In an age without newspapers, TV or the Internet tragic news still got out there. Jesus comments on two hot topics of discussion — two tragic accidents that had recently occurred. The first of these otherwise unknown incidents concerned the killing of some Galileans while they were offering sacrifice, probably in the Jerusalem temple at Passover. Pilate was notorious for his brutal attitude towards the Jewish people and the practice of their faith. The second incident was probably a construction accident at the Siloam Reservoir at Jerusalem. Sadly, then as now, such random and tragic events were interpreted as divine retribution.
People of a religious fundamentalist persuasion often claim God’s judgement in a way that is cold, callous and erroneous -be it the terrible outbreak of AIDS in the early 1980s or the attack on the World Trade Center Towers in New York in 2011. Terrible human tragedies are interpreted to suit people’s poor theology.
Jesus rejected this teaching and sought to correct it. On one occasion, on encountering a blind man he was asked by his disciples, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?‘ But he immediately corrected this heresy: It was not that this man sinned, or his parents... Jesus taught that good fortune or disaster, blessing or curse, success or failure is no indication of our spiritual state before God because God causes his sun to shine on all of us, the righteous and the unrighteous. Today isn’t the time to cast aspersions or accuse or make assumptions about how God thinks or acts because today is the time for repentance. God’s mercy and kindness gives us time to repent and change, but one day we will be required to give an account of our lives to the living God.