In Luke's gospel this week, Jesus responds to two stories of sudden and premature death. When Pilate slaughtered some Galileans during their religious rituals, instead of blaming the governor some people blamed the victims. Similarly, in a bizarre accident of fate, when a tower collapsed and killed eighteen people in Siloam, some people concluded that they must have been "worse sinners" than the average person.
No, said Jesus, don't demonize your neighbor. Don't presume to invoke God's judgment on someone else. You can't purchase God's favor by projecting your fears onto others. Then, as he often did, Jesus flipped the story so that its moral applied to the living rather than to the dead. Read more in Daniel B. Clendenin's "Hungering for Food That Doesn't Exist.
Ever transplant a plant cutting, and wait for it bloom? My sister had Mom's Christmas cactus bloom on my sister's birthday the spring after our mother's death. Why did Jesus give us the parable of the gardener and the fig tree? See The Rev. Dr. Janet H. Hunt's "One More Year."
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