Luke 13: 1-5 <Worse Sinners?>

It is the third Sunday in Lent. Lent is a season to meditate and follow the path of suffering the Lord has walked together. There are joys, achievements and successes in our lives, but Lent is a week to remember and think about hardships and pains in particular.

Especially since two years ago, all of mankind has been suffering from coronavirus. Everyone, from children to the elderly, is having an unsettling time due to the coronavirus without exception. We initially thought this painful time would pass quickly, but it wasn't.

In Romans 8:22, it says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

Romans 8:22 interprets this pain experienced by all creation as “the pains of childbirth.” It is a very difficult and great pain that you feel with your whole body, but in that new life is born, it is interpreted as a pain that carries ‘hope’ and ‘joy’.

Can coronavirus really become a 'pain of childbirth' for us? What hope and joy can coronavirus bring us in the future? No one can say for sure, but let's hold onto the Bible's saying, "If you want what you can't see, you have to wait patiently."

Coronavirus is not the only thing that is afflicting us. Many people are now leaving their homeland Ukraine because of the war that Russia has started. I break up with my family. The world is suffering from things that no one ever hoped for. A wildfire has occurred. No one can say for sure why or what caused this disaster, but the groans of pain are clearly audible. The cattle that were tied up could not escape even in the fire and were burned to death. Sometimes they greet their owners who have returned dark and tanned.

That's right. As Romans 8:22 says, <all creation> is groaning together. Because we do not hear or see, not only we humans, but all creation groan together.

However, we humans are the only ones who ask the ‘meaning’ of the suffering that the created world is experiencing. We do not suffer simply because of physical pain, but because we do not know the ‘meaning’ and ‘why’ of this pain. And we're trying to figure out what's causing the pain. We ask what caused this to happen.

The text of the Gospel of Luke we read today seems to be set in the background of the Passover, a great Jewish festival. Once a year, Jewish saints visit the temple in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. And there they offer sacrifices. Protests against Roman oppression often take place as large numbers of Jews gather. Therefore, Roman soldiers gather here to suppress the rebellion in advance. And they use force to show off their power. In contrast to Jesus' appearance riding on a colt when he entered Jerusalem later, Roman soldiers would have been armed with swords and spears and led a chariot.

Then, as today's text shows, Galileans who have come a long way to offer sacrifices that are brutally murdered for whatever reason, though it is unknown. Human blood and animal blood were mixed together. The scene, which should have been the most sacred and solemn, must have become a mess in an instant.

Someone reported this to Jesus. When I preached, the emphasis was on none other than the <Galileans>. Compared to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the <Galileans>, who were criticized religiously, suffered such a tragedy. In the Gospel of Matthew, Galilee was referred to as <Galilee of the Gentiles> and <the land of the shadow of death> (Matthew 4:15-16).

The people who delivered this message to Jesus must have said with a heart, “This has happened again to the people of Galilee, sinners who deserved this.” Knowing that heart, Jesus said: “Do you think these Galileans are more sinners than all the other Galileans because they have suffered these things?” He asked, ‘Do you think this absurd thing has happened to those of Galilee who are more criticized and deserved to be treated like sinners?

What was Jesus' answer? It was ‘no.’ Suddenly, Jesus brings up another event. He mentions the incident where the tower of Siloam (a pool made for drinking water in Jerusalem) near Jerusalem collapsed, killing 18 people living in <Jerusalem>.

If the Galileans suffered the loss of their lives while protesting against the Romans, so if this event was a reaction to their actions (moral evil), then what happened to the people of Jerusalem was a natural disaster (natural evil) that had nothing to do with their actions.

Jesus turned his gaze on the people of Galilee to the ‘people of Jerusalem’. What happened to the people of Jerusalem who were called religious was an absurd calamity. “Do you think that this absurd calamity also happened because they were more sinful than the other people of Jerusalem?” Jesus asks. What do you guys think?

Again, Jesus answered clearly, ‘No’.

I had a meal with a respected theologian when the news of the coronavirus outbreak in China in 2020 was just coming out. I was surprised to hear him say with so much conviction that this corona disaster is “God’s judgment on Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.”

Religious people have a habit of asking what is the cause and whose fault is it when they experience such unreasonable suffering or sudden disaster. So, why do religious people think this way? Is it because there is any academic or inquisitive mind to clarify the cause of suffering and disaster?

When we try to define someone as the cause in a difficult situation, above all, we start with the consciousness that ‘I am not in pain’. I mean, I'm different from them. I think there is a sense of comparison, a sense of superiority, and a show of one's innocence, which they try to distinguish, such as, 'They are in pain, but I am not, and they are a sinner, but I am not a sinner'. Even a religious desire to equate one's view with God's may be implied in it.

For those who think, 'It is because they are Galileans living in a foreign land, a land of the shadow of death!', Jesus not only reminds the people of Jerusalem that it would happen to them, but also adds, 'Such a thing happens to them not because they are sinners' he said clearly. And then there are the words that Jesus added.

For those who think, 'It is because they are Galileans living in a foreign land, in a land of shadowy death!', Jesus not only reminds the people of Jerusalem that the same thing happens to them, but also adds, 'Because they are greater sinners than you. This is not going to happen,' he said clearly. And then there's something else you added.

“Unless you also repent, you will all perish.”

What does this mean? Are you saying that it happened because those people did not repent? no! These words of Jesus are not meant to reveal the cause of disasters. Rather, to those who define the cause of disaster as ‘their sin’, the one who really needs to repent is ‘you’. The sense of superiority that separates us from them, the ridicule that ‘these guys are doing well’, and the inner comfort of ‘Nothing is happening to me!’ These are the words that we must completely turn away from our self-righteousness.

Here we go one step further and consider ‘solidarity’. Solidarity with those who suffer. Everyone is suffering because of COVID-19. Not only people are dying, but animals in zoos are also dying.

In 2020, the worst wildfires on record in Australia burned down forests covering half of the Korean Peninsula in six months. More than 1 billion wild animals are said to have been affected. In a place where there used to be a dense forest, you can no longer hear the birdsong. It is said that the surviving kangaroos no longer jump and run around. Because there is no grass to graze, and the kangaroos are gone. I saw on TV that even a koala that lives on a tree was drooping on the ground because there was no tree to climb.

On the Indonesian island of Sumatra, forests have been lost due to mining development, and herds of elephants that have lost their habitat have attacked villages where they live. In 2017, when a one-year-old baby elephant fell out of an abandoned ditch and could not get out, a herd of 12 elephants became enraged and destroyed 5 houses in the village and damaged 18 fruit trees. Who is to blame? Is it the elephant's fault?

Are the unexplained calamities and sudden problems of suffering that occur around us really caused by bigger sinners? What should we think and learn in the face of such a great and absurd disaster?

As we see in today's text, we try to create boundaries in the midst of suffering. We discern whose fault lies, making people small and insignificant, weak, and burdening them. On the other hand, we try to separate ourselves from them and make ourselves stand out by making us bigger and brighter.

There is a poem called <Two Acorns> by Park No-hae. For the two acorns he picked up from the forest, the poet asks if you also compete. One is a small, insignificant acorn, and the other is a bigger, shiny acorn. <Becoming a big and shiny acorn/ An important thing to a squirrel or a wild boar/ The far more important thing in life is to be an oak tree/ I threw a small, insignificant acorn/ I threw a small, insignificant acorn into the distant empty forest/ Don't cry, you will be buried and become an oak tree >

There is a Korean saying called acorn height measurement.(The idiom "six of one, half a dozen of the other" means that two alternatives are equivalent or indifferent; it doesn't matter which one we choose.) We are all vulnerable, fragile human beings. Especially before God, everyone is actually small and insignificant. We are small beings who cannot ask whose sin is greater or whose righteousness is higher. But God cares for us and loves us.

When I teach my students at school, I say that the core of Christianity is love. And he says that this love is not romantic and erotic, but ‘a love that transcends boundaries’. The reason Christianity speaks of this kind of love is because God first broke down the boundaries of heaven and came to us who are suffering. This is because Jesus Christ, the image of God, broke down the barriers between Jew and Gentile, male and female, master and slave, righteous and sinner, and united them as one.

The seat of suffering we face is the place where God broke the boundaries and entered. That cross is standing right where everyone suffers. In the place of the cross that breaks down boundaries, we come to realize that the truly righteous are with sinners. In Lent, we must meditate on suffering and break down boundaries. Through solidarity with those who suffer, we must experience that God is with us. God's love breaks down all boundaries and brings us together in solidarity, especially in times of suffering. Amen.