Why?

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.


Last week I talked about the trinity of the Christian brand. Do you remember what it is?


God the Creator – Living simply. This is about stewardship. Responsibly using and taking care of what God has given to us.

God the Son – Simply living. We are created as reflections of God. God cares so much for us that he lived and died as one of us. We need to discover that reflection of God within ourselves and make that reflection the centre of our being. This is about recognising our gifts and using them.

God the Sustainer – Helping others with the first two. Just as God through the Holy Spirit helps us, we are sent by God to help others.

Over the next few weeks I am going to be returning to this trinity. Today’s Gospel reading speaks directly to both this trinity and to things that have been happening in the world recently.


So what is today’s Gospel telling us? What does it say about how the world works? About how God works? And about our responsibility in this picture?

“Do you think that because these Haitians suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Haitians?” The answer is a definite NO. What does Jesus say next? “But unless you repent, you will all perish as they did!” This story is talking about what we call natural disasters. We have just had two major earthquakes in the world. The earthquake that hit Haiti was a magnitude seven. It was devastating. More than two hundred thousand people are dead, three hundred thousand injured, and over one million homeless. The second earthquake was even larger; a magnitude of eight point eight. There are an estimated two million people affected by this earthquake. How many dead? Five hundred and twenty-eight.

What did the people of Haiti do to anger God? … Why did God spare the people of Chile?

“Or those eighteen who were killed when the towers of Port-Au-Prince fell on them – do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Chile?” And the emphatic answer is NO! “But unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”


Jesus makes it very clear. Those who are killed by disasters are not being punished by God. Those who survive are not spared. God is not responsible for these deaths. God is not favouring Chile over Haiti. Every single person on earth is the chosen of God.

So what is the difference between Chile and Haiti? Both countries are devastated. But why are so many dead in Haiti? Why so few in Chile?


In one word … stewardship.

In Chile, buildings were destroyed. They are no longer usable. But people were able to walk out of them. In Haiti this was not the case. The buildings were not damaged beyond use, they were utterly destroyed. Why is this? Whose fault is it?

It is our fault. Not specifically yours or mine, but ours none the less. Haiti has been systematically stripped of her natural resources by an attitude toward stewardship. By the belief that the earth belongs to us. It is ours to use as we see fit. All of the materials that could have been used to build structures that would resist the effects of an earthquake are long gone. The metals were taken by her colonizers. She was left so impoverished that her people were driven to cut down her trees to heat their homes and cook their food. No wood. No steel. The two building materials which stand up when everything else falls down.

Those who were killed when the towers of Port-au-Prince fell on them were not responsible for it falling down.


For the past generation we have been being shown over and over again the huge cost of bad stewardship; of taking more than we need or giving less than we could. The cost of living grandly is much greater than the interest on a bank loan.

For the past generation we have been being shown over and over again the huge cost of not helping our neighbours; of not investing our time and money in those less fortunate than ourselves; of not investing our time and money in future generations.


Is there any good news in this message?

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. 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?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good,; but if not, you can cut it down.”

I believe that this attitude has already started to change. More and more people are realizing that we do not own the earth. More and more people are realizing that if we don’t care for it, it cannot care for us. The good news is that God wants us to succeed. When we try to be good stewards, when we try to help others, when we try to be reflections of God, God will help us. We are responsible for the world, but we are not alone. God is with us.