Have you ever noticed how Jesus changes the subject? If you read through the Gospels, it won’t take you long to see that Jesus seldom answers a straight question; he’ll answer a question with another question, or he’ll divert the conversation entirely. He does this for a specific purpose. Jesus knows that people are often preoccupied with things that distract them from God, and that left to their own devices they’ll frequently walk away from God. He changes the subject to bring people to God.
I think Jesus does this in our lives too. And if we let ourselves be interrupted and led in this way, and we turn back to God, that’s called repentance. And that’s what our Gospel text is about today.
The text is from the Gospel of Luke, and I want to focus on the first part of it, which is a conversation between Jesus and some people. Let’s walk through the text, all the while asking what Jesus is saying to us.
Jesus had a reputation for being a wise teacher, so people would often come to him and ask questions about a variety of topics. In this case, some people ask him if he heard about a tragic current event. In the region of Galilee, Pilate has killed some Galileans who were worshiping. Not only did he kill them, but he also sprinkled their blood on the altar and mixed it in with the animal sacrifice—essentially making them the sacrifice. Pilate did these things often enough; he was a nasty character.
Jesus sees this as a teachable moment. He asked them: Do you think this happened to those Galileans because they’re worse sinners than the other Galileans? This question seems to come out of the blue, but I think it’s what the people were thinking. They were probably asking Jesus the question to see if he would validate their opinion that God was punishing those people for their sins.
But Jesus says a firm no to that. And not just “No, they didn’t die because they’re worse sinners.” Jesus turns the tables on them. He says: “No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.”
And then Jesus refers to another tragic current event and makes the same point. In Jerusalem, the Tower of Siloam fell on 18 people, crushing them and killing them. Jesus asks the same question he asked earlier: Do you suppose this tower fell on these people because they are worse sinners than everyone else in Jerusalem? Again, we should assume that these people believed this to be true.
Again, Jesus answers: “No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.”
Jesus’ answer to this may seem harsh, but that’s only if we assume these are innocent questions. But they’re not innocent questions; the people wanted to talk about other people’s sin and whether God was punishing other people for their sin.
You see what’s implied here? The implication is that I can ignore my sin, and my standing with God, because someone else is far worse than I am. I’d rather talk about those other people. I think we have all had moments like this, in which we (to use the words of Jesus) point out the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye while ignoring the plank of wood in our eye.
But Jesus changes the subject. No, God is not punishing those people for their sins, but enough about them, let’s talk about you. Time and again, in the Gospels and in our lives, this is what Jesus tries to do. Enough about others, and their flaws and sins; let’s talk about you. What about your sins? Where do you stand with God?
Being on the receiving end of this is uncomfortable. None of us likes to be confronted about an area of our life that is off-track. None of us enjoys admitting we’re wrong. But we need to remember that Jesus does this not to humiliate us, or to keep us subservient, but because he loves us. When someone is in danger, warning them of danger is the most loving thing to do. And if we don’t recognize this as loving, we’re probably vastly underestimating the trouble we’re in.
Jesus calls these people—and he calls us—to repent. What does it mean to repent? We’ve come to think of repentance as a strange religious word, and we often assume it has something to do with feeling bad about ourselves. But that’s not what it means. To repent basically means to turn around.
The image is this: Think for a moment of your life as walking down a road. You’re walking down a straight path, and then at one point you decide to take a detour. You wander off into the woods, but soon it grows dark, and you realize you’ve lost your way. You don’t know how to return to the path.
But while you’re walking blindly in the dark, you meet someone with a flashlight who tells you that you’ve been walking in the wrong direction. You’re moving away from the main road. He tells you the woods are dangerous, and to follow him.
You have some options here: You could say to the stranger, “Leave me alone. I’ll walk the direction I want to walk, and you can’t tell me what you do.” You keep walking in the dark, further and further away from the road. Or you could say: “I’m not sure I trust you. I’m going to keep looking around on my own and see if I can find the road.” You continue to wander blindly, never finding the road again.
If we make this decision—to ignore the stranger—what should we expect him to say? “Oh, no problem. I was just offering a suggestion, and besides, you’ll probably find some other good roads out here.” No, we should expect that if we ignore the stranger’s offer, he will warn us even more urgently: “It is dangerous out here, and you’re completely lost. You need to follow me or you’re going to die because of your foolishness.” Does this sound harsh, or does this sound completely reasonable considering the situation we’re in? I think the latter.
Or, of course, we could decide to trust the stranger. That would require recognizing that we’ve been going in the wrong direction and that our poor decision has led us into trouble. It would also require us to turn around, change direction, and follow the light back to the road.
Now the picture isn’t perfect, but that’s an illustration of what repentance is about. We wander in the dark until Jesus brings his light into our lives. We recognize the trouble we’re in, and then follow the light back to the road.
And that’s the theme of the season of Lent. Lent is a time when we allow Jesus to change the subject in our lives. Lent is an opportunity for us to hear Jesus say: Enough about other people and their sins, let’s talk about you.
And if we let Jesus change the subject, we will discover that in certain areas of our life we’ve wandered off the path. But we’ll also discover that a stranger shows up with a flashlight to lead us out of the dark woods. My prayer for you is that you recognize that stranger as Jesus, the light of the world, and that you decide to follow him back to God.
