experience our lives being “stirred up” as the prayer of the day said this past Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come….”

Advent and Christmas are living reminders to us – liturgically and experientially – that God is actively at work in our lives and our world, whether or not we attend worship. God is always up to something…so we wait. And then God shows up in the most common of ways…and we wonder at the mystery of it all.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, as we come into this week, returning to life after Thanksgiving and now preparing for the holidays, the holy days, we pray that you might stir up your power and come into us in new and refreshing ways this season. Fill us with hope and anticipation and watch over us as we get ready for the surprises that you will bring our way. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe–the best one–and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'” Luke 15:20-32

Now for the rest of the story…

While the wayward son is making his heavy footed way home, his father keeps hoping, expecting, waiting, to see him walk down the road. When the moment finally arrives, the father greets his long lost son with compassion rather than a belt. He forgives him even before the young man can deliver his carefully crafted speech. The father throws a big party…and the elder brother refuses to come in.

Perhaps the elder brother knows his little brother even better than his father. He has no imagination problems around “dissolute living” – he knows that the money was wasted away. And he’s angry. He’s angry because he has been the hard working dutiful son and yet his father has never thrown a welcome home party for him. Maybe he has also felt the temptation to go wild every now and again but he always fought that temptation back. For whatever reason, every one understandable, he is resentful.

So the father goes out to the porch for a little chat and a reminder that the elder brother is also loved by the father. A reminder and an explanation of the need to celebrate the dead coming back to life.

Every time we read this story, if we slow down long enough, we will see ourselves reflected in it. We will find one or more characters becoming “us” at that particular moment in life. There are times when we are the wayward son or we can remember those times. Times when we have been the parent of a child up to no good while we stand helplessly by. Or we give help that isn’t helpful. And there are times when we are the elder brother, resentful that we have kept all the rules and it feels like it hasn’t gotten us anywhere.

Why did Jesus tell this story?

To explain to those who were troubled by the company he kept why Jesus chose to welcome and eat with sinners and tax collectors…because they were lost but are now found. The text ends without telling us whether or not the Pharisees saw themselves in the role of the elder brother. But it doesn’t have to tell us. We already know that whether they got the point of the story or not, they eventually got Jesus. But they couldn’t kill the story. They never will.

Whoever you are, let this story become the first day of the rest of your life.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, your amazing grace comes to us anew every day. Especially at those moments when we are mindful of the brokenness and sin in our lives. Forgive us for those times when we have been the elder brother, resentful at the vastness of your mercy. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”‘ Luke 15:1-3, 11-19

Sometimes stories become too well known. They become so familiar that, when we hear them again, our ears are waiting for the next move in the plot or the next familiar phrase, and we miss the scandal. The shock value is lost. The story remains beloved but we remain largely unmoved.

The Christmas story is like that. We might love Ricky Bobby’s little baby infant Jesus but we hardly notice the scandal of the unmarried parents, the outsiders who find no room at home, or the smell of the shepherds.

The story of the prodigal son is like that. We know it so well that it doesn’t shock us anymore. It doesn’t surprise us anymore. We can read it and hardly notice that this younger son is basically telling his father that he wishes he was dead so he could get his share of his inheritance.

Even people with deep resentments toward a little brother or sister or some other relative that is milking gullible parents or grandparents of their money and possessions to feed a drug habit could read this story again and not notice the connection.

The story doesn’t tell us any details around “dissolute” living – and we read through it so quickly that we seldom slow down enough to let our imaginations go to work. But whatever “dissolute” living means, we can rest assured that it had nothing to do with anything that might be approved by respectable people.

Even feeding the pigs misses the point for us. There is a part of us that doesn’t think that is so bad at all…”at least he found a job”…”Why don’t you just go down to Walmart or McDonald’s, they’re always hiring”… We miss the scandal of a privileged Jewish boy working for a skinflint Gentile pig farmer who sticks him straight in the sty and leaves him there.

BUT…if we DO slow down…

And we look back at our lives. And we look at every dark deed that still haunts us, every foolish choice that we made, all the wasteful excesses that we have accumulated and lost along the way. When we look at anything in our lives that causes us shame and guilt and makes us want to hide, THEN the story takes us where it intends us to go.

To that rock bottom point where the pain of going home finally becomes less painful than the pain of running away. To the place of repentance.

Tomorrow we’ll hear the rest of the story.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, when we realize the depth of our sin, we want to hide. When we fear getting caught we want to run. And when we finally realize what we have done and realize that there is no where else to go but home, we pray that you stir up our hearts so that we can turn our feet in the direction they need to go. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Back in my Bible camp counselor days, the director had a saying that he would pull out just before the weekend as we made our plans to go “out on the town” (understand: we’re talking about rural North Dakota here). He would remind us, “Remember who you are and what you represent.”

Those are good words for us. “Remember who you are and what you represent.”

The question then is, “How far back is our memory supposed to stretch if we are to ‘remember who we are’?” Based on this text, we are to remember as far back as God chooses to remember – to that moment when we became a new creation in Christ, when the old passed away. We are to remember every fresh start God has given us and continues to give us.

There’s a wonderful section in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that comes to mind as I allow myself to get caught up in this wonderful vision of our life in Christ that Paul paints for the Corinthians. Beginning on page 83, it says:

“If we are painstaking about this stage of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”

The vision in that passage is the life transformation of a recovering addict. Paul paints the same vision of a redeemed sinner for the Corinthians. In Christ, they (we) ARE new creations. This identity is a gift to be lived, not a credential to be earned.

Why?

To be useful to others. To be ambassadors for Christ. To be living signs, living embodiments of God’s grace which has the power to transform human lives and bring the world into line with God’s will for all. To make the world a better place to live. This is big stuff and it is who we are, Whose we are, and what we are called to be about. New creations in Christ.

Remember who you are and what you represent.

Let us pray: Dear Jesus, in our lives we often do battle between who we are called to be and who we end up being. Between what we are called to do and what we find ourselves doing. We sense the power of your love in us and the power of sin which holds us back. Fill us today with your truth – that we ARE your ambassadors, we ARE new creations, and we ARE useful tools in your hands as you touch the world with your love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“The LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day. While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, uneavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.” Joshua 5:9-12

Every day is an opportunity for us to take stock of where we are in life and where we hope to go. Like noticing a spectacular sunset, we might do that every single day but only seem to get there once in awhile. Most days, the sun sets unnoticed. And most weeks, we get so caught up in life that we hardly pay attention to where we are.

Today actually IS the first day of the rest of your life!

Live long enough and you will experience many such “first days” along the way. The first day of high school or college. The first day after graduation. The first day after a relationship begins or ends. The first day and the last day of a job. The first day in your first apartment. The first day in your new house. The first day after a child is born. The first day after a spouse has died.

Live long enough and God will take you to places that you have never been before, places where you feel ill prepared to face the new challenges – or you feel completely confident only to have your confidence shaken by surprises.

Today’s lesson represents a new first day for Joshua and the people of Israel. Their wilderness wanderings have now brought them into the Promised Land, the land of Canaan. But life isn’t going to suddenly turn into another Eden. As a matter of fact, there is plenty of bad news that stands in their way. The first piece of bad news comes as they celebrate Passover in their new territory – God shuts off the daily provision of manna. Now they will have to go back to finding food on their own, making it on their own, creating a new life in the land their Creator has prepared for them.

Of course to say they are “on their own” doesn’t mean that God suddenly becomes absent or uninvolved. Young people might live “on her own” in college but still get plenty of help and support from their parents. And yet, such support doesn’t reomove the daily challenges they face as they balance school, work and play. They are the ones having to make the most of the opportunity that has been given to them. The people of Israel are the ones now facing that same reality.

Today’s lesson reminds me of the first week when I was “on the job” as a pastor. Fresh from the seminary, terrified that I was clueless about what to do, carrying a nagging sense that I had spent four years “learning” but couldn’t remember a single piece of practical information. But then, as that first year passed, I surprised myself again and again as I realized that I HAD learned a thing or two and, most important of all, I learned that my learning would never end. That every experience I had would teach me something else. AND that God was far more interested in the people I was serving than I was. And therefore God would not abandon me but would work through me if I was willing to show up and do my part.

So it is today, the first day of the rest of our lives. Ill-prepared or confidently ready, God never leaves us alone when God sends us off on our own.

Let us pray: Dear God, we look back through history and see signs of your presence in the lives of your people. We look back at our own lives and see those places and times when you did for us what we could no do for ourselves. Today, as we face the challenges of our lives, keep us mindful of your presence and the gifts you have given us that allow us to make our way in the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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.'” Luke 13:1-9

The first part of this text is easy – why do we keep asking why bad things happen to good people? Because bad things keep happening to good people! And each and every time we ask the same question…

Why, with thousands of acres of trees and open fields, does a tornado hit a high school? Insurance companies call such events “acts of God.” Is that why? God fingers innocent high school students? Really??!

Why does a charter bus drive off an overpass while bringing a college baseball team to the first games of their new season? Ah now, this we can seek to explain so it is less troubling. We can blame the driver or the road conditions. As long as we have someone to blame, we can leave God out of the picture. Can we?

Why do Sunni’s and Shiite’s continue blowing each other up, reenacting history instead of learning from it? Why doesn’t God stop them? Would they quit fighting if everybody became Christian? Hundreds of thousands of people in Northern Ireland would argue that doesn’t seem to help much. The people in the Middle East will have to learn the same lesson every other family feud teaches – we will either end up living together as friends or dying together as enemies! But where is God in that?

Jesus was confronted by those who asked him the “why” question. In his answer, he seems to be speaking from both sides of his mouth. First, he rejects the idea that God was punishing the Galileans who suffered under Pilate. But then he suggests that their lack of repentance had something to do with it….or does he? Read it again, read it slowly, and watch closely and you’ll see something else.

Jesus isn’t making a judgment on those who died under Pilate or those who died under the tower of Siloam, instead, he is turning the question back on top of the questioners. He doesn’t ask them about someone else’s past (which would be making a judgment call) but he redirects their attention to their own future. Rather than worrying about what happened to someone else, Jesus asks them to consider what they are going to be doing with and in their own lives.

His answer doesn’t answer the “why” question. The “why” question can’t be answered. It isn’t really a question anyway but an emotional grab for something to hold onto. But his answer does redirect them to focus on what to do next.

If you step back a little farther from these verses and look what happens right before and after them, see how they are “framed”, you will see that just before this story, Jesus comes down hard on our tendency to judge others. And then he heals a woman.

I think it might be as simple as that. In a world where bad things continue to happen to good people, in THIS world where we are called to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we would do well to refrain from judging others and focus instead on bringing healing and making the world a better place, a little at a time, one day at a time, one person at a time. Rather than being captured by fear, we can released by faith. Isn’t that in fact what repentance is all about?

Let us pray: Dear Lord, our hearts go out to those who find themselves victims of the tragedies of life, those who die too young, those caught up in forces of evil which swirl around them. Set us free from worrying about “why” so we can focus instead on what people can do to make life better, on providing help, hope and healing. In Jesus’ name. Amen.