Opportunity for Repentance
Third Sunday in Lent (Year C)
Luke 13.1-9
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach
Live Streamed on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 27:40)
Why do bad things happen? Such a broad and complex topic. Of course, the answer—if there even is a correct answer—depends on perspective. Depends on the lens through which one chooses to evaluate the particular circumstances of any given situation. As our understanding of the universe has increased, the range of possible answers seem to broaden rather than narrow. The whole notion of quantum physics alone throws such a monkey wrench into the works that an absolute answer may never be found.
For the ancients, with a much simpler worldview—and even for many in our own day—the answer is clear. Bad things happen because the gods—or, in our case, the One God—was angry. Bad things happen because of God’s wrath. Suffering was often viewed as punishment for sin. Even when bad things happened to those who were apparently good and righteous, there must have been some hidden sin, some unknown transgression, that was being punished. And in some cases, if there was no actual transgression, the punishment must have been for a sin committed by a parent or ancestor or other relative. Right in Exodus, when God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses, God specifically says, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquities of parents, to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me” (Ex 20.5b). Although, this is also countered elsewhere in Scripture. And yet, this perspective continued—and continues—in a generalized form, of suffering being the wages for sin.
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