Some years back, a sniper drove around the greater D.C. area killing people at random for 23 days before being found and arrested. My children were teens then, and sending my family out into the world, and then choosing to move in the world the same ways I always had, made me newly aware that it was nothing less than being alive and in love with life that were at stake.
The sniper shootings gave me a chance to see my reptilian brain at work, using every tool in the toolbox to try to create a sense of safety for me. Stories I’d forgotten I’d ever known resurfaced: people who were going to get on a plane that went down, but their taxi got caught in traffic; others who had been in that doomed building, but left five minutes before the roof collapsed. While we don’t necessarily look for the sin of those who are victims, we might still lean into beliefs about a Divine Providence that is looking out for us in particular.
In today’s Gospel passage,* people approach Jesus to give him the terrifying news of the Empire-sanctioned slaughter of a group of Galileans at worship. Another recent event has also shocked everyone—the collapse of a public building in Jerusalem that killed 18. Both involved individuals’ lives taken seemingly randomly and without warning. The crowd looks to Jesus in their distress, searching for answers and meaning.
Jesus is crystal clear on one thing: they cannot equate being a victim of these sudden tragedies with divine punishment, nor should they take their good fortune in not being victims as evidence of their own goodness or God’s special blessing.
Jesus’ next words are not so crystal clear: he tells the group that without repentance, they too will perish. The word translated as ‘repentance’ is the Greek word “metanoia,” whose essential meaning is a change of mind and heart, and some recent biblical translations use phrases like this. But still: what change of mind and heart will keep us from perishing?
In our world now, the abruptness and randomness of sudden endings, including hate-fueled violence in our everyday public spaces, are conspicuous reminders of the relevance of Jesus’ wisdom. We can either contract into a protective stance, or turning our eyes toward God, find a fiercer love for the vibrant loveliness of the world around us.
Sudden tragedies can be the wake-up call for us to turn our lives toward Love in its many manifestations. Jesus advises us that this choice is an urgent one: if we do not take up the invitation to transformation in this very moment, we may miss our chance– through meeting our own abrupt and unanticipated death.
After my children were born, I memorized Psalm 27 as a help in turning my eyes toward God. I close with verse one:
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?
-Jeanne Marcus, Alumna member of CoS communities
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