Third Sunday in Lent, rcl yr c, 2022
1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Psalm 63:1-8; Luke 13:1-9
unless you repent, you will all perish as they did
In 1934, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had the opportunity to preach to his expatriate German congregation in London, on the same text from Luke that we just heard—where some people come to Jesus to tell him about “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”
This sounds a bit obscure to our ears, but what they were reporting to Jesus was that Pilate had killed some Galilean pilgrims in the Temple precinct in Jerusalem. This is perfectly consistent with what we know of Pilate—for example, Pilate was perfectly willing to bring Roman standards into Jerusalem, perfectly willing to steal from the Temple treasury to build an aqueduct, perfectly willing to massacre Samaritans. And eventually, willing to crucify Jesus. So the thought that Pilate might massacre some Galilean pilgrims in the Temple precinct, was entirely plausible and believable.
But Jesus doesn’t want to talk about Pilate’s violence, does he. Jesus doesn’t want to talk about the guilt or innocence of the slaughtered Galileans, either. Jesus is concerned with the hearts of the people in front of him, listening. “Do you think,” asks Jesus, “that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”
Pilate’s actions were reprehensible, obviously; it’s entirely unjust that pilgrims would be killed this way, obviously; but Jesus isn’t concerned, in that moment, with judging Pilate for his actions, nor is he concerned about the innocence or guilt of the pilgrims. Jesus is most concerned, in that moment, about the hearts of his listeners, and the state of their repentance, or lack thereof, saying, Repent, you who can hear me; repent, because your life depends on it.
When Bonhoeffer preached on this text to his expatriate German congregation in London, he had as little concern with Pilate and the Galileans, as Jesus did. Bonhoeffer was concerned about what was happening back home in Germany in July 1934, and the ways his congregation was speaking about it. For Bonhoeffer, a story about Pilate indiscriminately massacring innocent Galilean pilgrims in the Temple looked “only too much like the news of the day.” Because what was happening in Germany, in July 1934, was the Röhm-Putsch—a bloody event where Nazis had murdered Hitler’s party rivals along with Catholic leader Erich Klausener.
I’ve mentioned this sermon of Bonhoeffer’s before, and I’ve been revisiting it again, especially on on my Sabbath Leave in February. I’ve been reflecting on repentance, and what it means for us as a church to repent for the ill-deeds of others, especially as we are invited by bishops like Archbishop Mark MacDonald to repent for the church’s treatment of indigenous peoples.
What makes this sermon of Bonhoeffer’s so important is the way he challenges his people over the comfortable distance that they were trying to create between themselves and the violence happening back home in Germany. They were in London, but the violence was happening half a continent away, and there was a certain smugness in that. But what Bonhoeffer points out to his expatriate congregation is that when they share the news about Hitler’s Röhm-Putsch, or about National Socialist violence, they too, like the ones telling Jesus about Pilate’s violence, did not want not to repent, but rather “to accuse one person and exonerate the other.”
Through their own distance, or in the attempt to take the right side even against the violence, was to avoid what this sort of event, this sort of knowledge of the truth, was meant to have you do. To hear a report of someone else’s violence, was not an opportunity to try and claim innocence, nor to signal virtue, but to search your own heart—and to repent of your own sin.
And neither can I (I suppose!) preach a sermon on the violence of Pilate, or the violence of Nazis, in order that we might take a side in an attempt to distance ourselves, and to claim our own innocence. And neither can I mention the violence in our own history, either, in order for us to find a way to be on the right side of things, or to signal our own virtues. Including the sort of violence that took place at the Mohawk Institute by the hand of an Anglican clergyman appointed by a past bishop of Huron.
We aren’t reminded of such things, and hear the truth of such things, in order to take the right side (though there certainly is a right side) and by taking the right side, to find some safe harbour in our own innocence, and our own distance. Because holding the right position (on things for which there is such a clear position to hold) doesn’t make us innocent. It was unjust for Pilate to slaughter innocent pilgrims, and Jesus’s hearers knew that; Dietrich Bonhoeffer himself took a very costly position against Nationalist Socialist violence, as did many in his London congregation; and we know that the damage done to so many people on Six Nations (as one example) is reprehensible.
But taking the right position on any of these things does not save us; and what Jesus asks us to do when we hear of such things, is not to signal virtue, nor to make the just-right social media post, nor to try and squirm ourselves into innocence … but to repent. Because it’s on repentance that our life depends.
Bonhoeffer’s example of repentance in his sermon is quite helpful. He tells the story of a school where some injustice had happened to one of the students, and what the head of school did in response. Bonhoeffer doesn’t tell us about what happened to the perpetrator of the violence; there doesn’t appear to be a forced apology, or false expression of remorse. Bonhoeffer only tells us what the head of school did. The head of school repented for violence he didn’t even commit. “[I]n the guilt of his pupils he saw his own guilt,” says Bonhoeffer; the unjust act was “a call to repentance … So he went and spent long days in repentance.”
It is the head of school, the observer of the injustice who truthfully addresses his and the community’s failing, and who repents in the “humble realization of guilt.” And as that head of school repented for his own sin, in realization of his own guilt, he repented for the sins of a whole community, a community in which violence had taken place.
We’ve heard from our own Archdeacon of Reconciliation and Indigenous Ministry, Ros Elm, about what we can do in the wake of the news of such things as children’s graves on reserves. Despite some clear requests from us for ways that we might help, in the hope that we might do something, anything, for her or for Six Nations, she has said that this is not the time for that. What she has said to us, is that we need to heal. That is, we have work to do, well before we can begin to work with the communities that have been so broken by the actions of our own unrepentant perpetrators of violence.
And I wonder if this might mean repenting for our own willingness to be untruthful in small things—you know, our little white lies; or repenting for our own willingness to look away from small cruelties—you know, the unkind words of our friends; because repenting for these things is to begin to repent for the larger deception of unfulfilled treaty obligations, or for the larger abuses done in the name of the church.
I wonder if our repentance for our own sins is the beginning of our own healing, and a step toward reconciliation. Perhaps is time to repent of our own sins, whatever they might be; time to repent of our own sins, as a beginning of healing; because as we repent of our sin, we begin to repent of the sins of the communities to which we belong.
And in so doing, in repenting of our own sin, and the sin of a broken community, that would be healing—a healing offered and found in the one who has already taken on and borne, and repented of our sin and guilt for us, our Lord Jesus, and him on the cross; and by taking on and bearing our sin for us, he reconciles us to him, and us to one another.
The Revd Dr Preston DS Parsons
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.