Luke 13:1-5: in context

Some people tell Jesus about Galileans whom Pilate had killed as they offered their sacrifices, a terrible calamity. The unspoken assumption behind their report is that such a fate must mean these people were especially sinful. But Jesus challenges the assumption. Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all others, because they suffered this? he asks. No. And he adds the example of eighteen killed when a tower fell on them: were they worse offenders than everyone else in Jerusalem? No. But, he says twice, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Jesus does two things here. First, he refuses to draw the conclusion that those who suffered calamity were worse sinners than others. The assumption that suffering is a measure of guilt, that those who suffer terribly must have sinned terribly, is one Jesus rejects: no, they were not worse sinners. Calamity is not a reliable index of guilt; the ones who suffered were not necessarily worse than those who did not. And second, and more pointedly, Jesus turns the whole question around. Instead of letting his hearers speculate about the guilt of the victims, he directs them to their own need: unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. He turns their attention from others' guilt to their own repentance. This is a needed redirection for us. When we hear of others' calamities, or consider others' sufferings, we can fall into speculating about their guilt, drawing conclusions about why they suffered, judging that they must have deserved it. Jesus redirects us: do not speculate about others' guilt, but attend to your own need to repent. Every reminder of death, calamity, and human frailty is not an occasion to judge others but a call to examine ourselves, to attend to our own repentance, to remember that we too are mortal and in need of turning to God. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, Jesus asks elsewhere, and not the beam in your own? This searches our response to others' suffering and calamity. Do we use it as an occasion to speculate about their guilt, to judge them, to feel secure in our own comparative goodness? Or do we hear in it, as Jesus directs, a call to our own repentance, a reminder of our own mortality and need to turn to God? The Galileans and the eighteen were not worse sinners; but the reminder of their deaths was a call to the hearers' own repentance. Do you not know, Paul asks, that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? This calls us to turn from judging others' guilt to attending to our own repentance. When we hear of others' calamities or consider their sufferings, Jesus redirects us from speculating about their guilt to our own need to repent, from judging others to examining ourselves. Every reminder of death and calamity is a call to our own repentance, not an occasion to judge others; and we are called to hear it that way, turning from speculation about others to our own turning to God, mindful of our own mortality and need, and heeding the call to repent while we have opportunity.

When I hear of others' calamities or consider their sufferings, do I speculate about their guilt, judging that they must have deserved it and feeling secure in my own comparative goodness, or can Jesus, who refused to say the victims were worse sinners and turned the question to his hearers' own repentance, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish, redirect me from judging others' guilt to attending to my own need to repent, hearing in every reminder of death and calamity a call to my own turning to God?