Are the People who Suffer Worse Sinners?

Why do bad things sometimes happen to good people? If people suffer and become victims of a crime, or experience a natural tragedy, does this mean God is punishing them for their sins? Does it mean that God does not love them?

I think most of us would not think this way, for example, about the Ukrainian people who are suffering through an armed invasion of their homeland. Yet astoundingly there have been a few eccentric voices in the modern Ukrainian “war news” cycle, who have tried to blame the victims.

In the case of the two tragedies Jesus mentions in our Gospel, Jesus asks, are the people who suffered like this, worse sinners than all the other people who did not suffer these tragedies.

Did God judge them because of their excessive sin? Is God giving back to people what they deserved? Unfortunately, there are people even in our modern world, who still think suffering is a just desert for sins. The victims must have done something bad to deserve this.

While some personal sins can be the direct cause of our suffering, this would not normally be the case if someone is the victim of a crime, or suffers in some natural disaster, or tragic mishap.

Are people who suffer worse sinners than us? What does our faith teach us? The reality is we are all sinners. As St. Paul reminds us, “For there is no distinction; all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God (Romans 3:22b-23). The just punishment for each one of us is not merely suffering and death, but eternal death. We deserve the just punishment of eternal separation from God.

Apart from God’s mercy, we all deserve punishment for our sins. None of us wants to face God’s justice in this way. We should not desire God’s strict justice, but his mercy. As our psalm refrain reminds us, “The Lord is kind and merciful.” In mercy, Jesus says two times in response, “By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” (Luke 13:3, 5).

Jesus answers with an emphatic, no! By no means are people who suffer worse sinners than those who do not. Then Jesus adds a very important word “but.” Religious people who blame the victim, and show no mercy, are liable to a much greater punishment. Jesus says, “But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” (Luke 13:3, 5).

The first step in our own conversion is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and to become aware of our own sinfulness, so that we can repent. We must begin in humility and become aware of our brokenness. We must become childlike and docile to the prompting of the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21).

Ironically the closer we come to God, the more aware of our brokenness we become. St. John reminds us in his first letter, “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). If a person thinks they have arrived at perfection, and they look down on others in sinful contempt, they are deceived! The truth is not in them!

St. John Paul II has reminded us; Jesus' primary mission in his earthly life was to reveal the love and mercy of the Father to a broken humanity. To offer them hope, and to call them to repentance. Jesus did this both in his words and in his actions.

The most profound revelation of this truth was Jesus’ sacrifice of love on the cross. Jesus came to suffer and die for our sins and to join himself to our human sufferings to bring meaning to our sufferings. God’s mercy is available to everyone, but it requires our cooperation to bear the fruit of mercy in our life.

The idea that sinners are cut off from receiving God’s mercy is completely false. In fact, Jesus’ priority was not towards the righteous, but to reach out to sinners. Jesus reminds, “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners” (Luke 5:32, cf. Rom 5:8). Because of God’s mercy, God rejects no one for being a sinner. However, God does require our response or our cooperation with his offer of grace.

On the other hand, to reject this mercy is a fearful thing. A mixed up person might believe they must first make themselves acceptable to God, through their own effort. In effect, to earn their own salvation.

Jesus does call us to become aware of our sins, and to confess our sins with contrition, then to repent and follow him. While requiring this response, grace is a gift from God.

This is completely different from thinking that I can earn my way to God through my own good works. As if we could create a ladder constructed by our unaided good works that would reach up to heaven.

St. Paul reminds us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Apart from God’s grace and mercy, we cannot be saved. We do not earn our way to heaven by our good works (CCC 2092). Our good works are instead the fruit of our conversion and of a changed life moved interiorly by the Spirit. Each of us should see fruit in our life. If we cannot point to this fruition our life, there is a problem. Yet when we see fruit in our life, is the result and not the means of our salvation.

The completely wrong-headed notion that we can save ourselves by good works, is at the very heart of what Jesus confronts in our Gospel. Those who think they are saving themselves by their own works become self-righteous. They look down on others as sinners, often in hypocrisy. Because they have become proud of their own good works, they focus on the rules, and they want justice, but are unwilling to offer mercy to others.

Jesus' strongest condemnations in the Gospels are against those who fail to show mercy, and against their hypocrisy (Luke 6:39-45). Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:36–37).

In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus makes an even stronger statement. Echoing the words of the Our Father prayer, “Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who transgress against us,” Jesus warns, “But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions” (Matthew 6:15).

We end with Jesus’ parable of the Barren Fig Tree. This parable is a call to examine our hearts. First, we should note that the “gardener” is patient and merciful. Even though the fig tree is currently barren, he holds out hope. Yet, this mercy has a time limit. If the fig tree continues to fail to cooperate, it will eventually be “cut down” (13:9).

During this season of Lent, Jesus asks us to be truly honest and vulnerable. Is our life bearing the fruit of Jesus’ mercy and love? Is our tree barren or fruitful? Do we understand that we are not saving ourselves by our own good works, but instead that we are all sinners, utterly dependent on God’s mercy?

Have we surrendered our life to Jesus, and made him the center of our life? This is the meaning of being Jesus' disciple and the essence of our ongoing conversion. If we have done this, what can we give him in thanks for this great gift of his love?

 

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR C

First Reading: Exodus 3:1–8a, 13–15; Psalm 103:1–4, 6–8, 11; Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1–6, 10–1; Gospel: Luke 13:1–9

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Transforming Glory

In our modern world one of the perennial questions is, “If God is a loving and all-powerful God why does he allow me to suffer?” I wonder, have you ever thought like this? I know I have.

One author has comment on our modern outlook noting, we have too much to live with, too little to live for. For many people the dream we live for is to gather as many toys as possible so that we can entertain ourselves and live in comfort. In the pursuit of this dream, many people give themselves permission to take any road they choose, and nothing has value unless it leads to our comfort in this life.

The very idea of suffering is an affront to this dream. We cry out “Why me? God if you really love me, you would not permit me to suffer like this.”

Yet, we are dreaming in color. The cold hard truth is that eventually we all suffer. Suffering in this life is unavoidable. The most foundational lesson in Jesus’ discipleship is not to avoid suffering but to find meaning in our suffering and to join our sufferings to Christ.

It is important to realize that Jesus’ central mission on earth was to suffer, and we are his disciples. Disciples imitate their masters. Notice St. Paul’s words about discipleship in our second reading. “Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us” (Philippians 3:17). As the Apostle Paul says elsewhere, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Disciples seek to become, in every little way, like the master. We must seek to imitate Jesus. In the previous chapter Jesus tells his disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

In this Sunday’s Gospel, we accompany Jesus and his inner circle of apostles on a final lesson of discipleship leading up to Jesus ultimate act of sacrifice. Immediately after the transfiguration, St. Luke tells us Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” where he would suffer and die on the cross.

The transfiguration marks the end of Jesus earthly ministry in Galilee, and the transition to the road to his passion. At this all-important and difficult moment, the first thing Jesus models is prayer.

I do not know about you, but I often give in to grumbling about my sufferings. Even in little things. I might complain I have a sore throat; that my knees hurt, that I had a bad sleep last night, or that a person treated me unjustly. My first thought is not to follow my master and “go up on a mountain to pray” (9:28).

Luke tells us that as Jesus was praying, he became transfigured, “his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white” (9:29). Luke uses some unusual words, which mean that Jesus’ clothing became bright gleaming white and began to flash or gleam like lightning, or to become radiant.

Even as modern reader, this is amazing, but we may not catch the significance of all the details for a Jewish reader in Jesus’ day. There is a significant parallel between Jesus experiences here at the transfiguration, and Moses, for someone familiar with the Book of Exodus.

The 'horns' of Moses
depict this radiance.

Obviously, Moses appears to Jesus and talks with him, but there are many other parallels to the Exodus narrative. Moses went up on a mountain to pray, and he took three companions with him, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu (Exodus 24:1). When Moses came down from the mountain “the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (Exodus 34:29).

Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus and “spoke of his exodus or departure from this life.”

Light and cloud, lightning and smoke are motifs from Exodus signifying the presence of God. When the people of Israel journeyed in the desert they were accompanied by a column of fire during the night, and by a column of cloud during the day (Exodus 13:21–22). Peter, John, and James saw Jesus’ glory, and a cloud came and overshadowed them. These are the same signs of God’s presence we see in Exodus where the “the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34).

Near the end of his life in Deuteronomy, Moses promises a prophet like him would arise, “A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen.” (Deuteronomy 18:15).

Yet, Jesus is more than a second Moses. In the words of the Archangel Gabriel at the beginning of the Gospel, Jesus is “the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32), and a few verses later the “the Son of God” (Luke 1:34). The “voice from heaven” at Jesus Baptism declares, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Lk 3:22). In our Gospel today, the voice from the cloud declares, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”

Luke emphasizes the uniqueness of Jesus as the chosen Son and the words “listen to him” likely echo Moses’ promise of a prophet like him, “the one to whom you shall listen.” (Deuteronomy 18:15).

If we keep in mind both the uniqueness of Jesus as God’s Son, and his role as a rabbi or master leading disciples, then we might ask; “What is Jesus modelling for us through this event?” Surely, we are not to believe that each one of use will experience a mountain top transfiguration in imitation of Jesus.

Here is it interesting to see what later disciples of Jesus understood by this event. In Second Corinthians, St. Paul compares the brightness of Moses face with Jesus. The brightness of Moses face was fading and temporary. In the new dispensation of righteousness or the age of the Spirit, Christ has taken the veil away and given us a permanent and greater splendor (2 Corinthians 3). In Christ Jesus, the Spirit enters each one of us and transforms us from within.

St. Paul notes,

“All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

For each one of us the goal of our prayer should be intimacy with God, and by experiencing his love within us to be progressively (from glory to glory) transformed into his, image by the Spirit.

As St. Paul notes, “He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself” (Philippians 3:21). In speaking of our resurrected heavenly bodies, St. Paul observes the differences between us, “The brightness of the sun is one kind, the brightness of the moon another, and the brightness of the stars another. For star differs from star in brightness” (1 Corinthians 15:41). As Jesus notes, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43).

While the church teaches that the faithful will all share in this quality of glory, it will not be in the same degree. We will not be equal or identical in heaven, but some will shine brighter than others because of differing degree of holiness. We are equal in attaining eternal life, but not with the same reward. (St. Augustine, Sermon 37.6, St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 12.6, DS 1305, Council of Trent: Decree on the Sacraments, Can. 31, DS 1581).

Jesus gives us this example of prayer in the face of profound suffering to remind us that our vision must look beyond the horizon of this life. We must draw close to him and be filled with the Spirit. Like him, the Spirit cries out in our hearts, “Abba Father” and reminds us that we are his children, his chosen ones. We must not confuse this human experience of glory with the uniqueness of Jesus as the very Son of God, but we share in this inheritance, we are adopted heirs to this same family. So then, in the quietness of our prayers, let us gaze with unveiled faces on the glory of his Son and so be transformed from within by his love from glory to glory.

Endurance in the Face of Temptation

This week’s Gospel about the Temptation of Jesus in the desert reminds us of the issue of temptations in our life.

We all have different backgrounds and personalities so likely no two of us are tempted in exactly the same way. One person may find it hard to tell the truth in a difficult situation or when trapped between loyalty to two different friends. Another person may find it hard not to have his or her curiosity filled up by the latest unproven rumor about someone in the office. Others may struggle to control or regulate their emotions or appetites. No two of us are alike but we are all tempted to do sinful things from time to time. Temptation itself is not a sin. If we resist temptation, we actually gain graces.

I am not sure about you, but I often fail to resist temptation. Giving in to a sinful temptation never makes me feel good about myself. I always wish that I were stronger. Sometimes I look back and ask myself, “Why did you do that?”

I wonder if you have ever felt like this? Is there some strategy we can follow to build our resistance to temptation?

When we read the Temptation of Jesus in the Gospel, we notice the devil as a source of temptation. Maybe we should blame the devil for all our temptations?
The truth is that we are actually tempted from three sources in our lives. Traditionally we have described them as the world, the flesh and the devil. While not in this traditional order, the devil presents Jesus with these same three temptations. The devil tempts Jesus with grasping the power and glory the world. Jesus is tempted by the flesh to turn stones into loaves of bread, and to worship Satan and put God to a sinful test.

Christian tradition has seen these same three sources of temptation in other passages of scripture (Ephesians 2:1–3a, 1 John 2:16).

And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind … (Ephesians 2:1–3).

St. Paul mentions the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air (or the Devil) and the passions of our flesh.

Realizing that there are three sources of temptation, enables each one of us to take responsibility in a more personal way, since the flesh or our own human desires of body and mind come from within us.

In another passage St. Paul talks about temptation itself, using the same word as in our Gospel,

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The Apostle Paul does not mean we all face identical temptations, but that being tempted in general is the common lot of all fallen human persons.

Perhaps we should note that some translations confuse the meaning of this verse by translating “no trials have overtaken you” (NABRE). We need to be clear that nowhere in Scripture does God promise we will necessarily deliver us from all suffering. This verse promises instead that God will make a way of escape for us from sinful temptations.

If this is true, why do we still fail?

If we look to the example of Jesus in our Gospel, we observe that first of all Jesus was “filled with the Spirit” and “led by the Spirit” before encountering his temptations. St. Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit is our strength and the source of our power against temptations. He writes,

“I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

The promise of strength and endurance in the face of temptations comes not only from our own strength. We do need to struggle ourselves! In order to escape and resist temptation, the Holy Spirit assists by giving us supernatural grace. This is what St. Paul means by being made alive, and to walk in the Spirit.

As we are encouraged to do during this season of Lent, Jesus also undertakes the discipline of fasting. He even resists his normal healthy bodily appetites for a time, allowing himself to be hungry. In Jesus' case, this fast is of epic or perhaps we should say biblical proportions. St. Luke tells us Jesus “ate nothing” for forty days. Then in what is the most understated verse in the whole of Scripture tells us, when the forty days were over “he was hungry” (Luke 4:2).

Jesus models something else as well. For each one of the temptations he faces, Jesus answers the Devil by quoting from the Bible. We have no indication that Jesus carried scrolls of Scripture texts with him into the desert. To prepare his life for the mission God had called him to; Jesus had spent time being docile to his Father by reading and learning Scripture. He had immersed himself in Scripture to the point that he knew it by heart. This was no casual reading, but an effort to immerse himself in the heart of the Father. As Jesus tells us elsewhere in the Gospels, As the Father says and does, so the Son says and does. Jesus is modeling being a disciple of the Father’s love and mercy, a disciple who desires to be like the Father in every way.

This is the same vision he passes on to us. In St. John’s Gospel Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31–32).

As we enter this Lenten season, let us first offer a prayer to be filled with the Spirit. Let us be willing to resist our bodily desires by means of fasting and small mortifications. 

Finally, let us renew our focus on our relationship with God. We may need to create some silence, and to discipline ourselves in prayer. Perhaps we might ask ourselves, if I truly desire to be the child of God and his disciple, have I spent time reading his word with a docile heart, seeking to become like him in every aspect of my life?