Craig Barnes, author and pastor of National Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C. mentioned in one of his sermons a story from when we has a boy as he wrote, my ministers father brought home a 12yo boy named Roger, whose parents recently died from a drug overdose. So my family decided to raise Roger with their own two sons, me and my brother.
At first it was quite difficult for Roger to adjust to his new home—an environment free of heroine-addicted adults! Every day, several times a day, I heard my parents saying to Roger: "No, no. That's not how we behave in this family." "No, no. You don't have to scream or fight or hurt other people to get what you want." "No, no, Roger, we expect you to show respect in this family." And in time Roger began to change. Now, did Roger have to make all those changes in order to become a part of the family? No. He was made a part of the family simply by the grace of my father. But did he then have to do a lot of hard work because he was in the family? You bet he did. It was tough for him to change, and he had to work at it. But he was motivated by gratitude for the incredible love he had received. So let me ask you today, Do you have a lot of hard work to do now that the Spirit has adopted you into God's family? Certainly. But not in order to become a son or a daughter of the heavenly Father. You make those changes because you are a son or daughter. And every time you start to revert back to the old addictions to sin, the Holy Spirit will say to you, "No, no. That's not how we act in this family."
I do believe the very age-old question lays at our door step, why does bad things happen to good people! This question can be seen as an affirmation that there is a reasonableness to the universe, and that misfortune is related to some reasonable explanation. Does not scripture itself speak of rewards and punishments? Job suffered many losses to his family, his property, and his physical well-being. His pain became the occasion for a series of interactions (Job 3-28) with his friends, each of whom tried to figure out what Job had done to deserve this string of terrible luck. Have you ever thought of that in your own life?
In titling the message Time to Change, we are going to journey through Jesus’ response in how God sees our sin and the results of mankind’s calamity. Is it sin or just rotten luck? Let us start in Gospel of Luke chapter 13. Now on that very occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus responded and said to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans just because they have suffered this fate? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or do you think that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse offenders than all the other people who live in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” What we are hearing is a facet approach whereby the people were asking Jesus a question that wasn’t related to them directly, but about sin. They knew of sin, they heard of sin, and they lived in sin, but seeing how the nation of Israel has suffered so over the years, does a calamity or destruction happen as a pure result of sin only? Scripture frequently speaks of sin that leads to divine punishment such as Exodus 15 and 20, And He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and listen to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer.” The Psalm 107 tells us Fools, because of their rebellious way, And because of their guilty deeds, were afflicted. The prophet Jeremiah 31 tells us But everyone will die for his own wrongdoing; each person who eats the sour grapes, his own teeth will become blunt. Just these few scriptures portray living a sinful life results in a calamity of some kind. But what I find very interesting with Jesus’ response is He does not get drawn into the long conversation about justifying all of God’s actions towards humanity as well as a theory on human suffering. However, Jesus shifts the true direction towards something far more important. Can you guess what that is? Unless things change in our lives, don’t expect a Godly blessing. Did Paul live a life of sin even though he was beaten, shipwrecked, tortured and left to die in prison? Scripture tells us no! We learn that Christ’s strength is perfected in weakness. Telling Paul, my grace is sufficient for you.
You see friends, as we know suffering is painful, Jesus can attest to that, God is telling us something more important than our suffering is at stake; and we may not even see it at first.
Listen to Jesus’ parable about the Barren Fig tree. In paraphrasing, A landowner and the hired caretaker discuss what to do with an unproductive fig tree. The owner decides that the fig tree is worthless. Fig trees bear fruit at least once a year, more often in that part of the world. Three years, no figs, the tree is taking up space that could be better used by more productive trees. Cut it down. The caretaker pleads for forbearance. Give the seemingly worthless tree yet another year. In order to cultivate the tree, the caretaker says that he will loosen the soil around it and add manure. If the dung doesn’t do the trick and make a more productive tree, then cut it down. The unproductive tree is being given the gift of time, time to change, time to become more fruitful. Does that make sense for you and me? How much time does it take to turn from our sinful ways and back to God? How many more attempts of repentance do we come to God with, only knowing the genuineness of our repentance is not fruitful or even honorable to God?
Make no mistake friends that when we ignore our sins, it doesn’t go away. Knowing friends all of us need to change, Jesus Himself said, unless you repent, the same can happen to you!
I am reminded where scripture tells us Unless a man be born again, he will not see the kingdom of God. Old things passed away and behold all things become new; we become a new creation in Christ when we repent to God and turn from our ways. This is what is needed friends.
We’re in the season of Lent, the season of confession and truth-telling. And let’s tell the truth: in our own lives, in the life of this congregation, we haven’t been as fruitful as we should have been. And what does the master do to us in our unfruitfulness? God gives us time. There’s still time for us to be better disciples and a better, more faithful, more fruitful congregation. Until our last breath is breathed, we have time! God makes promises to God’s people throughout scripture. Promises like “I’ll be your God and you’ll be my people,” or “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” God is faithful to God’s promises. And yet, here’s my question: Why does God take so long to make good on God’s promises?
The parable of the unproductive fig tree suggests to me that maybe God takes God’s time in order to give us more time. By not pulling the plug on the failed human experiment a few decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus we are given more time to come to terms with Jesus and to allow Him to come to terms with us.
As part of lent, let us ask God genuinely to help us change for Gods divine purpose and will which is always best for our lives. The Lenten message that we’ve repeated here: Repent! Change! Here’s the good news for this Sunday in Lent: there’s still time. I’ll leave you with this story. A crusty old man spends his life in England as a devout atheist. Then, on a trip to interview Mother Teresa, this old man becomes an eloquent defender of the Christian faith as we wrote an autobiography titled Chronicles of Wasted Time. In it, the old man wrote about his life before being converted to Christ and what he wrote was “in those early years of my life was not wasted at all. They were the years where Christ was behind the scenes, darting from tree to tree, working on me to bring me to Christ. Thank God by the grace of God, none of our time on this earth is truly wasted. God is always at work! Make no mistake my friends, time is ticking and although God is merciful in giving us time, that time, once it goes away and we do not make the choice, it will be too late. Just as Sir Thomas Fuller said, You cannot repent too soon because you do not know how soon it may be too late. Amen.