Luke 13:1-5 | Ephesians 4:1-7
This might be the closest we get in the gospels to Jesus responding to something in the media. It seems like the situations of both Pilate’s killing of the Galileans and the tower that fell and killed many people in Siloam were well-known tragedies.
And Jesus’ response is notable.
He doesn’t completely dismiss the stories. Luke does not record what may seem to be like a shrug of the shoulders. But Jesus does seem to imply that their existence doesn’t change how we should live.
Today, our experience is full of the knowledge of tragedies across the world. There are billions more people on the planet today than when Jesus walked the earth. Yet, we might ask if our knowledge of so many tragedies is due to a greater prevalence of tragedy in the world, or simply that we have greater access in knowing about them due to technology.
Either way, Jesus’ response is still applicable.
Keep doing what God has asked of you. You make sure your life is what it should be.
Luke 13:1-5
Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”
Ephesians 4:1-7
Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.
God has given his grace to each one of us measured out by the gift that is given by Christ.
Prayer
God,
Help me to live on. To keep going. To not let the things around me distract from your righteousness and justice in my own life and through it to the world around me.
I know you know (do you really see everything?), but there’s a lot going on. And I do pray for Maui, for Ukraine, for those people fleeing for their lives through the Mediterranean or out of Haiti, for brothers and sisters devastated by violence in Ecuador, Venezuela, and others throughout south and central America, and on and on. I’m sure there are countless situations I don’t even know about that the media doesn’t seem to care about.
I do…I pray for them: Lord, have mercy. Help.
But God, help me to live on. Not in ignorance and not without care, but with the knowledge that my greatest opportunity and responsibility is right around me. If you’d call me to greater impact in those distant situations, please be clear so I know. But if you have me here, keep me from tragic paralyzation and move my heart, head, and hands to do what’s in front of me.
With great compassion and purpose.
To live on.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.