351 The Problem of Good

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Problem of Good”, originally shared on March 21st, 2025. It was the 351^st  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We have been asking some big questions lately. In Lent, we ask some even bigger ones. Today, we’ll find out what they are and how God answers them.

   The church I served when I retired had a fantastic pre-school and I led chapel services for the children once a week. I told them that I was about to retire to help them understand and adapt to it, and I asked if any of them knew what it meant to retire.

   One of the little boys raised his hand right away and said, “When you’re driving your car and you get a flat tire, then you have to re-tire”.

   So, let’s say that’s true (and it’s pretty close 😊). What does it mean to repent? Does it mean to re-pent? That’s a big question, especially during Lent.

   The world has been asking lots of big questions lately.

   Where is our economy going? Are we heading toward an unprecedented period of universal prosperity and world peace, or toward a recession and the ancient story of a few rich people bullying the many poor people who make them rich?

   Will our technology make work unnecessary, or will it lead to environmental catastrophe?

   Will our science cure our diseases or invent them?

   Will our fellow human beings get along or unleash weapons of mass destruction?

   During Lent, the 40-day Christian season between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday (excluding Sundays, which are like little Easters), we are asking all of those questions, but we are also asking the even bigger ones.

   Why did Jesus have to die? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why to good things happen to bad people?

   If God is good and God is all-powerful, then why is there suffering and injustice in the world? That one is a question that’s so deep and has been around for so long that it has its own name: theodicy, and there have been many ways to understand it over the years.

   But all of those questions, and more, point to just one question, “Why is the world the way it is? If good is good, why don’t people just do good?

   Part of the problem with that question is that, as one of my philosophy professors once observed, most of the world’s evil and probably all of its worst evil, is done by people who sincerely believe in their heart of hearts that they are doing good. I’ve never heard one person  ask, “Why is someone bad like me always having good things happening to them?”

   This isn’t just the problem of why there is evil. This is the problem of why there is good.

   There are two Biblical answers. The first is that the world isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. The second is that God is God and you’re not.

   Jesus offers them both by beginning with two examples from what many scholars believe were real events in the first part of the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches all over the world this coming Sunday, Luke 13:1-9.

   We hear them in Luke 13:1-5,

13 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ² He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? ³ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. ⁴ Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

   Jesus begins with an outrage.

   Some Galileans, people from Jesus’ home region up north, had come to Jerusalem to do the right thing, to offer their animal sacrifices at the Temple, and Pilate’s forces, possibly thinking them to be freedom fighters, or terrorists, had them slaughtered right there in the Temple, mingling their blood with the blood of their sacrifices. It was an outrage, a sacrilege.

   How could such a thing happen? To good people? In the Temple?!

   And, how about the construction workers on the tower of Siloam, near the pool where Jesus did healing? There was an accident, and eighteen people had been killed.

   How could such a thing happen to them? They were just some guys doing honest work.

   It didn’t seem right and, to make things worse, people back then believed that if you were good, you would be blessed in this life, and that if bad things happened to you, it was because you were being punished for your sins, or maybe for the sins of your ancestors.

   Some people still believe that today. Even some Christians!

   We see reasons for outrage every day, and how do we respond? I served on the local community liaison committee with the police department when I served a church in Compton. One day, after a meeting, a senior officer proposed, I think half seriously, that the police give marksmanship lessons to gang members. Why? Because, who gets hurt when gang members shoot at each other? Innocent bystanders. It’s unjust, and it’s an outrage. But, if you teach gang members to shoot straight, you take care of two problems at the same time.

   It’s a cynical solution, but it flows from outrage. And some people would blame the victims! Is that how we should respond? How did Jesus respond?

   Jesus took this on directly by asking the big question.

   Were those worshipers or those construction workers, worse sinners and offenders than other people, Jesus asked?

   No, Jesus said. But he was even more direct with his analysis of the deeper question.

   Jesus’ response is that we must repent, or we will die like those in the Temple and at the construction site did. Unprepared.

   Repentance not just saying we’re sorry.

   Repentance means life transformation. It is a gift from God. The word in the Bible’s original language, Greek, is “metanoia.” It means to change one’s way of thinking. It means to turn around. It means receiving the gift of new birth, of becoming a new Creation, of turning toward the new life that God gives through faith in Jesus Christ. It means becoming a new self.

   Have you ever made popcorn?

   My mom used to make it by pouring the hard popcorn kernels into a pan, then covering the kernels with oil, then covering the pan and putting it on the stove. Now we pull out a package and put it into a microwave oven. Some microwaves come with a “Popcorn” preset. It’s that common!

   Popcorn turns inside out under heat. Heat causes the moisture in the hard kernel to expand and then explode, transforming the kernel into something that can bring nourishment.

   The Holy Spirit is the fire that transforms the hardened hearts of human beings, turning them inside-out, into becoming a new creation that gives life.

   That is what it means to repent.

   We are sinners. Our relationship with God is broken. Our rebellion against God is what brings evil into the world, as it has since the beginning. Sin is separation from God. Repentance is God’s gift that leads to the reconciliation made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross.

   Sin is like the guy who owns a factory that produces toxic waste. He has a problem. If he fixes the problem by building a facility that can neutralize toxic waste, or by sending it to one, his bottom line will be negatively affected. His compensation, his workers’ compensation, and his shareholders’ compensation will all be negatively affected.

   But, if he dumps it in the river behind his factory at night, and no one finds out, his bottom line will be positively affected. His compensation, his workers’ compensation, and his shareholders’ compensation will all be positively affected. Everyone is happy and he sleeps well at night.

   But, downstream, people drink that water, or cook with it, or water their crops with it and it poisons their drinking water and it poisens the crops and people eat that food, and people get sick and some die. They don’t know why.

   Sin is like that.

   Paul says, in his letter to the church at Rome, in Romans 6:23,

³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

   Jesus gave his life to give us the free gift of eternal life.

   What is the answer to the big question? Repent and believe.

   Repentance means to stop dumping our toxic waste. It means having a change of heart, of going in the other direction, toward God instead of away from God. Toward serving others.

   That’s the message Jesus brought when he began his public ministry. Repent. Jesus sent his 12 disciples out with that same message. Repent. It was the theme of the first Christian sermon. Repent. It was the first word Paul used when describing the Good News. “Repent.”

   The last words of the 16^th century Church reformer, Martin Luther speaking of our standing before God, were, “We are all beggars. This is true.”

   We are all separated from God by our sin. Paul writes, in Romans 3:22b-25a,

For there is no distinction, ²³ since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴ they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.

   Big Sin or little sin, Sin is the condition that separates us from God and we cannot change that. But God can. The good news, the Gospel, is that we have a Savior in Jesus Christ who has overcome that separation at the cross.

   The Christian life looks like something, though. The Christian life, is what we do in response to the grace of God. It’s a new life. It’s a do-over lived in Christ. The content of that life is what the Bible calls “bearing fruit”.

   What does that have to do with fig trees?

   I was looking at the fig tree in our back yard the other day. It’s not bearing fruit yet. It’s barely bearing leaves. But it has a problem.

   It bears fruit, and it’s been good fruit in most years. That is, if we can pick it before the squirrels and possums get it. But the fruit has been tasteless for the past several years and I’m not sure why. There’s hardly a point in keeping it if we can’t eat its fruit.

   This year, we started cutting the tree way back. I’ve used fig tree food from a local nursery. And I’ve dug around the tree to aerate the soil. So, I’m hopeful.

   Jesus describes a similar approach to fig tree health in the second part of this week’s Gospel reading in a parable, in Luke 13:6-9,

⁶ Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷ So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹ If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

   The first definition of a “parable” that I ever heard was that it’s “an earthly story, with a single heavenly meaning”. So, what’s the heavenly meaning in this parable? It means that the message of the cross is good news for sinners like you and me and its message is two-fold:

   First, if we were a business, and if God were bottom-line oriented, he would just remove us and replace us with someone else. God instead provides us with everything we need to bear good fruit. And one hopes that another year without fruit would be greeted with the gift of another year of being given what we need to bear fruit, to be Christians and to proclaim the good news, to be the means by which God opens people’s hearts and leads them to life and salvation.

   Second, what is the purpose of a fig tree? It’s to bear fruit, but not primarily to provide food. That’s a secondary benefit. The primary purpose of a fig tree is to produce more fig trees.

   There is no question that the Church is in challenging times. It’s hard to be a Christian and it’s hard to make Christians, but bearing fruit is not an option. It is the natural outcome of who we have become by the grace of God.

   Paul describes the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23,

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

   That is what the Christian life looks like. New life.

   It’s been said that the seven last words of a church are “We’ve never done it that way before.” Here’s another seven last words, “We tried that, but it didn’t work.”

   But God gives us a backbone, not a wishbone. How do we move forward in God’s power and not our own? Here are seven possibilities.

   First, share your story with friends and family members, whatever the cost. How did you become a Christian, or why do you remain one? Share your story. Often.

   Second, demonstrate a superior alternative to the world around us. What do we offer people who are looking for a better life?

   Third, what is the mechanism by which we expect that to happen in our churches and how do we provide for it?

   Fourth, Ross Douthat, a columnist for the NY Times, suggests that two things have brought the church out of periods of decline in its history: holy living and the Arts. Make us known for them.

   Fifth, be ready to go on defense, as Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:15b-16a,

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; ¹⁶ yet do it with gentleness and reverence. 

   For example, what would you say to a person who finds out that you go to church and asks, “What is a Christian?” If you don’t have an answer, I’d like you to think about that this week and put together a short, meaningful and accurate reply.

   Or, if someone says that they don’t believe in God, say “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.” Chances are that they have some weird and inaccurate ideas about who God is.

   Sixth, be ready to go on offense. If you’re not sure if someone you meet or know is a Christian, ask them, straight up, “Have you heard about Jesus?” If that person says, “No”, how would you reply? If you don’t know, think about that, too. Be ready.

   Finally, it’s been said that Jesus taught adults and played with children, and we do just the opposite. Even in churches without many young members, enrichment programs, tutoring, mentoring possibilities, service projects, service hours, and other opportunities are all possible. They can bring young people to the church and position the church in the community as a place that cares about children and young people.

   Every community of God’s people, every congregation, has everything it needs to accomplish everything that God is calling, equipping, and sending it to do in the world.

   The only question we need to answer this Lent is “What is our mission from God in the world?”. God has given us everything we need to answer it.

   The problem of good is that we can’t achieve it. It can only come from God.

   And it does, for all who repent and are saved by faith alone.

   That is the good news we have been given to share.