Third Sunday of Lent (C): Luke 13:1-9
Perfect love drives out fear. – 1 John 4:18
As we pick up the story of Jesus as told by St. Luke, Jesus and His disciples are making their way through Galilee and headed for Jerusalem. Jesus has been telling His disciples that, in Jerusalem, He will suffer, die, and rise again, in order to bring repentance, forgiveness, and salvation to all who will believe in Him.
On the way, they meet people who tell Jesus how Pilate, the Roman governor, had butchered some Galilean pilgrims as they were offering sacrifice in the very Temple itself. Why did these people say this to Jesus? Were they troubled by His preaching about being reconciled with one’s enemies, and so brought up this atrocity, as if to say, “What about this? How can we be reconciled with people who would do such things?” Were these people trying to warn Jesus that this might not be the best time for a Galilean rabbi who had attained some notoriety to appear in Jerusalem? Or, was it the age-old question of why such atrocities happen – and why did they happen to these people? Were they somehow being punished for some serious sin? Or, if this was “just one of those things”, where was God in all this?
The people who spoke to Jesus could have had any – or all – of these questions in mind. In our age, that question about why such atrocities and disasters happen seems the most relevant. Why does God allow such evil in the world, if he is truly all-good and all-powerful? We see mass shootings, every kind of abuse, injustice, corruption, and wrongs of every other kind. We see natural disasters: floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, epidemics, famine, and so on. How can such things be?
One way to respond to this question is to blame the victims of such terrible events. They must have done something wrong to have brought such a thing on themselves. If we look to the Old Testament, we can find a number of passages that, taken out of context, seem to say this very thing. God blesses the good person and punishes the evil person, as the very first Psalm proclaims. Therefore, if someone is suffering a terrible thing, that person must have somehow deserved it. Even now, we hear people – even ourselves, perhaps – saying such things.
However, other passages in the Psalms and other places in the Old Testament – including the entire Book of Job – point out a different side of reality. Sometimes the good suffer, through no fault of their own. Sometimes, people who do evil seem to get away with it, and live in ease and comfort. Life does not appear to be just. The Book of Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) points out how it is a terrible vanity that good and bad alike have the same end, in that all must die.
The people who come to Jesus are faced with these questions. They hope that Jesus can somehow enlighten them. Yet, Jesus’ response – as is so often the case with Him – is not what they, or we, expected. He does not explain God’s ways in the sense that His listeners – or us – might have wanted. Instead, He answers a different question. He tells them (and us) that people who suffer such terrible things are no worse sinners than anyone else. Moreover, He tells them that, unless they repent, they will face a similar disaster in their own lives.
Why does He respond in this way? Let’s see if we can unpack this a little bit.
First of all, the fact that we might ask a question like “Where is God in x?” shows that we have allowed this evil or tragedy to pull us away from the God who is already in our hearts. We never have to look for a friend who is standing right in front of us and speaking with us.
Secondly, once we feel somehow separated from God, we perceive the terrors of the evils around us, but feel very much alone as we do so. The evils make no sense. We begin to feel fear and anxiety. How can we cope? Think of the disciples of Jesus, in a boat on the Sea of Galilee as the wind is beginning to howl and the waves are churning. They perceive the danger but do not perceive God’s presence. Jesus Himself is asleep in the boat! They believe they are about to perish. Or, think of Peter, when he leaves a boat and begins to walk on the water towards Jesus. It’s only when Peter takes his eyes from Jesus and focuses on the wind and waves that he is overcome with fear and believes that he will sink. It’s the felt absence of God that enhances our fears and anxieties.
Then, in order to cope with these fears and anxieties, we seek something that will give us the sense (or illusion) of control. We ask questions. We seek logical proof. We want reality – and God – to explain themselves to us, and to meet our expectations. We want to feel in charge, in control, in some way. But these questions don’t get answered in a way that appeals to our need for control. Our fears and anxieties increase. Unless we find another way, these fears and anxieties will overwhelm us. Isolated from God and from others, we will become much more vulnerable to temptations and sins. We can end up bringing disaster upon ourselves.
What, then, does Jesus counsel us to do? He tells us that we must repent.
When we think of repentance, we think in terms of turning away from sin. We usually translate that as meaning that we stop doing sinful things. This is part of the truth. Repentance is more than that. In order to stop doing specific sins, we need to be open to seeing why we do them in the first place. What has such power over our wills that we are led to do things we know are wrong, or to not do things we know are right?
Even this is not everything. Repentance is not only a turning from, it is a turning toward. We turn from sin, and we turn toward the Lord, in response to His grace as it comes to us. This turning towards the Lord is faith, first of all, that the Lord is already present in us and among us. He is already closer to us than we are to ourselves. He was present in our past, is with us today, and will be present in our future, whatever that future may be. This is also faith that God comes to us in love. He desires our salvation. He wants to make us into His dearest children. He will never abandon us and has not abandoned us, no matter how difficult or bad things may seem at the moment. He wants to love us fully, and to enable us to love Him and other people with that same kind of love.
Now, “perfect love drives out fear”. The faith and love that are gifts of God to us become the antidote to our fears and anxieties. Knowing the love of God in this way, and giving that love out in whatever way we are called, is the ultimate goal of repentance. It is the grace that makes us like God who is Love.
As someone on the autism spectrum, I know something about anxieties. In my case, anxiety comes primarily not from anything out there that might make me afraid, but from my internal wiring and high sensitivities to certain things.
What frees an autistic person from the tyranny of anxiety is falling in love, ultimately (and intimately) with God. The autistic person “practices” for this by falling in love with certain interests. These interests take the autistic person outside his or her anxieties and empower that person to study and to go to great lengths to learn about these interests. These interests are meant to be a “warm-up” to meeting God and falling in love with God. It is being in love with God, and remaining there, that gives the autistic person the grace to overcome his or her anxieties and fears and to serve God with the same focus and determination shown in those special interests. This love also sustains the autistic person in the midst of various trials: temptations to depression or despair, the misunderstandings of other people, and so on. This love bears witness that the voices of anxiety and fear often lie to us, or at least grossly exaggerate the truth. Things are not as desperate as our anxieties would have us believe. God is here.
This is not true for autistic people alone, of course. However, I believe that autistic folks have a calling to bear witness to this in an age where many otherwise “normal” people are beset with anxieties and fears: anxieties and fears that make them much more vulnerable to temptation and sin. The antidote for anxiety and fear is the love of God. Yes, some of us may need meds to help us when some chemical imbalance adds to our anxieties. But, ultimately, our “med” is allowing God to love us in amazing ways, and to respond with a total gift of ourselves in love to Him. This love drives out fear and empowers us to live good and holy lives. We may not know the answer to why God does this or that, but we are so taken by His love that our lack of knowledge does not worry us. God holds us and sustains us. This helps us to serve God according to His will for us, and to do so with joy and happiness.
For your Lenten penance, repent! Turn away from your fears and anxieties that cause you (and others) so much pain. Turn again to the God who loves you more than you could possibly imagine; the God who seeks to remake you according to the image of Christ; the God who will free you from the bonds of anxiety and fear, and bring you a fullness of life, love and joy that will leave you in awestruck wonder.