Sermon: Carrot and Stick

Texts: Isaiah 55:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

Date: March 7, 2010

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational United Church of Christ

            There is a story from the Middle Ages about a young woman who was expelled from heaven.  As she left, she was told that if she would bring back the gift that is most valued by God, she would be welcomed back.  She brought back drops of blood from a dying patriot.  She brought back some coins that a destitute widow had given to the poor.  She brought back a remnant from a Bible that had been used for years by an eminent preacher.  She brought back some dust from the shoes of a missionary laboring in a remote wasteland.  She brought back many similar things but was turned back repeatedly.

            Still searching for the gift most valued by God, she paused one day near a small boy playing by a fountain.  A man rode up on horseback and dismounted to take a drink.  The man saw the child and suddenly remembered his childhood innocence.  Then, looking in the fountain and seeing the reflection of his hardened face, he realized what he had done with his life.  And tears of repentance welled up in his eyes and began to trickle down his cheeks.  The young woman took one of those tears back to heaven and was received with joy and love.

            Do you suppose that is true?  That the gift most valued by God is the tear of repentance?  Could be.  Mark’s summary of Jesus’ preaching goes like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  Repent, and believe the good news.

            The little tale of the tear of repentance doesn’t give us many details about what inspired the horseback rider’s repentance.  He remembered his former innocence, and was moved by his reflection to consider the man he had become.  So he repented.  We are not privileged to listen in on much of his inner thought process.  It must have been complex, and tormented, and beautiful.

            There could have been any number of scenarios that would lead to that same moment of repentance, that same hot tear rolling down a weather-beaten face.  What if the story went like this: a young woman was expelled from heaven.  As she left, she was told that if she would bring back the gift that is most valued by God, she would be welcomed back. Yadda, yadda, yadda… Still searching for the gift most valued by God, she paused one day near a physician’s office.  A man rode up on horseback and dismounted, and went inside to talk to the doctor.  The woman, seeing fear in the man’s eyes, decided to linger until he came back out.  When he emerged, his face was anguished.  He reeled down the street to a nearby church, and she followed him.  He threw himself down at the altar and sobbed out his prayer: “Oh God, I have only a few months to live!  I have wasted so much time, thinking I had forever.  All those years down the drain looking after only myself…I’m so sorry!  Help me use the time I have left for you!”  The young woman took one of his tears back to heaven and was received with joy and love.

            What if the story went like this?  A young woman was expelled from heaven.  As she left, she was told that if she would bring back the gift that is most valued by God... Yadda, yadda, yadda… Still searching for the gift most valued by God, she found herself one day in front of the door of the dimly lit Buckaroo Tavern.  There was a ruckus inside, and she was drawn in.  An unshaved man with bloodshot eyes was crumpled up on the floor, bleeding from a cut on his head.  He was weeping openly.  The young woman asked a bystander what had happened.  She was told that the man, a regular, had been sitting at the same barstool he had frequented for a decade or more when his wife came in and told him she was leaving for good.  The man was really drunk and as she started to leave he grabbed at her, missed, fell and hit his head on the bar.  She kept going.  Now the young woman heard the pitiful figure on the floor start to howl, “I hate who I’ve become!  I want to get sober.  I want to get clean!”  The young woman captured a tear from his face, returned to heaven, welcome, joy, love, etc., etc.

What if the story went like this?  A young woman…expelled from heaven.  As she left, she was told that if she would bring back the gift that is most valued by God... Yadda, yadda, yadda… She was walking along the shore on a very high bank when she spotted a boat overturned in rough seas.  A man was clinging to the hull, terrified, and shouting out his prayer: “God, if you get me out of this I’ll be a new man!  I’m sorry for all those years of meanness.  I’ll change, just save me!”  The young woman got one of his tears, mixed with sea water, returned to heaven…and so forth.

            Or what if the story went like this?  A young woman was expelled from heaven.  As she left, she was told that if she would bring back the gift…yadda yadda yadda… Still searching..yadda yadda…she arrived at the abutment of a bridge that had  collapsed a short time before she got there.  It was a horrifying scene—concrete and steel wreckage, sinking cars and trucks, rescue boats, news helicopters, and a large crowd of looky-loos on the shore.  Drawing near to the crowd, she heard a frightened man talking to another, saying “I had to go back into  my office to pick up my cell phone.  If I hadn’t forgotten it, I would have been on that bridge when it went down.  Oh my God, it’s so random!  Or was I saved for some reason?  Did God hold me back for a moment so I would be here and not in the river?  Is God trying to tell me something?  I certainly have done my best to ignore the Lord recently—until today!”  The man starts to cry as his companion pats him on the back.  The young woman catches his falling tear..you know what happens--joy, love, welcome. 

            Or what if it happened this way?  A young woman, expelled from heaven…yadda yadda…searching…gift…She is walking in the city when she is captivated by a tidy elderly man in a clergy collar and a Greek fisherman’s cap warmly embracing another man whose griminess, backpack and sleeping bag reveal his homelessness.  He tells the transient that he hopes he will check out the Compass Center where he can get some food, shelter, and a washing facility, but you can tell he’s inviting, not insisting.  The older man smiles warmly at his grubby friend, looks him in the eye as they part, and, calling him by name, promises to look him up and see how he’s doing next week. 

            The young woman is not the only one who witnesses this.  An exhausted businessman, Italian leather briefcase in hand, has seen the whole episode as well.  He hasn’t just happened to see it; he has paid rapt attention.  He’s been keeping an eye on this older gentleman for months, unbeknownst to him; they’ve travelled on the same ferries for a long time.  He’s been pondering the lightness of his step, the light in his eyes, the easy sound of his laughter, the sheer joy in his face at rest.  Sitting on the 6:20 boat, the businessman calls his wife on his iPhone.  His shoulders slump as he reviews his difficult day.  Then he finds himself telling her that he wants to leave his practice and do something more meaningful with his life.  It feels like all he does is in his profession is take; and all his heart wants him to do is give.  He is sick to death of spending his days schmoozing and being schmoozed among the elite.  The only days he feels free are those rare Saturdays he spends volunteering at the soup kitchen.  As he pours out his heart, he is amazed to feel a tear slipping down his cheek; he hasn’t cried since he was a little kid.  The young woman took that tear, glittering like a diamond, back to heaven and was received with joy and love.

            Six stories of repentance.  The circumstances of repentance change.  My question is, is the quality of the repentance any different?  Is one kind of repentance qualitatively better than another?  That’s what I started to wonder when I read the story of Jesus challenging those who talked about the deaths of their neighbors to repent.  Jesus refutes the idea that those whose lives were lost in violence and tragedy were more sinful than the general population.  Yet he uses the moment of their speculation to challenge them to repent.

            It’s as if he recognizes that a door is cracked open in the hearts of these people who are pondering the meaning of suffering.  He wants to take advantage of it, because he knows their interest in repentance will be fleeting.  He uses pretty stark language, designed to motivate: “Unless you repent, you will all perish, just as they did.”  The fine print on the human contract, of course, is that we will all perish eventually regardless of whether we repent.  Jesus is telling the truth about that.  I think it’s very interesting that he doesn’t hesitate to remind these folks of their mortality in order to provoke them to change.

            Makes me think that when it comes to repentance, any occasion will do.  Isaiah 55:6-7 urges us to “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him when he is near; let the wicked forsake their way and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”  It’s not that God plays hide and seek with us so much as we play hide and seek with God.  We might bump along for months or years at a time when God seems to be more or less in the background of our lives.  Then there are moments on our journey when we need God to be very near: crises, sudden insight, peak and valley experiences.  These may be moments for repentance, for turning, returning to God and what God wills for us.  Any opening will do.

            I found in the lectionary texts for today a kind of “carrot and stick” approach to motivating people to repent.  Jesus employs “sticks” in this gospel scene.  His comments point to mortality, the randomness of death, the shortness of time.  The parable he tells about the fig tree being given one more year to become fruitful artfully portrays both God’s patience and the limitation of time passing.  The story doesn’t tell what happens at the end of the year; will the tree be allowed more time if it has not responded yet to the gardener’s patient care?  Maybe; maybe not.  Don’t count on one extension after another.  And that is so true to life; none of us know which day will be our last day.  Why wait to become the people God knows we can be?

            The “carrot” approach to turning toward God is revealed in the lovely promises of Isaiah.  God is the one who provides bountiful life, a rich feast, steadfast love, mercy, abundant pardon.  This is not a skimpy, reluctant offer of forgiveness but a promise of “abundant pardon.”  The emphasis is on turning toward a satisfying life, a close relationship with a loving God, goodness, delight, being a witness and a leader among the people, one who points others toward God.  The prophet is pleading: Return, return, return that God may have mercy on you.  Listen to the word of God in whatever way it comes to you so that it will be planted in you and bear the fruit in your life that God intended. 

            In the scenarios of repentance I told earlier, the last one seems the least likely to happen—that  a man who is spending his labor for that which does not satisfy will be inspired by a another person living a rich life of service to change his occupation and start spending his days, too,  in loving service.  The “carrot” method of inspiring repentance just doesn’t have the traction in most human lives that the “sticks” of brushes with mortality and various crises seem to have.  But maybe that doesn’t matter.  The truth is that behind the open door that a crisis may create is still the abundant life that God wants all her beloved to have.  Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way: “That torn place your fear has opened up inside you is a holy place.  Look around while you are there.  Pay attention to what you feel.  It may hurt you to stay there and it may hurt you to see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death.  It is the kind that leads to life.”[1]

            What motivates you to repent?  If you are being called to repent, called to return to God, it just doesn’t matter how you got there.  Turn your face toward the light, and let your life follow.

[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown  “Life-giving fear” Christian Century March 4, 1998