Well I lay my head on the rail road track waiting on the double E, but the train don’t run through here no more, poor, poor pitiful me…Lord have mercy on me, woe woe is me.
One of my all time favorite songs. Linda Rondstadt put it on the charts in 1977, and Terri Clark put it back on the charts again in 1996.
But the song was written and originally song by a singer song writer named Warren Zevon.
He died 10 years ago of lung cancer. While he was fighting the cancer he was on the David Letterman show. Mr. Letterman asked Warren Zevon about the cancer and he answered, “You’re reminded to enjoy every sandwich and every minute.”
An ancient Rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer once declared that a person should repent the day before death. His students responded, “But a person could die any day.”
And Eliezer replied, “Yes, therefore all of life should be one of repentance.”
The car that I first drove was a 1980 Caprice Classic Station Wagon, a huge boat of a car. That name Caprice, it means erratic, unpredictable, random, impulsive. Which was appropriate, there was no telling when it would break down. The word capricious comes from caprice. Death is capricious. Death is random, and eventually the odds catch up to all of us.
A group of Galilean pilgrims came to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice at the temple, The Governor, Pontius Pilate had them killed and their blood was mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. A group of people gathered by a pool of water by the city wall, a stone tower collapses onto them and 18 people die.
Does this mean they were bad people? That God was punishing them?
Jesus says, “No.” That is not how the world works, that is not how God works.
Jesus does not give a reason for the capricious randomness of death.
But what he does say is that we had better hurry and repent for it is too late, God’ judgment comes suddenly. Now is the time to repent, to follow Jesus, to bear fruit.
A fruit tree is only given so much time to bear fruit before it is cut down and replaced.
We are meant to bear fruit, the fruit of God’s Kingdom.
God judges us by the fruit of our lives, by what we have done with this gift of life and the gift of Jesus. Two amazing gifts. The gift of life, every breath, and the gift of Jesus in whom we see the full glory of God.
Are we ready for death and judgment? Are we prepared? How are we serving these gifts? If we are not ready then what will we do about it? Time is short, death is capricious.
We spend a great deal of life being in a hurry.
Lent asks us to be in a hurry about the right things.
The good news is that Jesus is the gardener working the soil that our lives may be fruitful.
The good news is that the apparent randomness of death and suffering are not God’s punishment on the wicked. We simply are not given an explanation. Scripture is not interested in explaining why there is death and suffering. Scripture is rather interested in how we respond to death and suffering, especially the suffering and death of Jesus.
Will we respond? Will our lives be put into perspective and proper order? Will we be thankful servants of this gift of life however long or short it may be? Will we be thankful followers of Jesus and his way of being in the world? Will we be in a hurry about the right things? Loving and sharing the gift, the gift of every sandwich, of every minute, until the double E comes round here again and takes us to our judge.