The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on March 6, 1983. The title is, Take Heed Lest You Fall, and the scripture references are Luke chapter 13, verses 1 through 9, and 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 1 through 13. 

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. I'm reading from chapter 13 beginning at the first verse. The passage contains a very sobering warning like unto the one that we just heard in 1 Corinthians.

There were some present at that very time who told Jesus of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered thus? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Or those 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them? Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

And he told this parable. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. and he said to the vine dresser lo these three years I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none cut it down why should it use up the ground and he answered him let it alone sir this year also till I dig about it and put on manure and if it bears fruit next year well and good but if not you can cut it down the gospel of the Lord I heard just this week that the pastor of one of the great churches in America and his wife had a newborn child that was born Mongoloid.

And that many of the people in that particular parish were of the mindset that says, if you believe strongly enough, if you trust in God strongly enough, that sort of thing just plain doesn't happen to you. Or if it should possibly happen to you, then you see you just have to exercise your faith and claim the promises of God and there will be a supernatural healing and the problem will go away. So believe and claim your healing.

and they tried that and at least to date the child has not been healed and a growing number of people in that congregation began to find themselves in judgment of the pastor and his wife because you see if the baby isn't being healed then obviously something is lacking in your faith obviously something is wrong in your relationship to God Obviously, there is a deficiency in your understanding of the very gospel itself, and so if there's judgment upon your life and your family, then there's judgment on the whole parish. And the pressure became intense, and the pastor resigned. Scripture teaches that by His stripes we are healed.

That is biblical gospel truth. By His stripes we are healed. And that applies not just in a figurative sense to being spiritually healed, to being forgiven of our sin, but it also touches the physical realm.

It touches our bodies. That is true. In fact, the very word salvation means health.

it means wholeness does God will our health? you better believe it that is true and we've seen many times as we've come back to this subject again and again that if the Christian is one who bets his life that God is going to turn out to be like Jesus then take a look at Jesus and determine what God's view of sickness is not once, not one single time did Jesus refuse to heal those who asked Him. In fact, several times He didn't wait to be asked.

He reached out and extended the gift of healing to more people than asked Him. It is true that God wills our healing. It is true that He's in the healing business.

It is true that by His stripes we are healed. It does not follow that therefore everybody will be healed. I'm sorry I wish it were so it does not follow God wills all sorts of things that don't happen it is not God's will that any should perish but that all should receive eternal life yet not all are receiving eternal life God doesn't force that on anybody it breaks his heart literally but it's His will that they receive eternal life and His will is not fulfilled.

It's God's will that you and I be utterly holy men and women. That's what He wants for us and yet would all those who are please stand. We live in a broken world.

We live in a fallen world and what that means is that the whole creation has come under a curse which originates with the sin of man, but which has warped and twisted and broken the whole world in which we live. And therefore Jesus says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. You cannot draw a one-for-one correlation that because this person has done this sin, therefore he is suffering this problem.

Sometimes you can. Sometimes there's a direct and obvious correlation. If you go on abusing your body day after day, month after month, year after year, for instance, in smoking too many cigarettes or in drinking alcohol excessively, you may well pay the penalty in illness in your body.

But in terms of drawing a relationship between a moral sin and a physical problem, you cannot draw that relationship. And so that means that sometimes people are going to suffer tragedy. There is going to be illness.

There's going to be sickness. there's going to be death and bereavement. And God does not automatically, as some kind of magic wand waving or as a formula, press the right button and there will be a healing that does not follow.

Most of us need to exercise our faith a whole lot more and dare to believe God more deeply than we do and begin to discover that He really is still in the healing business, but sometimes that healing is not going to be immediate. it or it's not going to be in the terms that we had hoped for and his grace will be sufficient for us. One of the all-time great promises of scripture is 1 Corinthians 10, 13.

We heard it a moment ago. I want us to hear it again. I want us to believe it, but I also want us to see the context in which it comes.

Paul's writing and he says, God is faithful. God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted, or that could equally well be translated, tested or tried. He will not let you be tried.

He will not let you be tested above or beyond your strength. It didn't say He won't let you be tested. Period.

Did it? It said He won't let you be tested your strength, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Sometimes we see some terrible thing befall another.

A sickness, a loss of job or income, terrible tragedy, and we say, I don't know how he's coping. I could not do that. You know what the answer is?

You're absolutely right. You could not do that unless God called you to go through that circumstance, in which case his promise is absolute, that his grace will be there enabling you to cope. It doesn't say he will never allow tragedy to come into your life.

It does say that he'll enable you to cope to the extent that it comes. Now, you try and put all those pieces together and you see an awful lot of folks have gone that next step and said well if we're in the right relationship with God and if his grace is there and if we believe that by his stripes we are healed then we've simply got to claim our healing and if it isn't there then obviously something is wrong and they've turned that problem into an accusation rather than coming alongside of their brother or their sister who's suffering they add judgment to it you're sick, therefore obviously you're a sinner. What's wrong with you?

I want you to see that that's exactly what was going on in this Gospel reading. We don't really know the details. Obviously something horrific had happened.

And some of the Jews hear about this and immediately they go to Jesus and say, have you heard what happened? Pilate, God involved, we don't know how, in an abomination of not only slaughtering some of the faithful, but can you imagine it? Mixing their blood with the sacrifices that were being offered to God.

And the Jews say, what must they have done to deserve that? Look, if God is God, and He is, And if he can do anything, and he can, the Psalms say, our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases. If he can do whatever he will, if he's all-powerful and if he's all-good, and if he's all-knowing, he knows the future before it happens, and he allowed that to happen, what must they have done for such a terrible thing to befall them?

And Jesus' answer is not, they deserved it. Neither is it, they didn't deserve it. There is some terrible miscarriage of justice in the universe.

Jesus' answer is, neither one of those. Did you hear it? It's a shocking answer.

He says, did you think that those Galileans were worse sinners than all the others? I tell you no. What's the implication? They didn't get any more than they deserved.

And the same thing could have just as well fallen on all the other Galileans. I don't know if you've really faced up to this. The worst that could happen, God forbid, But the worst that could happen to any one of us is no more than we deserve.

Do you know that? It doesn't seem that way because we look around and we judge on the curve, don't we? You say, I'm no worse than the next guy.

Well, the next guy isn't all that good, you see. Humanly speaking, there may be all sorts of differences between us. Schweitzer and a Hitler have a whole lot of difference between them.

But not when you're talking about a holy God. Not when you're talking about God who is unutterably holy, thrice holy, unspeakably, unapproachably, unimaginably holy. Then before Him, whatever happens to me is no more than I deserve.

Do you understand? There is no earthly reason where I should presume that I have one more moment that my heart goes on beating. God doesn't owe me one more breath.

You understand that? There's no reason why this building shouldn't collapse on me right now. No reason, humanly speaking.

It's by grace. It's by mercy. So, if some terrible thing happens to my brother Carl, the right conclusion to draw from that is not, well, Carl deserved it.

He did. But that's not the right conclusion. The right conclusion is not, well, Carl obviously didn't have enough faith.

That's true, but that's not the right conclusion. The right conclusion is, there but for the grace of God go I. You understand? And Jesus says, hey, look, I've got another one.

That's bad, but I've got another one. What about those 18 people who had a tower collapse on them? That wasn't the malevolence of man.

That wasn't the government getting involved. That was what we call a natural catastrophe. The insurance companies have a wonderful phrase for it.

Act of God. Don't we honor Him with all, you know. volcano blows up on Hawaii.

It's an act of God. Floods come to Southern California. It's an act of God.

No, it isn't. It's an act right out of the pit of hell. But you're quite right that God could have prevented it, and He didn't. You see, the problem is this. If God began to intervene every time I was about to hurt myself, very quickly this would no longer be a world that meant anything.

If every time I'm about to slip on a banana peel, God whisks it out of the way, the world very quickly ceases to be a place in which decisions mean anything. If I take the same bricks that we're using to build this building, and I start beating you over the head with them, and just before I beat you over the head they turn into feathers, it's not a world. It's some kind of a strange fantasy place.

It's not a world. My decisions don't mean anything. The consequences of actions don't mean anything.

If God protects us every time we're about to make a mistake, it's no longer a world. And so He doesn't do that. The very word miracle means it is an extraordinary interruption of the way things normally are.

If that began to happen every single time, it wouldn't be miracle anymore. So this terrible thing happened to these 18 people. And of course all their friends and all their relatives.

What about their kids? 18 people were killed. A tower collapsed on them.

And Jesus says, Do you think that they were any worse than all the other people around them? I tell you no. He doesn't say they didn't deserve it. They got no more than they deserved.

the wonder of it is that all the rest of the folks also deserved it and didn't have that happen at least not yet but there's another point and he presses it just in case it didn't occur to you unless you repent you also will surely perish it doesn't mean that the building is going to collapse on you it doesn't mean that the government is going to come and grind up your body and mix it with the communion elements he's talking much more absolutely than that unless you repent you will perish ultimately finally and totally before God see that's just a little warning to us you follow me? in 1 Corinthians the same theme is here he says I want you to know brethren that our fathers that is the ancient Jews were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized did you know that? I didn't know that they were baptized?

speaking figuratively they weren't baptized but they were baptized in the sense they went through the Red Sea dry shod as if they were baptized and they came to communion did you know that? No, I didn't know that. Oh yeah, it says they drank from the supernatural rock which followed them and the rock was Christ.

You mean they were baptized and they came to the communion and terrible things happened to them. That's right. Why did those terrible things happen to them?

Because they came to the point of taking their relationship with God for granted. They came to the point of presumption That we've got a relationship with God, everything is absolutely fine between us, and therefore nothing can happen to us. But it did.

Four specific things are mentioned here. They got involved in terrible immorality. They got involved in idolatry.

They got involved in grumbling and complaining. And they became spiritually arrogant. And God allowed some of them, not all of them, a few of them, to suffer some terrible things.

They all deserved all of those terrible things. God allowed a few of them to suffer some terrible things that they all deserved. You follow the argument?

And here's the conclusion. Paul says, Now this, these things, happened to them as a warning. To whom?

To everybody else. to all the other folks who escaped. 23,000 perished on a single day.

They've already perished. That's a warning to everybody else. You see.

Snakes came in and bit. Thousands. That's a warning to everybody else.

Earthquake rumbles and the bottom drops out and a whole bunch of people perished. That's a warning to everybody else. And then Paul says, but they were also written down for our instruction.

See? That we might learn from those examples upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

And then comes that great promise. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation provide a way of escape.

See, as is always the case, we take the promise out of context. You read it in context, it has a very different kind of an implication, doesn't it? Let him who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

Don't take your relationship with God as a thing for granted. Don't begin to presume upon God whatever you do, don't ever think that God owes you something. the minute you begin to have that mentality you make yourself vulnerable to the very kinds of problem that the Israelites had and to the consequences of that I've often thought that we who are Episcopalians in a funny way are particularly vulnerable to some of that we love to talk about being the bridge church but what that can mean is we look down on everybody we look down on the Catholics for doing it that way we look down on the Protestants for doing it that way be very careful be very careful in thinking we know how to do it I mean I've been coming to church since I was three years old I know what you call everything I mean I can even tell you what IHC means I used to walk with a limp like this because I had so many perfect attendance bars running down one side of me.

Take heed. Take heed. If you think you're standing just right before God, take heed lest you fall.

That's what he's really talking about. Take heed if you are beginning to think that you're in a position whereby you can take it all for granted and be proud of your relationship with God and the terrible consequence of that is I begin to look down on all the other folks. You can see it.

You can see it in a congregation like this one. Those who have been around for a while, we've learned how you do it, you know. And we look down on those newcomers who don't have a clue.

I mean, they don't even know that they're supposed to put one hand on top of the other, you know. The newcomers can come in and they can look down on the old timers who are so tradition bound and they haven't even made all that much progress, you see. We can look down on everybody.

I don't do that. I look down on people who look down on people. Judge the people that judge, right?

Get more and more sophisticated in this thing. There's one reason why God gives you one more breath, one more heartbeat, one more day. You know what it is?

That you have one more chance to respond to Him. Comes back and tells Him a parable. a vineyard again how many parables of the vineyard one more parable about the vineyard a man has a fig tree planted in the middle of his vineyard you know what the purpose of a fruit tree is?

fruit and this fig tree stood there in all of its glory it just kept producing leaves more and more beautiful leaves and said look at how beautiful I am with all my leaves waving in the wind here no fruit but it looked good. And the master said, I've really had it with that tree. And he had a servant that came and said, let's give it one more chance.

It's a very good description of the work of the preacher here. Let me dig around it and put some manure on it. You understand what this sermon is doing?

One more chance, some fertilizer. Not just for you, it's coming on me. One more chance.

Is it going to take this time? This time is it going to take? Is it going to get down there into the soil so that when our roots go down and they begin to suck up the nutrients, it gets translated into fruit which blesses the owner.

Or will I stand here, proud, wave my leaves? One more chance. Jesus said in the 15th chapter of John, every branch that doesn't produce fruit It's going to be thrown into the fire.

It's either going to produce fruit or it's going to produce heat. But God's going to get blessed out of it one way or the other. And even that which does produce fruit, He's going to prune.

And that's not pleasant, friends. Pruning means cutting into living tissue. And it hurts.

But that's the way you make it produce more fruit. And the pattern is fruit, more fruit, much fruit. And that's God's will.

You know that the fruit tree exists for the sake of the owner. Not for its own sake. For the sake of the owner.

And for the sake of others who are hungry to bless them. I'm interested in that image because it is a matter of fact that it's the young, green, immature plant that stands up proud and strong. And as it begins to get some maturity and as it begins to produce fruit, As it begins to do the thing that it was created for, the fruit weighs upon the branches and it begins to humble the plant.

Doesn't it? So that is a marvelous promise. And it's one that we need to believe and need to stand on and need to rejoice in.

God is faithful. and He's not going to let you be tempted above your ability to handle it. That is His promise to you.

My grace is sufficient for you. I don't care what it is you're going through. No, I'm not telling you I could handle that.

But God's grace is sufficient that you can handle it. But don't miss the context. The context is the reminder.

Take heed. Lest you think that in standing, you've got it all together. You have the right to be here.

I have no right to be here. None whatsoever. I have earned nothing before God.

He owes me nothing. I'm here by His grace. It cost Jesus his life.

I'm the recipient of his mercy. Let's bow our heads together. Lord, thank you for your love for me today.

the more I consider Your love, the more astonished I am. How incredible that You give me this day as a day in which to get to know You better, to drink more deeply of Your grace, and to walk humbly with my God. Lord, I pray that it would be so.

That this day would be a day in which my life pleases You. That this day there would be some fruit produced at the end of my branch. For Your pleasure and for the glory of Christ.

Amen.