Third Sunday in Lent
Look For the Helpers
Sometime our suffering is the result of sin, our own and/or that of others. However, sometimes suffering just happens. Last fall two major hurricanes ravaged parts of the eastern United States: Hurricane Helene caused damage and destruction from the Gulf Coast of Florida through the Appalachian Mountains, including areas where hurricane damage was unthinkable. A few weeks later, Hurricane Milton tore across Florida, killing dozens, spawning deadly tornadoes, and leaving millions with damaged or destroyed homes or without electric power. Whatever the role of climate change (itself related to human sin) in the strength of these hurricanes, the persons injured or killed were not worse sinners than the rest of us. They were just in the way, as were those eighteen people killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them (Luke 13:4). They were in the way, like the thousands of civilians killed in bloody wars around the world. We live in a world filled with suffering.
Yet we live in a world filled with grace. Children’s television host Fred Rogers always said, in response to disaster, “Look for the helpers.” The gardener digs around the unfruitful fig tree and spreads fertilizer in hope (Luke 13:8). With every natural disaster, every war, volunteers appear seemingly “out of the woodwork” to help, some traveling for many miles at their own expense. Instead of blaming the victims for their own suffering, the gardener in our Gospel lesson and the helpers after disaster seek to bring healing in the face of trauma.
And as we see the suffering of others, Jesus directs us to change our own hearts and lives. It is not for us to judge the hearts and lives of others; it is for us to monitor our own hearts and lives, to seek to be the healers and the helpers—and to receive in glad humility the help of others when we are in need.
Upon the cross of Jesus my eye by faith can see
the very dying form of one who suffered there for me.
And from my contrite heart, with tears, two wonders I confess:
the wonder of his glorious love and my unworthiness.(Elizabeth C. Clephane [1868], alt., Moravian Book of Worship, hymn 329)
Nola Reed Knouse, pastor of congregational care and visitation,
Calvary Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina