Y’All Have What Y’All Need

“Y’All Have What Y’All Need” – Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

“No testing has overtaken you,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “that is not common to everyone. God is faithful. God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing God will provide the way out, so you will be able to endure it.”

The conclusion of our reading today from First Corinthians is another one of those passages where our translations often make for a confusion that isn’t actually there in the text. There are a number of different reasons for these translation issues, but one that comes up a lot in Paul’s letters is caused by the fact that in English the word “you” can be both singular and plural. Some of you don’t have this problem because you grew up saying “y’all” for the plural of “you,” but I’m from Connecticut and we didn’t have that advantage.

In Greek, however, there are definitely separate words for “you” the individual and “you” the group, and in today’s reading Paul is using the plural form of you. When Paul says “God will not let you be tested beyond your strength,” Paul is addressing the whole community together. God will not let you, the congregation in Corinth who is receiving this letter, God will not let you all be tested beyond y’all’s strength.

Paul is speaking about the testing – and the strength – of the community, of the Christian congregation at Corinth. In this letter where he says that the whole Christian community is the body of Christ, of which each individual is a member. When one member rejoices, the whole body rejoices. When one member suffers, all the members together suffer with it. All the members bear one another’s burdens, so no one ever rejoices or suffers alone. And, Paul says, the community can be assured that God will not the community beyond the community’s ability to endure it – because we have each other, to help one another, to strengthen and encourage one another, to be with one another.

This would have been obvious to the Corinthians, not just because in the Greek the “you” Paul is addressing is clearly plural, but because at first there was just one copy of Paul’s letter that was read aloud to the whole community all at once. But when we modern people read Paul’s letter, each with our own copy of the Bible that we are encouraged to read on our own, we tend to hear Paul speaking to us as individuals. As if Paul were saying, God won’t put anything on you, as a single individual, that you as an individual can’t handle all by yourself.

Which is pretty much the opposite of what Paul is actually saying. Paul wants to tell the community of Christians that we can handle suffering, confusion, disappointment, loss – precisely because we have each other. We were never meant to bear any of these things alone. Yet so often Paul’s words are read to imply the opposite – that we should be able to bear these things on our own and there’s something lacking in our faith if we can’t.

Because when difficult times come to us, we all have a tendency to turn inward, to hunker down, to put on blinders, to think about our own survival first. It’s normal, it’s human nature. And in times of stress, it’s our automatic response to tell ourselves that we have enough to handle on our own, so other people’s problems are their problems. Their problems are their own responsibility and – if we can convince ourselves of it, we’ll tell ourselves that their problems are probably their own fault, so nothing we need to worry about, especially when we have so much to worry about ourselves. Except, Paul says, if we read him accurately, that’s not how it’s supposed to work.

This is the point that Jesus makes in the first part of today’s gospel reading. Jesus recalls two stories that were in the news at the moment, that his listeners would have known and been talking about – one an atrocity, the other a tragedy.

The atrocity was that Pilate’s troops had killed some Galileans while they were at worship in the Temple. Murder of the innocents and sacrilege. The normal human reaction would be shock and outrage. How could anyone do such a thing? Like bombing a maternity hospital or a theater filled with children taking shelter – the cruelty is just unfathomable. It’s so disturbing that the mind naturally looks for an explanation – something that tells us that this senseless atrocity had some rationale behind it. How many people said, Well, that’s what you get for being provocative to Pilate. I told you don’t get political in the Temple! It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not – the human mind looks for reasons whether they’re there or not.

Then Jesus mentions the tragedy – a tower collapsed, eighteen people were killed. People who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing more. Others were there five minutes before, or would have been there five minutes later, they were spared. Why? Just luck? We want to believe there’s a reason, whether there is one or not. And so we look for a reason. Because if we can find a reason, we can tell ourselves it’s OK. I’m safe, I’m not like those people, I don’t have to worry. If I can tell myself their fate was because of their problems, I can convince myself it’s not my problem.

We do this all the time. I remember back in the spring of 2020, when we were approaching 100,000 Americans who had died from Covid, it seemed so shocking. The New York Times had a front page, you probably saw it, with the headline “100,000 Dead – An Incalculable Loss,” and the whole front page of the Sunday paper, and a couple of pages inside as well, was just names of those who had died. Well, now we’re at almost a million dead just in this country alone, at least 6 million worldwide and probably more, and we’re not mourning 10 times as much. We barely notice it at all anymore.

Because it’s too much. The losses we have experienced are so great that we all feel a need to distance ourselves mentally from it all. Yes, people are dying, but it’s because they were sick. It’s because they were old. It’s because they listened to antivax propaganda. It’s because – whatever, it doesn’t matter, as long as we can tell ourselves that it’s happening to somebody else, to people who are not like me. And when we cut ourselves off from one another, we see the effects – it becomes so much harder to listen to one another, empathize with people, connect with strangers. We have all lost so much, and trying to distance ourselves from the pain of others, we only deepen our own isolation and our own suffering.

Jesus points to people in his own day trying to distance themselves mentally from the tragedies and the atrocities that were then in the news. And he says – unless you repent, unless you change your mind, change your ways, change your thinking – you won’t protect yourself in the end. Imagining that atrocity and tragedy only happen to somebody else won’t actually protect you. Eventually atrocity or tragedy will come for you – and unless you’ve change your ways, you’ll face them alone.

Times of testing come for all of us. And as much as we try to avoid it, we are not meant to endure these times alone. Christian community is where we are meant to learn to share one another’s burdens, to rejoice and to suffer with one another, so that we can endure times of trial together.

On one level, I don’t need to tell any of you this. This congregation is made up of people who do look out for one another, who do bear one another’s burdens, who make sure that people who are having a tough time are never alone. You don’t need me to tell you about it; you already do it for one another. But I do need to say two things.

One – and here I’m preaching to myself as much as to you – it’s one thing to reach out and help somebody else when they’re going through a rough patch. But what’s really hard is to admit that sometimes we need help ourselves. What’s really hard is to let go of the idea that we are supposed to be able to handle everything by ourselves. That there’s something shameful about admitting weakness, about letting people see our suffering. But nobody has it together all of the time – nobody – and that’s OK. That’s why we have each other.

And two. Jesus ends the gospel reading today with a parable about a fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit. What good is a fig tree that doesn’t have figs to share? It’s easy to say this fig tree serves no purpose, so cut it down. Nobody likes a tree that takes water and resources and doesn’t have the capacity to give fruit. And so nobody likes to be needy. What do we do when we’re the ones who feel like we need help and we have nothing to offer?

In the parable Jesus tells us what a good gardener does: he says let’s wait. Let’s hold off on making judgments. Let me take care of this tree, let me see if I can help it, let me see if I can make this tree blossom as it is meant to do. And if I can, then perhaps one day it will bear fruit, and when it does it will in its turn be a blessing for others, giving them joy and nourishment.

It’s the enemy of God who tells us the lie that we’re each on our own. That we need to bear fruit properly, or else the axe is coming. And if others suffer, they’re getting what they deserve, so don’t worry about them. That’s how the enemy picks us off, one at a time.

But today we are reminded of the promise: God will not test us, all of us, together, without giving all of us, together, the means to overcome it – provided we remember who has brought us together.