BETTER SOULS AND GARDENS

I
 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

When you have a "brown" thumb like I do, a dying plant is not an unusual sight.  Before giving up on it and discarding it, I'd try regular watering, a bit of plant food and misting the leaves to remove the dust.  However, there does come a time when no amount of TLC will work, and the plant will end up on the compost pile.

So, some people came to Jesus and asked if the Galileans worshiping at the Temple who were slaughtered at the order of Pilate, were being punished for their sins.  The popular belief at that time was that if you weren't a good person, God caused awful things to happen to them. Were they implying that since nothing so horrible hadn't happened to them that they weren't sinners?

By comparing themselves to the Galileans, I think those folks were trying to justify their lives.  Jesus taught that being "good," that is putting their time in at the Teimple, making all the required sacrifices and following the laws to the letter, wasn't good enough.  That couldn't be right, they were good Jews!

I remember a time in my life when I thought the same thing. I believed that because I went to church and did things like teaching Sunday school that I was a “good” person. Really, I think I was just playing at being a Christian and living a fruitful life. I was more concerned about being “good” than caring about the lost and hurting of this world.

Jesus told them, twice in fact, that unless they repented, changed their lives, that they would perish.

Everybody dies, one way or the other.  It doesn't matter how good or righteous or bad and evil we are, physical death will come to us all.  But when Jesus talks about perishing and dying, I believe that he's not talking about physical death but about spiritual death.

Spiritual death is being banished from the loving presence and protection of God until the end of time when Judgement Day comes.  On that day, those who have condemned themselves to spiritual death will experience the destruction of their essential self, the soul.  That is what hell and damnation is, and it was their choice.

Whether we believe in God or not, whether we practice Christianity or any of the major world religions or some form of paganism, Christ came in human form, lived, died and was raised from the dead to save us all from sin and spiritual death.  From the time anyone anywhere on this planet comes into being, God is in their lives, cultivating their spirits, fertilizing their faith with His love and working the hardened soil of their hearts.  Responding to his loving attention, people may make a faithful choice to turn to Christ, producing lives based a relationship with God that impacts the world around them in positive way.  That's what being fruitful is all about.

Sadly, some people, like those who came to Jesus that day looking for justification for the self-focused lives, who refuse to make the choice to change their lives, to acknowledge the truth that we all fall short, we all give in to our temptations and sin.  God will work the ground of their lives until their last breath, but on the day they die, they have sealed their fate.  Some of those may even claim they are "good Christians" but they ultimately chose to follow the desires of the self and the ways of this world rather than Christ and God's law of love.

Without God, their souls wither like neglected houseplants.

But not so when we ask Christ to be the the chief gardener in the garden of our hearts.  Through Christ, we are forgiven and have the assurance of salvation and eternal life.  We are freed from the chains of sin and death and freed to blossom into the people God created us to be, freed to change and grow as we live fruitful lives that witness to the transforming love of God through Christ.