3rd Sunday of Lent
Cycle C
Saint Mary Parish, Pylesville 4pm and 8am Masses
March 24, 2019
Does God Punish?
There is a way of thinking that I have heard sometimes and that makes me very uncomfortable.
Over the years, I have heard some Christians groups condemning various people or kinds of people. They have labelled them as sinners and even evil.
And then they take it a step farther. When bad things happen to those people whom they see as great sinners, these Christian groups say that it is God punishing them.
So, maybe those people have fallen on hard times financially or maybe they have contracted a serious sickness. These Christian groups say that because those people are so bad, God is punishing.
According to these groups, the bad things that are happening to those people are God’s intentional punishment. And, in turn, the punishments are proof of how bad those people are.
God Does Not Punish
Well, in today’s gospel, Jesus debunks this way of thinking.
The people around Jesus bring up a recent event. Some folks up in Galilee were put to death by the Roman official Pilate.
They were thrown into a fire that they themselves were using for their religious sacrifices. Jesus realizes that the people around him are thinking that those Galileans who were killed must have done something bad.
They must have been really bad sinners and it must have been God punishing them. And Jesus says: “No way!
“They weren’t any more sinful than any of you. You can’t say this and think that way.”
Jesus himself then raises another example. A building had collapsed and some people were killed.
And again, Jesus insists that those people weren’t any more sinful that anyone else. This was not God punishing them for being bad or sinful persons.
Not Punished forSin
So, what I see here is Jesus teaching us something about our image of God.
The point is that God is not a punisher. Yes, sometimes bad things happen to us.
But bad things don’t just happen to bad people – we all know that. They happen to good people too.
They just happen. God is not a punisher.
If we look at the thrust of the gospels, Jesus’ dominant theme is that God loves us – unconditionally and forever. And a loving God does not, ever, turn his back on us and punish us.
God is not playing a reward/punishment game with us. God just loves us and keeps loving us when we foul up and keeps trying to draw us into his way of love.
It’s something like me standing here in the sanctuary facing the tabernacle. I am facing Jesus in the Eucharist.
I can turn around and turn my back on Jesus and the tabernacle. But Jesus is still there, still looking at me and present to me and loving me.
Punished bySin
One of our good Catholic theologians puts it this way.
We are not punished forour sins; we are punished byour sins. We are not punished forour sins; we are punished byour sins.
This is really a key point and may be a shift in our understanding. So, yes, you and I can sin, but it is really our sins that punish us.
For example, if I keep on holding a grudge against someone, the bitterness and vengeance in my heart really eats away at me and distorts and disfigures me as a person. That behavior hurts or punishes me.
Or if I overeat or overdrink, the result is that I may get coronary problems or liver disease or lots of other possible troubles. That behavior hurts or punishes me.
The point is that we are not punished forour sins by an all-loving God. Instead, we are punished byour sins – to the sadness and disappointment of our loving God.
Repentance
At the end of today’s passage, Jesus gives the image of the fig tree.
Scripture scholars tell us that Jesus is not saying that he is going to cut us down as someone might cut down a tree that bears no fruit. Instead, Jesus is trying to shake us up a bit.
It’s as if he’s grabbing us by the shoulders and saying: “Wake up! Turn back to the Father, to God!
“Identify the sin in your lives and repent of it. Because if you don’t, that sin is going to punish you right now and might end up punishing you for all eternity.
“Just turn around and look at your loving God! And live out of that love and you’ll be fine.”
