Why Did This Happen?

Pastor’s Column

3^rd Sunday of Lent

March 24, 2019

All of us at times have wanted to ask God, “Why did this happen”? This is precisely what Jesus is asked in this Sunday’s gospel (Luke 13:1-9). “Why did all those people die when the tower in Siloam collapsed? Why were those Jews put to death by Pilate? Were their sins greater than others? Did they somehow ‘deserve’ what happened to them?” Often enough, we have similar questions for God. One has only to read the daily papers to see some perceived injustice done to someone, and we want to know why? Did they deserve it? Or, “Why did this happen to me? Did I somehow deserve this?”

These days, it seems that not a week goes by without news of another terrorist attack upon innocents (like New Zealand) or injustices, world and personal events spinning out of our control.

The Jews of Jesus’ time questioned whether or not there was a direct connection between the sins of these people (or their families) and their violent deaths, but Jesus doesn’t draw this connection directly. It is true, of course, that many sins we commit do have grave consequences that we have no trouble recognizing. For example, if someone commits adultery, it should not be a surprise if their marriage later has issues. If one is impaired by alcohol or drugs and gets behind the wheel of a car, they should not be surprised if a tragic accident follows. A person who steals from their employer is often in the end fired. Yet justice quite often does not immediately follow an evil act.

Jesus’ answer on the “problem of evil” here is very instructive: he points out that just because all these people died when a tower fell, doesn’t mean they were bigger sinners than anyone else. Instead, when we are confronted by such tragedies, the proper way of looking at it, according to Jesus, is to realize that this could have been me. This could have happened to me. I need to repent because it may be later than I think. Like the fig tree, we have been given a few more years of life in order to bear more fruit. How are we doing?

Sometimes we need to remember that heaven is the time when every question will be answered. Jesus himself said of heaven, “On that day, you will have no more questions to ask me” (John 16:23). Either we will know everything then, or it won’t matter anymore. But here on earth, Jesus continually directs the focus of our lives on the one thing that really does matter: saving our souls; keeping our faith in Jesus. This means loving God and watching very carefully how we treat our neighbor.

Sometimes we can come to understand why things happen in the world we live in, and sometimes we must wait for the answers, but when the focus of our lives is on pleasing God and keeping his commandments, we will always find the right answers in the end.

Father Gary

Reflections from Scott Hahn

Fruits of the Fig: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Third Sunday of Lent

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Jesus Teaches the People by the Sea, James Tissot, c. 1886-1894

Readings:
Exodus 3:1–8, 13–15
Psalm 103:1–4, 6–8, 11
1 Corinthians 10:1–6, 10–12
Luke 13:1–9

In the Church, we are made children of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God who makes known His name and His ways to Moses in today’s First Reading.

Mindful of His covenant with Abraham (see Exodus 2:24), God came down to rescue His people from the slave drivers of Egypt. Faithful to that same covenant (see Luke 1:54–55, 72–73), He sent Jesus to redeem all lives from destruction, as today’s Psalm tells us.

Paul says in today’s Epistle that God’s saving deeds in the Exodus were written down for the Church, intended as a prelude and foreshadowing of our own Baptism by water, our liberation from sin, our feeding with spiritual food and drink.

Yet the events of the Exodus were also given as a “warning”—that being children of Abraham is no guarantee that we will reach the promised land of our salvation.

At any moment, Jesus warns in today’s Gospel, we could perish—not as God’s punishment for being “greater sinners”—but because, like the Israelites in the wilderness, we stumble into evil desires, fall into grumbling, forget all His benefits.

Jesus calls us today to “repentance”—not a one-time change of heart, but an ongoing, daily transformation of our lives. We’re called to live the life we sing about in today’s Psalm—blessing His holy name, giving thanks for His kindness and mercy.

The fig tree in His parable is a familiar Old Testament symbol for Israel (see Jeremiah 8:3; 24:1–10). As the fig tree is given one last season to produce fruit before it is cut down, so too Jesus is giving Israel one final opportunity to bear good fruits as evidence of its repentance (see Luke 3:8).

Lent should be for us like the season of reprieve given to the fig tree, a grace period in which we let “the gardener,” Christ, cultivate our hearts, uprooting what chokes the divine life in us, strengthening us to bear fruits that will last into eternity.