One More Year
a sermon based on Luke 13:1-9
by Dr. Cynthia Huling Hummel

            A few years ago, I got a call from a woman named "Ruth."   She was wondering if I would help her to speak with her children about her cancer and about the decisions that she had made.  She had recently been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer.  She was given a year to live. Maybe. .. Ruth was strong and courageous and she spoke with her doctor at length about her various options.  The way that she explained it to me, was that she could undergo some very painful chemotherapy sessions- with very difficult side effects and that the treatments would perhaps only extend her life by 6 months to a year-or she could forgo the treatment and she would be gone before Christmas. 

Ruth told me that she wrestled with it and prayed about it-and decided that since she was given the gift of a year that she didn't want to spend that time sick from treatment.  Ruth wanted to live each day as if it were her last.  She wanted to make up for lost opportunities- the things that she'd put off doing.  She wanted to tell her friends and family members how much she loved them; she wanted to put her life in order- to give away her possessions to people she loved and cared about.  She wanted to make amends: to give and receive forgiveness.  She wanted to dance on the beach and eat ice cream.  Ruth said "at first I struggled and I was angry at God for the cancer.  And I got to a point where that changed.  I don't know exactly how, but I realized that I had been given a gift by God of 365 more days.  One more year" Ruth said so many people aren't! I could spend my time feeling sorry for myself (and I did and it didn't change things) or I could decide to live each day in gratitude." And that's what she did. 

One thing that we all know is that life is precious- and uncertain.  And none of us knows the number of our days.  And so we are called to live each day as if it were our last; and to make things right with God and with one another: to repent and to reconcile.
 

            In the passage that we've just heard form Luke's gospel, which is the lectionary reading for the day… Jesus responds to two calamities.  Some of the people who were present tell Jesus about Pilate's slaughter of some Galileans.  Apparently the Galileans were offering their sacrifices in the Temple and their blood was mingled with the blood of the animals they were sacrificing.  The second calamity they told Jesus about was that the tower of Siloam collapsed and that 18 people were killed.  Jesus response in both cases was the same.  Listen to his words.  " Do you think that those Galileans who were killed in the temple? Or that those people killed in the collapse of the tower were worse than all others were?  No I tell you! 

Jesus dismisses the notion that tragedy and sinfulness are related.  These things were not (and are not) God's doing.  They are terrible tragedies and God weeps with us (as the hymn says) "who weep and mourn".  Yes, God weeps with us in times of tragedy.  Were the people who died in the terrible bombing of the trains in Spain worse than others? No, of course not Jesus would say.  Were those who died in the bombing of the world trade center worse than others?--- No!!  They died because of random acts of violence.  These calamities were not of God's doing.  Jesus wants his followers (and us) to understand that there is randomness to suffering.  Each and every day, we open the newspapers; we turn on the TV, we listen to the radio and we hear sad stories of those who have lost loved ones to disease, to accidents, to crime and to random violence-and so Jesus' words to his followers then are words to us today.  We need to remember that God is not punishing sinfulness through calamity. That's not how God works. We are all sinful people and all of us need to repent. 
 

            To repent is to turn our lives around and to get ourselves back on track; to make ourselves right with God.  To remember whose we are.  Think of the word re-member and re- attach.  We need to reconnect with God.  To stop doing the things that hurt us and others.  God calls us to repent because if we don't repent, we will surely perish.  We will wither.  That's what sin does to us, it makes a mess of our lives.  God calls us to repent, not to punish us, but to bless us.  And we all need to repent of the things that we are doing that aren't good for us. And we know what they are.  Lying isn't good for us. One lie leads to another.  Cheating..gossiping, the list goes on and on.  God offers us a chance to begin again; to start anew; to live a life of abundance.
 

            Jesus wants his followers and us to understand that life is precious, and tenuous.  Life is uncertain and fragile.  The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that just as there is a time to be born, there is a time for us to die. "  And so we should not put off our repentance thinking that we'll get around to it someday.  We may not have another day.  In both the instance of Pilate's slaughter of worshippers and of the building collapse- there is no warning.  The end comes suddenly and without warning.    There is no time for folks to make their amends; to say their good-byes.  We need to live each day as if it were our last.   Repent!  Jesus says.. but to repent is more than responding to a handful of sins.  Repentance is a way of life.  It's constantly looking at our lives and holding ourselves accountable. 
 

            And after Jesus talks about the calamities of life and of our need to repent, he tells a parable of a fig tree that is barren.  The owner wants to cut it down.  It's taking up precious land, precious soil, and precious time.  But the gardener wants to give it one more year.  "Give it one more year, and I will help this fig tree to bear fruit.  I'll dig around it and I'll put manure around it to fertilize it.  The gardener wants to give the fig tree another chance."  I don't know about you, but I can identify with the fig tree.  I think of the opportunities I've missed; my sins and my shortcomings and there is God the gardener, saying-let's give her another chance.  Let's give her another year.  And so the question comes to each of us-is how do we respond to God's grace and God's mercy?  What will we do with the gift of a year?  Will we use God's gift of time to bless others and ourselves?  To make things right?  If we live each and every day as a gift from God, we do not have to worry about giving account of our lives to God.  The other piece that we sometimes forget, is that we don't have to make the changes on our own.  We are not in this by ourselves.  God is there helping us to grow into the kind of men and women that God wants us to be.  It's really about teamwork--- about our agreeing to cooperate with God in gardening our lives and when we do that, we just might find that we are able to bear good fruit. 
 

            I think of my friend Ruth and of how she had to choose how she would spend her year, her gift of time from God.  We each are given that gift, you know..but too often we squander our time; Our time on this earth is short and yet, in our time, we too can bless those around us.  We need to live each and every day as a gift from God.  We do not know the number of our days. And that's why we can't put things off.  It's time to repent and to make things right with God. Amen.