by Fr. Bill Garrison
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Luke 13:1-9
At that very time there were some present who told Jesus 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.'"
One day a young man was visiting the fair. Over to one side was a small tent, with a sign that said “For 20 dollars I'll teach you to be a mind reader! Apply within.” So, the young man thought that he'd give it a go, and went inside. Behind a small table inside was an old man, who looked up when the young man entered and said, “Ah, you must be here for the mind reading lessons.”
“Well, yes” the young man said.
“Well, follow me, and I'll give you your first lesson.” Then the old man went out the back of the tent and walked over to a hose, and picked up one end.
“Here, hold this hose.”
“Why?” said the young man.
“It's part of the lesson,” replies the old man, “Now, look in the end and tell me what you see.”
So, the young man looked into the end of the hose, and only saw darkness. “I don't see anything,” he told the old man.
Just then the old man turned on a tap, and the hose shot water into the young man’s face, “I had a feeling you'd do something like that!” the young man shouted at the old man.
“You are now a mind reader!” the old man replied, “That'll be 20 dollars.”
Have you ever been at a busy counter attempting to buy something? And it appears the clerk is ignoring you? They wait on others but not you. It doesn’t even seem like they are aware you exist at all. What the heck is going on here?
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
Do you attempt to guess what this person is thinking? Or why they do what they do? I do, and I bet you do too. For me it’s often about something that has disturbed me. I often come to a conclusion about why they did what they did. Usually for me it has something to do with my hurt feelings, or my assumption that I don’t matter in a certain situation having just been ignored. So, I tend to decide that the person was in fact ignoring me and didn’t care if my feelings were hurt, meanwhile thinking something or someone was more important.
Now as we think about it, that’s crazy, isn’t it? What we are doing is guessing what the other person is thinking. We don’t really know what they are thinking we must admit. So, we use a little logic. If we had done the same thing our reason for doing it would be that we didn’t care about the person and that something else was more important. So, then we project that understanding on to them.
Now honestly, we don’t know what anybody else is thinking do we? We can only guess, and when we guess we are probably projecting our own way of thinking and being on them. And, a tremendous percentage of the time we would be completely wrong.
Well how often do we also think we understand what God is thinking? How many times have you heard people speak for God? How often do you think they are projecting their own ideas onto God, or their ideas about what God should be thinking? Certain phrases that assume this knowledge really bother me, sort of like fingernails on a chalkboard. I’d like to share a small sampling of sayings that assume we know what God is thinking and that we can speak for God.
Here we go. It was the will of God that something happened to somebody. If I can be holy enough God will make sure that my life will be great. Everything happens for a reason. You are exactly where God wants you to be. Heard enough?
The gospel today contains a couple of stories that attest to the fact we should not be speaking God’s mind. In the first story Jesus is being asked if some Galileans deserved to be punished by God because they were worse sinners than other Galileans? Jesus’ answer is simple. No. Then he referenced a tower falling on eighteen people and asked if that happened because God was upset with them. Again, Jesus said no, God didn’t cause that. The tower just fell down and they happened to be under it.
Then Jesus told a parable. A tree wasn’t producing fruit and the owner wanted to cut it down. But the gardener interceded and said let’s put some manure around it and perhaps it will produce fruit next year. Jesus, of course, is the gardener in the parable. Remember, Jesus is the mirror image of God. The parable tells us that God protects life.
Jesus is making a point. God doesn’t destroy. Sometimes people destroy. Sometimes stuff happens. But God isn’t behind death and destruction. God gives life and protects life. That, Jesus is telling us, is the nature of God.
We human beings would run the cosmos in a vastly different way than God does. Things would have to be earned. Bad people would be punished. Good people would be rewarded. There would be rules and if you followed them good things would be awarded to you, and if you did bad things, you would be punished.
But we aren’t God and God follows a different set of principles. So perhaps we might think about ceasing to project our thoughts onto God. Just like we ought to try to stop projecting our thoughts onto other people. The truth is we don’t know what others are thinking and we certainly don’t know what God is thinking. Isn’t it enough to know God loves us and gives life to the world in spite of what we think?