“The Enemy Within”
Text:
Luke 13:1-9
© March 11, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen
The
Church of England recently had a decision they had to make. With a new group of missionaries ready to be
sent out, the Church of England had to decide where in the world they should
send those missionaries. They had to decide
where in all the world was the greatest need for people to hear the Christian
message. But as they looked at a map of
the world – as they considered whether to send missionaries to the jungles of
Africa or to the deserts of Asia or to the rain forests of South America – they
ended up deciding that one of the places that was most in need of a missionary
was right there in England itself.
They
decided that one of the places in the world that was most in need of a
missionary was the town of Telford, England, which has a population of over
150,000 people, yet fewer than 100 people attend worship services there each week,
meaning that less than 1/10 of 1% of the people in that English town are
active, practicing Christians.[1] So instead of just sending missionaries
overseas and telling people in distant lands that they need to repent and
believe the good news of Jesus, the Church of England decided that they needed
to speak that same message to the people in their own country as well.
In
the same sort of way, for many years the Christian churches in the
But
it might come as a surprise to many people to learn that today, while churches
in the United States still continue to send out missionaries into the world, there
are now more missionaries being sent to
the United States from churches in other countries than we send out to other
countries. While we often think of the
mission field as being in Africa or in Asia or in South America, one of the
largest mission fields in all the world is right here in the United
States. And so the message about
believing the good news of Jesus and repenting is not just a message that
“those” people out there need to hear.
Instead, the message about believing the good news of Jesus and
repenting is a message that we need to hear as well. In other words, before we rush out and warn
other people to change their ways, wouldn’t it be a good idea for us to take a
good hard look at ourselves and make sure that we’ve changed our own ways
first?
And
that’s essentially the issue that Jesus addresses here in this passage that we
heard this morning in the Gospel of Luke.
The passage begins with some people running up to Jesus and saying,
“Jesus, did you hear? Did you hear what
happened? Some people were offering
their sacrifices in the temple, and Pontius Pilate came with his soldiers and
killed them and even took some of their blood and mixed it in with their
sacrifices!”
But
apparently from the expressions on their faces or from the tone of their
voices, Jesus could tell what those people were hinting at. Jesus could tell that those people who had
come to him with that news were basically suggesting, “Jesus, can you imagine
what kind of sinners those people must have been? To be killed like that, and to have your
blood poured out like that, can you imagine what kinds of sinful, awful things
those people must have done to bring that kind of death upon themselves?”
And
you find that very same kind of thinking at times throughout the Bible. Maybe you remember the story in the Old
Testament about Job. One disaster after
another comes Job’s way, and he ends up losing his home, his wealth, and even
his family. And then Job himself is
suddenly afflicted with some horrible, painful disease. And when Job’s friends show up, their basic
conclusion is that Job must have sinned in some way, and that all of those
forms of suffering that were coming Job’s way were God’s way of punishing Job
for what he had done.
Or
in the New Testament, in the Gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples cross
paths one day with a blind man, and right away the disciples ask, “Jesus, is
this man blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned?” In other words, the disciples just assumed
that if something bad happens to someone, it must be God’s way of punishing
them.
And
that same kind of thinking continues even today. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and
the levees broke and the city flooded, there were some people who came out and
declared that that disaster was God’s way of punishing New Orleans for being
such a decadent and sinful city. Or I’ve
heard of other people who believe that when disasters, like hurricanes or
tornadoes or floods, strike, Christians shouldn’t take up collections to help
those people, because to do so would be to interfere with God. According to those people, God obviously sent
those hurricanes or tornadoes or floods for a reason, undoubtedly to punish
those people for things that they’ve done that are wrong. And for us, then, to try and come to those
people’s aid would be to go against God.[2]
But
here in this encounter that’s described in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus calls into
question that kind of thinking. He
doesn’t necessarily come right out and say that God never punishes people for their sins. But what Jesus does say is that instead of always
focusing on other people and obsessing about what kinds of sins they might have
committed in their lives, what we need to do is spend more time worrying about
ourselves and taking a good hard look at what kind of sin is there in our
lives. Because sin is an enemy that’s
not just out there in other people’s lives; sin is an enemy that’s there in our
lives as well. And if we don’t deal with
that enemy, eventually it’ll destroy us.
And what Jesus wants us to understand is that we need to face up to the
sin that’s there in our lives and deal with it now, because if we delay, we
never know how much more time we might have.
For
instance, when we celebrate communion, the final part of the words of
institution goes like this: “As often as
you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Until he comes. On the one hand, those are words of promise,
reminding us that one day Jesus will come again, that one day God’s kingdom
will come in all its glory. But on the
other hand, “until he comes” are also words of warning, reminding us that when
Jesus comes – and we’re told that he’ll come at a time that we won’t expect –
that day will be a day of judgment. And
so, when that day comes, will we be ready?
As
we look around us, most of us don’t have any difficulty at all pointing to the
sin that’s out there. As we look around
us, most of us don’t have any difficulty at all pointing to that enemy that we
call sin, that enemy that we see destroying people’s lives, that we see
destroying the world. But do we
recognize the way that that enemy is also at work within us? Especially during this season of Lent, may we
all open our eyes to the sin that is there in our lives. And with God’s help, may we use the time that
we have to make the changes that need to be made.