Sacred Consequences: Judgment, Karma, and the Work of Lent

A talk given on March 23, 2025, for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Pensacola

Click here to watch a recording of this talk

If there was one idea I was glad to leave behind as I left the evangelical world, it was the idea of Divine Judgment. Our stories were full of it. There were cities being wiped out by brimstone and fire… Women being turned into salt… Couples being struck dead before the congregation because they lied about how much they gave to the church… I learned to put on a happy face and talk about how gracious God was, but in truth, I was always acutely aware that I was a sinner in the hand of an angry God, dangling me above the fire, “gracious” only because he didn’t let go. Even though we would’ve played it down, to me, it felt like the backdrop for everything. There was a comedian I used to listen to who talked about that song we sang in Sunday School—you know the one: Be careful little hands where you go, be careful little hands where you go, because from Heaven up above, God is watching down with love, so be careful little hands where you go… Except he pointed out it felt more honest to sing: Be careful little hands where you go, be careful little hands where you go, because from Heaven up above, GOD WILL SQUASH YOU LIKE A BUG, so be careful little hands where you go…

This fear of Judgment produced no shortage of shame and guilt in me, and I know I wasn’t the only one. The irony is, even though I wanted to let it go entirely, the more seriously I take spirituality, the more I realize you can’t really shake it. Not entirely, anyway. In fact, the language of Judgment—as problematic and weighted as it may be—may actually be poetically pointing us towards a deeper, practical truth.

On the Christian calendar, we’re in the season of Lent—a time of contrition and repentance—and the lectionary text for today comes from Luke 13. It’s a great text on God’s Judgment, and you’ll see why. I’d like to take a moment to read it this morning, then, step by step, move through and see what it might have to say about unpeeling these layers we’ve put on the idea of Judgment. My prediction, ironically, is that we’ll see that Jesus is also not a big fan. So, let’s start with a reading from Luke 13:

Some who were present with Jesus told him about the Galileans whom Pilate, the governor, had killed while they were offering sacrifices. Jesus replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will perish just as they did. What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will perish just as they did.”  Then, Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil?’ The gardener answered, ‘Sir, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’” 

Cliffhanger.

What strikes me as I read this is that these are not the teachings of someone who believes God will squash wrongdoers like a bug. In fact, even though some of that language shows up, it’s surprisingly, delightfully complicated, which makes me want to look closer. So, as we walk through this story, I want to ask, what if “Judgment” doesn’t mean some deity doling out consequences from on high? What if, instead, it means something more like the process of living with the consequences of what we cultivate? What if we stopped calling it God’s Judgment, and instead called it something more like “Sacred Consequences?”

The first thing I hear in Jesus’s story is this: As obvious as it may sound, reality is not as straightforward as good things happening to good people and bad things happening to bad people. Sacred Consequences aren’t that simple. I know, it sounds elementary, but I hear this all the time working in a hospital. “What did I do to deserve this?” “Is God punishing me?” “I know this is happening for a reason.” We hear this outside the church in half-baked definitions of karma. Divine Transaction. The Universe is watching, and it rewards good with good and bad with bad. The problem with this is that we get so caught up in making meaning and stories of who is good and who is bad, that we miss what actually matters—facing the reality of the situation, feeling our feelings, and, when we can, contributing to the healing of the world.

In the story, Jesus is talking to his friends about a group of Galileans who had just been killed by the government. We don’t know the details. We only know that the Roman Governor had them executed while they were offering sacrifices. And again, we don’t know how Jesus’s friends are telling this story, but from the way Jesus responds, I’m guessing there was a fair bit of judgment, because when Jesus answers, he sounds downright offended. “I’m sorry, do you think this happened to them because they did something wrong?” he asks. “You think what, that they were more sinful than you? That they deserved this, and you don’t?” While they’re so caught up in questions of deserving or judgment, no one is talking about the government that actually carried out these crimes—what they could do to honor the dead, support their families, or take action to ensure it doesn’t happen again. “Or when those eighteen people were killed when the tower in Salome collapsed?” Jesus asks. “Do you think they deserved what was coming to them, too? What if sometimes bad things just happen—towers collapse, people get sick, your world crumbles—and all you can do is honor it?” It's easier to lose yourself in a story, but rarely is it more helpful.

There’s a popular Zen story some of you may have heard. The story goes that, in ancient China, there was a farmer who lost a horse. There was a hole in the fence, and he escaped. Aw, bad luck, his neighbors said, but the man said, Maybe. The next day, the horse came back and brought with it four wild horses, and the neighbors were amazed. Wow, good luck, they said, and the man said, Maybe. The next day, the man’s son was training the new horses when he fell off and broke his leg. Again: Bad luck! Again: Maybe. The next day, a representative of the Emperor’s Army came drafting young men into war, but seeing the farmer’s son had a broken leg, they passed him by. Good luck! the neighbors said. The man shrugged. Maybe.

It strikes me that, never in this story does someone say, “Hey, I’m sorry about your horse,” or “Hey, what can I do to help you out with your son?” No one says, “The Emperor’s envoys are coming and I’m terrified!” No connection. No action. Just spinning wheels in judgment and stories. But if we stopped trying to judge whether something is good or bad… deserved or undeserved… how much room would that open for compassion, curiosity, and action? When we obsess over judgment, we miss opportunities to contribute to the healing of the world. When we get caught up in stories of who is good and who is bad, we miss what actually matters—facing the reality of the situation, feeling our feelings, and, when we can, contributing to the healing of the world.

But then there’s the other thing Jesus says that I didn’t mention. Something that’s easy to get confused about. Something that may shine more light on the difference between God’s Judgment and Sacred Consequences. He has this line he repeats that many of us have heard before: Repent or perish. What he’s suggesting, I believe, is that though we’re not totally in control, by our actions, we water the seeds of to the future that awaits us.

When I was living in Nashville, after leaving the church world, I had the chance to go to a Zen center to take part in a formal Zen liturgy. That was new to me. We sat down on our cushions and picked up our guides, and I was surprised when I opened the guide and saw the first section. “The Repentance.” I don’t know what word I expected, but not that one. For me, it still had the connotations of those people by Hobby Lobby with posters that say, “Repent or perish!” But I learned that, like most religious words, “Repentance” may be a very practical idea fallen victim to generations of distortion.

In the Zen Center, “the Repentance” consisted of one phrase, which we were to repeat three times: All my past and harmful karma, born from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. The keyword for me there was “karma.” Like I said earlier, the popular understanding of karma is similar to this idea of transactional divine judgment, but when you look more deeply into what it really means, it’s far more practical. One Buddhist teacher puts it this way: Karma simply means that what we engage gets stronger. What we feed grows. What we give attention will gain momentum. Or, in the words of one sutra: I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand. So, when they asked us to chant All my past and harmful karma, born from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow, what I heard was something like all of the consequences of my actions, born from generations of suffering, I now fully face and take responsibility for. What I have engaged has gotten stronger, and I will now own that and understand the reality it’s creating. In so doing, I can water the seeds of a new future.

Or, in other words, What you have done will have Sacred Consequences. Act accordingly. Very similar to the idea of God’s Judgment, but with no Divine ego to contend with. It’s not personal. It just… is. There’s no need for shame or to wear sackcloth and ashes. It’s just a fact. Do with it what you will.

Ironically, I think this is far closer to what Jesus means when he says, “Repent or perish.” The Greek word for “repentance” is metanoia, which literally means to change the mind, or go beyond the stories of mind. It’s not just confession and apology, but more like a twelve-step program of awareness and transformation. Hand in hand with karma, repentance means honestly asking ourselves—what are the Sacred Consequences of my actions? What fruit am I about to harvest based on the seeds I’ve watered with my attention and action? Will they bring me well-being, suffering, or will they lead me to “perish” in some way, deadening my soul? “Don’t worry about them,” Jesus seems to say, “what they deserve or don’t deserve. Worry about you. Tend your own garden. Take agency.” Though we’re not totally in control, by our actions, we water the seeds of the future that awaits us.

Now, there’s one more thing Jesus wants to complicate. The way we understand Sacred Consequences, even in the way Jesus seems to be inviting us to, is often highly individualistic. I inherit the consequences of my actions. My choices. I can control how this goes. But with a simple parable, Jesus reminds us that nothing happens individually. We are all part of a system. A moral ecology. The process of Sacred Consequences isn’t just about your choices, but it happens interdependently with the choices of everyone else.

After Jesus tells his friends to mind their own business, he launches into a parable. A vineyard owner planted a fig tree, and year after year, they came back looking for figs, only to find none. One day, having had enough, they met with their gardener and said, “Look, I’ve come back to this fig tree for the past three years looking for fruit, and I’ve never found any. I’m done. Cut it down. It’s depleting perfectly good soil.” But rather than cutting it down, the gardener says, “Give it one more year. Let me dig around it, make sure it has the fertilizer it needs, and maybe it’ll produce fruit next year. If not, then think about cutting it down.” And it ends there. We don’t get to see what happens.

Now, there are a few interesting things about this parable. First of all, the tree isn’t judged by its own merits. Unhealthy spirituality often just tells the dualistic story of the vineyard owner and the tree: It’s not bearing fruit. It gets cut down. Justice. But not this story. Here, there are three characters. The vineyard owner, the tree, and a surprise third person to complicate everything. Rather than nod their head and say, May it be so, the gardener asks: Are you sure? Is it right to cut this tree down because it hasn’t borne fruit? Are you sure that it’s not a lack of fertilizer in the soil? Are you sure it’s not that it’s in the shade of this other tree? Are you sure it’s not that the tree is only three years old and fig trees aren’t supposed to bear fruit until they’re about four or five? Is judgment really going to help anything? Then, not only does the gardener complicate the process—they get involved. They dig out around the tree and add fertilizer. They create a nurturing space so that the tree has a chance, where before it might not have. They are patient. Understanding. Slow to judgment, if they ever get there at all. Sacred Consequences, it seems, can be messed with. Sure, karma means what we engage gets stronger, but what we engage is affected by everyone we’re in community with—whether we’re creating nurturing space or the opposite. The gardener is an excellent example of someone bending the arc so that we inherit the consequences of someone else’s choices in a good way, but we could just as easily see examples of the opposite. Climate change, for instance. In that case, a whole lot of people are about to inherit the consequences of choices that they did not make. Or with what Larry Ward calls “America’s Racial Karma.” Or, if you want to make it more personal, think of all the karma you inherited from your family that had nothing to do with the choices you made. We all face Sacred Consequences, but not just of our own actions, for worse or for better.

The thing is, though, that even though that can be discouraging, there’s something incredibly empowering about that for me. We are all trees, and we are all gardeners. We’re a part of an ecosystem—a process—and we have the agency to water seeds that will not only impact our future but the future of those around us, even if we never see them come to fruition. Karma means what we engage in gets stronger, and we have the opportunity to add our energy to something bigger than ourselves—to contribute to the momentum of healing and justice in some way. The process of Sacred Consequences isn’t just about our choices, but it happens interdependently with the choices of this moral ecosystem we’re a part of.

So, the question remains, what are we invited to do with all this? Where do we hear ourselves in this story of Jesus and his friends, or the Parable of the Fig Tree? Are there stories of should or shouldn’t, good or bad, that are weighing us down and preventing us from accepting reality, feeling our feelings, and contributing to healing? Ways we get caught up judging personal stories or news stories that leave us disempowered? Are there seeds of Sacred Consequence we are watering, either personally or as a congregation, through our attention and choices that are taking us somewhere we don’t want to go? Or seeds we’re watering that we want to tend more carefully? Are we contributing to the interdependent moral ecosystem in which we live, or aware of how that ecosystem is impacting us? In what ways might we be invited to “repent or perish?”

We lose a lot of terms to unhealthy religion, and I think “God’s Judgment” is one of them. I don’t think reality is a question of a deity doling out subjective consequences from on high, but more about living with the Sacred Consequences of our actions. We’re all tending this garden together. We’re all trees, and we’re all gardeners. What sort of Sacred Consequence will we contribute to?