Change. Or Expect No Different Result

The gospel, Luke 13: 1-9, talks about people dead, or killed: there were Galileans killed in the temple by then Roman governor, Pontius Pilate; and there were eighteen persons crushed down under a falling pillar in Siloah –Siloah was a space of public gathering for the people of Israel. And in the same passage Jesus also talks about a fig tree that repeatedly does not bear fruit.

Untimely, unwanted, unpleasant happenings are all around us. People are terrified; and apparently, nobody wants such things to happen, we want peaceful worship in the temple, we want safe gatherings in our public spaces, we want our fields to bear fruits, we want our young ones to be successful, we want ourselves to be people of impact.

These are not just our goals and dreams; even the past generations, our ancestors, our parents had the same goals of quiet worship, peaceful public spaces, and bearing fruit. But things haven’t changed, or perhaps things have become worse.

Change requires new beginnings

Jesus categorically tells us, unless we change, we too will perish as they did; and he repeats it twice in this passage itself. Doing the same things over and over and over again and expecting a different result is foolishness. Walking the same road everyday and believing that you will reach a new destination one day is foolishness.

Let me remind ourselves of two incidents, one a funny one, and another a lesson from history.

A family of five approached a helicopter service to hire a helicopter to go for a picnic. The manger at the office told them that the helicopter could carry only three people, or maximum four, so they must look at some other mode of transport. The family insisted and told him that they had gone last year also. Finally the manager gave in.

As they were flying to the destination, the helicopter crashed down into a large marshy land. The pilot was the last to gain consciousness. When he got up he was puzzled to see the head of the family and others examining the place, he asked them, what happened? What are you looking for? The head of the family was quick to answer, “We are looking for the place where we fell last year.”

The second incident is from the life of Emperor Asoka, one of the greatest emperors of ancient India. After his war of Kalinga, he takes a walk through the battlefield and sees the agony and sufferings of people: men mutilated, half burned, and dead; wives mourning over their husband’s death, children crying for bread at the dead bodies of their fathers. Asoka takes a last walk through the battlefields and out; and decided never to war again.

When we are serious and expecting a different result we must uncompromisingly begin to think and do things differently. Or, our worship places will become places of quarrel and bloodshed, our public spaces will become spaces of violence, our figs and children bear no worthy fruits.

Change

The tragedy, as indicated in this passage, is the illusion that those dying, those affected, and those fruitless are not us, we are safe, we are guiltless, and it is their lot. What happens around us are warning signs to reexamine our ways of thinking and doing. Perhaps we need a new testament in our lives: a new testament of love, forgiveness, compassion, inclusivity, and uncompromising commitment to truth.

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