February 28, 2016

Homily: February 28, 2016
Luke 13: 1-9

Back in the mid 1960’s, my oldest sister and her family moved to Bakersfield, California. Whenever my mother received a letter from her, she would read it to us as we sat around the kitchen table. In one letter, she wrote, “Bakersfield is very hot and very dry. I miss the green of Iowa, the smell of the grass, cut hay, corn and fresh vegetables from the garden. We are located in a neat place, though. Drive for about an hour to the west, and you are on the beach by the ocean. Drive about an hour to the east, and you’re in the mountains and cool air. One funny thing we’ve discovered is that on Saturdays in the fall and on other evenings of the year, the scenic overlooks going up the mountains are packed with cars. We saw an Iowa flag waving in the breeze last Saturday, so Paul stopped and asked what was going on. It seems that Iowans drive up the mountain roads to the overlooks and tune their radios to WHO from Des Moines in order to listen to the Iowa football games. You can only get WHO at the mountain elevations. Why, we asked. Because it brings us closer to home, they replied. We took our grill and tail-gated on the mountain last Saturday, talking to fellow Iowans and listening to the Iowa vs Illinois football game. We’re not big football fans, but we had fun.

This phenomenon has always stuck with me over the years—people would drive up the mountain to listen to a football game in order to be closer to home. I don’t suppose this happens any more with satellite and cable TV, but I think the entire situation is interesting.
I know with myself, home is where I grew up, where my family was, my parents, my brothers and sisters—my extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins and childhood friends—even though I haven’t lived there in 50 years. For me and [as it turns out] most people, this is home—the place where you were loved, accepted and welcomed, even when you were less than perfect.

Many psychological research studies have found that our first or main childhood home plays an integral role in the development of our personal identities. These initial childhood experiences can become deeply imprinted into our psyche, and if they were happy ones, we often seek to recreate them as adults and return to them often during our lives to provide us with guidance, assurance and comfort.

We like to be home as people. We like to have those roots. We like to have a place where we belong—a place where we are loved for just being us.

So, what does “home” have to do with today’s readings? Well, just about everything. In the first reading, God calls Moses through the burning bush to return home—back to Egypt—and bring the people of Israel back to their home-land. Paul [in his rather bizarre retelling of Israel’s exodus] admonishes the church of Corinth, urging them to return home to the principles and teachings of Jesus. He links the predominantly Gentile population of Corinth to the people of Israel with the curious phrase “our ancestors;” thus, inviting them to return home to the teachings of Jesus.

In both readings, it is good to return home—to a place where you are welcomed in love and acceptance. In both readings, the word “repent” in Hebrew literally means “to turn around” or “to return.” To repent means to turn around and return home.

The gospel begins with two tragedies that have happened. Pilot has apparently had some Galileans murdered and their blood mixed with the blood of their own sacrifices. Jesus replies, “Were the Galileans worse sinners? No. Then Jesus adds another tragedy pointing out the eighteen people who were killed when a tower collapsed. “Were the eighteen victims worse sinners?” he asks. No. These events were not because of some great sin that those people had committed.

So why did they happen? We’re waiting for the answer from Jesus. But he doesn’t give us one. No, he ignores the abstract, “Why do bad things like this happen?” and goes straight to the lives of those listening. And to us. He turns and looks at us. Unless we repent, we too will perish. And this perish is even more catastrophic than the tragedies that brought death. This perishing is eternal. Forever being separated from God. Never being able to come home to his love. Jesus is taking us out of the abstract “why?” and turning us back to ourselves. Calling us to repent, that is, to turn around and come home to God.

Jesus tells us how repentance works. You turn away from something that is pulling you away from Jesus and turn around to come back home to God. It’s like the parable of the Prodigal Son. The young son wants his inheritance early. His father gives it to him. He heads off to another city to live. Do you see what the big problem is? As Americans, we think about how he wasted the money. We imagine what type of sinful living he indulged in. But the bigger problem happened earlier. He. Left. Home. He turned his back on his home.

Finally, he realizes what he has done. He’s feeding pigs and they have better food than he does. So repentance has begun. He turns away from what has led him so far from home and heads back. His father sees him coming. He runs to meet him. New robe. New sandals. New ring. Celebration! He’s come home. Repentance is coming home. Repentance is being welcomed home in love and acceptance.

Repentance is coming home to Jesus—to God, and God is waiting with open arms, but our time is limited, and we don’t have forever. Jesus illustrates this idea with the parable of the fig tree. In Jesus’ time, bad things didn’t just happen to good people. So if you found yourself in the midst of a horrific event then you must have done something to upset God. But Jesus says this concept that punishment and sin are related is inaccurate and inconsistent with the truths about God’s mercy and forgiveness. The last thing Jesus says before diving into the parable is “But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:5). The point is not that these people were sinful and therefore bad things happened to them; God never promised that your life would be free of tragedy and disappointment. The point is that you must repent—return to God--and the time to do so is now.

Just as the fig tree was, given another chance to bear fruit, so are we given another chance to repent, but you must not wait. This parable also provides the audience with a sense of hope. The story does not give you closure as to whether the fig tree produced fruit after that last year. It leaves it open—to give you hope that no matter how barren you may be, there is still the possibility of becoming fruitful.

When I travel somewhere new to me, I use a GPS. If I miss a turn, it says, “turn at the next street—turn right, then turn right and then turn right again, getting me back on the right path. With God, it’s always possible to turn around and get “back” on the right path—to come home, and God welcomes us with opened arms. Repentance is coming home. Things will happen. And while the gift of our earthly life is still ours, we need to ask ourselves, how is our relationship with God? Do we love our neighbors as ourselves? Are we relieving the sufferings of others or are we pointing fingers to connect the dots between their suffering and sin—blaming the person.

I can’t help but think of poor Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who is swept away in a tornado, forced to face unbelievable horrors and dangers of all sorts, and who—in the end—processed the power of her own salvation by simply clicking her heels together and repeating the words, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” Maybe during this Lenten season we should all repent—turn around and return home to God.​