It seems like it’s inevitable. Every time some great tragedy happens, whether it be 9-11 or hurricane Katrina, or the earthquake in Haiti, Pat Robertson is going to make news for saying something outrageous about how this event is God’s punishment on someone.

But it’s not just Pat Robertson and it’s not just great disasters like those I’ve just mentioned. We do it too. We do it when we seek an explanation for the suffering of a friend or loved one, ourselves, or even a stranger we hear about it. What did they, or we, do wrong, to deserve this?

It’s one of those questions I always hate to get when I’m making a pastoral visit because there’s really no way to convince someone that God isn’t responsible for their suffering. We want our world to make sense, and when something happens that challenges the way we view the world, we seek a way to put that event into categories that we can understand. It’s easier to blame ourselves, or God, for something bad that happens, than to say it’s random, or chance or whatever.

Whenever someone asks me that question, whenever I find someone trying to lay the blame on themselves or God, I’m always put in mind of a man I got to know while doing a hospital chaplaincy internship in Greenville some years ago. I first met Robert in June. He was diabetic and the doctors had told him that his right leg needed amputation. He was resisting the surgery because amputation would mean severe changes to his lifestyle. Over several days, as he and I talked, he became resigned to the prospect and eventually went through with it. I thought I saw him for the last time as he was being moved to rehab a week after the surgery.

But in late July, Robert was back in the hospital. This time, they were going to amputate his left leg as well. He was devastated by the prospect and was full of fear and doubt. As we talked, he kept coming back to a single theme, “God doesn’t put more on you than you can bear.”

His eyes were in tears as he spoke, and it was obvious that he wasn’t sure he could bear the loss of a second leg. I was thinking that God wasn’t putting this on him, that this wasn’t God’s fault, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. His faith in God had brought him thus far, and if anything was going to get him through it, his faith would. Instead, I simply said, “That may be, but sometimes it sure feels like it’s more than we can take.”

I’m certain that in the back of his mind was a verse from today’s epistle reading, taken out of context: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” One of the most persistent human responses to suffering, to evil, whether it be a natural disaster or an illness is to try to make meaning of it, to look for God at work in the middle of it. God may be testing us, or more likely in case of accident or illness, God is punishing us, or trying to get our attention.

All of our lessons today present, in slightly different ways, questions about suffering and its causes. The lesson from Exodus is the powerful story of Yahweh, appearing to Moses in the burning bush. In the course of the theophany Yahweh tells Moses that he knows about the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt; he has heard their cries and he will deliver them. This is the expected response—we suffer, we cry out to God, and God responds.

Of course, it’s not always that simple, as we are reminded in today’s gospel. We heard two sayings of Jesus. In the first, Jesus refers to two incidents about which we know nothing otherwise. Both took place in or around Jerusalem. In the first, Pilate had some Galileans killed who had come to Jerusalem to sacrifice at the temple. Such an event is certainly in keeping with what we know from other sources about Pilate’s ruthlessness and cruelty. It is likely that the Galileans had done nothing to invoke Pilate’s wrath. The other event is something of an accident. Eighteen people died when the tower of Siloam, probably part of the city’s defenses, fell on them. Both of these were probably current events, things people were talking about, trying to make sense of.

Jesus uses these two stories to make a point. He asks his listeners if these people deserved to die, if they were any more sinful than anyone else in Jerusalem. And then he lays down a warning, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Philosophers distinguish between natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil is the evil or suffering that comes about through natural disaster—tsunamis, earthquakes, and the like. Moral evil is evil that is a result of human action—the holocaust. These two examples of Jesus encompass both types of evil—a random accident, and a crime perpetrated by someone. In either case, our very human tendency is to assign blame. We want to place suffering in a context that makes sense of it, and that makes it conform to our view of the world.

Jesus here reminds his listeners that there is plenty of blame to go around. The fact that some people were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed didn’t mean that they were any more sinful than anyone else in Jerusalem.

But the reading doesn’t end there. After this word of warning, Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree. This story seems to be another version of a story in Mark and Matthew. There Jesus comes to a fig tree, looking for fruit but finds none. In fact, Mark observes, it wasn’t fig season. But Jesus curses the tree, and the next day, as they walk by it again, the disciples notice that it has shriveled up. In Luke’s version, it is a parable in which a landowner comes looking for figs, as he has in the two preceding years. But the fig tree is barren, so the landowner tells the gardener to pull it out. But the gardener objects, suggesting instead that they fertilize it and wait to see what happens the next year.

What are we to make of that? Well, if Luke is really reworking the story from Mark, then we see him turning a message of doom into a message of hope. The message from the death of the Galileans and the victims of the Tower of Siloam was loud and clear: “Repent or perish.” But with the fig tree, another message comes forward: “Let’s nurture the tree and see what happens next year. Perhaps we’ll get a crop of figs then.”

Lent is a season of repentance and reflection. It calls us to self-examination, to take a good, hard look at our lives. Repentance is only part of the story however. Just as the fig tree was given a second chance to bear fruit, it was also given an ultimatum—if it didn’t produce fruit in a year, it would be removed. Lent calls us not only to repentance, but also to amendment of life, to become more intentional, more Christ-centered in our lives.

Typically, Lent means for us giving something up. There’s nothing wrong with that. But that little bit of self-denial shouldn’t obscure the larger significance. Repentance, as it is used in the Greek NT literally means “change your mind.” Become something new; transform ourselves. The little things we give up, the little things, reading spiritual works, or attending a Lenten class, are nothing more than symbols of a larger purpose, that we become something new. Lent is a seasonal reminder of what we should be about, every day of our lives, becoming more like Christ, following him.

We are slowly making our way toward Jerusalem with Jesus. In the next few weeks the pace will be picking up, until in Holy Week we begin to walk the way of the cross. As we make that journey, we should remember the lesson of the fruit tree. Our lives should bear fruit, we are called to holiness.

We should remember something else. In Luke’s story of the figtree the gardener intervened with the landowner and promised to give the tree special attention. We do not make this journey alone. We are walking with one another, and with Christ. Repentance, leading transformed lives, indeed like my friend Robert facing personal catastrophe are not things we need do alone. Jesus walks by our side, with us as we make our way, with him, to Jerusalem.