What did you make of our Bible reading today? 

I must confess when I first read it, it felt very challenging.  For me, if I react to a passage in this way, I find it helps to ask God for help, take a deep breath, and read it again to see what the very core message is, and which parts are examples to make the point.  This passage takes place during what seems to be a long teaching session with many people present, and Jesus teaches many difficult things.

The main thrust of the whole passage, this first part and the second, is summed up in v 5, “Unless you repent you will all perish.”  It’s strong and it’s direct.

The passage falls neatly in two halves, direct teaching and a parable.

In the first part, Jesus begins the passage talking about sinfulness.  One group of Galileans had been killed and their blood mixed with sacrifices, and a second group of Galileans reported this to Jesus.  The implication was, and Jesus poses this to the reporting Galileans, “Do you think that these Galileans were any worse sinners than all the other Galileans because  they suffered in this way?”  Some people thought that the kind of death someone suffered indicated how sinful they’d been in their life.   But Jesus gives them short shrift.  “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” 

Jesus is sometimes very direct in his teaching, and it is in stark contrast to the welcome he gives to little children, or the very open conversation he has with the Samaritan woman at the well.  It seems to me he is at pains, in all of today’s reading, to say there is no grading of sinners, if you’ve sinned, you’ve sinned and fallen short.  In our earthly systems, we do grade sinners – some crimes are more serious than others, some criminals are given longer sentences than others.  But that is on earth, and that is while we are still on earth.  When we think of sin and repentance in terms of life and death and the hereafter, in God’s context, in Christian terms, things are different.  And the way to guarantee our place in heaven is to repent now, of all our sins, large and small, so that Jesus can forgive us and prepare our place in heaven.   

In God’s terms, we have all fallen short, we are all sinners. 100% purity does not exist on earth, we live in a fallen world, so while we can, and we try to, aspire to perfection, we will always get something wrong.

So what of the second example Jesus comments on, the eighteen who are killed when the tower of Siloam falls on them, are they more guilty than any other sinners, did God visit that tragedy on them because they were really bad?  Again, Jesus says no.  He doesn’t expand, he simply says no, but he warns that if people have not repented and are killed unexpectedly by an earthly accident, their place in the hereafter won’t be there for them.  They, and we!, need to repent before an accident happens, or before the Lord’s second coming happens, and earthly life is ended. Jesus has said just before (if we understand this is one long teaching session) “If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Luke 12: 39-40).  It’s all about being ready for the eventuality of meeting Jesus face to face, and not knowing when we’re going to meet our maker.

How much sharper the focus of this passage would be if we were preaching it to Ukrainians today – people who are sheltering in places of supposed safety as the Russian artillery pounds their city, people who thought they were safe in the countryside or a smaller city who are now subject to attack as well.  They truly do not know if or when they will be killed – perhaps this evening or in three days’ time.  Nor does any of us know when the Son of Man will come at the second coming. 

But is there really any difference in unpredictability between the Ukrainans and us?  We could walk out of here and be knocked down by a car, we could be at home and suffer a heart attack or stroke which happened recently to a middle aged Amington man who worked at the bus garage.  The point is, we don’t know when our earthly end will come, whether through death or the second coming, so it is worth thinking about our relationship with God now, before the unexpected happens, because there may not be a last minute opportunity to repent and be forgiven by the Lord.

That is pretty heavy stuff, it’s a bit like being punched on the nose, it brings tears to our eyes, and makes things very black and white. 

But let’s look at the second part of the reading, vss. 6-9, the parable Jesus tells. I think this is a much more conciliatory view of how God deals with our attempts at repentance, because sometimes we need to hear a lot of teaching, have a lot of discussion, spend much time in prayer and thought before we get our heads around repentance and the saving grace of Jesus.  It’s like the tree that grows, but doesn’t bear fruit initially.  In the parable, the man looking after the vineyard gives the tree not one, not two, but three years before he writes it off.  Not only that, but in the third year he digs round the tree and fertilizes it to give it every chance of bearing fruit.  The parallel with our Christian lives then is that our God is almost endlessly patient with us, but one thing is sure, we will all die and leave this earthly life at some point. Repentance here is the equivalent of bearing fruit in the example Jesus gives in the parable, it is a transforming process that happens over time. If we have repented and borne fruit in our earthly lives, we will continue to grow into our heavenly life after death.  If we haven’t repented, we won’t. 

Now while we are here in Amington, fairly comfortable, the chances of us having a sudden death are not as high as if we were in a bunker in the Ukraine right now.  But Jesus emphasises that none of us knows when the end will come, so we all need to be prepared. As one of the congregation commented, we are all in the same boat. We’re all sinners, we all need to repent, to allow ourselves to be transformed, even if we think we’ve lead what we’d call “a pretty good life, I’ve not stolen anything or killed anyone”.  We need to hear the teaching that when we come face to face with God, if we have not repented, he will deal with us as we are.  If we have repented, he will welcome us with open arms. 

God at that point, if we have not repented, will not be loving us in the way we think of a loving God in our lives on earth.  He will be the God of justice, an awesome God.  Several of us were reflecting on this the other morning, we get used to the idea of a very patient God, but sometimes, we need to know that he is to be feared.  It’s not a comfortable thought.

I believe that when it comes to judgement, God will test all our hearts and the final judgement will be his, not what we think of each other.  We are told that we will be surprised to see who is in heaven and who isn’t.  The teaching we are given is that we must repent with our whole hearts of the wrong things we have done, transform our lives, make Jesus the centre, then Jesus will forgive our sins and our place in heaven will be ready and waiting for us.

It’s a sobering thought, but we live in sobering and uncertain times. The message is repent and be saved; unless you repent, you will perish.  Amen.