Finger-pointing as a self-help technique
This week's goodness is on Luke 13:1-5:
Jesus was talking with a group of people who had the world all figured out. Bad things don't happen to good people, in their world. Some horrible things had happened to a group of Galileans, who were the somewhat rural cousins of the citified Jerusalem folks. Think Red State versus Blue State. "Naturally, the Galileans must have invited some kind of curse from God to have their holy Jewish blood mixed with the profane blood of a pagan sacrifice. Stupid, ignorant, intolerant Galileans..."
Jesus replies with an example from the Blue States: decent suburbanites from just outside of Jerusalem who had a tower collapse on them. What about those guys? Did they do something wrong too? No! Neither of them did! While God sometimes uses calamity to correct things that are wrong, the converse isn't necessarily true. While evil may sometimes result in a grisly death, a grisly death isn't necessarily evidence of evil. But if you live in a small world, and you want to justify your place in it, you'll invent little imaginary boundaries like city versus country, or red state versus blue state, in order to make it all fit.
People still say stupid stuff like that in modern times. In the 80s and 90s, it was AIDS as God's hatred of homosexuals and drug users. Then it was Katrina as God's judgment on New Orleans' immorality. There are tons more examples of people taking others' misfortune, and using it as evidence that those people are wrong, and they are right. The one I hear a lot now is that poor people are poor because they're lazy (some are) and that rich people are rich because they work hard (some do.) Mostly what it boils down to is an excuse not to be compassionate, and a justification to continue living the way we do.
Jesus is telling us that bad things happen. Faith isn't a "get out of jail free" card. Christians get sick, just like atheists do. Christians die in car accidents, same as pagans. Christians get killed in battle, starve to death, drown, lose limbs, go broke, etc, just like Muslims and Hindus. The important thing isn't whether bad things happen to us now, it's whether bad things happen to us for eternity. Jesus' point is this: Instead of worrying about who is naughtier than who, and who deserves what more than who else, why don't we worry about getting saved from eternal damnation? Why not focus on becoming better people, rather than inventing villains and pointing the finger at them in order to feel better about staying as-is?
When something bad happens to someone we don't like, or something good happens to someone we do, it's tempting to try to make sense of it. Be careful of your motives. Is God's grace and offer of salvation glorified in your reasoning? Or is it your judgment that you've forged his signature on? Worry about yourself, and about doing God's work, and you won't have time to speak condemnation on others.
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 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? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Jesus was talking with a group of people who had the world all figured out. Bad things don't happen to good people, in their world. Some horrible things had happened to a group of Galileans, who were the somewhat rural cousins of the citified Jerusalem folks. Think Red State versus Blue State. "Naturally, the Galileans must have invited some kind of curse from God to have their holy Jewish blood mixed with the profane blood of a pagan sacrifice. Stupid, ignorant, intolerant Galileans..."
Jesus replies with an example from the Blue States: decent suburbanites from just outside of Jerusalem who had a tower collapse on them. What about those guys? Did they do something wrong too? No! Neither of them did! While God sometimes uses calamity to correct things that are wrong, the converse isn't necessarily true. While evil may sometimes result in a grisly death, a grisly death isn't necessarily evidence of evil. But if you live in a small world, and you want to justify your place in it, you'll invent little imaginary boundaries like city versus country, or red state versus blue state, in order to make it all fit.
People still say stupid stuff like that in modern times. In the 80s and 90s, it was AIDS as God's hatred of homosexuals and drug users. Then it was Katrina as God's judgment on New Orleans' immorality. There are tons more examples of people taking others' misfortune, and using it as evidence that those people are wrong, and they are right. The one I hear a lot now is that poor people are poor because they're lazy (some are) and that rich people are rich because they work hard (some do.) Mostly what it boils down to is an excuse not to be compassionate, and a justification to continue living the way we do.
Jesus is telling us that bad things happen. Faith isn't a "get out of jail free" card. Christians get sick, just like atheists do. Christians die in car accidents, same as pagans. Christians get killed in battle, starve to death, drown, lose limbs, go broke, etc, just like Muslims and Hindus. The important thing isn't whether bad things happen to us now, it's whether bad things happen to us for eternity. Jesus' point is this: Instead of worrying about who is naughtier than who, and who deserves what more than who else, why don't we worry about getting saved from eternal damnation? Why not focus on becoming better people, rather than inventing villains and pointing the finger at them in order to feel better about staying as-is?
When something bad happens to someone we don't like, or something good happens to someone we do, it's tempting to try to make sense of it. Be careful of your motives. Is God's grace and offer of salvation glorified in your reasoning? Or is it your judgment that you've forged his signature on? Worry about yourself, and about doing God's work, and you won't have time to speak condemnation on others.
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